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Domain: nettaxi.com

Stories and comments across the archive that link to nettaxi.com.

Comments · 2

  1. Re:It's pretty fair... by MulluskO · · Score: 2 · on Yahoo To Try To Charge For POP3 Services

    I was using GeoCities free POP3 E-mail service. Then Yahoo! acquired GeoCities.

    The rollover went smoothly.

    A few months later I was asked to sign up for Yahoo! Delivers, that's what they call thier POP3 service, in order to continue accessing my E-mail via POP3. They ask you to check this box in your user preferences that says you agree that Yahoo! may send advertisments to you via E-mail, and in exchange you may use their service via POP3.

    I checked the box, eventually abandoned my GeoCities E-mail. After GeoCities became a part of Yahoo!, all GeoCities E-mail was only forwarded to the new address. I never, however, received any of the mail Yahoo! asked for my permission to deliver. Maybe this was because of my special transfer situation.

    I'd imagine, if there were any ads, people using their client software to block the ads might have been a problem.

    As for me, NetTaxi still offers free POP3 access. For the time being.

  2. simple ways to get around silly restrictions by Autonomous+Cow · · Score: 1 · on Still Can't Export Open-Source Crypto
    So C code is not "free speech". Big deal.

    If natural language (English or whatever you happen to speak) is "free speech", then translate C to that language, and export away.

    Perhaps use the c2txt2c translator (GPL'd open source) at http://personal.sip.fi/~lm/c2txt2c/ or http://www.nettaxi.com/citizens/lma/

    Of course c2txt2c does make it pretty obvious that the output text contains a program. But it would not be very difficult to write a translator that *hides* the program in a normal piece of literature. (along the lines of steganography)

    So maybe the government will get another un-clue and say that *any* chunk of text that is computer-readable and could be translated to source for a restricted kind of program is not "free speech".

    Digital messages (signatures) are already being encoded into .GIFs, .JPGs and the like -- why not encode a program or program fragment instead.

    What if the text if this message actually contains part of the source for PGP? (appropriately encoded, of course) It might.

    The end result is that as long as geeks are smarter than politicians (that's for(;;); in C) there will be ways for private citizens to communicate privately. And as long as the general populace continues to elect clueless politicians, silly rules will continue to be enacted and shoved down our throats.