Slashdot Mirror
Slashback: Banco, Warez, Fiction
What about a Dvorak-layout program for the number keys? hex4def6 writes "Ticalc.org is back up for business after the unfortunate incident in which "inapropriate Content" was pressed onto the CD's that Texas Instruments included in their "Fun Kit" graphlink kit from the Ticalc archives. New things in the archives include a neat winamp plugin that allows you to control winamp from your Ti-89 webpage. Check it out here. All the archives are back up, but there is a backlisting of new files submited."
Many happy returns! Eileen Gunn writes "Last August, Slashdot ran a story about The Infinite Matrix, an online SF zine aimed at technogeeks, that posted its first and last issue in one fell swoop, after losing its funding (what's new?). The site was slashdotted, of course, and among those visiting it was a Slashdot reader who threw the zine a 6-month financial lifeline. The Infinite Matrix is now posting new material every day from both Bruce Sterling and Terry Bisson. Plus, there's a new story by SF giant Avram Davidson, more fiction by Richard Kadrey and Kathleen Goonan, columns by John Clute and David Langford. Thanks, Slashdot! You've made my life infinitely more complicated."
This is like reading Jules Verne when he was writing newspaper serials -- and no eBook reader is required.
The perils of translation and the world of international banking. Al Giordano of Narco News wrote from Cochabamba, Bolivia, with a correction of my (incorrect) correction on Yesterday's post about First Amendment protections granted online journalism. He provides a better explanation about nomenclature and the Mexican banking system:
"Banamex, or Banco Nacional de Mexico (the way the plaintiff's name appears on the now-dismissed complaint against us), is translated as National Bank of Mexico.The 'Mexican Fed' that you refer to is titled Banco de Mexico, or Bank of Mexico.
So you got it right the first time!
The confusion stems from this: All Mexican banks were nationalized before becoming privatized. It's a long and bloody story and in fact my own story about it is one of the exhibits used by Banamex in its now-fracased SLAPP suit.
When Banamex filed suit against Mario Menendez, Narco News and me, it was still a Mexican bank. The Citibank merger wasn't announced until May 2001 and wasn't finalized until July 20, 2001, ironically, the same day we had our court hearing in New York."
Unfortunately, there's no monopoly on sketchiness. S^(2) writes "Here is a better rundown of the warez crackdowns across the globe. I guess people are running scared a bit and this page is hopping from mirrored site to site, but for now at least check out; http://www.cyberworld.ru/scenebusted/ It breaks down what groups were suspected to have been FEDs, which groups/members will be needing legal defense funds, which groups have shutdown, and a bit on the howto of the crackdown, such as agents raiding a house and watching what connections happened without pulling the plug. That can't be legal, can it? Should I hide my pc behind a wall of something benign, like say VHS bootlegs?"
Or, on the other hand, not distributing warez is an option.
an MD5 hash of an actual IP address can still be deduced to a real IP address...there is no question about that. And again, I really don't have a problem with a website logging my IP address or making it available only for purely "administrative" purposes. My problem (and i think everyone's for that matter) lies in the fact that this information is not made available to all slashdot readers. The FAQ NEVER states that IP addresses are available (in ANY form, MD5-hashed or otherwise) to editors. Take, for example, Malda's explanation of the AC system from the FAQ:
We think the ability to post anonymously is important. Sometimes people have important information they want to post, but are afraid to do it if they can be linked to it...
That's it. That is the ONLY mention of anonymous posting that is included in the FAQ, and it leads me to believe that my anonymous posts are just that - anonymous. But they're not. The last sentence even goes so far as to indicate that anonymous posters CANNOT BE LINKED TO THEIR COMMENTS, when in fact, they can.
While this might not seem like an issue, it is. As long as editors have the ability to moderate poster comments, they have the ability to discriminate against certain users, based on that user's IP address. That's where the entire problem lies. If editors can moderate, they have two VERY unfair advantages - infinite points, and the ability to truly push their own agenda on any topic they choose. If either one of these two abilities were removed (and the other made blatantly obvious to readers), there wouldn't be a problem. If posters were TRULY anonymous, then editors wouldn't be able to single them out even when they post anonymously. Conversely, if editors were subject to the same rules of moderation that regular users were, then even the ability to sort by IP address wouldn't help them, as they would no longer be able to mod a single user into oblivion.
I don't see why this is such a big problem for you to understand, michael. You seem like a fairly reasonable person (when you take away your very un-journalistic biases), but you have yet to acknowledge the fact that some people might have a problem with this system. Tell me, how do you rationalize the fact that these unadvertised "features" give editors a very unfair advantage over dissenting readers? Why can't the "features" be advertised? Why does the AC system even exist, if AC's aren't really anonymous?
Damn, it's really shocking to read the crap those agents pulled on the warez groups. Even ignoring the obvious immorality/illegality of it, it seems to me like they put a lot of time into the raids.
/. and go get the papers ready for my companies upcoming audit.
What the hell are they wasting their time for (and our money) on little stuff like this? It's like the federal government has no capability to distinguish between minor crimes and major ones.
If we don't watch out, the next war (after terrorism) will be on software. Damn, imagine if the BSA ever got to use guns. *shudder*
That's not a good thought. Sigh, I'd better stop posting to
Since you mentioned tetris, I had to post this. At my high school, everybody was playing games on their calculators -- from Race to MARIO. However, the 83plus users couldn't play tetris, because it only worked on the 83. Anyway, I created a program called "TETRIS." What it did was displayed "Loading..." on the screen, while it archived every variable, including all of the unusual vars (such as the Str1 and Str2, etc.) except for the lists (I saved them for later). I put their screen in "split mode," while setting the graphing to Polar, with Xmin being larger than Xmax and Ymin larger than Ymax (resulting in a "Window Range" error screen). The program then filled a list named "SYS" up to 999 items, then going on to L1, L2, L3, etc.. until the program filled up the memory and threw an error.
I gave this to another kid (a snobby kid who never stopped playing games on his calc), and it crippled his calculator. He had to pay me five bucks to get it fixed.
I later lost my calculator, and I got it back two weeks with all of my games played repeatedly (with the high score list changed) and all my vars archived, lists filled, etc., resulting in it getting returned (they apparently thought it was broken). I lost it two more times, with the exact same results before it was returned to me.
As one of my teachers told me, in college, 'lets face it. In real life, if you don't know the answer, you're going to either look it up, or ask somebody. So, on the tests, bring in your text books, go nuts. But the tests WILL be such that if you don't know the underlying theory, you're screwed.' And he did it, too. He'd structure some of the questions such that they looked like english wordings of the equasions, but he'd alter something. He'd go ahead and square root something that the forumla is supposed to, so if you plug it in, you'll square root it again, and fuck up. It was great.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
Warez kids are the best and the brightest?! Please explain. My notion of "best and brightest" doesn't associate itself with people who produce nothing, steal from those who do, and get caught doing it. This seems more like evolution in action to me.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
>Customs agent Allan Doody said each computer has between one to two terabytes of stolen software.
Wow! If each software came on a CD-ROM, holding an average of 600 MB, that means each computer was surrounded by 3333 1/3 shoplifted products.
Now, if each box is about 10" x 7" x 2", and your average room has a ceiling height of 8 ft. (96") then the room would have to be 83.3" x 58.3" (7' x 5').
I guess that's why they busted universities. University dorm rooms are just about that size.
Now, if each software was new when it was shoplifted, and if the average software costs $100, that's $333,333.33 of stealing each!
What I don't get is why these stores were stupid enough not to notice 3333 software titles missing from the shelves.
I guess we'll never know...
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
Nah if they wanted high profile and old then they would have tagged Razor or Rebels. Two of the oldest groups in the scene.
If they wanted high profile and popular with the kiddies they would have hit Farilight.
This DeCSS conspiracy makes a great deal of sense. Dezzy coded the DOD DVD Speed Ripper... and he was one of the guys the FBI named immediatly.
Of course, now that the source of 95% of the world's online pirated software has been shut down, big-name software companies will no doubt be dropping their exorbitant pricing -- the justification for which was the rate of online piracy.
Right?
*cough*
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PGP Key ID 0xCB8FF658
I'm a former mathematics teacher. You should be. Let me pick your post apart line by line. I'll be quite harsh, so stop reading now if you don't want your day ruined...
I'm sorry, but I draw the "geekiness" line at pissing away your time writing silly crap like that for a calculator.
Do you think it's silly for football players to lift weights because there are no weights on the football field? Learning to program in a small space develops excellent mental muscles. Learning to program in Z80 assembler (or whatever language is used) is invaluable to ANYONE who wants to understand computers. YOU don't see the usefulness in it, therefore you conclude it's pointless; I must disagree. I'd point out also (something that you as a teacher MUST come to understand) that anything that motivates a student to learn something, ANYTHING, is invaluable.
A calculator is a tool of science and business, not a gaming machine.
Ever hear of a computer? Ever hear of the IBM PC? Speak of facts, not wishes.
I cannot begin to describe the problems that it has caused me as a high-school math teacher.
Yes, you can. You go on to do so in the next sentence. It would have been better to say "I can only begin to describe..."
Not only has the rampant Tetris-playing caused my students to stop paying attention in class, but the ability to store "notes" in the calculator is a major source of cheating on tests.
You have a classroom management problem. The game-playing and cheating are symptomatic. It could be note-passing, it could be talking, it could be throwing pencils at the ceiling. The problem is not the paper, the mouths, or the pencils, it is the students' lack of respect and motivation. Like it or not, responsibility (if not causation) lies with you. Students play games because they have nothing better to do. As for the cheating, you make it sound as if you didn't understand the potential of these "tools", and I have no patience with this. You have no business teaching with them if you don't understand them. I worked with some of the early pioneers of the graphing calculator in secondary mathematics education, and rapidly learned that a teacher who didn't understand the technology would do more harm than good. Students would not only fail to progress in their mathematical skills; they would regress as they lost competence in skills they'd previously developed.
It has gotten so far that we have had to require that only scientific calculators be used on the upcoming midterm exams.
More evidence that you have NO business teaching with graphing calculators. You apparently hand students a tool, teach them to use it, and test them on their ability to accomplish tasks without the tool. You may as well teach them to do long division with paper and pencil and require oral examiniations in which they do all the work in their head. The analogy is almost exact. Here's what we did to solve your problem. On test days...
1. Students place all books under the desk as class starts; only the calculator and some writing implements are on the desk.
2. Students remove batteries from the calculators.
3. The teacher walks to each desk and verifies that the batteries are out.
4. The students replace batteries and place calculators under their desk.
5. The teacher passes out Part 1 of the test; it measures rote memorization of formulas, proofs, etc. This portion of the test is timed.
6. When Part 1 is completed, the teacher passes out Part 2; students could use their calculators.
This worked quite well for us.
On an unrelated note, why don't you write about HP calculators some time?
I believe they have...
They are far superior from a technological and software standpoint, and RPN works a lot better than standard algebraic notation.
Right, and Esperanto is far superior from a linguistic standpoint and works better than standard English phonics. But no one speaks Esperanto at my supermarket because everyone speaks English. RPN is a poor choice in a pedagogical environment because you must teach not one, but two mathematical languages. If you want to teach RPN, by all means do so..but teach only RPN and use textbooks whose notation makes RPN obvious.
Alas, I suppose now that HP's discontinuing them, they don't matter to the Slashdot crowd anymore...
Not a homogenous group...but you're probably mostly correct.
Some of this has been pointed out in other posts, but I wanted to be thorough. BTW, I'm a former mathematics teacher because I was a bad mathematics teacher. I loved mathematics, I loved my students, and I loved being in the classroom. I just really, really sucked at it. Anyway, I can see the symptoms from a thousand miles. You really need to either leave the field (as I did) or seek some drastic change to your teaching. A few years reflection on my failure has lead me t believe that classroom management (aka discipline) skills are the core competencies of good teachers.
... has been a mess since it was nationalized in 1982. Basically, one day all the investments companies like Bank Of America and Citi had in Mexico back then was for all practical purposes stolen, and the country paid the price for the next 15 years - no investment institutions would do business there no matter how good the odds were.
Things have gotten better over the last few years, where now they're at the point of allowing foreign companies to acquire what was once the "pride" of the mexican financial system, Banamex (mentioned in the article). The problem is that Banamex was supremely in bed with the ruling party, and thus it can still do whatever the heck it pleases. Having said that, US law should hopefully shoot them down in this sad case.
FWIW, the mexican 'fed' is technically not the Banco De Mexico, but the board of governors headed by the Minister of Finance and the governor of the bank itself. For many years this 'bank' was really just a money production factory, back in the golden days of the banana republic mindset when the government printed more money if it suddenly ran out for some reason. 40% inflation baby!
Obviously this is pertinent to the case of these busted warez organizations. From my humble participation in the scene in '94 and thereabouts, I never saw anyone from the larger groups (Razor, DoD, PwA, RTS) selling CDs, selling FTP access, or otherwise trying to make a buck from warez. Everybody just wanted to get the biggest and best 0-day releases, the coolest demos, and the hardest cracks, then spend all night in IRC bragging about it and trying to take over channels (yay EFnet).
Have there been any laws since the LaMacchia case that make priacy without profit a federal crime?
If you haven't got the faintest idea what I'm talking about, Google for David LaMacchia and Harvey Silverglate (civil libertarian and author of The Shadow University)
Imagine if the FBI had spent millions of dollars setting up dragnets on known jaywalkers around the world. These people KNOW they're breaking the law, and they've been caught red-handed. You don't have the RIGHT to jaywalk. Jail time is the only possible answer, right? And to top it all off, undercover agents secretly were telling suspects how to jaywalk, and where to jaywalk.
Puts things a little more in perspective, right?
(Note: I'm assuming that jaywalking is illegal in most jurisidictions.. if not, insert your own silly law here)
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.