Slashdot Mirror
e-Denounce
Knacklappen writes: "A British organization named Federation Against Software Theft (FAST) will according to this article on Monday launch a plug-in for Internet Explorer that will put an 'F' button on a user's browser. Pressing the button, one can easily tipoff FAST about pirated software. The plug-in captures a live example of the site for evidence as well as other basic information about the site. Great idea, but why not mark the button with 'D' for 'denounce'?"
why not mark the button with 'D' for 'denounce'?
surely it is F for fink.
Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler. -- A.E.
I'm getting this just to claim that every single page on the FAST website is pirated software. Yes, I have no life.
Why not d for denounce? Maybe because f stands for FAST.
Download their button and click F on every website you go to. Maybe someone could write a program that automatically does this everytime you go to a site.
Tim
Omnia vestra castrorum habetur nobis.
everybody should have this, and use it as often as possible, perticularly where it shouldn't be used
how long do you think they will continue if they get flooded with false reports, or claims that things like downloads.com are pirates...
Isn't it F for Fink?
If you are surfing websites looking for warez (pronounced "war-ez" and not "wares" by the true junkies) ... Why the hell would you want to report it to a bunch of copyright police?
The average joe-shmoe will never run into a download for pirated software unless he is looking for it. So this "plugin" is pointless.... right?
x-empt
Ever need an online dictionary?
You would have to be crazy to even think about installing something like this on your system. If its sole intention is to rat on people, wouldn't you think it would monitor just a little bit more than what you volunteered to offer?
What's your damage, Heather?
This is a good idea. . . in theory. In practice, though, who will even bother? I mean, wouldn't the typical warezer want to keep his warezing resources around?
Someone smart with a broad userbase, like AOL, got paid a large amount of money by the RIAA to release a FastTrack client with a little "F" button to its users, complete with instructions to press it whenever they see a copyrighted song. I think the likelihood of it working (rather than just backfiring and giving all AOL users access to stolen mp3s) is far higher than any of us would like to think...
This is a self-referential sig
Someone will probably submit freshmeat saying "Look at all this software you can download with out paying for, it's gota be priacy!".. Long live FSF!
Later,
Phil
"People may be reporting instances of illegally pirated software simply out of the goodness of their hearts..." Aww.
They should have named it the "G" button for "GAY"!!
You know, if everyone on Slashdot gets this plugin, and then procedes to click on the "F" for EVERY SINGLE SITE THEY VISIT...
All you have to do is press the "S" button for article submission.
:)
Of course the editors need an "R" button for "Rejected." But then, I think auto-reject is a feature already built in.
satire, n: 1) witty language used to convey insults or scorn; 2) a form of humor lost on most slashdot moderators.
it's a great idea, with the wrong application
how 'bout something like this for reporting spammers (outlook/kmail w/ a forward button aimed at the Bureau of Spammer Castration or whatever)
in the meantime feel free to flood the FAST offices with porno ad traps, i'm sure they'll enjoy it
I thought it said that it'd put an 'F' button on my keyboard. I must be getting old.
[PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation
www.gnu.org
Seriously though, there was this kid I knew who would spend a week at a time to download software off AOL. He had heard about Linux and wanted to try it out. So he asked me where a good place to get pirated iso's of it were.
I'm thinking going to Microsoft.com, MPAA.org, and RIAA.org and clicking that F button 1,000,000 times might be very fun indeed. After all, maybe with the exception of Microsoft, I bet that many of the individuals who are members of MPAA or RIAA or work for them probably make daily use of pirated software/music. Oh dear me.
What?
Well, as soon as I pickup this plugin, I can finally prove that Yahoo is a warez site, and flood 'FAST' with Yahoo pages..
And no, I don't have a life, it's blantly obvious.
~RaGe
www.outrigged.com
Think about it. If a person even is able to find warez that is downloadable (as opposed to fake warez sites that simply advertise porn) then this person is on a mission NOT to stop warez from being available, but rather to download that warez for his/her own purposes. I highly doubt that after this very long pursuit for warez will give the user the need to say "I don't want this incredibly hard to find site to be up anymore! No more warez for me!" I mean, seriously folks
I don't see how this is going to work. Most people who go to sites with pirated material go there because they are interested in the content provided. They aren't going to screw their favorite warez site over and report them. Is there anyone who thinks this will actually work?
I'm a repairman in an imperfect world.
If they start installing this without my permission, or automating phantom plugins so that when you go to a warez site it detects known warez names (e.g. PhotoshopISO.001), then I'll be mighty pissed off.
I wonder if the plugin could be modified to report back every page I go to. I really don't care if they know what I'm looking at, and if enough people do this they'll be completely overwhelmed.
Alternatively, just use it to send back reports while viewing "adult" sites. Put a grin on the workers faces, because hey, someone has to look at all the reports that get sent back.
The true users of this software will be:
A) Self-appointed vigilantes with nothing better to do.
B) Immature little warez kiddies turning in sites that belong to "opposing" warez groups.
As a side note, how many times do you think The Underdogs will be turned in per day?
[PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation
Everybody should download the plugin, and press the button on every single site we visit. That'll sure help their cause out :)
in bright bold red that the plugin can overlay on all the websites that get reported to FAST (as in "hey watch me pull a FAST one over on the ACLU and EFF!")?
In order for this to work, each time you give a site an "F", you should be contractually bound so that if it turns out that the site is legit, then you are the one that gets in trouble: you would have to pay a fine.
Then, in order to give people a motive for using this plug-in, the company should pay bounty money to the vigilante via a Paypal type system.
This fine/bounty system would turn the internet into the wild west, but it might just work. You would end up with roaming internet cowboys who made a living by busting pirates.
However, the system should be more sophisticated, give the user more tools: IRC, USENet, and other protocols are often used for piracy. The report tool should be able to legally document those types of sources.
If noone could pirate software, far more people would end up using free software. Think about it.
F is for you.
WTF would someone take time out to do this - a badly warped paranoid sense of their own importance?
What exactly is software privacy anyway?
And how does anyone get lucky enough to be named Heathcote Hobbins?
THE FEDERATION AGAINST Software Theft (FAST) relies on the kindness of strangers in its effort to short-circuit pirates selling illegal software over the Internet, so in its effort to encourage the reporting of such pirating, the organization wants to make whistle-blowing as simple as the push of a button.
Early next week, the London-based nonprofit will launch a software plug-in for Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE), that when installed will put an "F" button on a user's browser, said lawyer and FAST representative Julian Heathcote Hobbins. The "F" stands for "fast," not "fink." The software will be free and available at the FAST Web site, http://www.fast.org.uk/.
"The software makes reporting instances of illegal software piracy very straightforward and simple. In the past, people would have to go to our Web site and fill out a form to do so and the process was rather complicated. That's completely changed with this software; it's free, easy and you can even make an anonymous report if you'd like," Heathcote Hobbins said.
If a user finds him or herself on a Web site that sells illegal software -- be it music, games, movies or programs -- one click on the "F" will pull up a box. A person can fill in their name, a fake name or no name at all, answer a few other questions, and then click send.
"Included in FAST's software is Webcam software that captures a live example of the site for evidence as well as other basic information about the site," Heathcote Hobbins said.
FAST was set up in 1984 by the British Computer Society's Copyright Committee and works in a fashion similar to the Business Software Alliance (BSA) in Washington, D.C. "The BSA also investigates reports of software privacy, but its reporting process is very complicated," Heathcote Hobbins said.
Companies' revenue losses due to software piracy were nearly $11.8 billion worldwide in 2000, according to the BSA's annual report. The organization's report for 2001 is expected to be published next month.
FAST, which does not concern itself with peer-to-peer file sharing, had been receiving a steady stream of e-mail and telephone calls reporting the sale of illegal pirated software until recently, he said.
"Since between December and this spring, our e-mails have fallen to about 10 on the weekends and one or two a night on the weekdays. That works out to about 1,000 reports a year, which is about a fifth of what it had been. I don't know if that's because pirates have gone more underground or perhaps our old system was a bit of a pain. That's why we created the new reporting software, which we believe is the first of its kind," Heathcote Hobbins said.
Once FAST receives a tip-off about pirated software, it investigates the claim. If FAST is satisfied that the report is valid, Heathcote Hobbins sends a letter to the ISP (Internet service provider) hosting the Internet software pirates' Web site, informing the ISP of the problem and requesting the site be shut down or that similar action be taken.
"ISPs have been very responsive to this issue, and once they are made aware of anything illegal, are generally keen to put a stop to it. FAST is about stopping illegal software but we also work with the other enforcement bodies, covering music, movies and games," Heathcote Hobbins said.
FAST has also been developing a close relationship with the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) in Washington, D.C. "Obviously, the Web is global and the problem isn't just confined to the U.K. In fact, I just got a tip-off from the States this week. We are looking to broaden our horizons, but that takes time and money," Heathcote Hobbins said.
FAST is also developing plug-in software for the Netscape browser but is uncertain what the time frame for its release is.
The company makes money through corporate and industry membership fees. Companies like the international engineering, construction and services group, Balfour Beatty PLC, and Yorkshire Electricity Group PLC pay yearly fees beginning at $863, depending on the size of the company, to have FAST audit the company to ensure that all of the software the company is using is legal.
FAST not only monitors for software sold illegally over the Internet, but for unregistered software that is being used by companies. About 37 percent of business software used worldwide in 2000 consisted of illegal copies, according to the BSA report.
"There are different types of people that report different types of things. For example, people reporting the sale of illegal software over the Internet may have been burned when they bought illegal software in the past that was ripped badly. Or an IT manager in a company may want to make sure his employer isn't inadvertently doing something illegal. Or in both cases, people may be reporting instances of illegally pirated software simply out of the goodness of their hearts," Heathcote Hobbins said.
...An Exploder plugin that emails Micro$ofts entire corporate listing to every known spammer everytime a windoze box goes BSOD?
I dont know why copyright and other assorted ip owners assume that people will go out of their way to help them protect their rights, which they (the owners) will use for their own gain.
There is community support to enforce the gpl but that benefits everyone.
I can never be sure if a page has pirated software in it or not, it could be hidden... so I will use their plugin and point it at lots of sites, then they can follow up all my helpful leads to see if I am right, you should help too!
The really scary part is this: (from the linked article):
The company makes money through corporate and industry membership fees. Companies like the international engineering, construction and services group, Balfour Beatty PLC, and Yorkshire Electricity Group PLC pay yearly fees beginning at $863, depending on the size of the company, to have FAST audit the company to ensure that all of the software the company is using is legal.
Seems like a bit of a conflict to me: sure, pay us to confirm that you don't have illegal software, and we won't tell ourselves.
It's like having to pay protection money, so they won't come and break our kneecaps.
Suspicion Breeds Confidence!
The Underdogs really tries to only post the binaries for games that are no longer sold. If a game is re-released, or still sold after a really long time, he has a review of the game, but doesn't post the binaries. The Underdogs tries its best to live up to the Abandonware promise.
Do they really think there's gonna be that many people willing to be a narc, without any compensation?
Keep sending the address of 1 Microsoft Way saying they have multiple copies of all Windows versions and some of them might not be legal.
or
To MPAA/RIAA:
Dear whatevars:
Eye s3Nd J00 dIs PhIle to h4\/3 J0Ur 4d\/IC3.
Have you read the moderator guidelines? Well, have you, PUNK? (and I want a Karma: Gnarly option)
...this sort of thing seems double-plus good to me.
--------
Bleah! Heh heh heh... BLEAH BLEAH!!! Ha ha ha ha...
Why they this is ever going to work when facing the extreme easiness one could block IE users (and web spiders) to view some pages? It will just make mozilla (and the likes) popular in the warez world.
... for reporting spam. I am NOT playing vigilante for copyrighted software. It is NOT that hard to find. And what would my reward be?
Screw that. But if I could press an F button to say 'this is spam' and have it reported, then in theory maybe somebody'll do something about it, and I'll have less shit in my inbox. That would be a rather satisfactory incentive for me to report stuff like this.
"Derp de derp."
people read this:
:)
"If a user finds him or herself on a Web site that sells illegal software -- be it music, games, movies or programs -- one click on the "F" will pull up a box."
I don't mind them stopping people from selling warez, warez should be FREE
A couple of years ago warez newbies would use websites if they didn't know about IRC but these days, P2P clients like KaZaA, Morpheus, and Limewire make downloading warez 10x easier for the non-irc crowd. Why would they worry about web sites now? That's like the RIAA coming out with countermeasures for analog tape piracy.
With the same right to say D should stay for denounce I may say Neighbourhoodwatch is a fascist as after all, Robin Hood that I am, all I want is to distribute the existing wealth more justly.
IMHO adding some spurious button is the wrong approach and it may quite well do more harm than good and result in a lot of badmouthing and I'm having some qualms it's going to work, too.
What does this have to do with My (or Your) Rights Online?
this won't work, i mean, when was the last time someone who saw a car alarm go off, fill out a report? i don't want to be misdirected by what i wanna do, i wanna get on the net, read, reply, download, do whatever.
people don't tattle tale too much, it's just too much effort, and even making this simplier for stupid people won't make a diffrence.
Runnin' On Empty
Someone modifies it, so instead of reporting the page to FAST, the page is added to www.warez.com. ;)
Track down all the anonymous owners of GeoCities sites which are just mirrors for pirated files? Ya, good luck there, not even geocities can close them as fast as they open.
"The plug-in captures a live example of the site for evidence as well as other basic information about the site."
...along with a list of every single piece of software installed on your machine. I'm not sure whether this would be a complete master-stroke on their behalf or the most moronic thing ever.
I don't think I'd like anything living on my machine sending data to F.A.S.T.
My spoon is too big.
Obviously no one would use this unless there is a real incentive.
I'd suppose the reward would be something like "10% of the money that would have been lost by the software industry if the site wasn't shut down".
Just think! The site has a pirated version of MS-Office? Well, if it was downloaded 1000 times over the last week, but then you "F"d 'em, you'd get something like $100,000!
This, my friends, is the wave of the future. The software companies quickly curb piracy, recover huge losses, and for a very very low cost!
And you, the investigator, make lots of money in the process!
This is the free market at it's best!
Does the plug-in work with Mozilla?
Couldn't this be attacked using the DMCA?
FAST has long been at this kind of thing: some years back, they started pushing their "shop your boss" campaign, whereby they encouraged people to report their employers if they were using privated software.
Such tactics as these are really quite chilling, and can surely do FAST no favours whatsoever. It's ironic that, by pushing this kind of crap, the powers-that-be continue to harm their cause: these draconian tactics will only serve to encourage the view of the software pirate as a Robin Hood figure fighting an evil force. And, indeed, the organisations who're pushing this kind of stuff generally *are* the true thieves who are *truly* costing the software developers their money. After all, who can really trust people who try to convince you that, in a free market economy, the logical economic response to flagging sales (as a result of piracy) is the raising of prices...?
Most pirates know that what they're doing is questionable; compared with the likes of the RIAA and FAST, though, their sins are made to seem small and insignificant. I can only hope that continued moves like this will encourage society as a whole to address industry-serving laws that allow teenagers who copy games to be locked up, whilst (for example) keeping animal abuse acts a simple misdemeanour in several states.
Hey, what if that webcam captures some of the original stuff I put on the Web? Isn't that, in itself, copyright infringement? And does that mean I should click the "F" button while at their website?
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
In this case is not for Government Big Borther but GNU..... the software that cannot be easily pirated or wrongly distributed without those involved in producing it noticing and causing action to be taken by the whole.
I want my G N U!!
Guess who just became the #1 candidate for DOS attacks. I notice that I can't connect to their site. I'm no fan of DOS attacks, but this is just asking for it. Any server that this plug-in links to will be locked 24/7.
Dumb, dumb, dumb...
Comment removed based on user account deletion
FAST is just looking to build up the *ultimate* Top 100 Warez site! I wish I worked for them...
Ceci n'est pas un post
F si 4 fag0t
yuo=fag0t
I actually believe Warez helps software companies. Think about it, there's no chance of these kids affording it normally, but if they pirate the software for free they get to learn a new proprietary program. If more and more people use it, than companies might demand it in the future giving these proprietary companies more market share.
That's not to say 'Warez' sites are good sources for pirating. Actually nowadays they suck. I just visited a few and there were endless popups, force voting, broken or non-existant links, or even loading of javascript virii!
Of course this might become a good thing for the Open Source movement. As it is harder to pirate software, more people might start using open source software like Linux, BSD, GiMP, etc.
One possiblity - all of the assorted "warez" sites may start automatically bouncing anyone with IE, saying "use something that doesn't report us" or similar....
A plus for Mozilla, Opera, et al. Not necessarily the sort of advertising they'd ever want to use, but every download helps.
Beware the psychokinetic mimes!
How long before Microsoft mandates all it's employees use it when they stumble onto a Linux related website..
..There's a-dooin's a-transpirin'
I fully intend to install this marvelous plug-in and finally bring justice to the likes of Disney, CNN and Nickelodeon. Regardless of what you guys say, their tyranny and disrespect for the law WILL be reported, and GOD speed to those wonderful folks at FAST for taking up my cause.
You'll be seeing ALOT of my reports you thankless heroes.
In addition to spamcop that complains to the sender's ISP, there is also Razor that reports the spam to a filtering network so that it can easilly be filtered out by a spam filter such as SpamAssassin True you won't be vigilante against them, but it'll cut down the the spam for everyone that uses the filters.
Just tell it to the secret police.
Question: if you had an 'm' button to announce a mugging, or an 'r' button tell the police abouta rape, would that be OK?
There is a lot written about, is this turning us into an 'informing' society?
Perhaps the right question to ask is, what do we wish to count as illegal?
Is smoking dope illegal?
No. Fine.
What about selling copies of Microsoft Word?
Whatever.
What about copies of 'kiddie porn'?
Most crimes are 'solved' because someone told the authorities about them, not due to some Peter Wimsey-esque effort on behalf of the police.
Ask, what do I believe is the crime?
If you believe it is a crime, perhaps you should tell the powers-that-be.
*r
--- My dad's political betting
If I Fink, er Fast, on a site, they get a letter from this angry Hobbit Heathcote Haggins. Perhaps a distant relative of the sacksville bagins? Certainly doesn't sound like a very respectible family in the shire.
I think I will go back to letting my fondness for the hobbit leaf slow my mind. Maybe when I wake up it will be the 60's again, before all this uglyness started.
I can factor 1024-bit primes easily. Each has two factors -- itself and 1.
To "factor a prime" means to prove that it is, in fact, a prime number in N and not something strange like a Carmichael number or something.
Will I retire or break 10K?
For fsck's sake people, software piracy is *bad*!
There are people out there who depend on software sales for a living. If you don't want to pay for software, you can use free as in beer software. Much of free as in beer software is also free as in speech.
I neither want to pay out hard cash, nor do I want to be restricted by legalese. So, I use GPL'd software where I can. Apache webserver, for example. Samba, instead of Windows network server. You know, stuff like that...
However, I also want to play Half-life, and Counterstrike. It took time and money to make these games. Yes, I could get pirate copies off Gnutella, but I want the *actual real copies* bought in a shop. So I have the right to own the proprietary software I use, and I have the right to use the free software I use.
It seems to me that the quickest way to defeat this sort of thing would be to 'F' a lot of sites which aren't (and don't appear) to be doing anything. Additionally, I wonder how hard it would be to fake the information? It seems like it would be pretty easy to fake a submission. If the capture included the sites domain name and IP, that could easily be spoofed by appropriate an appropriate hosts entry and ip-address change.
This type of system seems very vaunerable to false reports of every type.
Come test your mettle in the world of Alter Aeon!
(Translation: So Fucking What???)
This is an optional plug-in that no one is going to bother looking at. It's about as newsworthy as toe fungus.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
I've been tempted several times to turn in an employer.
I have never worked for someone who didn't have at least one "pirated" copy of Microsoft software.
Feeling that they should have been paying me closer to the national average as a System Administrator for Microsoft server and client software, I have been 'this' close to ratting to the BSA.
As soon as one of these organizations pays a "finder's fee", I'm am soooo there.
Yes, I am an oportunistic bastard.
obviously no deficiencies vs. no obvious deficiencies
It's kind of neat that we can now press a button and take down a website.
Before such software as that, we had to get it posted on Slashdot.
Instead of an F, try a P for Puritanism.
This wasn't just plain terrible, this was fancy terrible. This was terrible with raisins in it. - Dorothy Parker
Or an IT manager in a company may want to make sure his employer isn't inadvertently doing something illegal.
Yeah right. An IT manager who is not sure of that should look for another job. And if he doesn't have the balls (or whatever the PC equivalent for female managers is) to do that, chances are s/he won't rat on his/her employer either.
So it is rather safe to read this sentence as "Or a disgruntled IT manager who has an axe to grind with his employer".
We got ratted on a couple of years ago, had to burn several man months to prove our case, and we got a thank you note in the end because we had way too many licenses. No compensation for being fraudulently accused of theft, obviously. It hasn't crossed the minds of the lyncing mob that having, say, 1000 PC's, only 300 of them were licensed to run version X of a certain excuse for an OS, could mean that we would be legal if 700 of them ran an outdated but perfectly paid-up OS. Hmmm, running wasn't the word actually, we had a stockpile of 486's that we couldn't get rid of because they were technical write-offs, but financially on the books.
Bert Driehuis -- All I asked was a friggin' rotatin' chair. Throw me a bone here, people.
Considering all the security holes in IE, how long do you think it will take for the warez community to come up with a bit of javascript that will hijaak the plugin and cause it send a big "Fuck You" to FAST instead of the actual URL and webpage contents? I'm thinking 24 hours and then a week or so for it to spread like a kiddie-script to all the warez websites.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
now they're getting slashdotted, then they'll likely get DDoS'd (similar, but worse)... and then they'll probably get hacked. Repeatedly. Serves 'em right. Intrusive f*ckers.
I wonder why people haven't gone after the BSA, due to their Gestapo tactics: "Hi, we're your friendly BSA - just ignore those big goons with us - you won't mind _proving_ that all your software _is_ licensed, will you? It'll only take a few days/weeks and then we'll be on our way!" Without a _valid warrant_, don't let the BSA a**holes inside.
Has anyone ever _sued_ the BSA for the costs of a software audit that found no problems? If not, someone should. Or is everyone guilty until proven innocent now? And have to pay to prove it. Pretty soon it's going to be... "Well, we realize you bought all those Win2K licenses, but, um... you didn't upgrade them as required, so we're afraid you're in violation of the vendor's current licensing terms. Would you prefer to pay for those again and then buy the new licenses... or go to jail?" Ex post facto licenses, just you wait...
I've noticed that when I'm surfing some sites on the fringe of "warez", such as Abandonware, I get pop-ups for Warez sites. Also, some sites are adding porn ads to their pop-ups, which in turn link to Warez pop-ups.
What does this have to do with FAST? Well, people have mentioned two categories of people who will use FAST: self-appointed vigilantes, and teenage boys.
I'd like to add a third category: people who are PISSED OFF WITH POP-UPS. Yes, those of us out there who are starting to dislike what the Internet is becoming may not have much recourse towards the regular pop-ups and the porn ads (other than the pop-up stopper apps), but boy-oh-boy, there's an F button in the corner of that pop-ad for those Warez people!
My antidotum would be a website like this:
Hey d00d! cHecK 0u+ Th15 c00L 50f+waRe! wHY pay 4 |t wh3N U can D/L it H3r3! HEHEHE!!! Ju5T U53 kEY: 1234514-13451-1345 & U g0T iT f0r FREE!!!!! WAREZ RULEZ!!!! & d0N'+ 4G3T 2 Ch3cK 0u+ Th1Z rU55iAn Und3Rgr0uNd Serv3R! tHey g0+ 4250 wAr3Z pR0grAmz!!!!!! cLiCK h3R3 to G3T 2 mY HidD3N FtP War3Z serv3R wItH ***FULL!!!*** vErS|0Ns Of gImP, m02|LLa, kDe, gN0m3, aPaCH3 WeB s3Rv3R (FULL ENTERPRISE VERSION, noT thE sHar3War3 Sh|T!!!!!) eV3rYtH|nG pAtcH3D & U d0NT nEEd Ser|AL NuMb3rZ & r3G k3Yz!!!!!!! Et cetera...
A fine guaranteed.
~shiny
WILL HACK FOR $$$
If a user finds him or herself on a Web site that sells illegal software -- be it music, games, movies or programs
I thought that whether music is software or not is still out in the courts? How is it in the UK?
I enjoyed how the article specifically said that the 'F' stands for "fast" , not "fink".
Looks like they know exactly what type or PR they're getting, and they like it.. Maybe they got the idea from all of the drug enforcers who wear "N" for "Noteworthy citizen" instead of
We could modify the F button to be a T button, and it could be used to alert the FBI about possible terrorists. I just know the old lady next door is a terrorist, and it would be really cool if I could rat on her while I'm surfing for porn.
Ergonomica Auctorita Illico!
this MUST be a product from the evil empire out to gobble pengiuns. It must. what othter explanation could there be, hah? howcome you guys havent started on this track yet. what you waiting for !
Then maybe they could get rid of all the fake sites and it would be easier to find a real one.
Wouldn't it be interesting if a virus came out that swapped this button with ctrl-alt-del button?
Table-ized A.I.
or even in beta win2002 1/2. just you wait. your gonna get yours, you free software pinkos.
I thought it was funny!
Who was the dimwit who modded this "insightful"? Goddamn retard moderators.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Doubly hilarious because said mother would also claim that other things are true because they're in The Book.
Triply hilarious because the actual data (not necessarily the conclusions the book makes on said data) in the genetics textbook actually destroys the idea of Darwinist evolution (and PunkEek, if you care) pretty thoroughly. Michael Behe's book Darwin's Black Box makes some of the points involved in a really clear and readable way. So in theory Mum should be encouraging the reading of it...
I wonder... are we far enough off topic yet? (-:
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
[begin opening scroll]
Corp Wars
Episode X: The Fair-Use Menace
A long time ago in a galaxy not so far away...
The enforcement of digital rights in outlying systems is in dispute.
The Greedy Federation Against Software Theft has started the shipment of FAST 'F' plugins to the small planet of Naboo backed by a blockade of deadly corporations...
While the Congress of the United States endlessly ignores this alarming chain of events, the Senator from South Carolina, Fritz Hollings, has secretly dispatched representatives from the CBDPTA, the self-appointed guardians of IP, to support this effort..."
-
I imagine these guys are going to be receiving lots of pictures of things like scat pr0n.
warez
/weirz/ A term used by software pirates use to describe a cracked game or application that is made available to the Internet, usually via FTP or telnet, often the pirate will make use of a site with lax security.
Software piracy is illegal and should be reported to the Federation Against Software Theft (FAST).
i know i use telnet for all my weirzing!
See their press release on their site dated 19 February 2002, 'Data Protection A "Safe Harbour" For Software Pirates?', which complains that "the Data Protection legislation causes some ISPs to be reluctant to release personal data of Internet businesses to third parties without the consent of the pirate or a court order," and goes on to say the "US Digital Millennium Copyright Act's 'take down' procedure [is a]a model for the future."
"I am the Law," -- Judge Dredd
Software piracy is the only force which *enables* Microsoft Office to be ubiquitous on the corporate desktop (at least in Japan which I know). Of course the OS comes with the machine, but some pirated/reused copies of the OS are also needed to build new machines etc.
If everyone had to actually pay for this stuff and see it as a line item they might consider using free software. Perhaps the Fink button could be installed on all government workstations by law?
Someone should give these assholes the address of that kid in Malaysia. A virus or two written by the BSA, M$ and the RIAA might have more effect (sheesh).
simply report as many non-pirated software sites as possible. thereby flooding them with so many deadend investigations that they can't afford to maintain the project.
obviously, some sites (like FAST) they will ignore, but it you report personal home pages, obscure interest sites, etc. it will take them years to wade thru all that crap.
So when I use Direct Conect I can send them the IP of the person housing Oracle 9i. But then, they'll need 5 GB of shit to share before they can bust them :) Oh well, back to freenet I go.
If you're not a Liberal in your 20's, then you have no heart.If you're still a Liberal in your 30's you have no brain.
Is this an example of the Thousands of Eyes technique being applied to policework? Didn't the nazis do that? (Ahoy Godwin) Tell on your neighbor, get a cookie.
Oh shit! I forgot to click "Post Anonymously"...
How is Nintendo losing money from people pirating a game the NO LONGER SELL????
I mean , come on. If they haven't sold the game in 2 years, and they're bitching about people distributing it, resell it THEN bust them to loss of revenue.
If you're not a Liberal in your 20's, then you have no heart.If you're still a Liberal in your 30's you have no brain.
...don't press the button until after you have
downloaded the software
One of the sysadmins at my previous job pronounced it that way, and I couldn't figure out why... isn't "warez" a shortened/l33t form of "softwares"? If so, shouldn't it be pronounced the same way? War-ez just sounds like Juarez, the city in Mexico...
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
What happens when people just go around the Web and every page they go to, they click that button? They would just flood these people with false requests, and they would get nothing done.
*goes to MSN.com* *clicks the F 500 times*
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Just think of all the sights I can do this to. microsoft.com, adobe.com, oracle.com, etc.
denouncing is bad, very bad
If enough people use this software liberally (I know I will :-), we should be able to submit every site on the world wide web to them in no time at all.
Then they will have to look at it all.
Sounds a lot like the problem they have now.....
. . . Juarez (for those that don't speak spanish, think "hwa-res"). Of course, that was by someone who didn't know much about them at the time, and even after he did learn about "warez" he kept pronouncing it that way, just to be facetious, and possibly annoying.
Oh, sweet sweet irony!!!
I'm gonna get this thing and click that button on EVERY MICROSOFT PAGE I visit. Come on, you can't think that Microsoft really came up with Windows on it's own! Just stolen from Apple & Xerox of course. Maybe if enough people report Microsoft as a Warez site, they'll have to take it down!
Hey, this is giving me ideas. How about if Apple sends a DMCA notice telling Microsoft to stop selling software that infringes on their IP!!! Love to see the response letter to that!
But seriously, it would be best for everyone on slashdot to download this browser, and setup 'Push the Freaking Button' or similar software to automatically submit every site they visit. In millions of reports of Yahoo.com, do you think they could find the sites that are actually pirates? It would be better for them to just look through every site on the web on their own.
Slashdotters: This is your mission should you choose to accept it... I am the inventor and owner of the color 'white', also known as '#FFFF'. Report any sites on the web you visit that are illegially using MY COLOR! Together, with the help of the DMCA, we can prevent IP infringements!
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
It's probably already been brought up, but this would be so easy to abuse it's pathetic. "I DON'T LIKE THE SCORE SLASHDOT GAVE MY LAST COMMENT!!!" *hits the F-Key numerous times* Oooh, yeah, can see this really working out 9_9
Maybe it's just me, but this is the first time I've heard of FAST. Besides providing "legal assistance", what weight do they have behind them? It's gonna be like crank-calling 911 without any consequences. Do they have the super-human ability to call in a Gestapo-esque strike on your business or home? "Hmmm... Slashdot has recieved 12,000 "alerts"... We'll have to...?" But Officer, I swear Slashdot is pirating software! What a freaking mess...
"Opinions are like armpits; Everybody has two and they stink."
You need a FREE iPod Nano
-- Someone broke into my freezer last night and stole some of my meat.
-- How much was it worth?
-- Well, it was some old, rotting meat that I was wasn't planning to sell anymore and was going to throw out in the morning. But if it were fresh, I would have sold it for $ 20.
-- So you were robbed of $ 20.
-- Right.
I believe the letter 'A' is classically advised.
If this was offered, you could make money off of yourself, and it wouldn't be hard to set up networks (people) to cash in. Go upload some stuff, click F, cash in, repeat. What's better than getting free stuff? Getting paid!!!
What's really amusing is that most illegal software trading doesn't happen over the web - it's too open and too easy to track back to a specific source. The real lion's share of this activity happens over ftp (often through servers set up on hacked computers, especially clueless cable users who leave their systems wide open) and irc.
Ratting out web sites will have little effect on warez trading.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
That is F for "Fink"
realkiwi
Let's all include a page or two somewhere on our sites marked as warez, fill it with linkes marked as latezt offize xp etc.. and have the links point at some real ware
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
Launch a campaign.. get everyone to download this software and click the button in a random order.. every few days.. flood the system with denouncements.
"F" for fucking retarded.
or maybe,
"N" for narc on your friends.
The funny part about it assumes that people get their software from web sites.
Warez groups [almost] never have their own hosting companies. That being said - hosting companies aren't going to get involved in hosting this stuff for them.
They might look the other way, but as long as they walk that fine line that is the law there is little anyone can do. Either the groups are dumb and their site is closed fast or they are smart and no one even knows.
As you can guess warez groups use something way better than the Web. What about P2P et. al.?
I'm not going to look on the web, I'm getting back on gnutella....
Get your Unix fortune now!
This sort of thing is happening all around the world.In Dublin city I Have seen people in shiny bright red satin coats handing out flier's in the city center promising a reward if you phone a number and turn in your company for pirating software.
,in short how clued in are bosses about warez these days ?
,(i.e who installed what and why ).
The difference bettween denounce's click and report method and the phone and report method is that with the phone and report method you get paid if the boss get's busted.
This sort of employee informer culture idea has some interesting implication's , for both boss and staff.
If the staff install the warez without the knoweledge of the boss is the boss liable?
Does the boss really know what the staff are downloading or are using the office cd copier to copy
This whole attitude of informing on your company
primarily targets people who are not on the best term's with there company, these people In my mind could be very likely candidates,(if they were given notice that they were to be laid off), to go into the office and download/install a fair old bit of warez,(perhaps using some one elses password), and report there company, especially if they were earning a bit of money in the process
The main thing's I can see this realy doing is making bosses alot more paranoid about what there staff are doing and generating alot more legal desputes over liability
_________________________________________________
Where shall I start...
The parts that describe genetic burden?
The parts that describe the mechanisms for correcting genetic drift?
The parts that describe processes and structures which literally could not possibly have formed gradually?
The parts which delve into rates of change and basically support, if anything, punk-eek?
The parts which attempt to describe `parallel evolution' with a straight face (e.g. large fructivorous bats, octopi and humans all share the same visual processing system (modulo a non-retroverted retina for the octopi), small insectivorous bats have a completely different visual system but share wing structure with the big bats) (another e.g., there are visual systems ranging from light spots though the arrays of sensors in some starfish, compound (multi-spot) insect eyes, other insects with compunded individual eyes, the complex crystal arrays of the trilobite, mantis shrimp (which see in up to 13 different colour ranges including UV, have filters, and can see polarised light), lobster eyes (the design was borrowed for an orbiting X-ray scope), our own eyes (and the non-inverted versions in cats, octopi et al), and no doubt more that I've forgotten or not yet run across, all of which or completely, structurally and neurologically different)?
The parts describing the many billions of nucleotides which go into our DNA?
The parts which touch on origin-of-life (and so origin-of-genetics) experiments (which are now less) definite than when Miller and Urey made their tar)?
The parts investigating mutation `clocks' (they contradict each other)?
Any one of these is a bit of a ball-breaker for evolution, and this is just one field!
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
You do put up some off-the-wall proposals, don't you? (-:
Your `proof' would break evolution just as surely as it broke creation, unless you want to posit a great number of parallel evolutionary steps at each point along the way from molecules to man.
Turning to a Christian perspective, there's the fall. Even if the race had started with a single, unalterable set of chromosomes, you'd expect to find significant damage in them by now, or to put it another way, significant variation due to damage.
But aside from all of that, there is natural variation built into sexual reproduction (and in lesser degree to asexual as well). If there wasn't, every child a couple had would be identical. You will agree that in practice they aren't?
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
I don't know that I'd be prepared to take a stand alongside Lenin, Hitler, Mao and others, all social engineers working from a Darwinist background and using Social Darwinism to carry out their aims.
But it's a free country. Sort of.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
I guess the obvious response is `says who?' (-:
What God does say is `Prove all things, hold fast that which is good' in 1Thessalonians 5:21, but if you distrust the Bible, why would you apply just that one verse from it? (-:
God is not coin-op, not a performing monkey, but if you seriously ask Him to prove Himself to you personally (ask, not demand), He often will. But you must be listening. Or shall I quote you the parable of the man on the roof of the flooded house?
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Actually, the root meaning of Adam is `red'. And the book StarLight and Time contains one example of a cosmology which fits Genesis as literal. It seems likely that there are others.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
What about W for Witch?
When I get this, do I get my Puritan style hat and ducking stool thrown in?
Escoutaire
When a dream dreams the dreamer, the dreams the real.
If it seems dark to you, it's because you're so far up yourself that you can't see out. (-:
Read these:
http://www.i5ive.com/article.cfm/christianity_sci
http://www.visi.com/~contra_m/cm/reviews/cm06_rev
http://mypage.direct.ca/w/writer/gish-response.ht
http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/538.asp
http://www.aaas.org/spp/dser/RESOURCE/WARMING.HTM
http://www.rae.org/censor.html
...then tell me why you expect such an article to be considered for publication. There are many more examples around if you want them.
Nevertheless, Robert V Gentry, Willem J Ouweneel and other Creationist authors have had material published in journals like Nuclear Physics, Science, Nature and Journal of Geophysical Research, including the odd snippet of material which might cast doubt on the ruling Darwinist ideology.
Quote:
There is a layman's version of the article on-line at ICR (ref 5 mentions Nature).
Any questions so far?
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
How long before people have binaries or java (web) applets that can kindly disable the 'F'? Ridiculous. Moreover, I say it's a kindness, since this feature is a very BAD THING (tm). If I had never heard of it, I would probably be lost as to its use. Yet another thing to break and confuse the ill-informed.
Often wrong but never in doubt.
I am Jack9.
Everyone knows me.
they found that half of the population was ratting out the other half to the Stasi...
Next we all be asked "Are you using or have you ever used a 'nix distro"
How long before admission of having ever read the GPL is declared a non-american (communist) activity.
hehehehe (giggling homer-style..) I just installed it and I'm submitting every page on Micro$oft.com. As soon as I get tired, i'll just uninstall it again. Sure hope it doesn't check MY HD though!
"I used to have that really cool,funny sig
The best part? The software only costs $10! That's half the price of a click on the "S" button.
Why would people want to use this? Just ask Bob:
"I used to fall prey to homeless people and marketing executives. Then I got Microsoft S Button. After hitting the S Button 20 times the first day, I realized that the smart thing to do would be to not hit the button. Now I save $400 each day I don't use the button! But I know it's there for me when I lapse into stupidity, and it sets me straight again. Thank you Microsoft S Button."
absurd
...and an interesting one, Dr Hubert Yockey, who believes on grounds such as these that Darwinism did not produce or develop life, but has no idea what did.
I can also find about another two dozen biochemists and molecular biochemists, but don't have as much detail about their qualifications and careers. You really are asking something akin to references for Jewish scientists in Nazi Germany, but nevertheless...
One of the other ID sites has this to say about DBB: `It went through twelve printings before being issued in paperback, and has been cited and reviewed internationally in over one hundred publications, and was recently named by National Review and World magazine as one of the one hundred most important books of the 20th century.'
About Behe: `In addition to publishing over 35 articles in refereed biochemical journals Dr. Behe has also written editorial features in The New York Times, Boston Review, the American Spectator and National Review and has presented and debated his work at various conferences, including at the State University of New York, Stony Brook, the University of Notre Dame, Princeton University, University of Massachusetts at Amherst and Cambridge University. Besides many radio and television interviews, in 1997, he was featured on two episodes of the PBS program Technopolitics.'
Since you seem to like argument from authority, here are some interesting and related quotes:
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Every day in my HTTP logs I get dozens of computers volunteering to be owned by code-red probing me. Search for cmd.exe in your HTTP logs and you'll find plenty of code-red infected machines you could send your "spoofed" packets from.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Companies that base business plans around browser plug-ins usually end up here. Maybe it stands for "we need Funding."
A lot depends on your view of `random'. If by `random' you mean `many good, many neutral, many bad', then no.
If OTOH you mean `almost universally destructive' then yes. You can think of it as entropy, or as the effects of the Fall of man, it works out the same either way: consistently downhill, not up.
Basement? I think you meant `basis', and benign mutations are only one necessary precursor to evolution.
Another is effective natural selection. Natural selection as found in the wild acts in a strongly conservative manner, which in plain English means that it works to keep things the same, to destroy change. This is the complete opposite of Richard Dawkins' `methinks it is like a weasel' program, which acts with teleology and enormous strength to preserve specific changes.
Another precursor is that the basic genetic material have enough capacity for variation that it can bridge species barriers, which it evidently does not.
There also have to be viable lifeforms before biological evolution has anything upon which to operate, which is another big problem.
There are more. (-:
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Wouldn't it be ironic if, after all these years, the commercial software world destroyed itself with its greed while trying to follow in the footsteps of the RIAA and the MPAA?
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
From the article: if a user finds him or herself on a Web site that sells illegal software -- be it music, games, movies or programs -- one click on the "F" will pull up a box....
I have to say, I've seen thousands of warez sites in my time, and almost none of them were actually trying to sell me anything beyond adverts. The vast, vast majority of pirate software is traded for free: the pirates get nothing out of it beyond kudos, and access to yet more warez. I suspect FAST are trying to make the pirates look more evil than they really are.
And anyway, the vast majority of pirate software isn't traded on the web. Dalnet, KaZaA and Hotline are all a much, much better bet than spending hours going round and round in circles following fake linkes, porn links, topsites etc...
for reminding me again why I decided to no longer come to this site.
I see the average age (mental) of the people here has degraded by another decade over the last 6 months and is now fast approaching zero.
Maybe noone will report sites pirating software (which is still illegal, as is advocating pirated software), but if it even raises the awareness of people to the problem that's something.
The software piracy problem is now quickly becoming large enough that large companies may need to stop releasing new products soon.
If 90% of the copies in use are stolen goods, there just is not enough market to warrant the cost of creating them anymore.
And don't come running with nice ideas about open source and free software. The people creating that all have paying jobs or they couldn't afford to (or else they are leeches on society with their unemployment benefits while not trying to get a job) and most of those jobs ARE in software companies or they'd not have the skill to write that open software on the side.
I notice that EVERY link on the site is purely javascript. One common reason for making all links be js-only (NON-working in browsers with js turned off) is to make sure every click, and the origin of every click, is logged in a particular way.
Yep, I trust 'em already, as much as I do the 800 lb. gorilla. In fact I think I'll climb right into the cage with that rampaging gorilla, after all I'm sure he won't hurt me...
BTW, folks... not entirely off topic since this is akin, being reportware: Intuit's TurboTax now forcibly installs IE5.5, like it or not, and it wouldn't uninstall. Next time I went online with that box (Win98), guess where the first ding on my firewall comes from? You guessed it -- an IP owned by Micro$oft. Apparently IE did an outgoing call AROUND ZoneAlarm, and evoked a response, even tho IE was not running... unless you count its hooks into the shell.
And I never use IE, I'm a pure Netscape type.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Has anyone ever gone to Microsoft, killed the guards , boarded the company and stolen their software? Has anyone had this same group of people come round their house, kill the family and take the software ?
Piracy is the act of boarding a ship and taking the goods by force. There is usually a lot of killing involved.
The industry started using this word to make people associate the non-payment of licence fees with this wanton killing and mayhem. Sites like this should know better than to propagate this meme.
Lets face it - Most companies these days are telling us that even if we pay them money, we still never own the product! So how can these people be stealing it? The company still has their copy at the end of the day and many of the people who copied it probably would not have bought it even if they could not copy it.
Don't believe the lost sales figures. And please stop using the word pirate to describe people who commit Intellectual Property infringements. You are just feeding the media hype.
this is false. There are numbers called Carmichael numbers that pass this "fermat test" for all numbers and yet are not prime (561 is one IIRC) ie 3^i mod i=3, 5^i mod i=5. 561=3*11*17 although i do not recall if this is a carmichael number and i dont have time to check it. Proving numbers are PROBABLY primes is easy.
I hereby place the above post in the public domain.
I can also see it used as a means of harrassing people who offer free software for download -- they'd wind up spending half their time and energy (and probably a fair amount of money) defending themselves, since the natural adjunct of an informer-driven bust system is "guilty until proven innocent".
Once this trick catches on, it could easily be used (possibly by certain companies already prone to astroturf activities) to harrass free software into insolvency, or at least off the net. Retail sales by existing companies (ie. those who offer retail-packed CDs) probably would be untouched, but it could certainly kill online access for the average person who just wants to download that kernel update.
You see, the problem with informer-driven systems is that they can just as easily be used to harrass the innocent as to finger the guilty. And a system of fines and rewards for bad or good busts sounds great, until you realise that it won't touch those who abuse the system via the "anonymous reporting" method built into the tool.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
FaST is just a cover for M$, and a few others, so they won't be interested in real-world license abuse like ignoring the GPL terms. FaST is only interested in extracting as much license revenue as possible for the select few software firms that bankroll it.
The way to kill it will be for everyone to download this plug-in and to send in reports regardless of whether they are true or not. Take em so long to sift through it they will wish they'd never come up with the idea.
Everyone, download this plugin, and hit F on every single freaking webpage you visit!
1) It's just snake oil, FAST stands for nothing except for the way in which they're making a buck (or euro) by selling this idea to ... investors? I really can't think of a single company that goes out of its way to load its browser down with plug-ins, much less leave license control up to the desktop user, and Joe and Jill user could sincerely not care less.
2) IE has a million plug-ins, controls, and toolbars out there. This is just another one no one will bother using.
3) It doesn't take very sophisticated vbscript to query for the existence of a control. Warez sites need merely lock out (or do much worse to) browsers that have e-Denounce installed.
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
Let's play "Who want's to be a taddler."
The biggest trick the devil pulled was letting lawyers become politicians so they can write the laws.
Cheers. Point taken.
you are full of rancid poo, my dear.
We need a button on Mozilla, to report sites that don't use non-compliant html. Then we can sent the html-compliance police out and have these rogue webmasters' attitudes adjusted.
This kind of technology has TONS of uses.
Sites that harvest email addresses for spammers.
Sites with misleading or false advertising.
Sites with poor UI design.
god, I love it!
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Methinks Heathcote Hobbins has absolutely no idea what a webcam is.
__
Choose mnemonic identifiers. If you can't remember what mnemonic means, you've got a problem. - Larry Wall
Get this software - and hit f every time you go to any page... or every time you hit the mainpage of slashdot. (talk about a new meaning to the slashdot effect)
I had an old couch that I haven't used in years sitting in outside in the backyard. Someone took it..I'm glad..now I odn't have to take it to the dump.
If you're not a Liberal in your 20's, then you have no heart.If you're still a Liberal in your 30's you have no brain.
The last time I looked, the AAAS was not exactly creationist. Does your statement prove that you're so bigoted that you wouldn't read anything that you might disagree with?
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
The depends; does `refuting' mean `saying lots of things I agree with, even if it is talking past the issues, erecting strawmen, arguing from false premises and fudging results' or does it mean `reasoning from the data to a contradiction'? Talk.origins is gunwhale-down with the former, and kind of deprived of the latter. They sometimes can't even tell who said what.
Then again, who needs Creationists to disprove evolution?
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Concensus reality? The right God is the one with the most adherents?
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
When did assertion become proof? Show us that you actually understand something, anything! Address an argument instead of waving it off. Show us your brains, rather than clinging to someone else's opinion!
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Talking past issues, erecting strawmen, arguing from false premises, fudging results - these are all of the standard creationist tactics. These are documented atn is ts.html
:).
http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/faqs-creatio
I got a kick out of your link above "WISTAR destroys evolution". "Evolutionary theory is a myth". Hmmmm. The value of a scientfic theory is in its ability to explain data, and to make predictions. The theory of evolution is one of the best supported theories in science, so it's hardly a myth.
By the way, trying to point out minor disagreements by scientists in fields related to evolution, and then claiming that it disproves the theory of evolution is dangerous. Someone could also claim that the far greater differences between the Christian denominations proves that Christianity is a myth
Oh, and while you are at it, could you please post a scientific theory of creation? It must explain the data, be falsifiable, and make predictions - a standard for all scientific theories. I know that the good folks at the Usenet newsgroup talk.origins have been asking creationists that for many. many years for that, and have never gotten an answer.
-asb
Disagree. Popular != well-supported.
`Well-supported' means that there is much evidence to back it. Evolution has had much opinion, much theory and much modelling grow up around it but essentially zero actual hard evidence in support of it being right.
As one man, an evolutionist, said, `For over twenty years I had thought that I was working on evolution in some way. One morning I woke up, and something had happened in the night, and it struck me that I had been working on this stuff for twenty years, and there was not one thing I knew about it. That was quite a shock, to learn that one can be so misled for so long.' That was a word for word quote from the paleontologist, Dr Colin Patterson, addressing a persentation at the American Museum of Natural History (people like Niles Eldridge and James Farris) in November 1981.
What did he do about it? `So for the last few weeks, I've tried putting a simple question to various people and groups of people. The question is this: Can you tell me anything you know about evolution, any one thing, any one thing that you think is true? [...] And the absence of an answer seems to suggest that it is true, evolution does not convey any knowledge, or if so, I haven't yet heard it.'
One of the big problems with evolution is that it can be bent to fit almost any circumstance, almost any evidence. In other words, it has very little - if any - actual explanatory power.
There is also a considerable body of evidence which evolutionary theory is completely and utterly unable to explain in any meaningful way, from `spectacular' finds like a wooden-handled steel hammer in `300-450 million year old' rock and the mini-Grand-Canyon at Mt St Helens to very mundane problems with cell mechanisms.
Definitely untrue. A significant minority are Christian, or at least think of themselves as Christian. Not a majority (`most'). Even if there was a majority, what would it prove...?
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Actually, you've hit on a very useful selection of arguments, from my POV. You might like to try some different ones.
Fossil record: it completely fails to explain polystrate fossils (in particular those with no detectable surrounding turbulence), out-of-sequence fossils (in particular those with no sign of reworking), paraconformities, and massive (tens of thousands of square km) out-of-sequence blocks of strata with little or no sign of overthrust damage, and countless other less obvious things.
Bacterial resistance: it completely fails to explain this, as well. Plasmid exchange is a very cunning and complex mechanism for passing around pieces of DNA for use in random-trial immunity development. Both the mechanisms and a useful selection of plasmids must have been available, complete, before this would have any selective advantage. Oops.
Species relationships and DNA: the DNA and the species they represent create more problems than solutions when viewed through evolution-coloured glasses. Sometimes there is a clear relationship, and sometimes there is not a hint of rhyme or reason in the correlation between DNA and creature. If you're thinking of resting your case on Darwin's finches and variations in beak size or shape, think again.
Quote, `During a drought on the Galapagos Islands, the average beak size of finches increased, enabling them to eat the larger, drought resistant seeds. By extrapolation, it was claimed that a new species of finch might develop within 200 years. Unfortunately, when the rains came, the beak sizes returned to normal, and the evidence only supports oscillating natural selection with no net evolutionary change.'
DNA itself should give you pause for thought. We have something like 300 million base-pairs in our own DNA, in a complex and very specific array of arrays of arrays. Accident? Don't bet on it.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Or more likely, break it.
Stephen J Gould, for one example, found that evolution didn't work for him, so he completely rebuilt the theory of the mechanism for it. Now we have the pleasure of sitting back and reading from both his pen, and the pens of his opponents, why neither strand of evolutionary reasoning can work.
A chap named Senapathy tried a different tack, and hasn't ben as lucky in locating supporters.
Note a statement from supporter Mattox: `I realized that he was a scientist and definitely not a creationist, so I ordered the book'. Hmmm. That speaks volumes.
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You know, there's a frighteningly simple reason for that, and it ought to be framed and displayed in every lab in the world.
Evolution is a scientific-sounding expression of the religion of Materialism. It's kind of like turning the brightness on your video camera waaay down and then claiming to have video evidence that only white horses win horse-races: until you're prepared to adjust your view to include other colours of horse, you'll be fooling only people who don't watch other videos, and don't go to look at the horse races for themselves.
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Sure can! Do you want my ideas, or are you interested in the pronouncements of more qualified people?
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The Wistar conference wasn't a disagreement. The mathematicians there were in general agreement on this point: evolution is mathematically well out of the question.
The `disagreement' you cite was over whether this pointed to special creation or not, and the transcript clearly shows that essentially all present regarded this as deplorable heresy, unthinkable, excluded from consideration by their prior commitment (ie not by reason alone), presumably to materialism dressed in a white lab coat.
Search the archives: they've had many answers and simply ruled them inadmissable using their own, materialist, non-scientific criteria. And or forgotten them (welcome to cognitive dissonance land). What do you expect?
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I kind of suspected you were operating from a different planet. I strongly suggest starting with the actual names, `Darwinian Evolution' and `Social Darwinism' and see if you can draw at least the tiniest smidgeon of commonality from them.
Quoting one Adolph Hitler Shicklgruber, from the chapter `On Race and Man' in Mein Kampf: `If Nature does not wish that weaker individuals should mate with the stronger, she wishes even less that a superior race should intermingle with an inferior one; because in such a case all her efforts, throughout hundreds of thousands of years, to establish an evolutionary higher stage of being, may thus be rendered futile. [...] In short, the results of miscegenation are always the following: (a) The level of the superior race becomes lowered; (b) physical and mental degeneration sets in, thus leading slowly but steadily towards a progressive drying up of the vital sap. [...] anyone who sincerely wishes that the pacifist idea should prevail in this world ought to do all he is capable of doing to help the Germans conquer the world'
There you have it: principle, method, implementation. Any questions? Want more examples from other Atheists? Or is your plastic starting to leak?
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A bit of research into background will show you that Adolf had some seriously weird ideas about who `the Lord' was. It's a bit difficult to say from this snippet whether he was at this time using a definition which most closely matched `myself', `some nebulous creative force', `my Lord the Pope' or even something more or less Godlike. As well as being a Roman Catholic in good standing right up to his death, Adolf has also been tagged (with reasonable support) as a worshipper of Wotan. It's probably important for your understanding to point out that `Roman Catholic' and `Christian' are concepts which overlap in places but are most definitely not identity.
Firstly, it's not determinate that he's basing his speech on Christianity as such at all.
If he were speaking from a Roman Catholic perspective, his conclusion could match in one of several ways. The Roman Catholic Church supported Adolf up to the point where it became obvious that he was going to lose, then they shafted him.
They'd supported Communism in an effort to destroy their ancient Orthodox enemy, and that went completely bung so they next tried supporting Hitler against both. That went almost completely bung too, except in countries like Yugoslavia and Poland (they killed millions of Orthodox in ways that sickened even the SS(!)) but at least they got most of their gold back.
But I digress. Adolf wanted to model the Reich after the Jesuit organisation, so it wouldn't be hard for him to mix up whatever helped the Reich or Romanism with `the work of the Lord' in his mind.
Consider also that Adolf's view of `the mighty creator' seems to consistently regard it as having created gradually and by a wasteful and destructive process of natural selection, which process he intended to assist particularly with regard to non-Aryan races.
BTW, compared with how he treated other peoples, Hitler wasn't actually that hard on the Jews. The six-million figure often quoted is clearly bullshit (population figures can't possibly support it), it was likely of the order of a million. He killed more Czeks than that.
One reason for His antagonism against the Jews as a race, at least initially, was that they (as Judaism) were ancient enemies of his supporter and model, Romanism.
Anyway, I digress again, Adolf's practice of Eugenics was based squarely on a rational interpretation of the process of natural selection coupled with the classic bigoted opinion about who the `better' race were - just like Darwin himself. It's kind of ironic that Adolf favoured tall, blonde races but was short and dark-haired himself.
I'm going to digress again. `Bigot' came from Reformers being torched by Romanists: `will you renounce your neresy?' `no, by God' => byGod => bigot. So originally, a bigot was simply someone stubborn to the point of death.
In summary of all of the above, I don't believe Adolf to have been misapplying Darwinism. Darwin himself used Darwinism that way, regarding Negroes as biologically inferior and destined one day to fade away, the victims of natural selection. It's an inescapable conclusion of any reasoning which starts with natural selection as a base.
If Adolf was misusing Christinity as such, then he was simply wrong. The Lord did not call on him to smite anyone.
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So you keep asserting and opining, but assertions and opinions are not evidence.
Millions of sequencing exercises are not evidence for evolution unless they can provide a reasonable and statistically likely path for evolution (or show all alternatiuves to be even less likely, but that still wouldn't prove evolution).
Fossils speak loudly of millions of years not existing. Polystrates are a good example of this. Fossils supposedly 65 million years old yet containing intact organic material are another.
DNA speaks loudly of design and structure impossible to achieve incrementally. Where to the Urey/Miller experiments lead? Nowhere! What is `junk DNA'? Proof of a clumsy God? Says we, who have yet to design an organism that functions at all, leta lone poorly. An Australian company has just assured itself a place in history by `patenting' junk DNA and then showing that it isn't junk - as predicted by many Creationists!
Evolution has never been witnessed in the wild. Variation within kind (baramin) has. As I mentioned elsewhere, even the beak-size adaptation in Darwin Finches so beloved of the AAAS is cyclic. Peppered moths are a well-established fraud, more variation in kind, and the moths in the photos were glued on to the bark because they don't normally hang out where they can be seen and eaten. And so on.
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Really?
Go on, accuse Lewin of being a Creationist, I dare you! (-:
Note that Lewin is an evolutionist despite knowing that what he believes is mathematically impossible. Is that not a wonderfully strong faith?
Gary Parker thought so:
Now you know that there is faith on both sides of the question. Let's carry on...
Uh, yes? That's why it's called creationism, you see. The theory is that `God done it.' Materialists, having no God, are reduced to saying `accidents done it' (but accidents destroy, they don't structure), `coincidences done it' (ie let's ignore the odds) or `time done it' (but there ain't enough time).
Wrong.
No, science deals with whatever it can test. Science attempts to make predictions even when it doesn't really understand what's going on. Newton could say what apples do when they abandon their tree, even if he couldn't say why, and that was science. Even if God intervened in an experiment essentially at random, a scientist can deal with that in the same way that they deal with other factors which might randomly influence an experiment (deleting outliers, that kind of thing).
Not every time, no. But they hold often enough to be testable.
And a `big bang' isn't? Someone was there with a camera? Or is it experimentally repeatable? Pull the other one, it plays `jingle bells'!
Says who?
On one hand you're saying that I must present to you a theory, and on the other you are ruling any possible theory `out of court'. Make up your mind: will your faith in materialism (and confusion of it with science) prevent you from examining any theory rationally (so you must forfeit any proof and be honest about your faith), or will you actually reason through a theory if I present one?
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It's probably important for your understanding to point out that `Roman Catholic' and `Christian' are concepts which overlap in places but are most definitely not identity.
ROTFL. Trying to rewrite the rules as far as who are Christians. Why am I not surprised?
If he were speaking from a Roman Catholic perspective, his conclusion could match in one of several ways. The Roman Catholic Church supported Adolf up to the point where it became obvious that he was going to lose, then they shafted him.
Amazing. You and your buddies are really off the deep end.
BTW, compared with how he treated other peoples, Hitler wasn't actually that hard on the Jews. The six-million figure often quoted is clearly bullshit (population figures can't possibly support it), it was likely of the order of a million. He killed more Czeks than that.
A holocost revisionist, too.
In summary of all of the above, I don't believe Adolf to have been misapplying Darwinism. Darwin himself used Darwinism that way, regarding Negroes as biologically inferior and destined one day to fade away, the victims of natural selection. It's an inescapable conclusion of any reasoning which starts with natural selection as a base.
Once again, you are wrong. "Social Darwinism" is a policy to let the weak and unfit to die. That's not the theory of evolution. I doubt that Darwin would think that Negroes wuld fade away; rather he would think that they were well adapted for their enviroment. Darwin was also liberal about race for his time, and was anti-slavery. Don't forget that at the time he proposed his theory, 1859, there were many slaveholders and their supporters in the US using the bible in an attempt to show that slavery was right.
Adolf was misusing the theory of evolution as much as he was misusing Christianity - history has shown that the bible is open to "interesting" interpretations, This includes creationism, which is plain bad theology. And that is why most, if not all of the major Christian denominations do not have any problems with the theory of evolution. But hey, I won't be surprised if you think that they really aren't "Christian", too.
-asb
`Possibly' - but turtles fossilise very well. Anything like/b> a turtle would also fossilise very well, and there are lots of turtle fossils. They haven't. Darwinian evolution fails to explain this. Punkeek has a better chance of explaining it, but is still reasoning from silence. Do you support Darwinian Evolution or Punctuated Equilibrium? They are incompatible, so have you chosen one, or are you begging the question?
Oh, yay. I know people with numerous turtle-like skull features. And still no suitable plates.
What ho? Suddenly, 210Ma ago, we have a completed turtle! Chelys == turtle, no? Quoth the American Museum of Natural History (go on, accuse them of Creationist bias, I dare you!) `a normal-looking turtle shell'. Hmm. `the fossil record provides no clues about how the shell evolved'. Hmm.
Teeth? And so...? Archaeopteryx is basically a Hoatzin with teeth, and `modern' bird fossils were found in "older" (stratigraphically lower) strata (and that's another evolutionarily inexplicable situation, with many parallels). Oh... and AMNH says `It has no teeth -- turtles lost their teeth very early in their history'. Who do you trust, t.o or AMNH?
Jaw musculature in a fossil? Even if it has significance, it's still interpolation and not evidence. Non-retractable neck? How long is its neck? Look at the picture - it doesn't need to be retractable!
There's another interesting quote there too, `Its limbs are sprawling, as in all turtles, and in contrast to later vertebrates like dinosaurs.' - say what? Turtles essentially haven't changed structurally since before dinosaur times? We're talking, like, at least a 100Ma here, if not 200Ma. Where's the evolution? How can turtles stay `frozen' for over ten times as long as the entire Cambrian explosion, when over fifty different body structures were laid down in under 10Ma? This is not adding up!
In short, evolution fails to explain it. It is a contradiction in evolutionary terms. Unless you restrict the discussion to a few favoured traits in a few selected fossils, this happens everywhere you look. Put the argument in context, and the evolution evapourates. Wake up and smell the ediacaria! (-:
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Heads I win, tails you lose: if the hammer is antedeluvian, evolutionary ideas about technology are completely, er, up the creek. If it managed to get a thick stone encrustation in a few hundred years or less (if it's less than 700 years old, how old is it? 200 years?) without rusting, then evolutionary ideas about rock formation are completly up the duff.
Your call. (-:
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You keep spouting on about the Christian geologists. Link?
And no, I mean the worldwide flood showing up more and more in well-known geological features. Harlan Bretz' 50-meter-high sand ripples are but one symptom. Turbidites left and right are another. The Lewis Overthrust (amongst others) has not been explained (yes, link to t.o if you like, I can shred that one as well - and I'm just Joe Random, not a geologist; geologists can go on at some length about the impossibilities in the Lewis overthrust). Polystratic fossils. Widely distributed thin strata. `Dinosaur graveyards' (yah, sure, fifty or so dinosaurs trip over each other and drown at the same spot in a local flash flood, clumsy buggers, pull the other one). Erosion rates (e.g. at Niagara Falls). Rivermouth sedimentation records. Contemporaneous rootless fossil trees at widely disparate levels (e.g. Yellowstone). And so on. They all point to a massive, aqueous catastrophe followed by a short (kiloyears) relatively stable period for accumulation of debris.
Geology has no time for evolution, so neither do I.
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My, isn't it quiet here in this little sub-topic...?
You did read the details of Patterson's speech, no? Is convergence everywhere, or not?
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