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Comments · 20,258
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Re:Duh
I feel that my OS X coexists with Linux quite happily. [snip] The world would be a better place if there was 6+ apple like companies that all supported the open formats.
If only Apple would start supporting open formats like ogg and odf, and stop wasting their time trying to sabotage their devices to break Linux compatibility, I would agree with you. -
Re:Precedent!The expectation by the RIAA of their attempts at extortion being protected by Noerr/Pennington probably encouraged them to start (and to continue) making them......could you give us a little insight into why the RIAA would fail at such a defense? 1. Well, last week's decision by Judge Lazzara in UMG v. Del Cid, rejecting the RIAA's attempt to rely on Noerr Pennington, gives you one of the many reasons.
2. Defendant's opposition papers in Lava v. Amurao and our opposition memorandum in UMG v. Lindor give you some others.
3. I can't here discuss with you all of the many reasons the RIAA's attempts to hide behind Noerr Pennington will fail, since the RIAA lawyers seem to read everything I write on the internet, but if you follow the legal documents filed on my blog you'll no doubt see more on the subject.
4. By the way, I doubt that they thought about Noerr Pennington when they started doing the illegal things they do; I think N-P is just an afterthought their lawyers came up with in hopes of preventing the Courts from finding out about their illegal conduct. But it will all come out. In the Napster case they lost their attorney client privilege by reason of the fact that their attorneys had lied to the US Department of Justice team investigating their digital music price fixing scheme. See "Court Finds Reasonable Cause to Believe that UMG and Capitol Deceived United States Dept of Justice", Recording Industry vs. The People, April 21, 2006. -
Re:Precedent!The expectation by the RIAA of their attempts at extortion being protected by Noerr/Pennington probably encouraged them to start (and to continue) making them......could you give us a little insight into why the RIAA would fail at such a defense? 1. Well, last week's decision by Judge Lazzara in UMG v. Del Cid, rejecting the RIAA's attempt to rely on Noerr Pennington, gives you one of the many reasons.
2. Defendant's opposition papers in Lava v. Amurao and our opposition memorandum in UMG v. Lindor give you some others.
3. I can't here discuss with you all of the many reasons the RIAA's attempts to hide behind Noerr Pennington will fail, since the RIAA lawyers seem to read everything I write on the internet, but if you follow the legal documents filed on my blog you'll no doubt see more on the subject.
4. By the way, I doubt that they thought about Noerr Pennington when they started doing the illegal things they do; I think N-P is just an afterthought their lawyers came up with in hopes of preventing the Courts from finding out about their illegal conduct. But it will all come out. In the Napster case they lost their attorney client privilege by reason of the fact that their attorneys had lied to the US Department of Justice team investigating their digital music price fixing scheme. See "Court Finds Reasonable Cause to Believe that UMG and Capitol Deceived United States Dept of Justice", Recording Industry vs. The People, April 21, 2006. -
Re:Precedent!The expectation by the RIAA of their attempts at extortion being protected by Noerr/Pennington probably encouraged them to start (and to continue) making them......could you give us a little insight into why the RIAA would fail at such a defense? 1. Well, last week's decision by Judge Lazzara in UMG v. Del Cid, rejecting the RIAA's attempt to rely on Noerr Pennington, gives you one of the many reasons.
2. Defendant's opposition papers in Lava v. Amurao and our opposition memorandum in UMG v. Lindor give you some others.
3. I can't here discuss with you all of the many reasons the RIAA's attempts to hide behind Noerr Pennington will fail, since the RIAA lawyers seem to read everything I write on the internet, but if you follow the legal documents filed on my blog you'll no doubt see more on the subject.
4. By the way, I doubt that they thought about Noerr Pennington when they started doing the illegal things they do; I think N-P is just an afterthought their lawyers came up with in hopes of preventing the Courts from finding out about their illegal conduct. But it will all come out. In the Napster case they lost their attorney client privilege by reason of the fact that their attorneys had lied to the US Department of Justice team investigating their digital music price fixing scheme. See "Court Finds Reasonable Cause to Believe that UMG and Capitol Deceived United States Dept of Justice", Recording Industry vs. The People, April 21, 2006. -
Re:Precedent!The expectation by the RIAA of their attempts at extortion being protected by Noerr/Pennington probably encouraged them to start (and to continue) making them......could you give us a little insight into why the RIAA would fail at such a defense? 1. Well, last week's decision by Judge Lazzara in UMG v. Del Cid, rejecting the RIAA's attempt to rely on Noerr Pennington, gives you one of the many reasons.
2. Defendant's opposition papers in Lava v. Amurao and our opposition memorandum in UMG v. Lindor give you some others.
3. I can't here discuss with you all of the many reasons the RIAA's attempts to hide behind Noerr Pennington will fail, since the RIAA lawyers seem to read everything I write on the internet, but if you follow the legal documents filed on my blog you'll no doubt see more on the subject.
4. By the way, I doubt that they thought about Noerr Pennington when they started doing the illegal things they do; I think N-P is just an afterthought their lawyers came up with in hopes of preventing the Courts from finding out about their illegal conduct. But it will all come out. In the Napster case they lost their attorney client privilege by reason of the fact that their attorneys had lied to the US Department of Justice team investigating their digital music price fixing scheme. See "Court Finds Reasonable Cause to Believe that UMG and Capitol Deceived United States Dept of Justice", Recording Industry vs. The People, April 21, 2006. -
Re:A long way towards discouraging the messMethinks they should base the attorney's fees awarded on what the plaintiffs spent on attorney and court costs. I'm sure the defendant would have been happy to spend more (yes, she won, but she obviously couldn't have known that at the onset), and the plaintiffs have clearly indicated what they believe the case was worth to try and work through the courts... I agree with you. Certainly, if the RIAA makes the mistake of challenging the reasonableness of the legal fees incurred, the Court will find the RIAA's own fees to be highly relevant. See, e.g. March 15, 2007, Order and Decision in Capitol v. Foster.
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Re:Precedent!Actually, this "court" doesn't set any precedent at all. Magistrate "judges" aren't actually judges: they're Article II employees, created by Congress, who serve at the whim of actual judges, i.e. Article III Judges. Magistrate Judges cannot actually do anything: their entire power comes from their parent district court's approval. 1. They certainly are judges. They are not life tenure judges, but they are judges.
2. They do not serve at anybody's "whim".
3. Magistrate decisions are ctied all the time.
4. There are many instances in which they have binding authority in the matter before them.
5. As the underlying article makes perfectly clear, this was not a binding authority, but awaits approval by the District Judge.
6. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but in 34 years of working in the litigation field I cannot recall ever having seen a District Judge reject the Magistrate Judge's findings. Usually Magistrate's "recommendations" -- like this 15-page decision -- are extremely thorough. -
Re:Precedent!Lower court decisions, such as this one, do not set precendents in any court other than their own. 1. That is an overly simplistic view. Yes if there is an appellate decision in one circuit that is binding authority over all district court decisions within that circuit, and it is usually the only absolutely binding authority, other than Supreme Court decisions, on each district court within that circuit.
2. But it is very very rare that any case is ever determined on the basis of an absolutely binding higher court authority. Almost invariably, where there is such authority available, the attorneys have figured that out long ago and there is no litigation to "decide".
3. Most briefs that are submitted cite plenty of non-binding judicial authorities, and even where they are citing binding higher authority, it is usually based on vastly different sets of facts.
4. There are numerous issues in the RIAA cases that will be decided on the basis of the fact that the RIAA has both brought, and pressed, numerous frivolous cases, with no evidence that the defendant committed a copyright infringement, just as was done in the Andersen case. And in those cases it continues to try to extort a "settlement" from the defendant even though it knows it has no case against the defendant. And in those cases where the defendant hangs tough, and is willing to see the case through to its conclusion and a jury trial.... the RIAA drops the case, as it did here. See, e.g., Capitol v. Foster, Elektra v. Santangelo, and Elektra v. Wilke. This recurring phenomenon will be relevant to future attorneys fees decisions, to possible sanctions motions against the record companies and their attorneys, to the record companies' claims of a "Noerr Pennington" defense which is not applicable to "sham" litigations, to claims of copyright misuse, and numerous other issues, in all district courts across the country, and will be cited by appellate courts when these cases finally do get to the appellate courts -- an event the RIAA is trying to avoid.
So yes. This judge's recognition of the RIAA's tactics is a very important precedent. -
Re:Precedent!Lower court decisions, such as this one, do not set precendents in any court other than their own. 1. That is an overly simplistic view. Yes if there is an appellate decision in one circuit that is binding authority over all district court decisions within that circuit, and it is usually the only absolutely binding authority, other than Supreme Court decisions, on each district court within that circuit.
2. But it is very very rare that any case is ever determined on the basis of an absolutely binding higher court authority. Almost invariably, where there is such authority available, the attorneys have figured that out long ago and there is no litigation to "decide".
3. Most briefs that are submitted cite plenty of non-binding judicial authorities, and even where they are citing binding higher authority, it is usually based on vastly different sets of facts.
4. There are numerous issues in the RIAA cases that will be decided on the basis of the fact that the RIAA has both brought, and pressed, numerous frivolous cases, with no evidence that the defendant committed a copyright infringement, just as was done in the Andersen case. And in those cases it continues to try to extort a "settlement" from the defendant even though it knows it has no case against the defendant. And in those cases where the defendant hangs tough, and is willing to see the case through to its conclusion and a jury trial.... the RIAA drops the case, as it did here. See, e.g., Capitol v. Foster, Elektra v. Santangelo, and Elektra v. Wilke. This recurring phenomenon will be relevant to future attorneys fees decisions, to possible sanctions motions against the record companies and their attorneys, to the record companies' claims of a "Noerr Pennington" defense which is not applicable to "sham" litigations, to claims of copyright misuse, and numerous other issues, in all district courts across the country, and will be cited by appellate courts when these cases finally do get to the appellate courts -- an event the RIAA is trying to avoid.
So yes. This judge's recognition of the RIAA's tactics is a very important precedent. -
Re:Precedent!Lower court decisions, such as this one, do not set precendents in any court other than their own. 1. That is an overly simplistic view. Yes if there is an appellate decision in one circuit that is binding authority over all district court decisions within that circuit, and it is usually the only absolutely binding authority, other than Supreme Court decisions, on each district court within that circuit.
2. But it is very very rare that any case is ever determined on the basis of an absolutely binding higher court authority. Almost invariably, where there is such authority available, the attorneys have figured that out long ago and there is no litigation to "decide".
3. Most briefs that are submitted cite plenty of non-binding judicial authorities, and even where they are citing binding higher authority, it is usually based on vastly different sets of facts.
4. There are numerous issues in the RIAA cases that will be decided on the basis of the fact that the RIAA has both brought, and pressed, numerous frivolous cases, with no evidence that the defendant committed a copyright infringement, just as was done in the Andersen case. And in those cases it continues to try to extort a "settlement" from the defendant even though it knows it has no case against the defendant. And in those cases where the defendant hangs tough, and is willing to see the case through to its conclusion and a jury trial.... the RIAA drops the case, as it did here. See, e.g., Capitol v. Foster, Elektra v. Santangelo, and Elektra v. Wilke. This recurring phenomenon will be relevant to future attorneys fees decisions, to possible sanctions motions against the record companies and their attorneys, to the record companies' claims of a "Noerr Pennington" defense which is not applicable to "sham" litigations, to claims of copyright misuse, and numerous other issues, in all district courts across the country, and will be cited by appellate courts when these cases finally do get to the appellate courts -- an event the RIAA is trying to avoid.
So yes. This judge's recognition of the RIAA's tactics is a very important precedent. -
RTFPDF, smile and wait for class action
Copyright holders generally, and these plaintiffs specifically, should be deterred from
The Magistrate gives the impression in his ruling that the attorney fees be granted that he thinks they should be stopped from such activity, starting with making them pay the defendant's lawyer fees and possibly extra penalties. Further, he states that the defendant is still eligible to participate in the class action suit and other claims against the RIAA even after she is receives her award for attorney fees etc in this case. I get the impression this Magistrate would not be forgiving to the RIAA if he were hearing the class action suit and heard evidence showing that the RIAA's lawyers consistantly performed their jobs as they did in this case.
prosecuting infringement claims as plaintiffs did in this case.
If it can be shown that any significant number of the RIAA's settlements were only settled to avoid lawyer's fees greater then the settlement combined with the RIAA backing down when actually opposed, would it be possible for the court's to order all such activity by the RIAA be stopped, all money collected by them through such activity be refunded with additions to cover costs and interests? The RICO counterclaims are appropriate cause the RIAA's lawyers and their so called experts are doing little more then running protection rackets for the record companies. Considering all that the recording studios pull on artists, the artists really should join in on the RICO claims.
Standard IANAL disclaimer. -
Re:side barAs a recent grad from a major university in Boston, I can attest that universities are not charged with protecting or providing legal assistance for their students. Yes but they should not be jeopardizing and destroying their students' due process rights, either, as many of them are doing. This is what they should be, and in my view are legally obligated to be, doing.
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Re:You mean...
You know, I've always wondered why many self-proclaimed libertarian types are so against regulating emissions.
Does Greg Mankiw count as a libertarian? He and many others have been advocating raising taxes on pollution to compensate for the externalities. This is opposed by many on the right who have a knee-jerk opposition to all taxes (even though it would allow more economically harmful taxes to be cut), and by many on the left who dislike market mechanisms. -
Cost of a new coal plant
It is kind of deceptive to compare a new solar plant (built today) with an old coal plant. The correct comparision is with new coal capacity which may come in closer to $0.04/kWh. With carbon capture and sequestration, $0.08/kWh might be expected. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/05/070504151722.htm. Further, at present, solar competes with gas rather than coal because gas is used to meet peak demand. Gas costs less for construction than either coal or solar but it has volitile are rising fuel costs owing to declining production in North America. Over the long term, $0.15/kWh probably compares favorably with gas. Several recent studies have also noticed that coal energy (though not volume) production is declining in the US owing to substitution of lower grades of coal: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/05/three-cornered-ghost.html. This video on the coal resource is even more startling: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTUcxYdMmj4. If, within the lifetime of the new solar power plant, coal becomes scarce as gas is already doing, then the cost of power from the solar plant will be quite competitive. It is not that we lack coal but rather that we have begun to exhaust the coal that is cheap to mine. This is why salvage operations like the one that led to the disaster in Utah are becoming more common. Higher coal prices make these marginal operations more economical.
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Rent solar power for your home: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users-selling-solar.html -
Cost of a new coal plant
It is kind of deceptive to compare a new solar plant (built today) with an old coal plant. The correct comparision is with new coal capacity which may come in closer to $0.04/kWh. With carbon capture and sequestration, $0.08/kWh might be expected. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/05/070504151722.htm. Further, at present, solar competes with gas rather than coal because gas is used to meet peak demand. Gas costs less for construction than either coal or solar but it has volitile are rising fuel costs owing to declining production in North America. Over the long term, $0.15/kWh probably compares favorably with gas. Several recent studies have also noticed that coal energy (though not volume) production is declining in the US owing to substitution of lower grades of coal: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/05/three-cornered-ghost.html. This video on the coal resource is even more startling: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTUcxYdMmj4. If, within the lifetime of the new solar power plant, coal becomes scarce as gas is already doing, then the cost of power from the solar plant will be quite competitive. It is not that we lack coal but rather that we have begun to exhaust the coal that is cheap to mine. This is why salvage operations like the one that led to the disaster in Utah are becoming more common. Higher coal prices make these marginal operations more economical.
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Rent solar power for your home: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users-selling-solar.html -
Re:Go UMass Amherst!Now if only our Comp. Sci. department could work on ways to protect UMass students from the MAFIAA. Like the Chairman of the Computer Science Department at Boston University going to bat for the BU students.
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Re:RIAA CowardsThe RIAA are cowards. The problem is that university administrations by and large are bigger cowards still, hence they act too often as RIAA lapdogs. The RIAA's growing college problem is that at least 4 groups of students at different universities are fighting back, and creating a info-store of litigation documents that can become a roadmap into defending against future suits. If everyone fought back against the invasions of privacy, and the lack of true evidence at the time the suits are filed, the RIAA couldn't handle the litigation load! Make that five. NC State students just jumped into the fray.
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Re:So I am on the list.My university is on the list. What slash
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Re:This only means the RIAA has no caseDuh! Everyone knows this. It is just that most people have second thoughts when they are facing the dripping fang vampire all alone. Harvard just let the students know they would not be alone. The other schools are willing to throw the students under a bus. Not surprising, really... One interesting note on that point is that the Chairman of the Computer Science Department at Boston University is acting as an expert witness on behalf of the students.
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Re:Getting Linux into western schools / OpenEducat
You might want to check out advocacy/blog sites as well.
Here's an example:
http://cdneducation.blogspot.com/ -
Re:It doesn't matter when the defendant suffers fr
...And the fact that one of the defendants was dead, or a grandmother, or a single mother of three is also meaningless as far as the law is concerned. I can understand being a grandmother or a single mother of three being irrelevant to a case, but death? Last I checked, you can't sue a dead person, and if my reading of the constitution is right, the family of the decedent is immune to litigation that arose because of said decedent's alleged acts. IANAL. That's ok, the RIAA lawyers ANL (are not lawyers) either.
But if you think the RIAA doesn't pursue dead people, you don't know these ghouls. -
Re:Why the License
"Regardless of how the law sees it, that's how it seems to be to me, logically speaking."
Go read the current BY licenses and compare to the v1.0 license. You may change your mind.
all the best,
drew
http://zotzbro.blogspot.com/2007/04/some-thoughts-on-copyright-offensive.html -
Re:Why the License
"the only party i can see that has any fault is the party who put the image on flickr, the only party too poor to get any cash out of"
Check again.
Not that there may be facts wrong but...
http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/virgin-sued-for-using-teens-photo/2007/09/21/1189881735928.html
"The family of Alison Chang says Virgin Mobile grabbed the picture from Flickr, Yahoo Inc's popular photo-sharing website, and failed to credit the photographer by name."
The claim is virgin didn't even follow the license.
Also, unless Flickr was using a v 1.0 license, the license only licenses the creators copyrights, any other rights needed must be obtained by the user on their own.
Seems virgin may not have done this. We shall see...
How they claim CC does the lincesing is ming boggling. That would be like someone putting some of MS's shared source code out under the GPL without permission and MS suing the FSF claiming that they licensed the code just because someone chose to use the GPL for hteir misdeeds...
Sorry, couldn't be botherd to come up with a car analogy... ~;-)
all the best,
drew
http://zotzbro.blogspot.com/ -
Irresponsible use of CC license is not CC's fault
Just finding an image on flickr flagged as CC is not enough, and it's not CC's fault if someone fails to understand that. I run into these issues a lot with my blog (which is not a business, but if it ever starts making money from ads perhaps a lawyer could decide it is commercial), and it would be nice to get a really precise definition of "identifiable" from a legal perspective ("public figure" seems to have some gray areas, too). What if they're disguised? But there are a lot of photos I would love to use on my blog that I don't touch - especially sports photos. If someone posts photos of a pro sports event (this could include college sports or the Olympics, too), they probably don't have the rights to release the photo via CC. Most tickets these days have a clause prohibiting photography, and the event's organizers claim a copyright on whatever you see on the field. As another example of these sorts of issues, today I found a photo on flickr under CC license which I was planning to use, but the photo was actually not from the flickr user and was in fact copyrighted.
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Re:Irrelavence...Keep in mind that in most cases the RIAA is suing an IP address with no knowledge of the person. How sure is anyone of that? Uh. The RIAA's own expert witness was pretty sure.
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Re:That's a good way to start the weekend!I'd guess they have a 95+% accuracy on determining the offending ip. As for offending computer, I'd put it at 50% and offending person even lower. The number of wireless access points and NAT devices out there really calls into question their ability to bring a case against an individual. From my house, I have 8 different wireless access points I can use. I highly doubt that the people using these access points are always using their own. On what basis do you guess that they have 95% accuracy on determining the "offending IP address" (whatever that is)? They themselves have stated that they are getting incorrect information from the ISP's.
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Re:ok
Ah, a veteran. Let me ask you, seriously (not being a libertarian commie prick or whatever you want to call me): do you agree with all the wars the US has fought? Iraq, the gulf, vietnam... wars that weren't yours to fight, but that the US jumped in because of other motives (oil, usually). Oh and do you feel sorry for all the japanese civilians killed in hiroshima and nagasaki, in WWII?
A job in the military, like a job in many large organizations, does require a fair amount of rationalization/cognitive dissonance. For example, say you were an accountant at a huge firm and did the math that resulted in hundreds of techs being laid off. Would this bother you? Is profit a more noble pursuit than sovereignty/defense/stability (not that I'm claiming that our wars are those things)?
Some would reply that killing someone is very different from firing someone, and of course they're right. I'm just trying to illustrate an example in the civilian world where emotional distancing is also necessary. I processed insurance claims for a while in a past job, and I felt like shi* knowing that a lot of the claims that I worked with would be denied. Many of those claims would really improve our clients' quality of life. I know I'm not the only person at that place who felt that way.
Do I agree with U.S. wars/foreign policy? That would be like asking, "Do you agree with religion?" There are so many aspects to the subject. And to be honest, I'm not sure that I can say exactly how I feel, at least not in words. I kept a blog of my first deployment, so if you want to know how I felt about actually being in a war zone, you can read it: http://hylic.blogspot.com/
You probably want a pithy, candid answer to your questions, and I understand. However, I'm not going to pass judgment on events that happened outside of my lifetime. I can comment on the lessons that history has taught us, but those lessons are available to anyone; I can't say anything new. In addition, there is just so much that history doesn't tell us, or that we have just come around to discovering/admitting to ourselves, that I would be talking about a made-up, abstract idea.
The current actions in the middle east are an area that I can comment on, and I will. The entire situation is fu**ed, SNAFU, FUBAR, unrecoverable, wasteful, horrific, etc, etc. Remember that emotional distancing that I mentioned? Well, after being deployed a couple of times and growing up a fair amount, the only emotion I feel about Iraq is anger. Not at the Iraqis, but at the whole situation. I'm angry that our president drove us into this (for whatever reason, well-intentioned or not). I'm angry that our congress wasn't able to separate the lies from the truth, that people in power treated this 'war' the same way that they'd treat a highway bill or a re-election campaign, complete with lying and posturing. I'm angry that my job, which used to be about national defense and community stewardship, has turned me into a mercenary. I'm angry that KBR and Halliburton are making so fu*king much money on this affair. I'm angry that good men and women have to tell themselves that their missions are good and worthwhile just to keep themselves from collapsing in the face of the horrible things they have to see every day. I'm angry that the lives of our sacrificed soldiers are treated like a fu*king cancer awareness ribbon or some shi* that you can just wear on your lapel in order to be patriotic.
I could go on for days. I am very angry.
Most of all, I'm angry that I got shot at, that I had to see terrible things, that I am a fundamentally different person now, that I am kind of messed up, that I lost that time in my life... all so that the Mary Disney Puffpaint Sweatshirt McDonalds of the U.S. can sit on their fat asses and cheer for 'their team' or whatever the fu*k makes people support this war. It's so fu*ked up that people would want us to continu -
Re:I think women are better than that
Dude, you're replaying a stereotypical reaction to having a microaggressions pointed out to you. "Aren't you overreacting?" "How do you know they meant it that way?" Etc.
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MS Reader version available
I made a
http://simonmacdonald.blogspot.com/2007/09/cory-doctorows-short-story-scroogled.html
Simon -
Re:I have to ask...
Yes, but it's not exactly true:
http://aseigo.blogspot.com/2007/02/konqueror-not-vanishing-news-at-11.html
It's not replacing it, it's replacing it as the default
As I said I have nothing against the defaults that were chosen by GNOME.
It's just that many users don't like them and those users need to have a way to be able to find another look and feel to their desktop or will need to change their desktop.
So what's true for GNOME would be true to KDE if KDE made the same mistake or preventing the users to change their look and feel. -
Re:Thank you, Daniel
At least he didn't call them "freetards" this time.
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Re:Responsible disclosure
Love him or hate him Maynor did the right thing waiting to come out with his paper.
That may be, but I'm really dreading his second paper:"Maynor will soon publish a second paper on [some unimportant website] explaining how to write software that will run on a compromised system"
What exactly is the ethical and economical model that David Maynor operates within? -
Re:So what they really meanIdentity theft is a very small problem. Credential bungling is a huge problem, and it is caused by the institutional structure that this defamation-exemption created. How did that get passed into law?
It strikes me as non-constitutional. How is anyone to succeed in the pursuit of happiness when major credit agencies are divulging damaging falsehoods about you in your significant financial relationships? Truly, in American society the pursuit of happiness must translate to litigating these credential-bungling credit rating agencies all to hell.
I also think the law should support a class action law suit over the design of the credit card security mechanism which created this problem in the first place, towards appealing the common notion that their credential bungling is our identity theft.
One post suggested that by enabled me to obtain better interest rates, I benefit from having my (good) credit history collected and reported.
If that is the case, a capitalist society would enable me to hire third parties to gather and report this information. If I wish this service because it enables me to obtain favourable terms, then I seek it out and I pay for it myself.
I have still have that Nixon tape running through my head after viewing Sicko the other night. Note to the Moore haters: let's ignore the messenger, and let Nixon speak for himself, in his own words, brought to use by the magic of magnetic tape:
From http://whatisthemessage.blogspot.com/2007/06/michael-moores-sicko.htmlFor private enterprise, it has worked remarkably well. As Nixon counsel, John Erlichman explains to the then-President, Edgar Kaiser is running this Permanente deal for profit. And the reason he can do it
Nixon: Not bad. The next day, Nixon announces the establishment of HMOs, saying, "I want America to have the finest health care in the world. And I want every American to have that care when he needs it."
The credit rating agencies enjoy the same favorable legislative tilt, with the same detrimental consequences to the typical American: instead of litigating against credential bungling at the hands of the Enrons of personal record handling, we cower in fear over this ficticious concept of "identity theft" which merely a synonym for the non-constitutional legislative contrivance that "if corporations lie about you, you have no power to stop it". -
Re:Yeah, but did he learn anything?
"Reporters are supposed to get stories, sort out the various facts, and if someone's feeding them bullshit, point that out. "
Why do any of us believe that? That is an expression of the ideal of "journalism", mostly held by people who aren't journalists. Forbes will report news in a certain way. A way that guarantees they continue to get paid a lot of money from advertisers. A reporter's job is to do what his editor tells him to do. Dan does that job very well. If you expect any large media outlet to expose the "truth", you will be disappointed. Exposing truth is risky, doesn't pay well - advertisers with lots of cash (big business) don't support news outlets that might expose a business in a poor light. It's not the goal of Forbes to expose the "truth", they are concerned with making sure they can operate in such a way that the money continues to flow. Business, not journalism.
In the case of SCO - sites like
As far as the acticle, it's actually pretty good. At least he took the time to write it. Of course, Forbes wouldn't let it be posted until now... but that's on Forbes, not necessarily Dan.
FWIW, this is a much better sample of his work: http://fakesteve.blogspot.com/ -
Re:wrong link
am I an idiot? try again: freegamer.blogspot.com 'Blaming' my previous post would be a good idea..
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wrong link
wtf, zonk, you're supposed to be editing before you post. freegamer.net is obviously not an open source games blog. I think the submitter meant to link to http://freegamer.blogspot.com/. I have no clue how someone could screw that up though.
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How to Steal a Laptop
This guy wrote about Lojack for Laptops a while back, and talks about stealing laptops. One thing not mentioned in the article is how this "call home" software deals with highly restrictive firewalls, e.g., if you use it legitimately behind such protection, how does it call home in the first place? Anyway, the article highlights some of the limitations of software-based asset recovery products, namely that they can be defeated by simply paving over the original OS.
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Apple's track record is contradictory to the lie..
i'm sorry, but this WHOLE THING became a kerfuffle when Maynor stated that Apple threatened him... and not a second before that.
And i have a very very hard time believing that Maynor is telling the truth about that because Apple has an incredible track record on not only accepting information, but giving credit where credit is due to people that find problems and exploits
Here are 28 examples between 10.4.1-10.4.3 where Apple gave credit to security researchers, organizations, and individuals.
So, Maynor found something, acted very suspiciously, made lame comments, hid information, and blamed Apple for all of it.
He's a choad. -
Re:shame...
HOW hard do you think it is? http://linuxtruthiness.blogspot.com/2007/09/how-to-install-windows-software-in.html
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Re:What happened to good OS design?
Am I the only one who finds that dumb?
Yes, you are. I've been telling Symantec and others (Sophos, McAfee, et al) to do this for years.It creates a cumbersome and abusable solution to something that was solved better already.
BS. For a consumer, yes [because by definition a consumer doesn't know how a computer works or really what their needs are]. For an enterprise? It's perfect. Enterprises already want to have change management for all their bins. What part of having an AV tool update sigs daily is good change management? Remember what Symantec did to their Asian language Windows customers less than a year ago?It _is_ possible to isolate something to the point where it can't do any harm at all, and can't touch anything except itself.
You must not work for an enterprise. How many apps out there need to interface other apps? In every org I have worked or consulted: tons. Simply isolating each app, while a good approach where feasible, is not feasible very often. And when it's not, what options are you left with? Blacklisting and the asymptotically rising signature databases? Good riddance.
Now about the consumer problem. I'm thinking a nice white-list, community-driven, reputation-voting algorithm could solve their problems. User A, who agrees with User B about a which subset of all apps should be trusted, has app X (outside the subset) installed, therefore the trust reputation score increases for app X. Likewise, User C, whose opinion is widely regarded by the majority of the community, votes that app X is fine, also increasing the overall trustworthiness metric. There's kinks in there, but work those out and implement it, and I smell a wonderful open source project that will shift everyone's minds about this issue. Just keep in mind most OSes (Windows, Linux, Mac included) are not designed from the ground up to separate code from data, so there will still be some remaining avenues for attack until that is resolved. -
Re:Nonsense.
I want specific examples in which "The actors are not rational" and in which "The actors do not possess complete and accurate information." (that second point is kinda bullshit, but still give me an good example.)
People paying $500 for a cellphone or continuing to buy MP3 players despite a hefty markup are not being rational - they have an emotional attachment to the brand. They will continue to buy Apple even when better, cheaper, more open alternatives exist.
If you click on this post, you'll no doubt see a few downmods which sort of proves my point. People aren't rational once they start to love companies and companies exploit this irrationality by charging them a hefty premium, and that's the reason they get angry when this is pointed out. -
Re:The Age of Crappy Concurrency
Well, do give the comment submitter credit for having a website identifying himself.
This comment is actually a copy of one of his blog articles -
just read that a minute ago...
because i read this article on a blog, and googled after it around to get news about it, so my question is, that polling stuff, will that be resolved, too?
or how accurate is the blogpost from zecke? (was posted on may 27 i know, dont bash me about that, its just, it is one of the first articles if you google after "qtopia for moko") -
Apple's New clang C Compiler based on LLVM.
LLVM is the one to watch. Currently, llvm-gcc uses GCC's front end but Apple, a major funder of LLVM, have recently released the source to clang, their C compiler. No GCC in sight. http://llvm.org/ http://heisenbug.blogspot.com/2007/07/compiler-with-good-clang.html
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The Age of Crappy Concurrency
I'm holding out for a processor that goes to 11.
Funny but seriously, my advice is, don't buy a multicore CPU until they get it right. If a multicore CPU or concurrent programming language or operating system does not support fine-grain, instruction-level parallelism in a MIMD (multiple instruction, multiple data) environment, it is crap. The computer market is looking for fine-grain parallel systems that are fast, secure, easy to program, auto-scalable and bug free. The crap that I see out there does not even come close to delivering what the market wants.
The Age of Crappy Concurrency: Erlang, Tilera, AMD, IBM, Freescale, etc... -
Re:losing the print statement
In general, it's impossible to convert code from one language to another 100% reliably, unless the differences are truly trivial
And yet I know of a program that converts C into x86 machine language quite reliably. I'd say the differences are more than trivial.
If you can stomach a long, discursive essay, please read Rich Programmer Food. -
Re:Only one thing to do then ..Gun control basically is the same thing: for a gun to really be a problem one must already be prepared to break the law. So given that a willingness to break the law is already a prerequisite for a gun crime to take place: do you really think that the culprit is gonna give a damn that he's breaking a law by obtaining or carrying a gun? That argument has two major holes:
a) It is assuming that people are rational beings and that all actions are well premeditated. It's pretty well known by now that people are irrational (hey, how's that for a slashdot audience, this is a blog entry by the gmail creator!). Basically, in a surge of emotion (think domestic fights, a depressed / severely stressed kid (say a highschool shooting)), if one can easily have access to guns (by opening the local cabinet, going to a store, etc.), they can cause massively more damage, significantly more easily.
b) That the massive number of guns going around in a society will always be used by the people they were intended in the way they were intended. This is patently not true, as demonstrated by kids getting access to their grandfather's gun, or various people we (the west) have massively funded and provided guns to (think Bin Laden and the Mujahideen's in Afganistan vs the Soviets, or Saddam versus the Iranians).
There's also, of course, a moral argument. The only primary purpose of the gun is to kill. The whole protection stuff is completely secondary; a gun 'protects' by killing, or threatening to kill. I, personally, think that society has an obligation to protect its citizens, and banning a device the purpose of which is to kill is a good idea.
Guns don't kill people, people kill people. And monkeys kill people. If you give them a gun. (to quote eddie izzard) -
Re:no evidence?
I blogged about this here: http://securetheworld.blogspot.com/2007/09/how-not-to-handle-data-leaks-td.html A snippet -- I wonder how they established this and already alienated by the rest of the PR material I am inclined to believe that this is misinformation as well. They use the terms "extensive", "initial", "continuing" to describe their investigation depending on what they are trying to say. They use "initial" and "continuing" when trying to convince me that they cannot tell me how the forensic experts reached the conclusions they did but they use "extensive" when they want to convince me that these conclusions have been reached. TD Ameritrade having no evidence that my sensitive information was leaked or of identity theft does nothing to calm my nerves. The crooks could still have this information. They could have covered their tracks so that there is no evidence. They may have left behind evidence which TD Ameritrade will never find (infact TD Ameritrade has a lot to gain by not finding this evidence and a lot to loose by finding it). They may not have used this information yet knowing the heightened alert level right now. What stops them from using this information later
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Re:You can't "slap a Jap" anymore
Women's rights is bad for Men.
We need more Partrical countries and less feminist, women's rights utopias.
http://mikeeusa.blogspot.com/ -
They're Right!I've got a stupid little blog that digs a bit of good-natured fun at self-evident research results.
In a "recent" post, I included a link to a picture of Arnold Schwarzenegger. It's not even posted to the blog - it's just a link.
Well, hot damn! I start getting hits from all over the world, especially Asia. And what are they for? You got it - they're lookin' for hunky body builder pictures! And the first one was a Google hit from Alborz in Khuzestan, Iran looking for pictures of weight lifters.
I actually have a (different) post on the blog that mentions a town in Iran by name (Masshad, Iran). How many Iranians stumbled on that post? Zero!
Looks like the Iranian government is right - their pervy little citizens just use Google to find hot pics of buff studs.
Not that there's anything wrong with that. After all, how else are we going to find that picture of Vanessa Hudgens... um, for "research"!