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38,600 Apple notebooks place a great fire in your future.

There was a time when I just wished MS ripped QT's codec and put it in their media player.

There was a time when this really happened! Too bad MS did it illegally while developing their "Video for Windows" codec in the Win 3.1 days:

"The discussions between Apple and Microsoft about QuickTime were rooted in a legal tussle that started in early 1995. That was when Apple alleged that Microsoft and Intel had illegally copied portions of its QuickTime for Windows product after hiring a third party, Canyon Company of San Francisco, that Apple had used to help develop the Windows version of its playback software. In 1996, Apple also notified Microsoft that elements of Windows and its Internet Explorer browser infringed certain patents."

"Charter Communications Inc. of St. Louis also dropped its affiliation with At Home and has begun switching customers to its own network. The company has been preparing for the possible loss of At Home service for the past three months, a Charter spokesman said yesterday. More than 90 percent of Charter?s 145,000 At Home subscribers have been switched over to the new network, the spokesman said."

However, according to this cnet.com article, Charter still is working with @Home in the areas they don't have their network in place yet. Unfortunately, I'm in one of those areas. However, I currently have service still, so I guess I'm a lot luckier than the folks with the Death Star as their local cable company.

My local Charter office told me that they would likely be ready with the new Pipeline service early this week. I've had a hard time finding details on the Pipeline service (like whether or not I can get multiple Static IPs). Can anyone provide links?

-- PhoneBoy

...at least according to CNet and Time magazine...

1. Hey, tshak, loan me 30k. I'm going to use it to buy a 20k car that I can put up as collateral. Yeah, if I don't pay you back, you're out 10k, but I'm pretty trustworthy. But, if I do pay you back, you stand to make oodles on interest.
2. Time passes. I make payments as agreed.
3. Oh, shit, I lost my job. I can't pay you back. I'm bankrupt. Too bad. Well, at least you can get back some of your money by selling that 20k car.
4. Hey, someone offered to buy that car for 10k. Why don't I just take that deal? What? You don't like that I'm selling the car below market? Too bad. It's my business decision to make. Oh, and in the meantime, I'm still driving this car around and it's costing money to operate.
5. You win a court order, preventing me from selling. You win a court order preventing me from using the car.

You just might end up trading one failing ISP for another.

Overall, I am impressed how AT&T has moved all its customers off Excite and onto their own network... I dunno how they did it.

Coincidentally, I think most everyone in the Puget Sound (aka, Seattle) area, if not the majority of the state, is offline.

Yeah, I'm impressed with AT&T, too.

Sounds a lot like the process I have used in the past to "rip" vinyl. There are a lot of us still out there that collect and listen to vinyl records, and upload them to various sharing services. The inconveniences associated with this have not stopped releases from appearing online, it just usually takes a couple more days. There's a program to do the seperating of tracks for you here.

Consumers should show some self control and not buy any of these copy protected CDs--no matter how much they really want them.

I find it amazing that the people making these albums allow something like this to happen. Why spend boatloads of money recording and mastering an album--making it sound as good as possible--when the record label is going to turn around and intentionally add distortion to your music?

I don't suppose that even if the record labels were successful in increasing their revenues by reducing piracy, that the price of CDs would drop. We would essentially just be getting a flawed product for the same amount of money.

I would like to know if these CDs can be played in the Xbox?

According to another article about this, the CD won't play on the Xbox. Or on a Mac. Or in some DVD players.

Oh, well. Guess they don't even want me as a potential customer. My current "CD player" is a PowerBook, and if I ever get a stand-alone unit, it'd be a DVD player.

As you read through this pay very close attention to what Jermoluk says. Funny stuff.

Internet flop #1 has just happened before our eyes.

I just read the article on news.com which discusses this ruling but it seemed to make clear two things:

1) that the parties must go back to the bargaining table
2) that the service being disconnected was unlikely

What it sounds like happened is that the judge said they can cut the contracts but there is nothing right now saying affirmatively that the service will be shut off. Basically this just means it is legal for excite to cancel the existing contracts so that they can re-negotiate them.

So I don't think excite is out yet...

It's extortion. AT&T made an offer to buy the network from excite@home and the bond holders didn't think that it was high enough. They think that AT&T or some other entity who has an interest in having the network operational will make a better offer when they are under a more real threat of having the network turned off.

Seems to me the bondholders are the ones playing chicken. I don't get it: "The network is worth more than you're offering. Pay us more or at midnight the network goes down!" "OK, fine, shut it down; then the network will be worth zero." Seems to me the bondholders made a bad investment and are trying to get their money back. That's the risk they took; they should be big boys and take their lumps, like everyone else who lost on the .com bubble burst. 30 cents on the dollar is better than nothing.

Funny how not too long ago the cable companies said they couldn't possibly allow competition, that @Home was the only game allowed. Too bad they didn't listen to us customers and allow us to choose our own ISP.

CNET

--MB

I disagree with you that gIFT is is a viable alternative to Kazaa because it hasn't implemented the super node aspect of Kazaa. Basically, it's only useful for connecting to existing FastTrack networks, not forcreating entirely new independent networks.

However, I have no doubt that either gIFT or another open source alternative file sharing network will duplicate or surpass the functionality Kazaa currently provides. This will be especially true if FastTrack is shut down. Just look at download.com's Macintosh section. Because Kazaa has not been ported to the Macintosh, two versions of the open source gnutella clone are ranked one and two.

Clearly, there is a huge appetite for file sharing software that will no doubt be met by talented open source programmer perhaps even operating anonymously. While it may seem like this would provide cover from RIAA and other organization lawsuits, I believe it won't. gnutella, gIFT and all other file sharing tools rely on centralized servers for at least the distribution of their software. The RIAA could easily threaten suits against Limeware, sourceforge.net, and any other entity hosting file sharing tools or even linking to them. The latest deCSS court decisions banning linking prove this to be the case.

I disagree with you that gIFT is is a viable alternative to Kazaa because it hasn't implemented the super node aspect of Kazaa. Basically, it's only useful for connecting to existing FastTrack networks, not forcreating entirely new independent networks.

However, I have no doubt that either gIFT or another open source alternative file sharing network will duplicate or surpass the functionality Kazaa currently provides. This will be especially true if FastTrack is shut down. Just look at download.com's Macintosh section. Because Kazaa has not been ported to the Macintosh, two versions of the open source gnutella clone are ranked one and two.

Clearly, there is a huge appetite for file sharing software that will no doubt be met by talented open source programmer perhaps even operating anonymously. While it may seem like this would provide cover from RIAA and other organization lawsuits, I believe it won't. gnutella, gIFT and all other file sharing tools rely on centralized servers for at least the distribution of their software. The RIAA could easily threaten suits against Limeware, sourceforge.net, and any other entity hosting file sharing tools or even linking to them. The latest deCSS court decisions banning linking prove this to be the case.

http://download.cnet.com/downloads/0-10001-102-0-1 .html?tag=st.dl.10001.pop.10001-102-0-1

it has abou 1.5 million downloads every week .

vikas

There is a little bit more information about it on cnet:

http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-8022666.html? tag=mn_hd

although it does not contain too many facts beyond the actual case and the judgement.

Remember when a certain console that cost $199 at launch sold 410,000 units in the first week?

Look where it is now.

Not to knock it -- I love my Dreamcast, and especially now it is an incredible value.

Ian

Now mind you every store in town seems to have plenty of Gamecubes in stock, but if you want an X-Box, you have to kill for it.

Goldman Sachs did a survey among U.S. retailers in big cities, and so far 73% had sold out of the Xbox and 47% out of the Gamecube. Microsoft shipped an estimated 300,000 Xbox consoles around the nation, while Nintendo delivered some 700,000.
[from Shacknews]

Granted, this was a bit farther back in November, but the numbers seem plausible.
And as always: "There are lies, damn lies, and marketing!" (or somethin like that)

According to this article, about 50% of AT&T customers use the @Home Network. Of those 1/2, 20% can be transitioned to a new network "quickly"

The remainder of AT&T customers use the RoadRunner network and use @Home only for broadband content. If @Home goes dark tomorrow they won't be able to view their excite homepages but their network access will be unaffected.

Major Security hole in virtually all Linux distributions

I just saw over on CNet this article:

http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-8011238.htm l

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks like New York Appeals Court is saying one thing and California Appeals Court is saying the opposite?

Pure speech versus non-expressive speech...which is the accurate description of DeCSS?

It seems to me that since we have two conflicting rulings between states, there would be a pressing interest in escalating the issue to the federal level? Or is it possible for two different standards to be applied in two different regions?

Suddenly I'm a lot happier to be a Californian, even though it was the f'n studios that started the whole DeCSS fiasco to begin with...

- JoeShmoe

_

Gary McGraw must be a troll as well. He even mentioned this in a book he wrote.

What's open source's role in the security-by-obscurity debate?

Open-source software is neither more nor less secure than closed-source software. And the whole issue of whether open source is more secure is a red herring. We have a chapter in the book about it. Security by obscurity doesn't work. But just because you have your source code sitting around in public doesn't mean someone's going to do a free security review on it, either, which is what the open-source guys think. That's wrong.

I'm somewhat surprised--but either way it brings the unresolved question of disclosure bubbling to the froth again.

C|net Editor's Choice

New York Times Review

Business Week Sweet Music

Wall Street Journal Review

LA Times Review

PC Magazine 5/5 Rating

But more to the point, who has played the cell-phone style hidden game on the iPod? With new hacking sites popping up all over, has anyone found a firmware update that gives them any more games yet? Or playback of even more media formats or other abilities? Of couse it will soon have Windows compatibility and people have been booting off their iPods since the beginning, but lately I've seen someone modifying it for use as a simple address book, people trying to get it to work under *BSD and Linux, and development of a new graphic EQ for it. Anyone else made cool hacks?

Not knowing what this was exactly, I went to the site linked in this article that slashdot had on it's site. I then went to the site that was linked on that article. These are two quotes that I guess would sum it all up for the companies suing.


" Unlike its competitors, Sonicblue will not charge a monthly service fee. "

"The boxes will display digital photos and skip commercials automatically, which differs from the ability in current ReplayTV boxes to fast-forward through commercials"


The first statement, that they would not charge, would knock tivo down. The second would literally destroy the way that television content is paid for and profitable. Nuts, but true. Just thought I would point out as to why the companies are suing, although I do love the idea and plan to get one as soon as it hits the market.

Not knowing what this was exactly, I went to the site linked in this article that slashdot had on it's site. I then went to the site that was linked on that article. These are two quotes that I guess would sum it all up for the companies suing.


" Unlike its competitors, Sonicblue will not charge a monthly service fee. "

"The boxes will display digital photos and skip commercials automatically, which differs from the ability in current ReplayTV boxes to fast-forward through commercials"


The first statement, that they would not charge, would knock tivo down. The second would literally destroy the way that television content is paid for and profitable. Nuts, but true. Just thought I would point out as to why the companies are suing, although I do love the idea and plan to get one as soon as it hits the market.

The California case doesn't deal with jurisdiction
This one doesn't but the recent CA ruling concerning the Yahoo Vs France case Should have you covered if your are a US citizen. People in the UK may have problems though as theur Defamation laws are very antiquated.

This is truly idiotic, since robots.txt has never been a default part of any web server installation I've ever done, so it's completely a voluntary thing to create the file, and every webmaster should be WELL AWARE what this file does (by virtue of the fact that they had to create it). I mean, duh guys.

Yeah, so I'm off topic. But I just got the spam this morning, and I used to respect Google quite a bit, and witnessing them resorting to spam emails, begging us to let them spider our sites really tarnished their image, so let me rant a little. :p

Oh, and let's not forget about google suggesting robots.txt as a method to protect sensitive data recently. Be nice if they could decide if they wanted us to create robots.txt, or not..

For those who care, Here is the printable story...

In Oregon, things are different here...

But, I bet Tom McCall is stirring in his grave right now... with the potential of all those Californians becoming Oregonians via identity theft... who woulda thought they didn't even need to move here.

All this in the state that has Intel... hmmm.

Anyway, anyone remember the guy who tried to put the Oregon DMV driver record database online?

Step 2: Merge with MediaOne and control 30% of cable.

Step 3: Get the FCC to withdraw the cable ownership caps set during MediaOne merger

Step 4: Buy out the number one broadband company, despite protests from stockholders that AT&T (being the majority stockholder) had set itself up to pay very little for Excite@Home.

Step 2: Merge with MediaOne and control 30% of cable.

Step 3: Get the FCC to withdraw the cable ownership caps set during MediaOne merger

Step 4: Buy out the number one broadband company, despite protests from stockholders that AT&T (being the majority stockholder) had set itself up to pay very little for Excite@Home.

Don't forget, AOL is directing the development of the Cybiko. The Cybiko will be AOL's Palm Pilot.

Look away from the light.

Come on - this settlement isn't that bad. If you read the cnet article , Ballmer says that the money can be used to buy any kind of software (include Redhat) and the computers can be either PCs or otherwise - it doesn't specify what kind they have to be. "But Ballmer insisted the deal does not specify PCs running on Intel processors. "The benefits we provide can be used for PCs or Macintoshes," he said. "It can used for PC software or Macintosh software. Certainly the money can be used for non-Microsoft software, so I don't view it as some big thing about market share."

Use this link instead. ("ttp://" => "http://")

should be http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200-7978672.html

Don't forget the "H" in http . . . http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200-7978672.htmlt ag=mn_hd

Not sure if those are all the completely correct addresses to use, but in the face of some blatant FUD, they'll probably do okay . . .

Why would a person realy want to bother buying the Rio Reciever when you can put togeter an mp3 playing computer for less than a 100$. Meanwile this unit will at least set you back 127.95$ and that is if you buy it at buy.com as far as I can tell the unit should cost 300.00 dollars in most cases.

If a person is looking for a cheap stationary media player there really is no reason to go all out and get this thing. The way I see it you have two options one put together a high end 486or beter with a network card that way you can stream all the mp3's you want from your other computers be they mac's win boxes or 'nixers. Then conect the box to your hi-fi. For 40 dollars you can even throw in the option for a remote controller. The other option that I came up with is, if your on a buget and you want somthing that plays cds,mp3s and what the hell even mpg video go buy your self a Dreamcast they go for as litle as 70 bucks. With that you can do what ever you want even play doom.

Political News from Wired News - Cybercrime Treaty Finally Ready. After four years of haggling over the language, several countries including the United States will sign a cybercrime treaty.

WildernessCoast.org - Cybercrime Treaty Bibliography -- By Date. A wide collection of links that talk about the Cybercrime Treaty Same info sorted by title.

Council of Europe - Convention on Cybercrime.

The Convention on Cybercrime has been adopted by the Committee of Ministers during its 109th Session, on 8 November 2001 and will be opened for signature, in Budapest, on 23 November 2001.

The Convention will be the first international treaty on crimes committed via the Internet and other computer networks, dealing particularly with infringements of copyright, computer-related fraud, child pornography and violations of network security. It also contains a series of powers and procedures such as the search of computer networks and interception.

Its main objective, set out in the preamble, is to pursue a common criminal policy aimed at the protection of society against cybercrime, especially by adopting appropriate legislation and fostering international co-operation.

The Convention is the product of four years of work by Council of Europe experts, but also by the United States, Canada, Japan and other countries which are not members of the organisation.

It will be supplemented by an additional protocol making any publication of racist and xenophobic propaganda via computer networks a criminal offence.

[ ... ]

But Fred Eisner, a consultant for the Dutch government and private companies, said the draft made unfair demands on Internet service providers by asking them to track Web users' online movements.

"This draft convention lacks balance," Eisner told the assembly. "The convention explicitly gives much more power to law enforcement agencies and it has no system of checks and balances."

Bruce McConnell, president of McConnell International, a Washington-based consulting firm, said the treaty should be more forceful in protecting the privacy of Web users who are already worried about being spied on.

"There is concern that the powers of surveillance ... are not balanced by comparable protections for individuals' privacy," he said.

Maybe you trust the law-enforcement chiefs in D.C. to do the right thing. But here's the catch. The same new powers given to the United States will also handed over to Bulgaria, Romania, Azerbaijan, and other Council of Europe nations that-although officially democratic now-don't have a strong traditions of checks and balances on police power.

Do you want investigators rummaging around your clients' computer systems on warrants issued by former Soviet bloc nations?

That's the prospect that has pushed AT&T Corporation and other high-technology companies into feverishly trying to stop or at least soften the treaty. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Information Technology Association of America also oppose it.

Stewart Baker is one of the chief lobbyists for the treaty opponents. As a former general counsel of the National Security Agency and recipient of the Department of Defense Medal for Meritorious Civilian Service, he's got street cred on these issues in corporate America.

What worries Baker and his colleagues? Consider the following hypothetical: A Los Angeles screenwriter corresponds by e-mail with a neo-Nazi in Germany while researching a script. Shortly after, he finds federal agents examining the files on his home computer. The agents also visit America Online Inc. to retrieve records of the screenwriter's AOL usage.

The agents are fulfilling a warrant issued by German authorities allowing them to search for Nazi propaganda. Such material is unlawful in Germany but not in the U.S. They framed their warrant in terms of "suspected terrorist activity."

LAW.com (requires cookies) - International Treaty on Cybercrime Poses Burden on High-Tech Companies.

Maybe you're a civil libertarian, and maybe you're not. Maybe you worry about how the United States exercises its vast investigative and prosecutorial powers, and maybe you don't.

But if you counsel U.S. corporations on computer-related issues, you should be concerned about a new proposed treaty known as the "Convention on Cybercrime." The Council of Europe, a 43-nation public body created to promote democracy and the rule of law, is nominally drafting the treaty. Curiously, however, the primary architect is the U.S. Department of Justice.

The Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation are using a foreign forum to create an international law-enforcement regime that favors the interests of the feds over those of ordinary citizens and businesses. Their goal is to make it easier to get evidence from abroad and to extradite and prosecute foreign nationals for certain kinds of crimes.

Maybe you trust the law-enforcement chiefs in D.C. to do the right thing. But here's the catch. The same new powers given to the United States will also be handed over to Bulgaria, Romania, Azerbaijan, and other Council of Europe nations that -- although officially democratic now -- don't have a strong tradition of checks and balances on police power.

[ ... ]

Stewart Baker, a partner at Washington, D.C.'s Steptoe & Johnson, is one of the chief lobbyists for the treaty's opponents. As a former general counsel of the National Security Agency and recipient of the U.S. Department of Defense Medal for Meritorious Civilian Service, he's got street credentials on these issues in corporate America.

Slashdot | Implications Of The International Cybercrime Treaty.

SiliconValley.com part of San Jose Mercury News - Pioneer cybercrime pact tightens privacy rules.

MS-NBC - Pioneer cybercrime pact tightens privacy rules. PARIS, May 25 -- Stiff criticism from the EU and pressure groups has prompted drafters of the world's first treaty against cybercrime to tighten provisions protecting privacy online, the final text showed Friday.

[ ... ]

Against EU objections, it also limits the right of a country to reject a request from abroad to store and hand over data in potential crime cases if the requesting country thinks it could be misused.

The text says states should make sure that systems operators or other people who know how to use a certain system can be ordered to cooperate in any such a cyberprobe.

PARIS (Reuters) - Stiff criticism from the EU and pressure groups has prompted drafters of the world's first treaty against cybercrime to tighten provisions protecting privacy online, the final text showed on Friday.

The Council of Europe, a 43-state human rights watchdog, has amended the text to ensure police respect privacy rights when they follow digital trails to fight online crimes such as hacking, spreading viruses, using stolen credit card numbers or defrauding banks.

''The guarantees in the treaty have been reinforced,'' Peter Csonka, deputy head of the economic crime division at the Council's headquarters in Strasbourg, told Reuters after the Council posted the final text -- version 27 -- on its Web site.

But the treaty, which has aroused heated debate in cyberspace since its draft text became public last year, ignored calls by Internet service providers (ISPs) for fewer costly requirements on preserving data that could be linked to a crime.

It still accorded police wide powers to chase suspected cybercriminals -- powers some critics say go beyond what is legal in some Council member states or in observer countries like the United States, Canada and Japan due to sign the treaty.

ZDNet - Internet founder worried over EU cybercrime plans.

BRUSSELS --Vint Cerf, a founding father of today's Internet, said on Thursday that European Union plans for new rules to fight crime on the Web risked clashing with existing EU privacy regulations.

Cerf, who helped develop the Internet in the early 70s shortly after graduating from Stanford University and now works for WorldCom, said more secure network systems were an immediate priority for the successful development of the ubiquitous Web.

He told Reuters in an interview that Internet traffic should be retained only for billing purposes and was too cumbersome to be stored for police investigations.

Changes to a controversial treaty on cybercrime have done nothing to improve it, say civil liberty campaigners.

Next week, the Council of Europe will vote on the treaty, which has been redrafted 26 times before reaching its final version late in May.

The most recent changes were made to take into account the fears of civil liberty and privacy campaigners. But cyber-rights groups say the latest changes are purely cosmetic and have not diluted what they describe as its most pernicious sections.

The groups say that, if adopted in its current form, the treaty could lead to changes in legislation that would stifle rights to privacy and do little to curb the activities of law enforcement agencies.

[ ... ]

In December 2000, 23 organisations, banding together under the banner of the Global Internet Liberty Campaign (GILC), signed a letter condemning the 25th draft of the treaty as "appalling", and warned that it handed law enforcement agencies sweeping powers to snoop and could seriously erode online privacy.

Now, three civil liberty groups, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Privacy Information Center and Privacy International, have sent another letter to the Council of Europe outlining their "continuing concerns" over the wording of the treaty and saying that their fears have not been laid to rest.

The letter chastises the Council of Europe for refusing to open up the redrafting debates to non-governmental organisations and for, it says, ignoring the human rights and privacy concerns of organisations such as the GILC.

It goes on to say that the original criticisms still stand, and that the treaty does not pay enough attention to existing laws which safeguard human rights. It says the treaty's recommendations on protecting privacy are vague and do not go far enough.

IT industry gurus have branded the Council of Europe's Convention on Cybercrime 'foolish, unworkable and a legal con trick'.

The controversial treaty provides a blanket legislation to deal with all forms of internet crime from hacking to online pornography.

Caspar Bowden, director of internet think-tank FIPR, said: "The Convention is essentially a legal con trick, drafted in secret by a handful of nameless bureaucrats. It equates the internet - a network of private networks - with 'cyberspace', a metaphor from science fiction.

"By this sleight of hand, the internet is defined as a public space over which law enforcement should be granted unfettered powers of surveillance and extradition," he added.

International policy-makers this week ended a round of talks aimed at setting common rules affecting online trade and commerce, but they made little progress in bridging divisions that threaten to delay the pact.

In the works for nearly a decade, the Hague Convention on Jurisdiction and Foreign Judgments is still almost unknown outside international policy circles. Nevertheless, it could have broad implications for consumers and businesses by setting new rules for online copyrights, free speech and e-commerce--if it is approved.

Opposition to the treaty heated up Wednesday, when a two-week drafting session wrapped up with few concessions to critics, primarily from the United States, who say the pact threatens free speech and could force Internet service providers to become global content police.

"In a nutshell, it will strangle the Internet with a suffocating blanket of overlapping jurisdictional claims, expose every Web page publisher to liabilities for libel, defamation and other speech offenses from virtually any country, (and) effectively strip Internet service providers of protections from litigation over the content they carry," Jamie Love, director of Ralph Nader's Consumer Project on Technology (CPT), wrote in a report after the meeting.

The treaty is one of several efforts by the global community to grapple with a complicated legal issues on a borderless Web.

Four years ago, nations including the United States signed onto a World Intellectual Property Organization pact to protect copyright in the digital age. And several countries, including the United States, are hammering out the world's first cybercrime treaty, which would provide a standard for fighting online crime.

The Hague treaty differs from those efforts because it would not outline specific laws participants must follow. It's much broader, requiring participants to agree to enforce each others' laws on a variety of topics. As it stands, the treaty would require courts to enforce the commercial laws of the convention's 52 member nations, even if they prohibit actions that are legal under local laws.

BRUSSELS - The blueprint for a global code on Cyber-crime was agreed on in Strasbourg, France, Friday, paving the way for international rules governing online copyright infringement, online fraud, child pornography and hacking.

The 41 members of the Council of Europe (CoE), plus the U.S., Canada and Japan, signed on to a draft convention on cybercrime that is set to be rubber-stamped at ministerial level in September.

"Once adopted, the Convention will be the first international treaty on criminal offenses committed through the use of Internet and other computer networks," the Council of Europe said in a statement.

In September, the Council of Europe approved the Convention on cybercrime, a historic treatise that lays the foundation for legislation allowing for a greater sharing of information between countries to combat the rise of cybercrime.

The treatise isn't binding, but instead would have to be adopted into law by its 43 European member states and five outside countries including the United States, Canada and Japan.

The treaty is broad, covering crimes committed on the Internet such as fraud, child pornography and violations of computer network security. It also sets up global policing procedures for conducting computer searches, interception of e-mails, and extradition of criminal suspects.

More details on the CyberCrime Treaty can be found in the Privacy Digest archives dated September 26,2000, September 27,2000, October 09,2000, October 16,2000, October 18,2000, October 19,2000, October 25,2000, November 14,2000, November 20,2000, November 22,2000 and March 24,2001. This is not all the information at Privacy Digest and other sites so if you want to know more try a search

Because the reviews historically have not been kind.

It's neat. It's a swell toy. But it's expensive and produces photos of dubious quality. Anyone who has a couple hundred dollars to waste on something like this probably knows what he's getting into, but it's a damn shame the technology isn't quite there yet.

Watches are something everyone has, and it would be neat to get to the point where digital cameras are equally ubiquitous (albeit a bit scary from privacy and surveillance perspectives). But what are the odds that a consumer line like this will catch on when its flagship example is such a poor value? Most mainstream consumer products we see today started out expensive and crappy, but many more aren't around today because of those same drawbacks.

I suppose it'll change when another big player like Sony gets into the act. Though Sony is every bit as proprietary as Casio and perhaps more so, we'd at least benefit from having different proprietary techs banging it out on the open market. And maybe if I can transfer my low-res expensive watch photos to my low-res expensive pda, I'll feel better about having already wasted my money.

Actually, KDE 3.x will be faster than 2.x, according to the developers anyway. Also, its not GNOME vs KDE here. I am talking GTK+ vs KDE. If you don't run an actual GNOME desktop, GNOME apps whip KDE apps speedwise. Just go download Sylpheed and compare it to KMail. If you can't tell the difference, then you have infinate amounts of patience.

There should be no corrolation between age and CPU usage, only between features and CPU usage. Win2K might be older, but it has just as many features while being faster. That implies that the free software community cannot outcode Microsoft (which, I think, I something that they would rather not imply). Also, WinXP, while having more features than Win2K, is *faster* than Win2K. Why is it that the "evolution" of Microsoft software includes increases in speed while the "evolution" of GNOME and KDE don't?

My guess is that it gives them a random seed from 0 seconds to 49.7 days, probably to call a function called "murphy"

I just realized how rusty my c++ is, might have to start using it again, and if your are a game developer, this one is public domain.

What might be even better news, that Sega is in good financial shape, so they will carry on to make more great games(abliet for other consoles, but hey at least people will actually play their games now).

You should switch registrars as soon as possible, not only because NSI is unethical, but because your first few attempts may fail because NSI is very, very bad.

I work for an small ISP and whenever an NSI-registered domain we host comes up for renewal, we suggest that the domain owner switch registrars. We recommend Gandi, a bunch of French Linux geeks who we've never had a single problem with. They charge 12 euros a year, about $10-11. It helps that they are one of the cheapest, because transfers are often denied by NSI, meaning you lose your 12 euros. Make sure to start this process a while before your registration expires, so you can attempt multiple transfers if need be.

Be very, very careful not to let your domain expire. Occasionally, a customer will call up because their web site isn't working and we look into it and see that their domain name expired (generally because they forgot to pay their bill). In that case, we tell them to pay NSI ASAP or we often pay it ourselves, because of the NSI horrors we've had in the past.

One of our customers forgot to pay their NSI bill and the domain expired. NSI deleted it from their database, but it was still in the master registry. So the registry shows the domain as registered through NSI, but NSI has no records for it. This means that nobody can register the domain until it is expunged from the registry (which, funny enough, is also run by NSI). This takes an undetermined amount of time, meaning that they could do it today or they could do it in six months, but they absolutely will not tell you when they're going to do it.

In the case of our customer, it took about six weeks for NSI the registry to expunge the domain, which generally happens around 6:30 a.m. eastern time. As soon as it was expunged, a domain name hijacker registered the domain and won't relinquish it without getting a wad of cash.

Well, I think there's a few more inconsistencies we might not have realized in this story:

1. Slashdot was founded in 1997. The Taliban seized control of Afghanistan in 1996. I know that Slashdot is cool, but do you think that it spread by word of mouth to Afghanistan?
2. Linux was ported to Commodore in 1998. Was this guy infatuated in Linux without ever installing or seeing it?
3. The state of Texas initated the Microsoft antitrust debacle in 1997. Even if that (and details of it) spread by word of mouth, do you think this guy would have had time to form a rational opinion? ("I thought they were going to get Microsoft.")

As a side note, I feel sorry for anyone using any of the search engines that they remember from 1996.

from IGN

First of course, you have to have broadband at home (dsl, cable, ethernet connect). Then you get a HUB. anyway, connect your xbox to the Hub, along with your computer, basically your computer and Xbox will be sharing your broadband connect now.

Now the xbox can play against any other xbox that it detects on the same subnet, i.e. I can play against anyone whose connected their xbox to my university ethernet connect.

Now, using a program that makes a VPN (virtual private network) like this one

and you use your computer to make a LAN with someone you know (you have to know their ip) and BAM! You have a what looks like a LAN to anything connected to your HUB, with anyone over the net.

Since there are tons of boards and irc channels devoted to Xbox, it shouldn't be hard to find ip addresses to make VPNs over the net.

Supposedly xbox developers have been doing this for a while to play with eachother over the net, and when you think about it there's not reason it shouldn't work, the Virtual network is indistinguishible from a real LAN, your computer can't tell the difference, and neither should the xbox.

And I'll also point out that the federal Supreme Court, by not deciding to take a case, has also acknowledged that WA state's spam laws do not violate the Commerce clause as stated by the WA Supreme Court, since they are aimed to prevent fraud (such as false headers or incorrect removal instructions) as opposed to restricting commercial speech as other anti-spam laws have tried to done in the past. See this CNet story, for example (Tried to submit this when this was hot, of course it was rejected :-)