Slashdot Mirror
Slashback: Petdom, Denial, Confusion
In an e-mail to Declan McCullagh which has also been posted on his PoliTech mailing list McAfee said the following:
"Dear Sir/Madam:
- Network Associates/McAfee.com Corporation has not contacted the FBI, nor has the FBI contacted NAI/McAfee.com Corp., regarding Magic Lantern.
- We do not expect the FBI to contact Network Associates/McAfee.com Corporation regarding Magic Lantern.
- Network Associates/McAfee.com Corp. is not going to speculate on Magic Lantern as its existence has not even been confirmed by the FBI or any government agency.
- Network Associates/McAfee.com Corporation does and will continue
to comply with any and all U.S. laws and legislation.
Marisa Lewis
Investor Relations Manager
McAfee.com Corporation
NASDAQ: MCAF
535 Oakmead Parkway
Sunnyvale, CA 94085
408-992-8100 phone
408-720-8450 fax
www.mcafee.com"
In a subsquent post AP reporter Ted Bridis responed by saying: "I stand by my reporting for the AP. This information came from a senior company officer. I won't identify this person in this post because I've been unable to reach this person by phone or e-mail since the flap erupted."
He also noted that McAfee never specificly denied that they might write such allowances (for Magic Lantern) into their software, it just says that they have yet to have been asked to.
Original story on slashdot and Politech with follow ups
McAfee's Response and Ted Bridis' response"
Rethinking is always a good idea. javester writes: "Sony has come to its senses and has struck a deal with AIBOPET, after the fan site was shut down when Sony's lawyers came calling last week of October.
Way to go Sony and AIBOPET!!!! More power to both of you for finding a compromise where everybody wins! Hopefully, other parties having DMCA tussles follow Sony's and AIBOPET's example, and have more constructive discussions instead of legal suits galore."
Penguin cause pollution. x136 writes "I saw this on my local Fox affiliate, but found a link on LinuxWorld. IBM has been fined again for spraypainting their blue "Peace, Love & Linux" logo, this time on the streets of San Francisco. The bill? $120,000. First Chicago, then San Francisco ... Who thought this was a good idea in the first place?"
Well, I thought the giant murals in NYC were great, but the sidewalk idea strikes me as IBM playing Brewster's Millions with the billion dollars they pledged to spend on Linux.
Out of the freezer and into the blizzard ... An Anonymous Coward writes "Comcast has decided to offer a backup plan in case their cable modem's die due to Excite@Home's bankruptcy. Good thought but the backup is NetZero. Gee thanks Comcast. Here is a link to their Service Interruption FAQ. http://www.comcastonline.com/info.htm"
Make it obfuscated, but make it snappy. Rosco P. Coltrane writes "If you haven't submitted your program(s) to the International Obfuscated C Code Contest, now is the time : the deadline is December 1st, 2001, there is only two days left !"
@hell has done it again, they are trying to convert their emails from @home.com to @rogers.com. but for TONS of people, the new address just won't work. For example, we used to have "mail" as our pop3 and smtp address. now they change it to "pop" and "smtp" but it won't even freaking ping.
Now there is a TV show on Rogers' channel everyday to help people to trasnfer their EMails. Almost everyone are compalining about the same error (won't connect to mail server) but the "technican" keeps insisting that it's their fault when it was clearly not the case.
kawai
Checking the NetZero site to see if I can get one of the "temporary" accounts, I see that there is no Mac version, which means if Comcast goes dark, none of us subscribers who use Macs (all 5 of us) will be able to take advantage of the "temporary" solution.
I'm so damn happy I could spit.
Steven N. Severinghaus
This story on Wired sheds some light on what is going on with the @Home service. Seems like the debt holders are the ones who want the service shut down, while @Home has drawn plans (according to their chapter 11 filing) showing that they can pay all their debts and be profitable by 2010. It also seems that all cable companies which are currently providing the @Home service are on the debt holders side, since none of them are explaining this part. So make sure your cable companies hear from the @Home users who stand to lose their service - almost all of the cable companies are regulated local monopolies, which have to answer to a city/municipality board.
According to Declan McCullagh's Politech mailing list, Magic Lantern was produced by Codex Data Systems.
here's the link for the peace, love and linux thing from ibm:p or t.swf
http://www-1.ibm.com/servers/eserver/linux/pass
Om Mani Padme Hum
According to this article, about 50% of AT&T customers use the @Home Network. Of those 1/2, 20% can be transitioned to a new network "quickly"
The remainder of AT&T customers use the RoadRunner network and use @Home only for broadband content. If @Home goes dark tomorrow they won't be able to view their excite homepages but their network access will be unaffected.
In case that gets swamped, here's a reprint:
Cox Communications @Home Service Update:
Following you will find some information to address questions you might have about the email communication that you recently received from us.
Q1. What should I do today?
A1. Cox recommends that you use the following precautionary backup procedures.
Check your @Home email daily. Opened messages will be saved automatically to your hard drive.
Download software from a free dial-up Internet service provider. We recommend that you do not install the software unless service is interrupted.
Back up your personal web page.
Watch for more information from Cox on the transition of your service to Cox High Speed Internetsm. At such time that you can make the transition to our new service, Cox will be providing you with all of the information you need so that your transition is as smooth as possible.
In the unlikely event that there is a disruption in service, keep your cable modem connected to your PC until service is restored.
Q2. I need my e-mail; what am I going to do?
A2. Cox is doing everything that we can to ensure that you are never without your email. If our plans are successful, your service will not be interrupted and you will have a comfortable transition period in which you can convert your service to a new Cox-managed network.
Q3. What about my modem?
A3. In the unlikely event that there is a service interruption, you should leave your modem connected to your PC until service is restored.
Q4. What is this dial-up, temporary service?
A4. In the unlikely event that your service is temporarily interrupted, we recommend that you set up Internet access via one of the free dial-up Internet services that are available. We have arranged for temporary, dial-up access to the Internet via NetZero. You may download this software by clicking here. This dial-up access is meant to be a temporary alternative to provide email and connectivity. The free service offers ten hours per month, which should be sufficient to get you through any short-term outages. This service does not currently support MAC, Windows 2000 or XP. If you are a Roanoke or Hampton Roads resident and a NetZero local access number is not available, please visit www.juno.com as a potential alternative.
We do not recommend that you install the software at this time, just download the software and save it so that it may be installed should you have an interruption in service. This is a precautionary measure that would give you access to the Internet via a phone line plugged into your computer.
Q5. What will I get with this service and is it Cox supported?
A5. Unfortunately, Cox cannot speak to the features and benefits of the free dial-up Internet services that are available, nor can we guarantee or support it. We recommend that you explore this temporary backup plan simply as a precautionary measure. We are taking all necessary steps to ensure that your service is uninterrupted, but we thought that you might be interested in a temporary, although not ideal, solution for Internet access in the unlikely event that your service is shut down.
Q6. Will you credit my bill? When will I see a credit?
A6. Cox will credit you for any time that you are without service. This includes reimbursement for equipment leasing fees if you are leasing your cable modem from Cox. Should your service be interrupted, you would see an appropriate credit on the next statement that you next receive from Cox.
Q7. How do I get updates quickly?
A7. You have two ways of getting the latest accurate information quickly.
We've established a special number (1-877-832-4751). When you call this number, you will hear a recording that provides the latest information.
You can also get updated information by visiting www.cox.com/info.
These are the most accurate and up-to-date sources for information on your Cox Internet service.
Q8. How will you communicate with me if my service is down?
A8. Cox will contact you via mail or courier to provide important status updates and service information concerning the new Cox-managed high speed Internet service that will replace your @Home service. You can also call 1-877-832-4751 to hear a recorded message with the latest, accurate and up-to-date information.
Q9. What will happen to my personal Web page?
A9. As a safety precaution, you should always backup your personal Web page to a CD or hard drive. To Transfer Files from WebSpace to your hard drive using the File Manager:
Download the files from WebSpace to your computer by logging in to the WebSpace login page at http://home-members.excite.com/m_webspace/ and clicking File Manager, located at the top-right corner of the screen.
Select Transfer from the File Manager navigation bar. In the window that appears, select the files you want to transfer from your WebSpace account to your computer, and the location to which you want them transferred, then click Transfer.
A window appears telling you when your file has been downloaded.
Click OK to return to the File Manager page.
Once you are finished with File Manager, log out by clicking Logout on the navigation bar. If you do not log out, and you share a computer with other people in your household, they may have access to your files.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
Valued Customer? yea, right.. I'm sure they didn't plan on telling anybody unless they asked about it.
Actually, given that each new customer costs Covad some ungodly amount of cash, such that they need a year or more to start seeing a return, a whole bunch of new customers could kill them dead.
This next song is very sad. Please clap along. -- Robin Zander
@home went and changed the server names, and never updated the website..
Mail server is no longer just 'mail',
it's now 'mail...home.com'
Would have been nice if they'd made this a bit more clear, somewhere..
Same change applies to the newsgroup servers.. No longer 'news', but as above.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
Apparently, Rogers' DNS is supposed to magically resolve "pop" properly. Didn't work here... fortunately, I was able to pull the relevant info from a dslreports.com thread.
The proper names for the POP and SMTP servers are:
pop.bloor.is.net.cable.rogers.com
ssmtp.bloor.is.net.cable.rogers.com (note: that's not a typo. Seriously.)
To make things a bit less obfuscated, aliases exist:
pop.broadband.rogers.com
smtp.broadband.rogers.com
Those should work beautifully. I kind of wish Rogers had just listed those in the first place, instead of relying on m4d DNS m4gik. It screws up in certain cases, as you and I both discovered.
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
From the Wired Article:
There you have it. $7,800,000,000 ---> $10,000,000. Excite.com is now worth 0.00128 PERCENT of what it was worth two years ago!As I said, these companies simply can't predict what the market will do. Do you trust the prediction of profitabilty in 10 years from a company that couldn't forsee one of its primary assets devalue 780 times in 2 years?
Even worse, let's say they have managed to draw up a plan to be profitable. Why didn't they have this plan a year ago, so they wouldn't be in the dilemma they face today? Oops, they can make those numbers move when they're forced to!
Believe me, I really don't want to see @Home go. My Internet connection this weekend will be Comcast@Home, and they don't even have a contingency plan (oooh, they say to use NetZero for 10 free hours! What a joke!). But this is absurd, and they simply cannot be allowed to continue on this joke of a profitablity plan of theirs.
-- Imagine how much more advanced our technology would be if we had eight fingers per hand.
In the brief this portion was clarified:
1. Posting
The initial issue is whether the posting prohibition is content-neutral, since, as we have explained, this classification determines the applicable
constitutional standard. The Appellants contend that the anti-trafficking provisions of the DMCA and their application by means of the posting
prohibition of the injunction are content-based. They argue that the provisions "specifically target . . . scientific expression based on the particular topic
addressed by that expression--namely, techniques for circumventing CSS." Supplemental Brief for Appellants at 1. We disagree. The Appellants'
argument fails to recognize that the target of the posting provisions of the injunction- -DeCSS--has both a nonspeech and a speech component, and
that the DMCA, as applied to the Appellants, and the posting prohibition of the injunction target only the nonspeech component. Neither the DMCA
nor the posting prohibition is concerned with whatever capacity DeCSS might have for conveying information to a human being, and that capacity, as
previously explained, is what arguably creates a speech component of the decryption code. The DMCA and the posting prohibition are applied to
DeCSS solely because of its capacity to instruct a computer to decrypt CSS. That functional capability is not speech within the meaning of the First
Amendment. The Government seeks to "justif[y]," Hill, 530 U.S. at 720, both the application of the DMCA and the posting prohibition to the
Appellants solely on the basis of the functional capability of DeCSS to instruct a computer to decrypt CSS, i.e., "without reference to the content of
the regulated speech," id. This type of regulation is therefore content- neutral, just as would be a restriction on trafficking in skeleton keys identified
because of their capacity to unlock jail cells, even though some of the keys happened to bear a slogan or other legend that qualified as a speech
component.
Content neutral as to the speech component of the code! What this means is that it would be legal to post a "version" of DeCSS that would be non-functional. For example, if a bug were purposely inserted into the code and it would no longer run. If the code is not functional, it is not banned - the speech component of it is not what is being prohibited.
Ok, I suggest this to 2600 or anyone else who wants to post DeCSS or other decryption programs - add typo/bug's to it. Don't actually state where the bugs are, leave it as an excercise for the reader. Since the code is speech, I imagine most readers who can comprehend the speech can also mentally fix the typos - but computers cannot (typically) and, therefore, you've removed the objectionable portion of the code...
Writing is the only socially acceptable form of schizophrenia. (E. L. Doctorow)