celtichackr
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Authored by celtichackr on Sept 12, 2013 17:15:22 GMT
Wow, just read the '854 and '732 patents. A patent on placing an SVG file on a network drive.
ZING! This is better than the "swinging sideways on a playground swing" patent!
Look, I can place a file on a network drive and still open it in a program from my desktop and have it drawn on my desktop! Patent that! Oh, wait Corel, err Micrografix, DID!
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celtichackr
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Authored by celtichackr on Sept 12, 2013 16:56:27 GMT
Translation of '633 patent.
Wait for it...
A patent on rendering scaled vector graphics format images from an external image library on a computer with modular code for communicating between running applications and/or libraries. That would include Windows with DDE/OLE/ActiveX/COM/etc, or Unix-based computers.
That's the crux. I could add more words and make the explanation longer, but that's it in a nutshell. Pretty hard to not violate that patent. ---------------------------------------------------------
Deeper explanation.
Scaled vector graphics files contain instruction on actions ("draw a line from A to B", "draw a circle of diameter A centered at x,y", "fill circle centered at x,y with color G",...). The symbols would include line segments, circles, squares, and conceivably more complex shapes.
I'm not a deep expert on the internals of SVG, But there's a book in my office shelf in front of me that could give detailed info. It should be noted that rendering True Type Fonts would fall under the auspices of this patent.
Also, I was routinely violating this patent back in 1992... oh wait... I was routinely pre-violating this patent from 1992 to 1996, and THEN routinely violating it from 1996 onward. In fact, I think Microsoft has been violating this patent and pre-violating this patent for decades. And Apple too! And Xerox!...
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celtichackr
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Authored by celtichackr on Sept 12, 2013 16:18:07 GMT
The Chinese Government is planning to move all Government computers to Red Flag Linux. It appears that they also intend to force business into adopting Linux. A wide range of other governments had already been moving to Free and Open Source Software. I expect the NSA revelations will speed the various moves that are already in progress. Economically this is going to impact the United States economy. I don't know how badly - estimations of that sort are difficult because there are too many variables. In theory it could push the USA into another recession. In any case, the days of the USA being the sole Super Power are probably over. It won't be possible to keep military spending at the current level. That said, there are a variety of ways of reducing the impact, assuming that anyone in power has the guts to take them. Wayne madhatter.caLinux in China, could help boost Open Source business in America. The US already spends too much on military, or are you implying we might start spending even more. Of course spending less would impact the economy. As far as another recession, it's all a matter of perspective whether this one is over. Lots of statisticians' tricks are being used, to "tweak" the numbers. Like for example we are now at "2006" levels of unemployment, due to the fact that there was some kind of glitch nationwide in computers to accept unemployment claims. Odd, how every state's ability to process claims failed all at the same time. But, I'm sure there's more to that story, than my brief perusal extracted. - Not that I'm particularly interested. I got tired of the Governments' lies on employment figures years ago.
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celtichackr
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Authored by celtichackr on Sept 12, 2013 3:29:58 GMT
Guess I missed that. What happened? I'll have an analysis posted tomorrow. Basically you can ignore the iPhone 5S and 5C, they are unimportant. Wayne madhatter.caWell, we could always ignore the 5c and 5s. They were pretty much guaranteed to be incremental updates. The 5c being the attempt to pull in the people looking for cheaper phones. Still it will be a few weeks before we see what impact they have. Lots of dedicated Apple lovers out there. Of course by going to a plastic shell at a time when the newest, shiniest, most advertised phone is going to indestructible Kevlar may not have been the most opportune moment.
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celtichackr
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Authored by celtichackr on Sept 10, 2013 20:15:30 GMT
I suspect if you take any canister vacuum and replace the case with a clear case and make the case the bag you'd find they are all cyclonic. Although placement of the air inlet and outlet would affect that. I know that my workshop vacs (shopvac wet-dry vacuum) are cyclonic. It's a brainless invention.
As for the inventive turning mechanism. take apart a lazy susan to see where he stole the idea. It's just a contained ball bearing. Novel only in the fact it's the biggest contained/trapped ball bearing I've ever seen, but I wouldn't say none others that size or larger don't exist.
Troubling it took him years to figure it out. I was doing such things at 11, but then I am a certified genius who was designing spacecraft and rocket engines at 9. Good thing, I'm an underachiever, or I'd be some famous physic/engineering geek suing poo-loads of people for stealing my precious IP.\
Still, no other vacuum companies seem to have ever figured it out. Which is more troubling, the concept that it took Dyson years to figure it out, or that for nigh on a century no other vacuum engineer ever has?
Lastly, Samsung's design looks creepily identical to Dyson's. I find their statements suspect. It may not have been a very hard thing to figure out, but it looks very much like a case of Monkey-see-Monkey-do.
Which, all leads to the sad state of affairs of all the patent systems in the world. It's too easy to get patents for novel things that should be FREAKING obvious to any one without major brain damage.
But, then, I've never been a good reference for what is obvious to non-brain-damaged people. I'm constantly reminded of that, by the actions of my normal intelligence wife and creepily brilliant child.
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celtichackr
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Authored by celtichackr on Sept 10, 2013 18:43:28 GMT
Hahaha, wow! You got me! I'd never considered the competitive advantage perspective.
As for the trust of American software, hardware, that was a forgone conclusion.
Something American agencies have just started thinking about, ie Lenovo. Although, I think there's a different reason for that than the public explanation. After all, it's all made in either China or Korea now. All the more reason to buy Samsung products, and with Apple going more and more to Chinese products.
If I have to have spyware in my hardware, I'd be more comfortable with South Korean trojans, than Chinese trojans. But, of course South Korean trojans may be NSA sponsored. Maybe it's time to start fabbing my own. I seriously need to take a look at this. Not that I have anything to worry about, it's just the creepiness factor.
But, I know, what I'm doing this weekend. Installing CM on all two of my android devices. Might brick my Samsung SIII in the process.
I wonder what trojans are in my RazPis?
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celtichackr
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Authored by celtichackr on Sept 9, 2013 21:56:25 GMT
I think I understood most of your post, but my response was a bit mungled. Certainly, if the hardware is borked nothing is safe. It is possible to build secure hardware, but as you said, unless you control the process you can't know if a backdoor is there. So, the only solution is to build opensourced fab facilities. Like the 3D printers. Then anyone could build from scratch, to any spec they wanted and use opensource "standard" interfaces so it can communicate to other machines. The problem there of course, is that's a lot of work, and likely to be more way more expensive than those huge facilities. But, I could actually design such a system all the way down to generating your own silicon wafer boules. Depending on how paranoid paranoid is. It would be a big project. There is a lot of details that need handling. Some parts could be built fairly cheaply. There's got to be plenty of old tube TVs still out there, which could be scavenged for electron guns, etc. I doubt I could design a fab plant to match Intel's current SOA in transistor density. I'd be surprised if I could easily match AMD's. Well at least not without a ton of research. But of course, I like the way RasPi think, RISC. Of course, then you also have to worry about compatibility with current distros. Or roll your own. Paranoia can be exhausting. I look forward to the Mad Hatter's post. To see if I'm not considering something. I have a pretty low trust rating, so I'd be mildly surprised. While, I may take much more risks than my paranoia comfort level, it doesn't mean I'm trusting. It just means I try to exist in society. Were I to act on my actual level of paranoia, I'd have been off the grid a long time ago.
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celtichackr
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Authored by celtichackr on Sept 9, 2013 21:27:49 GMT
DI,
Okay, maybe she did. Maybe she didn't. As stegu says, so what? It's HER website. Were it my website, I'd feel free to delete posts, if I felt like it. PJ deletes posts mostly from abusive trolls. I don't always agree with her, in fact we've had several extended arguments on Groklaw, but she's not seen fit to delete them before. But if she did, that's her right. I've been to sites that make a habit of deleting contrary opinions, or not even allowing them past the filters. PJ doesn't do that. You'll find lots of contradicting opinions on Groklaw's comments. Mostly, she deletes offending posts or some of the worst trolls who she's banned.
I also have to wonder if you are one of the banned people, who has taken to "tracking" posts PJ has deleted so as to be able to attack her on other sites with, "See! She deletes opposing opinion posts!" types of comments. My mother always taught me if you've got nothing nice to say don't say anything. But, I don't see what the issue is. If you're the one whose already downloaded all her posts, comments and deleted comments, what are you complaining about? You've got your copy. If not well you can always try to contact the one who did, and get his copy.
Also, there is nothing stopping you from making a copy of every post and comment, yourself. It's just not legal, so don't advertise if you do.
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celtichackr
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Authored by celtichackr on Sept 8, 2013 16:26:53 GMT
PS, I don't trust the hardware, why do you?
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celtichackr
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Authored by celtichackr on Sept 8, 2013 16:25:55 GMT
The problem with Gentoo is, it still uses a compiled compiler to start the whole process off.
You really need to read up on the the writing of the Father of C, to know why you can't trust anything you haven't written yourself.
But you're right, as far as you go. But you've gone a bit too far, perhaps. The only way to be 100% sure you build what the sourcecode says you're building is to work it all out on paper and then enter in the binary code for the compiler into a file, and make it executable. then you have a known secure compiler to start with.
Furthermore, "Trusted Computing" is already known to be a backdoor. Perhaps you've missed that. I could build you a secure computer, but it wouldn't be as tiny as today's, nor likely as fast. I could build logic gates from discrete parts, but not everyone is a Computer Engineer. I'm sure I still have a functioning copy of SPICE around, but there are also more modern tools.
Nothing is 100% secure, and likely never will be. Unless everyone rolls over and we all get implants to control us.
Lastly, yes, the general populace could care less about the wild rantings from us crazy tin-foil hat techies. I see people's eyes glaze over when I mention these topics.
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celtichackr
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Authored by celtichackr on Sept 8, 2013 16:12:46 GMT
Do we even have volunteers for this stuff. I didn't see any reports from the last court session. If we don't have people going to the courts anymore and writing reports, and getting the documents, there's not much need for donations. However, if those things do continue, I'd be willing to help. I can't really do reporting, as I'm not near any of the cases, and I'm largely deaf anyway, although, that might actually work to my advantage using the "ADA As Amended".
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celtichackr
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Authored by celtichackr on Sept 8, 2013 16:08:52 GMT
Well, it can't be completely on autopilot. The newspicks used to be quite a few a day, and now it's not always everyday you get even one, and this particular one has a PJ comment. Those can't be automated. I still check it everyday, since it's one of my homepages tabs.
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celtichackr
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Authored by celtichackr on Sept 7, 2013 13:44:10 GMT
Interesting, but I believe the IBM computer also cracked the Enigma machines. Not sure the US gov't shared that info with anyone at the time either. So much for sharing. Which is why you should never trust what you can't see.
I steer clear of proprietary stuff, although I must confess I don't scan the source code of every app I use. If I ever reach that point, I'll build my own compiler, compile it by hand, and use that to compile everything else. BTW, the first program I ever wrote was a compiler.
You may ask why I wouldn't trust compiling a compiler from the existing compiler. But how can you know that a compiled compiler doesn't have a Trojan buried in it? You can't. You can't trust anything that's already compiled, even if the source is available. Nor can you trust an OS that you compile yourself, unless you also KNOW, the compiler you are using doesn't have a Trojan in it.
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celtichackr
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Authored by celtichackr on Sept 7, 2013 4:35:05 GMT
Furthermore, PJ chose the system she chose for particular reasons. Reason which I also endorse. Some of the people who posted on Groklaw did so only because they were able to retain copyright AND control of the content. It's a difficult world. Compromises are often necessary. Most of the articles can be archived, probably all the legal documents can be archived. Some of the comments are copylefted. Some gave the rights to PJ, what legal state that leaves them in, I have no idea.
Speak to a lawyer, if you plan to archive Groklaw. That's all I can say. I would do it if PJ gave me permission, but I have not asked and she really can't give me permission, for a host of legal reasons. Still if she asked, I'd put on my grey hat and do it. And damn the torpedoes. Because I'm that reckless.
Now here's a riddle for you, if you set up a new PC (say a cheap used one for $25) set your browser cache to unlimited and never delete, and go to Groklaw and click on every link, are you guilty of copyright infringement? If you now disconnect the internet from that machine, and tweak the browser so it displays the cached pages when it is off-line, are you breaking the law reading your private archive of Groklaw? If you instead use wget and a command line browser to download and view each page and comment, are you breaking the law? Where is the line, since the copyright act doesn't give us one specifically for Internet content.
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celtichackr
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Authored by celtichackr on Sept 7, 2013 3:15:02 GMT
I should probably jump in here, since I AM celtic_hackr. The one and same that went round and round with PJ. As we have done a few times. I have never articulated that we should mirror all the comments on Groklaw. I lamented that. I also lamented the conflict between how computers, webbrowsers, and the Internet work and how copyright works, yielding the inevitable paradox between the two worlds. One must copy a webpage to view it. A more or less (depending on your browser settings) permanent copy is made on the harddisk (or in the buffer waiting to be written to it). Also PJ didn't delete the thread. It can be difficult to relocate my thread. I missed it once. The fact is Groklaw can't be copied wholescale without violating copyright law, but the conundrum is you can't view webpages without breaking copyright law, because a real copy is made. Protection was extended for software but not webpages. Hence the entire Internet is illegal! You just broke the law by reading this! Now of course there is a legal way to copy ALL of Groklaw. Form yourself as a legal entity as an archive and use section 108 of the Copyright law to make one copy. That is how the Internet Archive is allowed to do it. As well as Google and Yahoo, et al. They are all archives. Or form yourself a library. You have to actually do this as a legal entity, which means filing annual tax returns, etc. I could do this under one of my companies. But I'm disinclined to acquiesce to that idea (means no). So, one the one side you have the law and the other the way the tech actually works, resulting in a BROKEN copyright law. Still it's a simple thing, if you ignore the reality of the tech and focus only on the law. But I've never been much of one for the law and more for justice (which includes the morally right thing to do). I've found the two are sometimes in conflict. So yes it's simple, but when has justice ever been as simple as a law? (Yes, I'm paraphrasing Star Trek, and POTC in the same post. Get over it.) celtic_hackr PS It is my understanding the LOC has archived only the posts, but by law they can copy any and everything they want. Also by law, you are supposed to submit a copy, or two, to the LOC every time you copyright something.
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