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Wap doesn't work and here's detail of why it doesn't.

AIM? Uhhh. Look at the article. Ask yourself: Do I feel lucky?

ICQ? Hmmm. Nope. Used to be good, until AOL bought it. Now I wonder whether UINs are going to be vulnerable . . .

Yahoo! Messenger? Ah, a prima donna company that tries to take ownership of its users' pages. I think I'd be better off with AOL . . .

MSN Messenger? Ah, a "reliable," "free*" product, brought to you by the kind folks at Micro$oft.

PowWow? Honestly, how many people do you know that have even heard of it, let alone have bothered to create an account?




* Subject to terms decided by Microsoft. By signing up for MSN Messenger service, you hereby agree to give Microsoft Corporation (hereafter referred to as "We Own Your Soul") sole ownership and possession of any and all inventions, ideas, etc. produced by you (hereafter referred to as "Putty-brain"), including any electrochemical developments and all genetic by-products. These terms are subject to change at our discretion.

The following links are some that i've come across. They are rather interesting at times:

A how-to for stealing someone's domain name, which was a ddresed in the article. Furthermore, the specs for these protocols and implementations can be found here and here. There was also a critical interview calling for the implementation of these more secure systems in order to prevent the holes in the current system..

Anyway, now that I'm at home, (not that surfing at work doesn't happen) I did find this article while doing a quick search on "MP3.com Loses".

Briefly, it says that back on June 9th, MP3.Com will pay about $100 million to settle claims with Warner & BMG. The resolution permits MP3.Com to include songs from their labels in its Beam-It database.

I also saw someone else post in slashdot today that this type of arrangement happened with 4 of the Big-5, with Universal not going along with it yet (obviously... we're in this message board right now because of the Universal lawsuit today). The person also mentioned that MP3.com should ignore Universal, and only go with the other 4 of the Big-5... And as they enjoy profits from MP3.Com's service... Universal might come crawling back, PAYING to have MP3.Com do the service...

Well, I don't think they'll ever beg, but I sure hope something like that would happen! :)

I will agree though... MP3.Com has some deep pockets to shell out around 400 million. The only thing I figure is that they've crunched the numbers on the advertising and hits. Just think, almost every song people play on their lists equals a hit. I'm also thinking that they've got some ideas to add to the service soon. Hell, they're probably going to get in bed with AT&T so people can listen to their collection over their cell phone --- or something else that inane. Probably they see themselves as the future standard.

If you read the article I linked to, you'll see that MP3.Com had only (only?) 45,000 albums ripped & converted back in June. It was 25,000 back when I first heard about it. And now it's 80,000. Obviously, even while sued, they spent the time and money to keep on ripping.

Rader

AOL volunteers have already sued AOL, it's even been on here on slashdot.

Frankly the lawsuit is the most frivolous lawsuit imaginable. These people volunteered to monitor chat rooms and the like for AOL and one day suddenly realize that they would rather have gotten pay and sue AOL. From this story it seems that other companies are reviewing their volunteer policy based on the frivolous lawsuit because if someone can volunteer to do work and later sue for back wages, then someone else who receives non-financial payment for services rendered has an even stronger reason to sue for back wages because they are more likely to have been thought of as employees deserving payment by a court than a volunteer.


(-1 Troll)

yup.

the guy just bought a good domain, he is not in it for the revolution, just the pay-off.


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but the average Joe using a computer is not going to compile his browser

Is this a reason to write Moz off as bloated? How about a "browser only button?"

BTW NeoPlanet added Gecko a while back.

Here's one for you lawyers out there:
Is Slashdot/Andover violating the privacy of underage posters by publishing their comments in a book, even if they are stripped of user names?
Could the parents of one of those posters take legal action against Slashdot/Andover?
I don't know the answer, which is why I am asking...

Now here is what went wrong:

Many people didn't first hear about this from reading Rob's comments here. They found out about it through Andover's press release. If you read the original press release there is no mention that proceeds of the book are going to a charity. Also the release calls the book 'Jon Katz's'. Anyone practiced at the art of trolling through PR can easily see the release as an incredibly unsubtle attempt to firstly get attention on the year memorial of the massacre and secondly to sell the book by attaching Katz's name to it rather than the more-true-but-not-as-market-sexy 'written by slashdot posters'.

I think Rob's intentions were good, BUT someone on the Slashdot team MUST start reading Andover's PR firm's announcements before they go out on the wire. Because they are destroying Slashdot's reputation. In this case the offending PR was released by: CONTACT: Andover.Net Janet Holian, 978/635-5300
janet@andover.net
or Schwartz Communications, Inc.
Manya Rossignoli/Chris Stamm, 781/684-0770
cstamm@schwartz-pr.com

Hope that helps...

From the article above:

"Imagine if it had been Microsoft," Harris said.

:-)

Seems that back doors are the rage again. There was an article on internetnews.com about back doors in some shopping cart software that could allow a hacker complete control of the server it's installed on.

Anyone wanna go shopping?

Slashdot Signs with Black Light Media April 9, 1998

By the InternetNews.com Staff Advertising Report Archives
Black Light Media in Portland, ME said alternative Web site Slashdot has signed on for advertising sales, ad management, promotions, and public relations. Billings were not disclosed.
"Slashdot will significantly enhance BLM's ability to reach a diverse and tightly targetable audience for our advertising clients," said Ryan Meader, president of Black Light. "We believe that Slashdot is becoming a major player in the Linux and Open Software News markets."
Slashdot, "News for Nerds on the Stuff that Matters," is an alternative site catering to power users on the cutting edge of the computing industry--specifically, people interested in Open Source Software and mainstream (or not-so-mainstream) technology.
Black Light Media clients include Mac OS Rumors, InterWeather, Snoot, ClickWorld, and others.

_________________

http://www.internetnews.com/isp-news/article/0,108 7,8_216641,00.html

Ah... the web has a long memory, even though I do not. He's been consistent, at least (or at most).

[4/2/98] http://www.calinst.org/bulletins/bull 512i.htm
he suggested that the U.S. should expand copyrights to match the extended copyrights of European nations; continue its fight against worldwide piracy; and, expand intellectual property right protection by enacting the WIPO copyright treaties agreed to in Geneva in 1996 (see article below). He also stressed the necessity of other countries enacting and enforcing similar penalties for copyright infringements

[04/03/1997]http://www.star.so.swt.edu/97/04/ 03/040397n3.html
As a war pilot, scholar, White House special assistant, movie industry leader and author, Valenti has worn many hats throughout his career
...
He received his bachelor's degree in business from the University of Houston in 1946 and his M.B.A. from Harvard University in 1948. In 1952 Valenti co-founded Weekley and Valenti, the advertising/political consulting agency, which was in charge of coordinating the media during President John Kennedy's and Vice President Lyndon Johnson's visit to Texas in 1963
...
Valenti was in the motorcade in Dallas when Kennedy was assassinated, and within one hour of the shooting was hired as the special assistant to newly inaugurated President Johnson
...

[Mar. 14, 1997]http://www.mediacentral.com/Magazines/MediaDa ily/OldArchives/199703/1997031405.html
"Sen. Lieberman believes if you say 'V, S and L,' nirvana has arrived," Valenti said, adding that such a content rating "winds up lumping The Three Stooges in the same category as "Natural Born Killers." However, Valenti on Feb. 27 told a Senate committee hearing that he was not opposed to some changes in the system. "I've changed my mind," he said at the hearing. "I'm not inflexible."

[1992-1997(?)]http://iitf.doc.gov/members/valenti. html
Apparently, he was on "The President's Information Infrastructure Task Force." This site has not been updated in a while: "Use Netscape 1.1, IE 2.0, or CyberDog in 8 bit color" Cyberdog? Heh.

[1-28-98]http://www.twsu.edu/~news/insi de/1-28-98/forum1.html
Valenti will explore the relationships among free speech, censorship and personal responsibility in "Lights, Camera, Rhetoric! Who has control of television and movie violence?" on Monday, Feb. 9, at 7:30 p.m. in the Metropolitan Complex
No stranger to controversy, Valenti's first movie content battle came just weeks after becoming president of the MPAA in 1966 with "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" and its frank language. Other controversies followed, along with a Supreme Court decision that stated cities had the power to prevent the exposure of children to books and films which could not be denied to adults.
Those events led Valenti to announce in 1968 a new voluntary movie rating system, which has been revised occasionally to reflect changes in the movie audience.
In 1996, Valenti helped create a similar, and controversial, rating system for television.

[July 16, 1998]http://www.internetnews.com/i wlive/summer98/key4.html
Jack Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Association Of America, took on the persona of a fire-breathing, circuit-riding preacher as he talked about digital copyright protection to the afternoon keynote audience today at Summer Internet World.
...
"The only way to protect works [of intellectual property] and to guarantee their future is to employ technology to protect them whenever they go on the Internet," he pronounced. "If Congress confers legal status on any machine whose mission is to commit copyright burglary, we're in trouble."
Valenti's jeremiad was inspired by proposed U.S. legislation being revised later the same afternoon in Washington. The bill would implement an international treaty--the World Intellectual Property Organization treaty, signed by more than 80 countries in October 1996--extending copyright protections to digital works, such as digitized movies, software, and the contents of Web sites. Each country must pass enabling legislation for the treaty if its existing laws don't already cover the treaty's provisions.
In its original version the U.S. bill would have criminalized the manufacture of any device that could be used to circumvent copyright--for example, software to decrypt an encrypted movie--but this provision has been opposed by hardware and software makers who don't want to be responsible for every possible use to which their products could be put. They have proposed criminalizing the act of copyright violation rather than the manufacture of the equipment, but the motion picture industry and recording industries oppose this strategy as being too difficult to enforce.
"We don't want to ban VCRs," Valenti said. "The only folks who have cause for concern are the makers of black boxes, which are nothing more than stealing machines." The film industry fears unleashing the ability to copy movies on DVD, since such technology could produce unlimited copies with no degradation in quality, removing any intrinsic incentive to purchase a commercial DVD rather than a pirated one.
Valenti cut his remarks short so that he could fly to Washington to attend congressional meeting involving the WIPO legislation, saying that when he accepted the invitation to speak several months ago, he didn't know the bill would be revised the same day.
Valenti wasn't exactly preaching to the converted, however. In a panel discussion put together to fill the rest of his speaking time, speakers pointed out that the Motion Picture Association of America's approach to the WIPO legislation could make it a criminal offense to commit such everyday acts as setting a Web browser to refuse cookies, if they were being used as part of a copyright protection scheme. Moreover, even manufacturing a browser that is able to refuse cookies would become a crime.
"Jack doesn't want these laws to be so sweeping, but Washington doesn't always get it right," said Jason Catlett, founder of Junkbusters, a company dedicated to stopping the spread of Internet junk mail.
"I run a Web site, and I think that people who violate copyrights should all go to hell, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions," said David Fiedler, editor of the Mecklermedia site Webdeveloper.com. "This legislation might make your computer illegal because if programmed correctly it could be used to circumvent copyright." He also pointed out that the Motion Picture Association of America had in fact sought to ban VCRs and video rental when they were first introduced.

[December 12, 1996]http://www.cme.org/press2.html
"The age-based system that Valenti's group is proposing is inadequate and will not be helpful to parents," explained Kathryn Montgomery, CME President. "The ratings group has chosen to ignore the recommendations of academic experts, parents, child advocacy groups, and professional organizations to develop a usable ratings system that can work with the V-chip," Montgomery added. "Instead, they have purposely devised a system that will not tell parents whether a program contains violence, sex, or offensive language."

[April 25, 1966]http://www. resignation.com/historicaldocs/letters/04251966_va lenti.html
The economic commitments to my growing family cause me to regretfully submit my resignation as Special Assistant to the President, effective May 15.
(reply:) Dear Jack:
It has been a very long day.

[Tuesday, 19 May, 1998]http://www.chl.ca/Cannes98/may19_pirac y.html
CANNES, France -- The film industry is making progress in its war against piracy, but digital copying is posing a new and "cancerous problem," the head of the U.S. film association said Tuesday.
Recent raids, including the seizure of 8 million videos in Hong Kong, show progress is being made against pirates who cost the U.S. industry up to $5 billion a year, said Jack Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Association of America.
...
"In digital, the 1,000th copy is pure and pristine as the first copy. So digital presents a cancerous problem," Valenti said.
His trade group is spending about $50 million annually to fight piracy, including employing ex-FBI agents to bolster other countries' efforts.
"What we're trying to do in China is get market access," he said. Hollywood is limited to 10 films a year in the world's most populous nation.
Valenti said he'll try again with a trip in the fall.
The carrot for the Chinese?
"We'd like to invest with Chinese partners in state-of-the-art cinema," he said. "We are looking forward to a partnership relationship with China."

[September 28, 1995]http://ww w.economicclub.org/Pages/archive-old/abstracts/arc h-valenti0.htm
Currently, a good many public officials have certified that the so-called "popular culture"-defined as movies, television, and musical recordings-is the prime villain in what they perceive to be the clanging of the last ding-dong of doom for this society, the source bed of much of our ills. TV is a powerful medium, but there are deadly combustibles in the community, more noxious than any movie or TV program, and violence has been on the decline in movies and television for the past decade. A restoration of the homely" standards by which ordinary Americans have so long and through so much turmoil sustained their values, maintained their families, and guarded their country--not rating systems and censorship--is the only means for solving American social ills.

[02/07/96]http://www.house.gov/judiciary/461.htm
But what we do know is this binary numbers future is coming. It will have large impact, as well as both sublime and dislocating effect, on millions of Americans. It is the mandate of the Congress to peer beyond the veil, to make sensible and required judgments about how to make absolutely sure that America's grandest trade asset, its intellectual property, is protected in an era of technology so magical it verges on fantasy.
...
This committee knows full well the broad global sweep of American intellectual property which in 1994 produced over $45 billion in international sales, and is that rarity, a producer of surplus balance of trade, a phrase seldom heard in the corridors of the Congress. These creative works are the jewels in America's trade crown. To protect these delicate products in cyberspace is of transcendent importance. For if you cannot protect what you own, you own nothing.

[03/26/99]http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/14 _1/199903/t4151392.htm
President Kim Dae-jung yesterday told visiting U.S. commerce secretary that Korea will maintain the controversial screen quota system which limits imports of foreign movies into Korea, in defiance of U.S. demands for film market liberalization.
...
He made the remark as Jack Valenti, head of the American Film Producers Association, suggested that Seoul scrap the system, saying Korea is the only Asian country which maintains a quota.

what does this mean? it means that if you use aol as your internet connection (and god alone knows why anyone would), you're s.o.l. it won't connect to the net -- you have to go outside aol for that.

which raises the question: WHY would you have aol???

On the one hand, I can't stand cybersquatters, who do abolutely nothing with the domain, but just wait for a catch. How many times have you been to a website that says "still under contruction" or "this domain has been parked"? It is also painful to see time/money wasted in courts to straighten out these people.

But, on the other hand, laws like these only make the situation more precarious. Trademark holders are certainly going to abuse the power, bringing more innocent people to their knees. Has "slashdot" been trademarked? If not, what prevents an organization from registering the trademark (even much later), and then bringing charges against Rob Malda? I know the Cyberpiracy Act is supposed to be aimed at cybersquatters, but I fear the power is going to be abused anyway. The Act is not going to reduce litigation by drawing clear lines. It is going to reduce litigation by letting Big Companies intimidate weaker ones.

What is the solution? The simplest thing (and IMHO the best) is to dissociate trademarks from domain names. You say, "Hey, that isn't fair! Apple Inc. should have every right to hold apple.com. It shouldn't be arbitrary!". I say, I don't know about you, but, what I do is this: if I want to find a company/product on the web, I type in a few keywords into a search engine, and then follow links from there. I couldn't care less what URL hosted the website. If I find the site interesting and worth returning to, I bookmark the site. More often than not, I never have to remember the URL or have to type it into a browser. If this is how most people work, then whether or not Apple Inc. holds apple.com is moot. Isn't this how we behave with telephone numbers anyway? I don't bother remembering telephone numbers most of the time. I just check the yellow pages as necessary. All that matters is the search engine/directory.

Sreeram.

Internet News posted a story at http://www.int ernetnews.com/bus-news/article/0,1087,3_202671,00. html. They interviewed me this morning, presumably after seeing my original post here on /. I haven't seen any other stories.

Ralph Brandi

I submitted an article to slashdot the other day about an article over at internetnews.com about the domain change, and how many people were upset. It wasn't posted, but I still think it's pretty good. I also noticed today that there's another article concerning how ICANN and NTIA aren't happy with Network Solutions, and also whether or not Network Solutions is violating their agreement with ICANN.
NTIA and ICANN may also be good sources to voice opinions to concerning this sudden change Network Solutions has performed.

I submitted an article to slashdot the other day about an article over at internetnews.com about the domain change, and how many people were upset. It wasn't posted, but I still think it's pretty good. I also noticed today that there's another article concerning how ICANN and NTIA aren't happy with Network Solutions, and also whether or not Network Solutions is violating their agreement with ICANN.
NTIA and ICANN may also be good sources to voice opinions to concerning this sudden change Network Solutions has performed.

It seems that, while InterNIC claims this was an attempt to prune the delinquant squatters, most of the domains dropped were those that were due up for payment (or repayment) during the month of March. Rumor has it that an additional 7k domains were lost the following monday night bringing the total to 25k.

To make matters worse, InterNIC seems to be telling people that they need to re-register their lost domains with WorldNIC instead of InterNIC (at $119 instead of $70). Can we say "motive"? I know of several people that have had their lost domains re-registered by someone *else*. Talk about a bad day...

Another interesting article.

Lock-tight on this video doctoring issue. We're talking major libel one way, and major perjury the other way. I think this may be a milestone on this case.
What does this crowd think about Ellison's idea of splitting MS into two, identical companies, and give one to Ballmer and one to Gates. I think that actually has a shot of working.
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