Slashdot Mirror
Slashback: Taxes, Fraudulence, Woodland Creatures
After francokleptomania, restoring GNOME dignity. Bob Smith writes: "KDE beta was anounced but GNOME beta wasn't." Well, GNOME's latest freeze stage on the way to 1.2 was announced back in January, and Miguel answered questions about the state of GNOME in March, but point taken. With all the developments in GNOME, neither Miguel or his programs are likely to hurt for Slashdot coverage. You can grab the beta Bob mentions here.
Now, gentlemen, is there a way to perhaps merely maim this Golden Goose? Misch writes to point out this item on "ABCNews [which]reports that the House of Representatives has passed an extension of the Internet Tax Moratorium. Looks like it's tax free time on the Internet (depending on where you shop)."
Barely enough for a coven ... nullstar writes: "The NTIA has posted its report to Congress concerning the comments it received in regard to section 1201(g) of the DMCA, which deals with exceptions to the prohibition on circumventing encryption techniques intended to protect access to copyrighted materials. They basically claim, 'it's too soon to tell what effects the restriction will have on encryption research, etc., as the exception doesn't go into effect until October, so we're not yet recommending changes in the wording of the law.' Only 13 people submitted comments. "
Conflict of interest is an interesting term here ... full_tide writes "2600 has posted some news about how the MPAA is trying to get Martin Garbus (2600's hot-shot defense attorney) disqualified for a conflict of interest. Cryptome has posted a very long, but equally interesting, reply brief Mr. Garbus has writting in response to the injunction (damn, he's good). Also, the MPAA's web site is back up after a DDOS attack a few weeks back, and much downtime since. They appear to have added some fresh, juicy propaganda concerning the case."
Yessir, the gen-yoo-ine article, you betcha, mate. Jai From Insane Hardware writes: "Well, you may have heard all the rumours and whatnot about the Australian Fake Athlon deal and I confirm that it is true. But we have more info on the subject like on how they came about arriving in Oz and how they leaked thru the channel. This issue is very "close to home" for me so it's worthwhile reading for all the Aussies that go to your site. We also have exactly how the chips were modded. link " Meanwhile, Netsnipe wrote to point out that "Lucien Wells has updated his Web site Techwatch's coverage of the AMD Athlon tampering scandal. "Techwatch has now received press releases from two distributors involved, DMA and RTV Computers which claim that 'Neither RTV Computers Pty Ltd nor DMA (Direct Memory Access Pty Ltd) whom have their stickers on the CPU's knowingly at fault in this situation. At present legal action is underway to find the source of this problem.' At this stage AMD has not yet responded to Techwatch's requests for more information, says Lucien."
Hmm, seeing that there is apparently no factual report about why /. has been so unstable this week, I guess it's time to take a conspiracy theory poll...
Poll: Slashdot is very unstable this week because ...
Poll Mastah
"If you don't have anything good to say, keep your mouth shut."
"I do not agree with a word you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." --Voltaire
Free speech is dirty and nasty, that's what makes it so fun. Remember, the only thing you know about a poster (usually) is what they write, not thier age, country of origin, race, mental state, motivations, or experiences. Parse it accordinly, and you might want to check this out too.
--
+&x
I'd like to point out an astonishing amount of hostility recently. In the last few weeks I have noticed it especially, when someone chooses to make a statement they don't just make the statement, they litter it with insults, formulating an angry comment dripping with either sarcasm or invective, for no reasonable purpose that I can see. Just the 18 or so comments in this article so far alone contain more hostility than I see in an entire week in any other medium.
This in itself is a concern, it displays a marked lack of respect towards the others the comment is aimed at. On this very same page you can find a comment querying the lack of information on the recent problems with slashdot. Was the use of the word "Pathetic" really necessary? Was the implied accusation that Slashdot is no longer "open" included for any other purpose than vitrol? A single feather does not a bird make, and a single action by the editors should not be held up, against an astounding amount of evidence to the contrary, as an example of how it has become "closed" or "less responsive".
I single out this post only because, being in the same article, it is easy to point to, make no mistake it is merely the tip of the iceberg as far as posts containing unnecessary attacks go.
Please keep in mind that the editors of slashdot, the users who make comments here, the employees of the organisations that are referred to (yes, even those of Microsoft), and all the other people who are somehow brought to our attention in this forum are, in fact, just that. People. And too often I see them judged, instantly, upon such a scrap of information as wouldn't feed a shrimp. Indeed all too often one reads an article only to discover that people are being abused on the basis of nothing more than rumour.
They are people, they deserve respect by default, the respect given to those who are human, who may make mistakes, but who have lived years of their lives, making hard decisions and taking responsibility for their actions.
Some calm yes? some thought before writing, and perhaps a little dose of old saying.
"If you don't have anything good to say, keep your mouth shut."
Flames will be read, considered, and appreciated. Thankyou for your time.
You can't win a fight.
CSS is akin to the lock on your house.
. .
DeCSS is akin to a tool that breaks the lock on your house.
. .
Have the defendants actually used DeCSS to make illegal copies?
It is irrelevant whether or not the defendants were personally engaged in
making illegal copies. They are clearly "providing the keys to the castle," which
is in violation of the anti-circumvention provisions of the federal copyright law.
Too bad they didn't extend their analogy, then I think the last paragraph would have read something like this:
It is irrelevant whether or not the defendants used to lock picks to rob your house. They are clearly providing the lock picks.
AFAIK providing lock picks isn't illegal. Providing lock picks to criminals *might* be, but that makes the question quite relevant.
no comment
The people who should tell the server/DDoS story are the ones who are doing the actual server work, and right now they're simply too busy working to do any story-telling.
They're also mad. This site is their "baby," and I think that if Martin, the two Pats, Chris, Liz or anyone else on that team tried to write anything right now, we'd get nothing but a string of cusswords.
Give them some time. Let them work without everyone trying to look over their shoulder. I'm as frustrated as anyone else, but I'm willing to wait until there's an end to the story and hear the whole thing at once.
- Robin
The obvious problem with this scheme is that demand for some goods and services is much less elastic than for others: for example, your food costs about the same (within a factor of ten or so), whether you're Joe Shmoe or Bill G.
So the "Fair Tax" would take the same amount from the rich and the poor on these things, but it might be 20% of Joe's income and 0.000...01% of Bill's income. Isn't DoubleSpeak wonderful?
Or is this all a troll anyway?
"I will take the Ring," he said, "though I do not know the way."
There are no legal software packages available for decrypting DVDs.
Hmmm... I wonder what a DVD player does according to the MPAA...
Remember that moderators are chosen randomly from the population (mod a few tweaks like eliminating those who abused it) and only get a handful of moderation points each time they're chosen.
So you no doubt had different moderators than he did.
Also: The earlier you post, the more people with moderator points will see your post, and the more chances you have to get a point, plus or minus. Three reasons for this:
- It's up longer.
- It's higer in the thread tree, so fewer people will have gotten bored and moved on to another article.
- It's higher in the thread tree, so fewer moderators will have responded to another posting, after which they can't moderate anything in that article.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
That's exactly what the DMCA changed. Fair use doesn't matter if you circumvented copy protection to get at the copyrighted material. That's what makes DMCA so dangerous: it renders the concept of fair use legally insignificant.
I'm so fed up with the power of the mass-media conglomerates, I'm considering taking up full time piracy as a form of civil disobedience. Has anyone else had this thought cross their mind, or am I insane? (not XOR).
However, there are a few interesting things about the DDOS attack on Slashdot, which -could- offer some possibilities.
First, the attack came about not long after the Microsoft demand story was posted.
Secondly, no Microsoft-owned news service is covering the story, despite other mainstream news services covering it.
(Microsoft NEVER misses an opportunity to ridicule opponents in the media. This time, they're keeping their mouths firmly zipped.)
Thirdly, Microsoft employees are not above extreme demonstrations of loyalty, authorized OR unauthorized.
Lastly, most widespread DDOS tools run on Microsoft OS'. In itself, this wouldn't mean much. But placed in context, it becomes a little more significant.
It is therefore my theory that a Microsoft insider (probably -without- explicit permission) carried out the DDOS attack, and that any investigation will run into innumerable political obstacles, above and beyond any technical problems of tracing it.
If this theory is correct, the only chance anyone has of knowing the truth is if that insider "defects" and talks. Very, very unlikely.
To be honest, though, nobody else really has any motive or incentive, never mind the sheer bulk of machines needed to jam up a site designed by internationally-recognised experts in ultra-high volume web distribution. You are NOT talking about a server that'll fall over the moment anything more sophisticated than a goldfish logs on.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
1) We all know that at peak times /. struggles under the load. /. had to post to this story. Further, instead of just refreshing an article a couple of times, this story was so interesting that we all refreshed many, many times just to get the latest comments. /. even when it was refusing any new connections (hence an effective DDoS of syn's), failing that, they pinged or tracerouted /. to test if the problem was fixed yet (hence an effective DDoS of icmp packets). /.'s readership. /. servers were not keeping up with traffic, I had established tcp streams to /. returning with source IP of 10.1.48.4 (and port 80) instead of one of (64.28.67.64, 64.28.67.63, 64.28.67.62, 64.28.67.61) indicating either an unhealthy router or NAT. /. traffic 10x or higher. What server wouldn't fold under similar circumstances?
2) This story was so inflamatory that everyone who normally just reads
3) From what I observed, the blackouts coincided with peak times in the US and the Australia.
4) Those that couldn't get on, were so emotionaly bound up in this, that no matter what, they had to reach slashdot and read the latest or post their comment. Consequently, they continually tried to connect to
5) Widespread media attention multiplied
6) As "proof" that
7) Finally, I would not be in the least suprised if this story multiplied
It may be obvious to you at Slashdot, but it's far less obvious to everyone else. We're not there.
I have a fast but flaky Net connection. For all I know, when I can't reach Slashdot, there's something screwed up with the network I'm on, or a problem at MAE West, or something else. Yes, network problems sometimes prevent access to certain sites and not others. With testing/proxies/etc. I can formulate a better guess of what's going on, but why not just give us the answer if you have it? You may not realize it, but you're keeping us in the dark.
Please communicate with us. Having network problems is nothing to be ashamed of, but it's much better handling to keep people informed. If you were a network admin at a company, wouldn't you let staff know when the file server has crashed? Even utility companies tell the public when there are outages, so everyone knows it's not a problem in their individual homes. A simple memo from Slashdot would go a long way, doesn't need to be fancy.
> they are making *broad* taxation decisions for the *GOOD* of the nation
But they aren't elected by the nation at large. They're elected by those local shopkeepers and consumers. The same people that elected those State reps also elected the Congressmen.
If voters feel that the tax cut outweighs the local impact when they vote for Congress, why do they feel differently when they vote local representatives?
Frankly, I think all sales taxes are bad because they are simply the most regressive tax. But that's another thread entirely...
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
My own connection is flaky. For all I know, when I can't reach Slashdot, my local network is screwed up, or any number of other problems between me and slashdot.org. I'll keep trying to fix it until I know it's out of my hands.
Being attacked is nothing to be ashamed of, but keeping it hidden from friendly parties is the wrong way to deal with it. I would think it's easier to post a short note once than deal with hundreds of emails asking what's going on. You're sitting there at Andover, but the rest of us are in the dark.
Anyway, good luck in fixing it. Afterwards, please tell us what happened so we can a) offer insight on how to avoid it in the future, and b) guard against it on our own sites. You know, the old open-source approach.
> When my property taxes rise because of Internet based sales taking eating away at the local tax base
Well, this was my point about the regressive nature of sales taxes in general. Since you're local gov't isn't getting its sales tax, they have to tax something else. And since the sales taxes effect the poor disproportionate to the rich, you'll find the rich start lobbying to save their money.
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
Sorry, guys, but it is really pathetic that there has been no news here about the problems you've been suffering. There have been tons of people reporting SQL problems today, we all know the site has been shut down repeatedly over the last couple of days, and wired reported that you had a router die. I hate to make a "in the old days /. was better" but it isn't that hard to look through the archives and find CT saying "oops... our server died/crashed/whatever." That kind of honesty and straightforwardness is what made /. a community first and a news site second. It's sort of sad that this kind of openness (which is much more important than source) is apparently no longer a priority.
~luge
IAAL,BIANLY
That should make it stop, right? This isn't because of bad servers or something. This is because a single person (or several) is acting maliciously. And crowing on the front page about their actions every day, just would give that person more power.
From the MPAA page: DeCSS is akin to a tool that breaks the lock on your house. Uh, I prefer to think of it as a tool that lets ME break locks on my own possessions. Ugh. I don't know what to think about the fact that they called the creators "hackers". Guess we can't argue with it. :)
grep -ri 'should work'
Also, the bill in the House is not taking away PRESENTLY collected taxes in only a few (something around--if I remember correctly-- a few states and two cities, Washington DC being one of them). This present taxing system works like catalog sales--if you have a presence in a state, state residents have to pay local sales tax.
Local politicians are angry because 1) the moratorium wasn't set to expire until 2001 (and it is an election year THIS YEAR) and 2)the moratorium is set for 5 years, which is hobbling at best for those interests.
This is another view of the world.
I asked this in a post yesterday, but I was moderated down as offtopic; yet you get +3 Insightful ... hmm, moderators are fickle (as if we didn't know that already!) Mind you, I suppose this story is a little more general so more posts will slip through.
/.' where we can post about how much it sucks and how to improve it and so on.
/. is usually the first to report this sort of thing. Tell us what's going on please!
/., coming so soon after the legal threat. I admit that that will be quite painful, but I'd still rather see the discussion.
What we need is a weekly (or whatever) story on the 'state of
Err, anyway, regarding the DDOS... it seems strange trying to get news on it from other sites when
Perhaps Taco can't bear the thought of all those posts discussing conspiracy theories about M$ slashdotting
Actually doesn't /. under the DMCA only have 48 hours to respond (ie. take down "offending" material or be sued) to Microsoft. They can then have the material which was removed put back up at the request of the original poster, who under penalty of perjury says that Microsoft was wrong, and then Microsoft can go after the poster if it chooses to.
/. should do, only that I think if they wait longer than 48hrs their choices are severly limited.
I don't necessarilly think that this is what
Thus I'd like to hear what their lawyers said, and what they are planning (ie are they not going to act on the request in 48hrs (btw has this already passed?))
But of course it completely up to the editors to choose what to tell us, this is just what I'd like to hear.
-------- This space intentionally left blank --------
BRIEF SUBMITTED BY MEDIA DEFENDANT 2600 ENTERPRISES, INC. AND ERIC CORLEY a/k/a
= -=-=-=-=-=-=-
"EMMANUEL GOLDSTEIN" IN OPPOSITION TO PLAINTIFFS' MOTION TO MODIFY THE PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION AND IN SUPPORT OF DEFENDANTS' CROSS-MOTION TO VACATE THE PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION MEMORANDUM OF LAW IN OPPOSITION TO PLAINTIFFS' MOTION TO MODIFY THE PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION AND IN SUPPORT OF EFENDANTS' CROSS-MOTION TO VACATE THE PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION
Huh??? And companies wonder why consumers are so opposed to reading EULA click-thru licenses...
- JoeShmoe
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
The whole way in which M$ posted the Kerberos specification, with the embedded EULA, was a setup right from the get-go that we -- of course ;-) -- fell for hook-line-and-sinker.
Their lawyer-whores said: "Hey! Let's set up a *real* trojan horse for those /.-hippies and nail their asses! We can design this whole disclosure so it'll work as a righteous open-source-geek-trap and when they fall for it -- which they *will* -- we've got /. and andover.net all in one swoop!"
So what they were doing had nothing to do with disclosure or openess or any of that touchy-feely bullshit!
It was a trap, right from the start!
Whoa! Acute conspiracy theory poisoning! My head hurts! Induce mental vomitting!
t_t_b
--
I'm on PJ's "enemies" list! Are you?
"Err, anyway, regarding the DDOS... it seems strange trying to get news on it from other sites when /. is usually the first to report this sort of thing. Tell us what's going on please!"
;) [heh. I'll bet you already got some, huh?]
I never go to Wired.com anymore -- but found myself there recently reading a story about Slashdot. Weird.
Rob, Jeff, I understand that you might not want to discuss the DDoS in order to avoid 'encouraging' that sort of thing, but if you're gonna talk about it to Wired, talk to us too!
You needn't reveal technically sensitive details, but, please, tell us what you can.
Don't make us start submitting news stories about the Wired article!
Geeky modern art T-shirts
Rob... I think you are missing the point. No one wants the "story"- at least not yet. We just want to have some little tidbit, now. It's not just that /. readers are impatient (they are) but to a certain extent they feel that this is a community and they want to know (or at least have some clue) WTF is going on. Oh, and they don't want to get it from wired. Believe me, we sympathize- it's a miracle that this didn't happen a long time ago. But even the slightest little "shit! we're working on it!" would be respectful of the community and the role we play in your success.
~luge
IAAL,BIANLY
> You wanna know the real deal on why the tax moratorium is getting a push in Congress?
Wait 'til November. Right now every politician and his dog is promising election year tax cuts. What better way to recoup their losses than to slap a tax on the internet the day after elections?
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
At least, according to a wired story. Thing is, I'd rather get my news from /. than Wired.
How are sales taxes the most regressive taxes?
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Apology accepted on behalf of myself, and I hope, others.
:)
Have a nice day
You can't win a fight.
Actually, it was written for windows because windows was the platform they started reverse engineering it on.. due to the availability of licensed players. And as true hackers.. they aren't afraid to code in windows..
> How are sales taxes the most regressive taxes?
Poor people spend most of their income and save less. If you look at the ratio of their income to the money they spend on sales tax, you'll see that they are paying a larger ratio than those who save or invest.
Income taxes, on the other hand, are generally designed to be progressive. The more you make, the higher percent you pay (unless it's a flat tax).
Property taxes, by their very nature, or going to be larger for the rich, whose property tends to be more valuable (except in places like CA where Prop 13 applies, but that's a whole other story).
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
You wanna know the real deal on why the tax moratorium is getting a push in Congress? Because the taxes that are not getting collected are LOCAL taxes (as in state and municipality taxes--those taxes that fund local education and infrastructure needs) and not FEDERAL taxes.
As stated in the article the opponents of the bill are state legistlators and local merchants. Passing this bill DOES NOT AFFECT YOUR LOCAL CONGRESSPERSON politically and it makes them look "pro-business" and "pro-tech" at the same time. Notice that the Republicans are the majority in Congress, too.
This is another view of the world.
Give it some time. The M$ nasty letter was only received a few days ago, and after a flurry of press coverage its now a quiet weekend. Go see a new movie or something and give it a rest for a few days. More news will happen when people get back to work monday.
/. hasn't complied with their childish demands, and files a formal lawsuit. When this happens, that's when the gloves come off and the andover/VA linux lawyers can get down and nasty. But expect very little factual information to be posted on /. on the advice of counsel, and lots more coverage in the mainstream press. The lawsuit will be taken up by the ACLU, the EFF, MIT, and many others. M$ will have a hard time, spend millions, and probably lose in the long run. Its doubtful an intelligent law firm would proceed given the forces arrayed against them, but bill gates ego and large bank account can get lawyers to do anything.
/. community can come up with many more scenarios like these.
We won't see any real news until one of three things happens
M$ backs down and withdraws their copyright and trade secret claims. They will spin this action as a major victory for them, and quite possibly use it as more ammo requesting the DoJ forget the whole anti-trust action. Expect this to be the most logical outcome.
M$ gets upset because
The DoJ includes the anti-/. letter as another example of how M$ is truly unrepentant in their agressive stance, and ask for additional penalties. M$ then tries to let the whole thing blow over by being quiet about it, and leaves andover.net in the strange situation of ignoring a cease and desist letter, but with no follow-on legal action in which to defend themselves.
Certainly the
the AC
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on