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"Embrace, extend, extinguish.

Never forget. Microsoft has never helped open source. They have only contributed to their own version of it, which is very much unlike open source as it was defined 10+ years ago."

M$ loved bees, too. See where their satanic majesties' affection subsequently took the bees within a few years.

There's this very old Perl script, but it was designed for Netscape. I think Firefox now stores its cookies in a sqlite database, but Perl should still be able to handle that.

Honestly, even the non-automated blacklists from 10 years ago had the same problem. It took our little ISP over three months to get our name scrubbed from these lists.

They've been declared by US Courts to be an illegal monopoly, built on unethical business practices.

Anyone remember this?

http://www.tbtf.com/archive/1998-08-31.html#s02

"The memos are email conversations among Microsoft executives in 1991 and 1992 that discuss deliberately crippling a beta copy of Windows 3.1 so it would produce an obscure error message if run atop DR-DOS, a competing operating system now owned by Caldera. The code to check for the existence of DR-DOS was encrypted and obfuscated -- it was the only encrypted code in the beta -- but was cracked by programmer Andrew Schulman and published in Dr. Dobbs Journal in 1993 [9a]. Schulman discovered that the code searched for tiny differences between MS-DOS and DR-DOS, and when it found the latter it displayed an obscure but worrying error message: "Non-fatal error detected: Error #4D53. (Please contact Windows 3.1 Beta Support.)" The non-MS-detecting code was dropped into 5 places in the beta Win 3.1 code and, according to Schulman, had no possible legitimate purpose in ensuring the proper functioning of Windows. The code was still present in three places in the shipping Win 3.1 product, but had a single byte flipped to disable it."

I imagine this is just the tip of the iceberg. OpenGL sandbagging...

Well, no. Not really. I *do* find it surprising that so many people would completely ignore the actual content of the post (Scott Adams no longer aflicted by Spasmodic Dysphonia--an extremely interesting story, imho), and instead rail on Keith Dawson for... his choice of a freaking icon.

Beyond that, your implication is that Keith not be very good of an editor. Tastes vary, of course, but I was a big fan of his TBTF newsletter, which ran from 1995 to 2003.

Perhaps he's new to slashcode, but he's an accomplished tech news editor/author. So, I'll let icon choices slide.

Wo, since when's kdawson a Slashdot editor? Anyhow, if he does half the job he did with TBTF, /.'s going to rock soon.

All the best, Keith!
--former TBTF reader

People have been predicting this for years!

But filters don't work. I worked at MSI during the development of CyberPatrol. You just can't keep up with the amount of porn on the internet. And of course, one of the other programmers who worked on it didn't implment proper coding techniques. He was fast, but sloppy. Why do you that was developped so easily.

Not really.. it must be primarily a circumvention device, something a software DVD player can hardly be considered.

In other words, it does the exact same thing any OTHER DVD player does... the same way, so if it's circumvention device, so is any other dvd player.


They will consider an open source software dvd player a circumvention device. Its already been tried. Look for the slashdot stories about the livid project being shut down in October-November 1999.

The issue is that whatever CSS key the open source player uses to decrypt the DVD is out in the open with open source software. That is how the whole thing got started. Someone reverse engineered a CSS key out of the Xing DVD player software (a DVD-CCA licensed closed source program). See this for more info.


The original issue was the publishing of the DeCSS code.

I still thik if the original publishing of the code had been in the form of a fully working player, there would have been no case in the first place.


I had the livid sources on my site, and documents about the CSS format. The lawyers wanted it all down.

Cry me a river. It's going to die in 1995

BTW, here's a clickable link: http://www.tbtf.com/archive/1997-08-18.html. Thank me.

The chat room is long gone, but I've still got the source code around.
Seems to be identical to at least claims 1, 13, 26, 32, and 36 in the MS patent.

• IBM PC-DOS was shrugged off as having nothing special to offer
• Novell DOS was considered clearly superior, having some features MS-DOS lacked, but was dismissed as for bleeding edge users & hotdogs only
• MS-DOS was recommended because it would be the standard for which all software was optimized

The cheat was an error message, by the way. When the beta version of Windows 3.1 (named Bambi) discovered DR-DOS it complained ...

"Non-fatal error detected: Error #4D53. (Please contact Windows 3.1 Beta Support.)"

Here's a report of a Microsoft memo explaining the practice.

"A spampoena is an overbroad subpoena of dubious validity 'served' by email to unnamed recipients throughout cyberspace. The first spampoena was deployed last January in the DeCSS / MPAA case; the second was just sent out in the matter of CPhack / Cyber Patrol. We may dearly desire that, quashed forthrightly, it will be the last ever served. A judge in Boston -- in a hearing at which no defense attorney was present -- granted a subpoena requiring that a Canadian and a Swede remove certain content from their Web sites. The lawyer for Cyber Patrol's parent company requested and reportedly received permission to 'serve' copies of the subpoena by email to hundreds of unknown others in all parts of the world. Several hundred of the spampoenas have been mailed (and fewer received). Here is an example. The ACLU's motion to quash the subpoena concludes:

"'The subpoenas must be quashed because they were not properly served, because they violate the geographic limitations of Rule 45, and because they impose an undue burden... that raises significant constitutional questions. More fundamentally, they must be dismissed because they are in aid of an underlying case that itself must be dismissed for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, lack of personal jurisdiction, and mootness. It is improper to impose on a third party the burden of any subpoena -- particularly one that raises a host of thorny privacy issues -- in aid of a case that does not belong in this Court in the first place.'"

"A spampoena is an overbroad subpoena of dubious validity 'served' by email to unnamed recipients throughout cyberspace. The first spampoena was deployed last January in the DeCSS / MPAA case; the second was just sent out in the matter of CPhack / Cyber Patrol. We may dearly desire that, quashed forthrightly, it will be the last ever served. A judge in Boston -- in a hearing at which no defense attorney was present -- granted a subpoena requiring that a Canadian and a Swede remove certain content from their Web sites. The lawyer for Cyber Patrol's parent company requested and reportedly received permission to 'serve' copies of the subpoena by email to hundreds of unknown others in all parts of the world. Several hundred of the spampoenas have been mailed (and fewer received). Here is an example. The ACLU's motion to quash the subpoena concludes:

"'The subpoenas must be quashed because they were not properly served, because they violate the geographic limitations of Rule 45, and because they impose an undue burden... that raises significant constitutional questions. More fundamentally, they must be dismissed because they are in aid of an underlying case that itself must be dismissed for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, lack of personal jurisdiction, and mootness. It is improper to impose on a third party the burden of any subpoena -- particularly one that raises a host of thorny privacy issues -- in aid of a case that does not belong in this Court in the first place.'"

They haven't won since 1998.

Nah. But it should be forced to stop strongarming other companies into denying its competitors access to the market. Capitalism is based on competition, a fact which Microsoft needs to learn.

You'd better not use VRML, vi, linux, or a computer for that matter!

I wonder who else was "into" homosexuality, paganism, drugs, and general irreverence.

Such a bad rap these people had...

and they're such horrable people...

--Proud to be a Pagan Programmer!--

Anyway, for those who are interested in this story, you can find more information here.

Tasty Bits Technology Front has an easy kludge fix to disable all VBscript by editing a single Registry key. You could also use a similar approach to disable the running of most "active content" attachments.
By saving the fix to a .reg file and you can run it by double-clicking it (such as an attachment to an email). Which brings up the question, how much harm could be done just by changing registry keys. The .vbs trojans accomplish alot of their mischief by simply changing a bunch of registry keys, including changing the default IE start page to the WIN-BUGSFIX.exe secondary trojan. Should we disable Windows ability to automatically install .reg patches?

Tasty Bits Technology Front has an easy kludge fix to disable all VBscript by editing a single Registry key. You could also use a similar approach to disable the running of most "active content" attachments.
By saving the fix to a .reg file and you can run it by double-clicking it (such as an attachment to an email). Which brings up the question, how much harm could be done just by changing registry keys. The .vbs trojans accomplish alot of their mischief by simply changing a bunch of registry keys, including changing the default IE start page to the WIN-BUGSFIX.exe secondary trojan. Should we disable Windows ability to automatically install .reg patches?

When I was shopping around half a year ago, I tried a dual-band StarTAC at GTE and found that its sound quality was significantly fuzzier than a Qualcomm phone that GTE offered. Also, I believe that it had a comparatively short battery life; they may have improved the battery life now.

Your selection of phones really depends on which carrier you choose, based on coverage area and service quality. It's unfortunate that in the U.S. the carriers all use different technologies, which makes it hard to switch between carriers. It really doesn't make sense to buy a phone independently, since you'll pay more for the phone and then be charged activation fees.

For myself, living in the San Francisco Bay Area, I chose Sprint PCS because I like the way they do business. Their rates are moderate, but they don't nickel-and-dime you for features like voicemail, long-distance, and roaming. Also, they don't lock you in with one-year service contracts. On the other hand, their signal strength is only mediocre. Having settled on Sprint PCS, I chose the Sanyo SCP 4000. It's small, dual-band, and has good battery life when using digital mode. The vibrating ringer is built into the phone, not the battery. It also has an HDML mini-browser, which is handy for certain things like getting stock quotes. (Don't expect too much, though. Like anything on a cell phone, the user interface is clunky. Also, tbtf.com reports that it has a security leak.) I've read somewhere that having a pull-out antenna might reduce your brain's exposure to radiation from the phone. The SCP-4000 has a pull-out antenna, which the Nokia phones don't have. I use a hands-free wire when possible so I can hold the thing away from my head, just to be safe.

The only disadvantage to the Sanyo SCP-4000 that I've found is that it's not a common model. That's important only in that if you want to buy accessories like a modem link or phone-book sync utility to your PC, your choice of vendors is limited.

What action can be taken? Are folks like the ACLU willing to help out?

This from the TBTF 'Blog is reporting the American Civil Liberties Union will back Waldo Jaquith, Lindsay Haisley, and Bennett Haselton in their case against Cyber Patrol.

What action can be taken? Are folks like the ACLU willing to help out?

This from the TBTF 'Blog is reporting the American Civil Liberties Union will back Waldo Jaquith, Lindsay Haisley, and Bennett Haselton in their case against Cyber Patrol.

Is it really "worth a try"? In it's short history (18 months), ICANN has shown at every turn that it prefers vacuous PR about "transparency," "bottom-up governance," and "consensus" to the messy facts of actually functioning according to those ideals. By signing up for At-large Membership -- a body that has no direct power whatsoever within ICANN's policy-defining structure -- you give ICANN grounds for claiming that it's listening to netizens. ICANN has managed to outmaneuver and circumvent hundreds of people who've been involved in net-governance processes for decades; what makes you think it won't be able to diddle thousands of ill-informed newbies?

For some history of ICANN's hijinks, take a look at the long essays by Gordon Cook, an expert on telecom issues: What's Behind ICANN (Sept 1999) and ICANN Internet Takeover" (June 1999). "ICANN Watch" is another good resource for learning about ICANN's dubious dealings, though it hasn't been updated much lately. For an explanation of the strange circumstances under which ICANN passed the Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy before its board was elected, see this short "roving reporter" column and Keith Dawson's excellent chronology of the DNS debates. And here's a summary of some critical views of ICANN from a conference last fall.

There are lots more resources. If you plan to "get involved," you'd do well to know what you're getting involved with. But if you think your voice will be heard, you've got another thing coming. Don't believe me? Here's ICANN's organizational chart.

Is it really "worth a try"? In it's short history (18 months), ICANN has shown at every turn that it prefers vacuous PR about "transparency," "bottom-up governance," and "consensus" to the messy facts of actually functioning according to those ideals. By signing up for At-large Membership -- a body that has no direct power whatsoever within ICANN's policy-defining structure -- you give ICANN grounds for claiming that it's listening to netizens. ICANN has managed to outmaneuver and circumvent hundreds of people who've been involved in net-governance processes for decades; what makes you think it won't be able to diddle thousands of ill-informed newbies?

For some history of ICANN's hijinks, take a look at the long essays by Gordon Cook, an expert on telecom issues: What's Behind ICANN (Sept 1999) and ICANN Internet Takeover" (June 1999). "ICANN Watch" is another good resource for learning about ICANN's dubious dealings, though it hasn't been updated much lately. For an explanation of the strange circumstances under which ICANN passed the Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy before its board was elected, see this short "roving reporter" column and Keith Dawson's excellent chronology of the DNS debates. And here's a summary of some critical views of ICANN from a conference last fall.

There are lots more resources. If you plan to "get involved," you'd do well to know what you're getting involved with. But if you think your voice will be heard, you've got another thing coming. Don't believe me? Here's ICANN's organizational chart.

Yeah I agree with your sentiments. It's not as if they really gain anything from them - if J Random Company does some nifty stuff they'll get the reputation that means people go to them, patents or no. In this case, the patent would (if they got it) actively dissuade some people. Sheesh.

Different search engine: Hubat - Yahooish but the summaries are entirely 'puter generated (spotted on TBTF).

For example, several months ago TurboTax sent email announcing their newest update. The email included HTML which told TurboTax when you read the mail. It was just a retrieval of an image with a certain code to identify who they sent the mail to.

There's no way anyone could economically prosper off of this bug, and if they do, it's illegal because of the spam factor, and won't appeal to reputable companies

The rotating disks don't actually get 1 gigabyte per second read rates, it turns out that only the card media does.

And as commentary at Tasty Bits From the Technology Front points out, the most outstanding claim about FMD drives is the 1 gigabyte per second read rates, a full 200x faster than a 32x CD-ROM, and 40x faster than a 10,000 RPM hard disk. In comparison, capacity only improves 25x over the 5.2 GB DVDs.

Personally, I find the large capacities C-3D demonstrates just reinforce my perception that buying into DVD technology is just setting yourself up for obsolescence once higher-res HDTV versions of videos and movies become available on post-DVD media like C3D's in a few years (probably more securely next time though! ;-)

--LP

terrorist Marxist FSF North Korea security South Africa nuclear DES Semtex KGB FBI Noriega colonel NSA SEAL Team 6 nuclear Ortega PLO supercomputer Treasury terrorist assassination Semtex [Hello to all my fans in domestic surveillance] Serbian fissionable FBI spy arrangements Kennedy Noriega cracking Nazi Ft. Meade Marxist Waco, Texas cryptographic genetic Cocaine jihad

ICANN is imposing specific conditions on alternative registrars that effectively reduce them to sales agents for NSI; they're "competitors" with NSI mostly in the sense that the bulk of your money goes to the registrar, not NSI. (This isn't true of registars for ccTLDs [country codes]--.to, etc.) Note that, in order to be accredited, a registrar must agree to "dispute resolution policies" that are (uniformly) biased in favor of intellectual property interests. Take a look at TBTF for a good summary of the recent agreements and a list of useful links.

There is one person's account of a job interview with the NSA available online.

IIRC Phrack published the NSA security manual a few years back.

Commerce Department yanks ICANN's chain, backhands NSI

On 9 July the Commerce Department sent a 32-page letter [1] to the ICANN board and the House Commerce Committee, responding to committee chairman Tom Bliley's questions on ICANN's recent actions [2]. Here's the NY Times's coverage [3] of this letter (free registration and cookies required). Commerce Department officials said that ICANN should

hold all meetings in public,

drop a proposed $1-per-domain-name fee until a permanent ICANN board can vote on it, and

draw up binding contracts with domain-name services that would bar ICANN from going beyond their mission.

Commerce did not let NSI entirely off the hook, either. While chastising ICANN for a threat, issued in its Berlin meeting, to cancel NSI's authority to issue domain names, the Commerce letter states baldly that unless NSI signs ICANN's operating agreement, Commerce will in fact terminate that authority. NSI must stop at once claiming the .com, .net. and .org domain-name databases as their intellectual property, Commerce insists.

Congress has now scheduled the investigative hearing promised by Bliley. The Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations will convene "Domain Name System Privatization: Is ICANN Out of Control?" on Thursday, July 22, 1999 at 11:00 a.m. in the Rayburn House Office Building, room 2322.

On 16 July Commerce again extended the deadline [4] for the end of the open domain registration test. The test had already been extended once [5] because of protracted wrangling among NSI, ICANN, and the test registrars. The new target date for wider participation in competitive registration is 6 August.

[1] http://www.ntia.doc.gov/n tiahome/domainname/blileyrsp.htm
[2] http://www.news.com/N ews/Item/Textonly/0,25,38200,00.html?pfv
[3] http://www.ny times.com/library/tech/99/07/biztech/articles/10ne t.html
[4] http://www.zdnet.co m/zdnn/filters/bursts/0,3422,2295115,00.html
[5] http://tbtf.com/archive/1999-07-08.html #s01

TBTF Is required reading for anyone with a clue.

Commerce Department yanks ICANN's chain, backhands NSI

On 9 July the Commerce Department sent a 32-page letter [1] to the ICANN board and the House Commerce Committee, responding to committee chairman Tom Bliley's questions on ICANN's recent actions [2]. Here's the NY Times's coverage [3] of this letter (free registration and cookies required). Commerce Department officials said that ICANN should

hold all meetings in public,

drop a proposed $1-per-domain-name fee until a permanent ICANN board can vote on it, and

draw up binding contracts with domain-name services that would bar ICANN from going beyond their mission.

Commerce did not let NSI entirely off the hook, either. While chastising ICANN for a threat, issued in its Berlin meeting, to cancel NSI's authority to issue domain names, the Commerce letter states baldly that unless NSI signs ICANN's operating agreement, Commerce will in fact terminate that authority. NSI must stop at once claiming the .com, .net. and .org domain-name databases as their intellectual property, Commerce insists.

Congress has now scheduled the investigative hearing promised by Bliley. The Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations will convene "Domain Name System Privatization: Is ICANN Out of Control?" on Thursday, July 22, 1999 at 11:00 a.m. in the Rayburn House Office Building, room 2322.

On 16 July Commerce again extended the deadline [4] for the end of the open domain registration test. The test had already been extended once [5] because of protracted wrangling among NSI, ICANN, and the test registrars. The new target date for wider participation in competitive registration is 6 August.

[1] http://www.ntia.doc.gov/n tiahome/domainname/blileyrsp.htm
[2] http://www.news.com/N ews/Item/Textonly/0,25,38200,00.html?pfv
[3] http://www.ny times.com/library/tech/99/07/biztech/articles/10ne t.html
[4] http://www.zdnet.co m/zdnn/filters/bursts/0,3422,2295115,00.html
[5] http://tbtf.com/archive/1999-07-08.html #s01

TBTF Is required reading for anyone with a clue.

Commerce Department yanks ICANN's chain, backhands NSI

On 9 July the Commerce Department sent a 32-page letter [1] to the ICANN board and the House Commerce Committee, responding to committee chairman Tom Bliley's questions on ICANN's recent actions [2]. Here's the NY Times's coverage [3] of this letter (free registration and cookies required). Commerce Department officials said that ICANN should

hold all meetings in public,

drop a proposed $1-per-domain-name fee until a permanent ICANN board can vote on it, and

draw up binding contracts with domain-name services that would bar ICANN from going beyond their mission.

Commerce did not let NSI entirely off the hook, either. While chastising ICANN for a threat, issued in its Berlin meeting, to cancel NSI's authority to issue domain names, the Commerce letter states baldly that unless NSI signs ICANN's operating agreement, Commerce will in fact terminate that authority. NSI must stop at once claiming the .com, .net. and .org domain-name databases as their intellectual property, Commerce insists.

Congress has now scheduled the investigative hearing promised by Bliley. The Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations will convene "Domain Name System Privatization: Is ICANN Out of Control?" on Thursday, July 22, 1999 at 11:00 a.m. in the Rayburn House Office Building, room 2322.

On 16 July Commerce again extended the deadline [4] for the end of the open domain registration test. The test had already been extended once [5] because of protracted wrangling among NSI, ICANN, and the test registrars. The new target date for wider participation in competitive registration is 6 August.

[1] http://www.ntia.doc.gov/n tiahome/domainname/blileyrsp.htm
[2] http://www.news.com/N ews/Item/Textonly/0,25,38200,00.html?pfv
[3] http://www.ny times.com/library/tech/99/07/biztech/articles/10ne t.html
[4] http://www.zdnet.co m/zdnn/filters/bursts/0,3422,2295115,00.html
[5] http://tbtf.com/archive/1999-07-08.html #s01

TBTF Is required reading for anyone with a clue.

Commerce Department yanks ICANN's chain, backhands NSI

On 9 July the Commerce Department sent a 32-page letter [1] to the ICANN board and the House Commerce Committee, responding to committee chairman Tom Bliley's questions on ICANN's recent actions [2]. Here's the NY Times's coverage [3] of this letter (free registration and cookies required). Commerce Department officials said that ICANN should

hold all meetings in public,

drop a proposed $1-per-domain-name fee until a permanent ICANN board can vote on it, and

draw up binding contracts with domain-name services that would bar ICANN from going beyond their mission.

Commerce did not let NSI entirely off the hook, either. While chastising ICANN for a threat, issued in its Berlin meeting, to cancel NSI's authority to issue domain names, the Commerce letter states baldly that unless NSI signs ICANN's operating agreement, Commerce will in fact terminate that authority. NSI must stop at once claiming the .com, .net. and .org domain-name databases as their intellectual property, Commerce insists.

Congress has now scheduled the investigative hearing promised by Bliley. The Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations will convene "Domain Name System Privatization: Is ICANN Out of Control?" on Thursday, July 22, 1999 at 11:00 a.m. in the Rayburn House Office Building, room 2322.

On 16 July Commerce again extended the deadline [4] for the end of the open domain registration test. The test had already been extended once [5] because of protracted wrangling among NSI, ICANN, and the test registrars. The new target date for wider participation in competitive registration is 6 August.

[1] http://www.ntia.doc.gov/n tiahome/domainname/blileyrsp.htm
[2] http://www.news.com/N ews/Item/Textonly/0,25,38200,00.html?pfv
[3] http://www.ny times.com/library/tech/99/07/biztech/articles/10ne t.html
[4] http://www.zdnet.co m/zdnn/filters/bursts/0,3422,2295115,00.html
[5] http://tbtf.com/archive/1999-07-08.html #s01

TBTF Is required reading for anyone with a clue.

Correlating CDA votes to Starr report release votes yielded the 285 Most Hypocritical US Representatives tasty bit.

Piecing together one groundless rumour with another:

• Expect something from Transmeta this fall (Current hardcopy issue of the Linux Journal)
• Expect a new kernel this Fall ( ZDNet)
• Transmeta's first product will have something to do with portable DSP and Telephony ( TBTF)
• Expect to see Linux in telephones (Linus in the same ZDNet article)

Maybe Transmeta's first product is going to something that'll make both the Palm Pilot and Isty look big, clunky, and out-dated.

Where, according to TBTF they're trying to ban all X rated content everywhere.

The Microsoft security website all but explained to this virus author how he should write his virus.

Microsoft Security Bulletin 99-002 points out the "vulnerability in Word 97 which could permit macros to run without warning the user when the user opens a document based on a template containing macros." Melissa modifies Word templates to do exactly this.

Microsoft's webpage continues with the warning "A malicious hacker could exploit this vulnerability to cause malicious macro code to be run without warning if a user opens a Word attachment that was sent by a malicious hacker..."

This security bulletin was posted to the Microsoft Knowledge Base on January 21, 1999.

Buried in their website, the page lamely suggests that "all affected customers" - i.e., every one of the tens of millions of Word users! - "download the patch to protect their computers." Those customers have had over two months to do exactly that, and the tiny fraction who did are presumably at least partially immune to Melissa's spread.

Posting to an obscure security webpage hints on what might make an effective virus - a virus for which the only fix is tens of millions of separate patch downloads - is asking for trouble. Microsoft created the problem by coding a laughably insecure macro language into their applications. And they may have turned the potential problem into a real one by calling attention to it.

"Security through obscurity" is never desirable, but when the system is already as broken as the Microsoft macro language and when the user community doesn't give a damn about applying patches, it might have been a better alternative.

(Credit to TBTF for the link.)

Jamie McCarthy