Slashdot Mirror

http://p artners.nytimes.com/library/tech/00/05/biztech/art icles/26build.html

.. The obligitory link without login
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Just replace "www." with "partners." and I think it should work (someone elses cookie is on my computer right now so it works either way).

And moderators, no, that's not informative :-)

The NYTimes has an article on it as well, here... I think you may have to register.

Ok, yes, of course we must consider that it's just FUD, and these people seem like flacks, but it doesn't necessarily mean that these aren't true statistics. I'm struck particularly by the refernece by the store owner that singles' sales are dropping most precipitously. That's where the RIAA and all really take a hit.... singles cost, what, $5(?) and have only one or two songs.... much better profitablity than LP discs. I think Napster does affect the sales of those things.

But I hate those things. If singles became primarily distributed over the Net, for $.50 a pop, that'd make me a happy happy camper. CD prices are ungodly, it's true, but why RIAA goons can't wake up and exploit the living hell out of the public's desire for instant downloads of the New Big Thing (tm) like Britney or who-the-tanj-ever for dirt cheap.... well, it sucks.

In conclusion... um... go Napster?

According to the NY Times, the government seriously investigated a horizontal breakup, but could not find anyone who wanted to buy rights to Microsoft's code.

http:// partners.nytimes.com/library/tech/00/04/biztech/ar ticles/30remedy.html

The proposal called for forcing Microsoft to auction the source code for the Windows operating system to other companies, which would develop and improve it, creating competition in the operating system business. [...]

But as the states quickly found out, there was one big problem. When they talked to the various companies that might be bidders in the Windows auction, they learned that none had any interest in bidding. The consensus was that the computer code was too complicated, and the price was likely to be too high.

Presumably, Oracle was one of the companies that wanted nothing to do with a horizontal split.
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I would like to officially announce my candidacy for karma whoring by point out that you can log into partners.nytimes.com which doesn't require a login.

Please bestow mucho karma upon me.

Here's an article about the subject in the NY Times.

Click here.

Recent editions of the book (sorry, I don't have my copy to hand) contain an appendix that details how Fahrenheit 451 was censored by the publisher in some editions, without the author's permission. Seems a bit ironical, doesn't it?

The first film version of 1984 (not the Hurt-Burton color one) was disliked by Orwell's widow. She bought up all the copies, the rights returned to her, and now that film is difficult or impossible to view. (She died before the second version was produced.)

Censorship need not be by the government, and bad laws are not the only way it is implemented. The film version of Fahrenheit 451, by Francois Truffaut points this up very well in just the initial frames: one sees telescopically a lot of television antennae over an English suburb. It is television that is the technology that causes these social changes, not the government. Montag in the film (but not the book) tries to explain why books are burned--it boils down to "books make people unhappy."

Neither Fahrenheit 451 nor 1984 is likely to be read freely online soon--their copyrights will extend for a long time. But their spirit of freedom and aim in preserving our book culture does motivate those of us "bookpeople" who scan books and place them online to share. Please join us! and please boycott those locked-up e-books being announced today!

We already know that major corporations pay for marketing information collected from unwitting surfers. Are we willing to bring universal access to humanity at the price of making everyone a target for marketers?

This is definitely not an argument against universal access. Give me your home address and I'll tell you why...o.k. fine, I'll tell you anyway. All of the marketing information is already available. Yes, they might get a bit more detailed info (and know you have a 500mhz p3) but beyond a certain point, gathering marketing information is a useless proposition. hmmm, here's the link. Personally I think marketing info hits a type of Heisenberg limit where the simple asking of the question changes the answer to such a degree that it is meaningless.

Then see if there's another way to finance this venture, one that doesn't depend on turning hapless people into cash cows to be milked by the highest bidder.

Well, for anyone who hopes to makes money with advertising on the Net, the constant parade of cash cows is what it is going to take. And I think it's going to happen anyway. And once they get a taste of dial-up, they'll learn of the freedom that comes with broadband. Hopefully by the time they get there, the Internet will still be Free.
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Well, if you do read the whole story, you realize that what PPI is saying is the DMCA is not strong enough to stop services such as Napster.

For example, they make the claim that the law is not strong enough, because Napster can claim immunity as a common carrier, or not as a common carrier, or whatever (your point 1). However, the judge in the Napster case has already ruled they are liable--no change in the DMCA law is needed--they are just shouting to get campaign dollars for the Democrats from the RIAA.

They also claim that a judge should be allowed to grant an injunction under the DMCA, or that the time limits are not strong enough. False--Napster has not been able to escape current DMCA law--no change in the DMCA law is needed. (Their case might be stronger if the judge had gone the other way, but it is certainly premature now.)

I doubt that our poor U.S. representatives will be able to understand these affairs. Instead, Michael Ovitz should be called to testify about scour.c om. Heck, this is an ex-Disney president who is making millions as an agent representing talent. And his company enables trading music online! What do you think he would say about PPI's proposed legislation?

(I think he would say that if the legislation is relaxed, a lot of people could make money on this new technology. But if the DMCA is made more rigorous, it will only instantiate an obsolete business model and alienate customers.)

What a pathetic story! See http://www.theonion.org/oni on3618/kid_rock_starves.html.

Meanwhile, The New Times reports http:// partners.nytimes.com/library/tech/00/05/biztech/ar ticles/22tune.html that some guy named Michael Olvitz owns most of Scour.com. And Scour Exchange allows users to trade copyrighted music online!!!

The article goes on to say: "Hilary Rosen, the president of the recording industry association, said the group was aware of Scour Exchange's activities and was considering its options. But she said the organization did not want to rush to file lawsuits against each Napster-like service, hoping the decision in that case case might dissuade copycats. "We don't have any interest in litigating our way through the Internet," she said.

"But in reality the industry association might simply lack the resources to file enough lawsuits, given the boom in these services and the complexity of the attendant technology. Most recently, a 23-year-old Irish programmer created Freenet, which would enable people to share files online directly with one another in a way that would make it virtually impossible for copyright holders to find a central database or hub to blame for the interaction...."

"Brian Transeau [BT] ... said people will inevitably trade copyrighted music on the Web, so artists might as well try to figure out how to capitalize on the sites making that possible. "It's an uncontrollable situation," BT said. "You might as well embrace it and make the best of it, or you're going to go insane trying to prevent it." "

Open software advocates DON'T NEED TO copy from proprietary software--they can make their own, better!

When you post a story that involves a link to the NY Times website, how about just prefixing the "www" with "partners" (http:// partners.nytimes.com/library/tech/00/05/circuits/a rticles/18aban.html), for the benefit of those who haven't registered, or don't want to?

Muchas gracias...now back to our program already in progress...

raunchola (at) hushmail (dot) com

http:/ /partners.nytimes.com/library/tech/00/05/circuits/ articles/18aban.html

Seriously, I can't see any reason other than misguided RIAA-style "showing who's boss" to still guard 8-bit era software. I know, I have a page dedicated to my favourite C64 games and once received an appreciating letter from the creator of one of the games I included.

Whenever you see a reference to a NYT article remember this: Replace "www" with "partners" in the URL and voila! No login required. Here's the article without needing to login.

http: //partners.nytimes.com/library/tech/00/05/biztech/ articles/20privacy.html

Just replace "www" with "partners."

raunchola (at) hushmail (dot) com

Bill Gates can give 1 Gig $ to fund foreign immunizations (and nuff respect to him for doing so), but the thing is, that money is "cute" and non-controversial. It is a hand out that doesn't make any statements about changing the system

Read this NYT article. The system of relentless profiteering and patent monopolies by drug companies, to the great demise of people in 3rd world countries, is a system in dire need of change. It is no less important, and in my mind, far more important than RedHat giving 50k to the EFF.

Here.

Here.

Among the news sources refraining so far from comment is The New York Times.

I'm sorry to see The Times and The Washington Post failing to jump to the defense of a news publisher such as /. and informing their readers that this is a First Amendment issue where a large corporation is attempting to use copyright law to protect alleged trade secrets, promote a monopoly in network servers, and suppress free discussion online in /. and other fora of what is happening.

When can we expect to see some front-page news on this First Amendment issue? (I assume it is not because they didn't hear about it or don't know who to ask to learn the facts.)

I'm totally behind you guys. If there's anything that we as readers can do, just post it.

I think that we readers can certainly help by calling attention to this. I'm begging everyone to send e-mail to Microsoft, the press, and representation in Congress. While the folks at Andover are waging the war on the legal front, we can get a lot accomplished using our power as consumers. Let people know that you're angry. Don't just sit there and stew about it.

Here are some great places to start:
contact@microsoft.com
Reuter's News Agency
Associated Press
ZDNet
New York Times
Tech Section of MSNBC

Also find out who your representatives in Congress are and tell them what you think about Microsoft's bending of the law.

For example, I saw this post yesterday lost in the more than thousand replies to the Microsoft threat:

1. Send an email to Mr Weston with the following text:

   Dear Mr. Weston:

   I certainly do not appreciate Microsoft's attempt to use existing laws to censor unfavorable comments made in a public forum. From all the postings that Microsoft asked to be removed, there is only one which might have infringed Microsoft's copyrights. I believe Microsoft took advantage of just one post to try to suppress lawful and valid critique, and I am very unhappy about that kind of disrespect to the Constitution and the laws of this country. I would also like to warn you that you made some claims under penalty of perjury that are unmistakenly deceiving and suggest a retraction by Microsoft of some of those false claims.

   Sincerely,
   ....... your name here ......

2. Email to the Antitrust Division of the US Department of Justice with the following text:

   Dear Mr Klein:

   I would like to inform you of a new antitrust practice of Microsoft Corporation regarding its new Windows 2000 operating system.

   Microsoft Corporation has purposefully broken interoperability with preexisting secure networking standards in an attempt to grab the portion of the server market currently held by Unix (TM) and Linux operating systems. To this goal, Microsoft has implemented an extension to the widely used Kerberos protocol that is incompatible with all existing implementations and keeps the specifications as a trade secret.

   Recently, Microsoft made a restricted release of the specifications of their proprietary extension that requires the licensee to agree to use the information only for security auditing and not for implementing interoperable Unix protocols. However, when this information was leaked to the public Web forum known as Slashdot, Microsoft began an attempt to not only suppress possibly copyrighted information but also criticism and explanations of how the protocol works.

   It may be of your interest to investigate this new demonstration of antitrust behavior by Microsoft Corporation.

3. Write your congressperson with the following text:

   Dear Mr/Ms ....

   I am writing you to inform you about some portions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act that are clearly being used for a purpose that I am sure is not what Congress intended when it enacted it. I would like you to consider an amendment to this Act to clarify some points.

   In particular, Microsoft Corporation is attempting to use the DMCA to suppress free speech in the public Web forum known as Slashdot. While there was a leak of copyrighted information posted to that forum, Microsoft Corporation is using the DMCA to try to also suppress criticism and technical advice offered by some posters. While that technical advice might be unwelcome to Microsoft because it concerns proprietary protocols that Microsoft is unwilling to publicly discuss, this by no means is a copyright infringement, just a possibly unqualified opinion.

   I am sure the intention of the DMCA was to prevent and punish illegal acts on the Internet, and not to be used as a vehicle to suppress criticism or dissenting opinions.

   Thank you,

4. Email the New York Times with the following text:

   The new attempt of Microsoft Corporation to suppress public criticism and dissenting viewpoints in the forum Slashdot shows that Microsoft is continuing its monopolistic practice without regard to the current antitrust trial in which it is involved.

   It seems that a breakup of Microsoft Corporation is fully justified, given that in the current situation Microsoft is big enough to just ignore the United States government and judiciary and disrespect the United States Constitution.

   The new embrace and extend tactic is using proprietary extensions to a widely used secure networking protocol in order to grab the Unix server market. When the protocol was made public, thus allowing Unix and Linux servers to interoperate with Windows 2000 machines, Microsoft claimed copyright infringement and is attempting to erase the information (and with it also some criticism and technical explanations) by threatening with lawsuits. The basis of its claims is the new Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which was enacted to fight pirates, not to suppress freedom of the press. This outrageous demonstration of contempt must be stopped now.

Of course, it's here.

1. Send an email to Mr Weston with the following text:

   Dear Mr. Weston:

   I certainly do not appreciate Microsoft's attempt to use existing laws to censor unfavorable comments made in a public forum. From all the postings that Microsoft asked to be removed, there is only one which might have infringed Microsoft's copyrights. I believe Microsoft took advantage of just one post to try to supress lawful and valid critique, and I am very unhappy about that kind of disrespect to the Constitution and the laws of this country. I would also like to warn you that you made some claims under penalty of perjury that are unmistakenly deceiving and suggest a retraction by Microsoft of some of those false claims.

   Sincerely,
   ....... your name here ......

2. Email to the Antitrust Division of the US Department of Justice with the following text:

   Dear Mr Klein:

   I would like to inform you of a new antitrust practice of Microsoft Corporation regarding its new Windows 2000 operating system.

   Microsoft Corporation has purposedly broken interoperability with preexisting secure networking standards in an attempt to grab the portion of the server market currently held by Unix (TM) and Linux operating systems. To this goal, Microsoft has implemented an extension to the widely used Kerberos protocol that is incompatible with all existing implementations and keeps the specifications as a trade secret.

   Recently, Microsoft made a restricted release of the specifications of their proprietary extension that requires the licensee to agree to use the information only for security auditing and not for implementing interoperable Unix protocols. However, when this information was leaked to the public Web forum known as Slashdot, Microsoft began an attempt to not only suppress possibly copyrighted information but also criticism and explanations of how the protocol works.

   It may be of your interest to investigate this new demonstration of antitrust behavior by Microsoft Corporation.

3. Write your congressperson with the following text:

   Dear Mr/Ms ....

   I am writing you to inform you about some portions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act that are clearly being used for a purpose that I am sure is not what Congress intended when it enacted it. I would like you to consider an ammendment to this Act to clarify some points.

   In particular, Microsoft Corporation is attempting to use the DMCA to suppress free speech in the public Web forum known as Slashdot. While there was a leak of copyrighted information posted to that forum, Microsoft Corporation is using the DMCA to try to also suppress criticism and technical advice offered by some posters. While that technical advice might be unwelcome to Microsoft because it concerns proprietary protocols that Microsoft is unwilling to publicly discuss, this by no means is a copyright infringement, just a possibly unqualified opinion.

   I am sure the intention of the DMCA was to prevent and punish illegal acts on the Internet, and not to be used as a vehicle to suppress criticism or dissenting opinions.

   Thank you,

4. Email the New York Times with the following text:

   The new attempt of Microsoft Corporation to suppress public criticism and dissenting viewpoints in the forum Slashdot shows that Microsoft is continuing its monopolistic practice without regard to the current antitrust trial in which it is involved.

   It seems that a breakup of Microsoft Corporation is fully justified, given that in the current situation Microsoft is big enough to just ignore the United States government and judiciary and disrespect the United States Constitution.

   The new embrace and extent tactic is using proprietary extensions to a widely used secure networking protocol in order to grab the Unix server market. When the protocol was made public, thus allowing Unix and Linux servers to interoperate with Windows 2000 machines, Microsoft claimed copyright infringement and is attempting to erase the information (and with it also some criticism and technical explanations) by threatening with lawsuits. The basis of its claims is the new Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which was enacted to fight pirates, not to suppress freedom of the press. This outrageous demonstration of contempt must be stopped now.

Fun with Amazon's One-Click Shopping, or "you mean you didn't order five hundred copies of Joy of Preteen Sex?"

Doesn't Amazon's proprietary exclusive patented HANDS OFF IT'S OURS AND YOU CAN'T HAVE IT One-Click Shopping system use cookies to save buyers those arduous extra clicks? And doesn't this mean that someone using this exploit can then get your personal buyer's information? ("Your," not "my", at least until Amazon stops suing people right and left.)

Gee, I guess it's a good thing that Amazon has defended their patent so vigorously, or else customers of other companies would be equally at risk.

By the way, this is off-topic, but I figure readers would be amused. Who is to blame for the "ILOVEYOU" worm? Those funloving Filipino folks who wrote it? Microsoft, for making their scripting language so insecure and so easy to subvert? Why no. According to those geniuses in Congress, the $15-billion dollars in damages (I wonder why they didn't say "$15-trillion" or $15-quadrillion" as long as they were pulling numbers out of thin air) are due to the slackness and irresponsibility of McAfee, the anti-virus vendor. I've got to be kidding, right? Well, check it out.

Yours WDK - WKiernan@concentric.net

Fun with Amazon's One-Click Shopping, or "you mean you didn't order five hundred copies of Joy of Preteen Sex?"

Doesn't Amazon's proprietary exclusive patented HANDS OFF IT'S OURS AND YOU CAN'T HAVE IT One-Click Shopping system use cookies to save buyers those arduous extra clicks? And doesn't this mean that someone using this exploit can then get your personal buyer's information? ("Your," not "my", at least until Amazon stops suing people right and left.)

Gee, I guess it's a good thing that Amazon has defended their patent so vigorously, or else customers of other companies would be equally at risk.

By the way, this is off-topic, but I figure readers would be amused. Who is to blame for the "ILOVEYOU" worm? Those funloving Filipino folks who wrote it? Microsoft, for making their scripting language so insecure and so easy to subvert? Why no. According to those geniuses in Congress, the $15-billion dollars in damages (I wonder why they didn't say "$15-trillion" or $15-quadrillion" as long as they were pulling numbers out of thin air) are due to the slackness and irresponsibility of McAfee, the anti-virus vendor. I've got to be kidding, right? Well, check it out.

Yours WDK - WKiernan@concentric.net

According to today's NY Times Biggest Music Companies Settle Antitrust Case on CD Price-Fixing.

The root of the MS monopoly is its dominance in the OS sector. Breaking up the company into two pieces leaves the OS monopoly intact.

See http://partners .nytimes.com/library/opinion/krugman/043000krug.ht ml for a more detailed discussion by Paul Krugman.

For the privacy freaks, or just the lazy ones out there, keep in mind one can always use NYTimes's partners link (eg replace www. with partners.).
In this case the URL would be http://partners.nytimes.com/library/financial/pers onal/050700personal-privacy.html
This will bypass the required registrtation forms ..

-- Chris Chabot
"I dont suffer from insanity, i enjoy every minute of it!"

According to t his NY Times article (free reg. required), Microsoft said the following:

Free reg not required. Use this link instead.


=================================

There's always the potential for misuse, More important than the technical side of this is the human side. It's not something technology is ever going to be able to solve.

We as a society chose to get more connected One of the perils of doing that is, the more connected you are with everybody, the more connected you are with malicious people

Digimarc's technology also uses images to store information but takes a different approach. Its digital watermarks are designed not to be perceptible to the human eye...

Imagine, for example, a photograph on a magazine page. Before the magazine is printed, the watermark is applied to an electronic version of the photograph by using Digimarc's production software. When printed, the photograph may look no different at first glance, but in fact the pixels have been adjusted to contain tiny signals that can be picked up by a digital camera that includes Digimarc software. The technology adjusts the luminance of the pixels, which a trained eye might pick up as a slight variation in an image's color or shades of light and dark.

Replace "partners" with "www" in the URL to get the special Login Required version:

Like so.


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The real battle with privacy, as the article points out, is getting people to realize that they really don't have enough. People presume that their e-mail is "secure enough" without really thinking who could intercept it or how embarassing it might be for their boss to read the joke they just forwarded about the transgender trapeze artists.

(The company my father works for has said to its employees: "Don't do anything that you wouldn't want to see printed on the front page of the newspaper." Perhaps people should apply that same principle to their e-mail.)

The article doesn't touch upon another future possibility: that if no one has privacy (including government, corporations, and the rich), then privacy itself loses much of its value. In a world like in Halprin's The Truth Machine, I would not care if all my secrets were out, because everyone else's secrets would be similarly exposed. (That would be the death of the tabloids, and not a moment too soon!)

-- Diana Hsieh

This article discusses a joint venture of Microsoft and Xerox into "copyright protection software". Does anyone have any idea what kind of technology is involved here? If I can see it on the screen or hear it on the speakers, can you really make it impossible to copy? Inconvenient, yes, but I don't see how you can do better (or worse, I should say).

To get around registration for any NYTimes articles, simply substitute "partners" for "www", e.g.: http://partners.nytimes.com/library/tech/00/04/cyb er/cyberlaw/28law.html
instead of:
http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/00/04/cyber/cy berlaw/28law.html

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To get around registration for any NYTimes articles, simply substitute "partners" for "www", e.g.: http://partners.nytimes.com/library/tech/00/04/cyb er/cyberlaw/28law.html
instead of:
http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/00/04/cyber/cy berlaw/28law.html

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04/28/00

In what we see as an important show of support from a major force in journalism, the New York Times has linked directly to our list of sites which currently house the DeCSS code.

The links have been a source of contention in recent weeks, as the MPAA and eight Hollywood film studios have sought to force us to remove them, claiming the links are the same as having the code published on our own site. We see it differently - while they may have been able to get a federal court to order the material off of our site, forbidding us from telling the world what other sites still have it would be a very ominous precedent to set.

The action by the Times comes in an article in today's electronic edition. What makes it particularly significant is this paragraph in which our attorney, Martin Garbus, is quoted:

"Take a hypothetical case, he said: If a major newspaper that operated an online news site wrote an article saying that somebody had broken the DVD encryption code, and it linked to a site that had the code on it, 'I think they'd have absolutely every right to do that.'"

At the bottom of the page, they do precisely that, linking not only to 2600, but to "2600's catalog of DeCSS mirror sites".

04/28/00

In what we see as an important show of support from a major force in journalism, the New York Times has linked directly to our list of sites which currently house the DeCSS code.

The links have been a source of contention in recent weeks, as the MPAA and eight Hollywood film studios have sought to force us to remove them, claiming the links are the same as having the code published on our own site. We see it differently - while they may have been able to get a federal court to order the material off of our site, forbidding us from telling the world what other sites still have it would be a very ominous precedent to set.

The action by the Times comes in an article in today's electronic edition. What makes it particularly significant is this paragraph in which our attorney, Martin Garbus, is quoted:

"Take a hypothetical case, he said: If a major newspaper that operated an online news site wrote an article saying that somebody had broken the DVD encryption code, and it linked to a site that had the code on it, 'I think they'd have absolutely every right to do that.'"

At the bottom of the page, they do precisely that, linking not only to 2600, but to "2600's catalog of DeCSS mirror sites".

Read it here.

Go here for the story with no annoying registration.

The six o'clock news won't report that the study shows a correlation, but not a causation, between video games and violent behavior. They won't bother to define "violent behavior". They'll simply scream "Latest studies show a link between violent video games and violence in our schools!!!!"

Read the title of the UniSci article. It doesn't say, "Video Games and Aggressive Thoughts, Feelings, and Behavior in the Laboratory and in Life". It says, " Violent Video Games Seen To Increase Violent Behavior". If the Daily University Science News can't publish the story accurately, why would one expect the evening news to do better?

There was another story posted on /. last week from the New York Times. Statistically, we have more to fear from people with mental disorders than we do from Quake players. Personally, I'm afraid of psychologists.

It starts out:
>They are not drunk or high on drugs. They
>are not racists or Satanists, or addicted to
>violent video games, movies or music.

You can read the series of articles here: http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/040900ramp age-killers.html

Yeah, uh, none of these URL's worked for me. Here's the one I got from following links on the front page: http: //www.nytimes.com/library/national/science/042100s ci-paleo-dinosaur.html.

darren

Alternatively, just use the partners link here. I'm pretty sure it doesn't require an account.

-Flerg

http://partners.nytimes.com/library/financial/colu mns/042000econ-scene.html

or for the trustin g
.oO0Oo.