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Berman Retreats, But Only To Regroup
thefinite writes "It looks like the P2P vigilante bill sponsored by Berman is going to have to be rewritten even just to be considered. A ZDNet story talks about the likelihood that the bill will get anywhere as currently written. Hopefully, the second time around will make it clear that the idea is flawed, not just the text."
You can imagine the wording now "Terrorists could use a P2P network to share information, or to co-ordinate attacks."
Same shit different spin. I doubt they'll be watering it down, just making it more of a general threat than being specific on copyright.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
The problem with this type of thing, is that they get several tries at it. The first one is almost always outragous. They use that as a measuring stick. Then they start adjusting down and eventually they get a bill that passes.
It doesn't matter if the idea is flawed or not. What matters is that the congressman get's his way or not. There are egos involved, and big money, and the responsibilites to the citizens. (Guess which of the three is most important to the congressman).
Think about how slow the whole internet would get from this. Not only would the "good" hackers be using a ton of bandwidth but the "bad" hackers would be using even more trying to get even.
* Note the good and bad hacker referance are in the eyes of the bill writers.
I'd be interested where/how they figured this. A p2p network should disperse very little information about actual distribution of copyrighted works.
Alec French: Also, see Freenet
Saying kids are using illeagal fireworks so we are going to use flamethrowers on the kids to disable the fireworks.
The MPAA and RIAA are creating and marketing a bold, new superhero, The P2P Vigilante
Press relase: "We hope to educate the youth and public of America about the dangers of P2P file sharing- in the fine tradition of propaganda through the ages, the P2P Vigliante, a young, hip, midriff-baring female superhero will deal out justice and vengance to those who would use a P2P network for evil. Which is everyone who uses a P2P network. It's, like, evil and stuff. Anyway, it's on every Tuesday night at 8 (7 Central) on the WB! Excuse me, I have to go do a few lines of coke."
Since he admits that in its current form there is no way the bill would be passed, what would have to be changed to be passed?
The article hints that one of the problems might be lack of clearly defined techniques could be used to fight a p2p node.
Are there any "valid" techniques, at least valid as far as congress would be concerned to fight individual nodes, or the p2p networks themselves that could be used to fight against supposed violations of this bill.
Also, does this bill specify what proof if any has to exist before these attacks could take place? Could you sue someone excerising the powers give by this if it did get passed?
I think the real reason it isn't happening is because Berman learned from here that his Musical Car horn on his nice shiny Cadallic would be outlawed. The new law will probably be ...
"All devices which play digital copyrighted stuff must be regulated, except for my musical car horn."
Getting a bill even considered for voting is extremely difficult. A setback this earlier is probably a death sentence. If money is greasing the wheels it can only grease so much.
Slashdotter are stupid and biased.
-- Language is a virus from outer space.
What's the difference? It's just me damaging someone else's property because I feel they are violating my rights. Having the government mediate in disputes is so inefficient.
It's not wasting time, I'm educating myself.
Then again, it's not like he's really gonna have to worry about it. His #1 source of funding is TV/Movie/Music related, he's been in office since 1982, and while he's up for reelection he isn't facing any serious competition. How democratic.
Which of course isn't so much Hollywood as it is porn .... he's not really worried so much about the Lord of the Rings 4" as he is "Debbie does Dallas #76" ... which is probabloy much more likely to be on some p2p network anyway ....
""Unfortunately, theft of copyrighted works is the predominant use of peer-to-peer networks today," French said. "Peer-to-peer networks are primarily used today for the unauthorized public distribution and reproduction of copyrighted works."
If this legislation does go through imagine the potential impact on the open source movement...
It will be all to easy to apply the same logic to Open Source developers/providers adding another avenue of attack to corporations that feel threatened by open source...
This legislation served an important purpose in pointing some things out to those of us who go through our lives wearing pink-tinted glasses (I mean optimists, not gay people).
What it boils down to is that we anti-copyright crusaders have always maintained that digital "media" is just a bunch of 1's and 0's. A file is no more than a certain number, and how can one person or corporation own a number? To me, this has always been an extremely pursuasive argument. So now let's look at hacking over a network. What is it? Well, really it's just 1's and 0's being sent to your computer on the network. Some specific number, or series of numbers, is going to break your computer or make it impossible to use (DOS attack), but is the solution to outlaw that number altogether? In my opinion, the record industry shouldn't need this law, because all computer hacking should be legal.
How could this work, though? Well, first of all, TCP/IP has got to go. It doesn't have any authentication or security built in to it, and it's obvious that it's flawed. We need to redesign the Internet and the protocol it uses, not just to increase the address space as is being done in IP2, but to make hacking technically impossible. Then, legislation or no, we will finally all be safe.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
"Not doing something bad" is not the same as "doing something good".
...phil
"For a list of the ways which technology has failed to improve our quality of life, press 3."
In one sense, every communication between two systems is peer-to-peer, including everything from getting email to browsing the web. Unless you want to call one of the systems a "server", and then I guess it's okay.
It seems to me that a peer-to-peer network exists whenever one system talks to another. Are VOIP telephones part of a p2p net? Do I own a peer-to-peer network when I print to my printer? What if I print to the parallel port?
So, when my computer sync's my calendar with my PDA, I guess I'm doing something bad?
The thing about things we don't know is we often don't know we don't know them.
When I first read the headline I thought it said "Batman Retreats, But Only To Regroup"
Then I realized that it couldn't be true 'cause Batman never retreats.
Okay now that that's over it's time for me to actually read the article. Check for intelligent post later
"It's a tarp!" -- Dyslexic Admiral Ackbar
NO fair use is piracy, that's why it's called FAIR use! The two are mutually exclusive...either you're breaking the law, or you aren't. This is not a good sign. If assistant Secretary of Commerce doesn't understand this, what hope do we have for the general public?
when will our government realize that listening to the recording industry, and passing bills like the DCMA is holding us back, as more and more of our digital rights are infringed upon, while the rest of the world is allowed to advance. Ancent law is not the answer to modern technology, where the good of such laws is far outweighed by the crippling effect it has upon us.
Song goes into public domain... (ok, hypothetical) Remade and marketed by different big label... Congress retroactively extends copyrights 1000 years... Previous holder free to hack the label and RIAA... No more RIAA...
I may be wrong, but isn't this some form of "unreasonable search and seizure"? I don't think that any music company should be allowed to practice vigilante justice, no matter how many of their copyrighted works are in jeopardy - especially if it violates my fourth amendment rights.
Berman is not the one who wants to outlaw musical car horns. That would be Hollings.
Berman just wants the right to _physically_ attack somebody else's musical car horn since it is disseminating copyrighted works.
A.
A problem with things like this is that they get several tries at it. The first one is almost always outragous; then they use that as a measuring stick. Finally they start adjusting down and eventually they get a bill that passes.
It doesn't matter if it's a bad idea... What matters is that the congressman gets his way or not. There's ego, money, and power involved and the responsibilites to the citizens. (Guess which of the three is most important to the congressman!)...
It's about time Berman gets taken to task. Trek has been awful for years under his reign.
Since he admits that in its current form there is no way the bill would be passed, what would have to be changed to be passed?
The article hints that one of the problems might be a lack of clearly defined techniques could be used to fight a P2P node.
Are there any valid techniques, at least valid as far as congress would be concerned to fight individual nodes, or the P2P networks themselves that could be used to fight against supposed violations of this bill?
Also, does this bill specify what proof if any has to exist before these attacks could take place? Could you sue someone excerising the powers give by this if it did get passed?
Am I the only who read
Batman Retreats, But Only To Regroup?
"Holy low self-esteem batman! I'm a side kick in my own fantasy!"
... that whenever someone brings one of these types of articles up regarding fair use that you never hear anyone on the other side of the debate?
No one. I can't find it, unless they are modded down to oblivion.
Maybe no one really likes it and the big corporate types don't visit Slashdot.
(ponder)
This space for rent.
would say the best technique would be poisining the p2p with what looks like legit files
This actually happens quite often, works fairly effectively too I would think. I stopped bothering to download newer movies for awhile as I got tired of the fake crap. However, I also stopped buying the DVD's once they came out because I didn't get to preview whether it was crap or not.
Guess we both lose out. Hmm, image that.
A Wild West aproach to internet justice would be great.
Instead of throwing lawsuits around just bring in the programmers and attack the networks with technology. This way if you want to create a network all you need is a few great ideas and some determination... As it is p2p programmers must compete against corporations based on how much they can pay a lawyer.
Unfortunately, I suspect doubt p2p programmers will not be allowed to automate counter attacks against attackers...
So basically the idea is crap until that gets changed.
PS. One idea that's related to this is that we could solve minor disagreements between parties by giant robot battles. This would save millions in tax payer dollars.
I'm confused. I'm not big on corporations or industry groupings, but even from pro-corporate types, this calls into some fundamental questions on the fairness within a marketplace.
From the aticle:
'Striking a middle-of-the-road tone, Mehlman urged Hollywood and Silicon Valley "to cooperate" over finding technological solutions to protect copyrighted content without additional government intervention. "All fair use is not piracy, but neither is all piracy fair use," Mehlman said.'
This hints at a threat, however small. DRM or else.
How did one industry's problem become the other? CDs are inherently hackable. They are released by the copyright/media trade associations. Some of them are protected under trade secrets or licensed. DVDs were released with flaws that were cracked by teenagers (not that teenagers are not brilliant, just that they were not privy to industry secrets when they did this).
Normally, if you put out a flawed product, that's the originator's problem and liability to handle.
The technology companies did not release these flaws products. So why is it their responsibility to bear the weight, both financial and legal, to fix the flaws or find solutions to get around flaws that another group introduced (some knowingly)?
While I understand laws like these is the nature of politics, but this is utterly fucked up. If the law passes, marketplace accountability goes out the door (again). One industry gets hammered by another bigger industry.
ERISA was to protect employee benefits yet yielded a nasty turn with HMOs. Luxury taxes wanted to stick it to the rich yet destroyed the yachting industry, which the US has never recovered. Isn't this another law of unintended consequences which is going to really benefit no one? (even the RIAA, because people just won't want music anymore if they can't play it on what they want to; I don't use P2P networks, but I haven't bought a CD for like nearly 2 years because I'm watching them fight over this crap)
Am I the only one who sees the similarity to the modern Anti-Terrorism Plan and the old Salem Witch Hunts? Now they have hotlines and numbers to call in if you suspect some one is involved in Terrorist Activities, or other likewise mischief. So, how are we, the supposed great nation, going to fall back to the Witch Hunts by fingering somebody a Terrorist.... Hey!, I saw that guy wearing a white robe, he's a terrorist.. I saw that lady acting suspicous,, she's an Al-Qaida member.... We were all tought of the attrocities in Salem and other locations for supposed Witches, and now we are doing the same thing again.. How many innocent people have been killed by Terrorism this year, last year, all years?.. How many innocents will be killed, or imprisoned for life because of Anti-Terrorism?? Hopefully our elected officials will be wise enough to see what's going on, and to stop accusing everything of being a "Terrorist" network or activitiy.
That's not corruption or ego or anything else.
Him: I'll sell you this car for $1000000
Me: That's outrageous! I'll take it for $1
Him: That's nuts!
Me: Maybe we should find a middle ground.
For the current topic:
Their congressman: If we think someone is pirating, we get to burn down their house and roast their children over the embers!
Our congressman: You're loopy. Anyone can copy, modify, distribute and profit from anything anywhere anytime for any reason and needs no permission whatsoever from anyone.
Their congressman: Gak! Anarchist!
Our congressman: Maybe we should find a middle ground.
If it becomes a passable defense that distributing a prime number can not be illegal
The parser would likely be an application (not being done manually), and then made illegal instead.
(Translation: they pull the figures out of their asses)
In general, I'd have to say we've got a fairly cool system of government. The constitution is really clever in many ways, and the ideas that the US were founded on were definitely revolutionary. But, like any complex-but-good idea, there are problems in the first few drafts. One of those is this:
The Constitution of the United States of America is, by its own declaration, the supreme law of the land. It defines, among other things, the Supreme Court to be the highest court in the land. So one would suspect that if a person were to be found by the highest court in the land to have violated, beyond a shadow of a doubt, with willful premeditation, that supreme law of the land, that the punishment they would be sentenced to would be severe in the extreme.
One would be wrong.
Take, as an excellent example, the first ten amendments to the Constitution, often referred to as the Bill of Rights. They are powerfully and clearly worded. They say such things as "Congress shall make no law which..." and "The Right of the People [...] shall not be infringed." But what if congress does make such a law? What if the rights of the people are infringed? It happens all too often. There are laws passed by congress that clearly and blatantly ignore these amendments. In many ways, it's much like civil disobedience, but somewhat different. I shall call it federal disobedience. Sometimes these violations are so obvious that they are seen to be so not only by me and every other citizen, but by the Supreme Court itself. And the people who originally perpetrated this crime, the senators and congressmen who proposed, supported, amended, and ultimately voted to accept these laws are not held accountable. They are not fined. They are not imprisoned. They are not prevented in any way from committing the same crime again. They are left in the position that they started in, with the full means, motive, and opportunity to become repeat offenders. If I were to break a local parking ordinance, I might have to pay $50 or so. If, on the other hand, I get myself elected to public office, and once in that public office, if I blatantly disobey the supreme law of the land, the fine that I face is exactly nothing. That is horribly, horribly wrong.
Pound! Bang! Bin! Bash! is this a shell script or a Batman comic?
Berman works for his employers (the entertainment industry), who have him stationed in Washington, almost like a consultant/outsourcing kind of deal.
His job is to push custom-designed legislation, as designated by his employer. He may realize it's dead-on-arrival. He scores brownie points for making the sales pitch, even if he can't "close the deal".
Think of your job. Haven't we all been involved in some sort of management-led initiative that we were less-than-thrilled about? I can think of a handful of instances, and I shed no tears when such things crash and burn.
Berman, Fritz, and others are paid to push these "suicide bomber" initiatives, in search of a "compromise" that is pretty much the real target to begin with.
Personally, I can't wait for the first wave of P2P vigilantes. The reprisals ought to be spectacular. The whole concept of a technologically-challenged industry battling against the world's top hackers is like Saddam Hussein sending the Iraqi navy to invade New York City. The RIAA battleship will be on the ocean floor, US law regarding the Internet will be as meaningless as a UN resolution, the net result being freedom through anarchy.
It is very rare that Big Business is shoved back, just a bit, with all of their arogant lobbyists. The people have won, for now. I just hate it when the richest people make decisions for the rest of us.
He represents my valley? No wonder why we can't secede...we have idiots representing us!
:P
He's like...a total moron.
The farthest I can see this law going is allowing the copyright holder (RIAA) to monitor the P2P traffic and log it as evidence to be submitted to authorities. It will never get passed if it allows actual vigilantism.
around next year, when is he up for re-election ?
We, in the UK, will be celebrating that on 5 Nov 1605 Guy Fawkes tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament ... a failure that we still, occasionally, regret :-)
Am I the only one who sees the similarity to the modern Anti-Terrorism Plan and the old Salem Witch Hunts?
Oh, surely not. Plenty of people see it. There are differences though. During the Witch Trials people were crazy because they were poisoned with rye fungus, something the people knew nothing about. But today, it's Islam that's poisoning people's minds, and we know plenty of ways to take care of it so it doesn't get to the point of indiscriminately burning people alive.
Sure, there are plenty of innocent followers of Islam, just like there are plenty of music/software pirates who are otherwise good people. But instead of ignoring the source of a problem, a very real problem which is killing people every day, why not meet it head-on? It's no secret that most terrorists today are Islamic. 9/11, all the suicide bombings in Israel, Islamic Chechens holding 700 innocent godless Russians in a theater, the recent sniper attacks... to ignore the unifying factor is to ignore the truth. Something must be done, and I am glad that there are people in power in this country who aren't afraid to start somewhere.
But what do I know. I'm just looking for anonymous gay sex.
This sounds like a fun game to me.
Imagine a hacker posts on a newsgroup or web page something about RIAA and includes many notices that this document may not be stored or used by RIAA. RIAA reads it.
Hacker attempts to retrieve his copyrighted material by disrupting communications to/fro RIAA computers using a DDOS. If he's caught, he uses this as a defense.
This is a GREAT analogy to use when considering this bill. Authorizing criminal activity to prevent/counter other criminal activity is only going to result in MORE law breaking, not less. We've all heard that two wrongs don't make a right, and it's no different in this situation. Authorizing large Media Corporations to hack Joe Users box because he is 'suspected' of illegally distributing is an absurd solution to this 'problem.'
"To lead the people, you must walk behind them"
In fact, after a few hours in the sun, that might be the medium of attack itself. Spoiled Mayonnaise: The Ultimate Weapon(tm)
Hi.
"P2P" is a palindrome.
That entire POEM is a palindrome.
Mod accordingly.
If you were to put all the crap you make on a webpage likeo rs/cantreverseenginner.htm
:www.mysecretpage.com/supersecreturl/DMCAviolat
you could basically assume that some one had 'broken your security' and start searching p2p networks for anything called: index.html, picture.gif, song.mp3, ect.
Then D0S everyone you see. They all *could* have your files.
Yes, this is stupid. But that's what they want. Of course, it will be changed to 'Real' copyright owners (read XXAA) and exclude you, but hey, thats how Corporate Congress works.
I can see it now. "Does anyone have any reasonable solutions, say, where silicon valley and Hollywood collaborate?" --Enter borg theme-- "We do! Just to make it strong, we made it out of Palladium -tm." Says the geeky rich guy with funny too-big glasses. And so, Microsoft came in and saved us all with their level-headed approach to the whole situation. Get ready...
Campaign contributions really kick in after you get into office. They pay for the next election or to encourage the incumbent.
Also, if you look at how the money gets distributed they usually contribute to BOTH sides in the race. Disney doesn't really discriminate against Democrats or Republicans, they just want someone who will bring forth the "critical legislation" that their people write.
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
Why should they be allowed to make justice themself?
Am I allowed to burn your house if you've stolen something from me?
Even if you kill my wife & kids & parents I'm not allowed to do anything against you!
I thought that the great justice system exist exactly for that.
So some peoples are stealing their property? Sue them! Bring them to court! But please don't start shooting at them!
If they can have the right to make their own justice, I want that right too!
I am excited already (did I mention my neighbour was a psycho?) Guess I'll have to redecorate a bit.
What does ...God...need with a starship?
I ...Am ...KIROK!!!!
Khan!!!
Khannnnnn!!!
Khannnnnnnnnn!!!
There are only three books in "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy!
To whit:
(Don't you hate it when some anal-retentive geek totally ruins a joke by interperting it literally?)
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Enforce the fireworks laws and reduce overpopulation in one fell swoop! I like it!
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
How is this "informative"? It gives absolutely no information as to how legislation against peer-to-peer networking would impact Open Source developers or providers. Seriously, did RedHat start using Kazaa to distribute its ISOs while I wasn't paying attention?
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
Maybe that's how Berman got elected in the first place. . . people just misread his name on the ballot. This is Hollywood we're talking about, after all. . .
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
If a bill like this passes, it might behoove p2p'ers to start posting fake files that, while legal, will trigger whatever bots they set up to determine who's sharing their material. You know...
My Song - That Guy (sorta like Twisted Sister meets Queen).mp3
Sorta like the fake files they've seeded the networks with to fight piracy. Oh, what a tangled web we weave!
But today, it's Islam that's poisoning people's minds.
/. user info. My apologies for that. That last bit was definitely uncalled for.
Islam is not poisoning peoples minds. People with poisoned minds use Islam as a vehicle to to propogate and justify their insanity. Thing is, if I look back in history, I could say that about many religions.
People have the right to practice their religion of choice without being intimidated by those who do not share the same faith, let alone persecuted for it. In my country, religous freedom is considered a basic right.
But instead of ignoring the source of a problem, a very real problem which is killing people every day, why not meet it head-on?
Good idea. While we're at it, lets tackle some other problems in the same manner.
How about all Catholics? Considering the number of documented cases of Catholic priests interfering with young children, this sounds reasonable to me. And since a lot of that has a direct relation to sodomy, why don't we just go after all the gay people out there as well, just to be on the safe side?
Oh, hang on. I just noticed your
Me shakes my head and cries. Why can't we all just get along? Live and let live. There is no other way.
Go ahead and mod me down. I will not post this anonymously. What I'd like to know is, who the fsck modded the parent as insightful? Fscking flamebait more like it.
Then a Slashdot poster happened by and said, "Dude, you're eating cake that someone dropped on the ground. What the hell is wrong with you people?!"
Didn't people in the 60s say rock and roll was evil and carried satanic messages when you played record backwords?
The problem is that one side of the debate isn't trying to get something completely unreasonable passed alongside the other unreasonable thing. What happens in reality is that one side asks for something unreasonable, and the other side says no. They then try something slightly-less unreasonable, and that works, because it's "good politics" to compromise (even if it isn't a compromise at all). Just because your first crazy offer wasn't accepted doesn't mean the result is a "creative win-win solution" or "watered down".
You do realize that the DMCA is a watered-down version of what the media and technology companies really wanted, right? That the PATRIOT act is a watered-down version of what the Executive branch actually wanted, right? Are these your "watered down compromises"? This is the results of this "feature"?
It is in fact a standard practice to ask for more than you want. Each time you come back with a slightly modified proposal, the more pressure you put on your opponent to accept it. It doesn't matter if each revision does nothing to make it more palatable -- eventually the politics mandate capitulation.
And yes, that's life. But that doesn't mean it's good.
The enemies of Democracy are
The bill does not specify what techniques--such as viruses, worms, denial-of-service attacks, or domain name hijacking--would be permissible.
1. Locate IP/Device in meatspace.
2. Cruise Missile.
Since this solution would use armaments supplied by United Defense, Bush would definately approve this solution. (His daddy would see to it)
Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power.
Hey, you guys are all overlooking the possible benifits of monitoring everything. We could require that all communication between government rulemakers and anyone else be in a public and open access network. We could require that all bill writers log-in to a source control law-writing system. We could track who puts what word or phrase into what law and make the system accountable.
Oh, that was what they want for us, not for themselves. You can always tell a fascist because they demand of everyone else what they won't do themselves.
For example: Laissez faire capitalists demand 'open' markets and 'free' trade. They want to put there money into foriegn countries and pull it out at a moments notice. This will often lead to financial collapse in third and second world countries. BUT when they put their money into their secret hedge funds, they follow rules that prohibit them from pulling their money out except within certain time-tables (agreed upon when they put their money in). They won't do for themselves what they demand of everyone else.
Free trade is never free, it costs the poor very dearly.
Laissez faire capitialism is UNFAIR.
As a further example of how rediculous and destructive all of the deregulation of markets has been (deregulation of markets demanded, but not of P2P communication protocols), there is an interesting business in South America: converting automobiles to being bullet proof. The bankers and business people who go down there to set up their 'free' trade have to pay dearly to be safe because there is a very strong market in kidnapped rich people. So we see again how 'free' trade is not free.
I know that I am off topic, but I am out of work and all the jobs that I used to do are now done in Bangalore. I sure as hell ain't going there.
Berman (and his brother) have been very influential forces in the Democratic party here in California for years. He represents an urban area which is generally considered liberal. Since his district is tailor-made for generally liberal Democrats, his only opponents are sacrificial Republicans and persons from other parties who cannot get elected because they are from marginal parties and marginal parties are virtually ignored by fundraisers and media outlets. (It's a Catch-22, it isn't right, but that's the way it is.) His constituents, a small percentage of whom work for media companies, are not going to turn this into a make or break issue. While Green or Peace and Freedom or Libertarian candidates may have a different take on DRM than Berman, a standard Republican candidate is going to side with DRM given the current political constellation. (Pardon yet more glibness, but Republicans hear and are very excited by the property part of IP.) I suspect that if fellow generally liberal Democrats (I guess I'd be one) write him to say that giving such unchecked power to big corporations is perhaps against the ideals of genrally liberal Democrats -- well, this may have more impact than saying blindly vote for the opponent. Well, maybe.
Why does P2P always operate over TCP/IP?
P2P CAN be on a TCP/IP network, but there is no reason why you could not have a P2P system that uses some alternative protocol that is not known to outsiders. Such would be a true secret network that would be free from interference by outsiders. TCP/IP is just one of an infinity of possible network protocols.
TCP/IP is great for sharing data but lousey at hiding data.
IP means Internet Protocol.
We can have alternative networks. The transport layer can be changed, and often is. For example we have eithernet and we also have ATM.
It is just very convenient to translate them into IP, as that allows us to all write to that layer and free ourselves from worrying about moving the bits and bytes around.
You can have a direct link over a serial connection, and it still makes sense to change it into IP in the machine.
Unless you understand the seven layers of the networking model, then you can't really understand what to do for an alternative network. A lot of very smart people developed this over a period of very many years. For sharing a system on a network, TCP/IP works very well. It doesn't work for HIDING things.
'inter' means 'between' in the sense of sharing. There is no reason that someone can't come up with a net protocol that would not let sharing happen as easily.
Is there anyone stopping you? I can think of many different ways to connect machines. But the bottom line is: the seven layer model works very well and it doesn't make sense to develop a new network model for my uses. I don't care if you see what I am doing on the network. I can use encryption, and it does work pretty good.
If you don't have anything to hide, then why worry. There is also that network that isn't a computer network: The postal service. Have you guys heard about phishhook.com?
States settle CD price-fixing case
States settle CD price-fixing case
By David Lieberman, USA TODAY
NEW YORK - The five largest music companies and three of the USA's largest music retailers agreed Monday to pay $67.4 million and distribute $75.7 million in CDs to public and non-profit groups to settle a lawsuit led by New York and Florida over alleged price-fixing in the late 1990s.
Attorneys general in the two states, who were joined in the lawsuit by 39 other states, said that the industry kept consumer CD prices artificially high between 1995 and 2000 with a practice known as "minimum-advertised pricing" (MAP).
The settlement will go to all 50 states, based on population. Consumers may be able to seek compensation.
Under MAP, the record companies subsidized ads by retailers in return for agreement by the stores to sell CDs at or above a certain price.
"This is a landmark settlement to address years of illegal price-fixing," New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer said in a statement. "Our agreement will provide consumers with substantial refunds and result in the distribution of a wide variety of recordings for use in our schools and communities."
The companies, including Universal Music, Sony Music, Warner Music, Bertelsmann's BMG Music and EMI Group, plus retailers Musicland Stores, Trans World Entertainment and Tower Records, admitted no wrongdoing.
The companies have not practiced the pricing agreement since 2000. At that time, they agreed in settling a complaint by the Federal Trade Commission that they would refrain from MAP pricing for seven years.
Former FTC chairman Robert Pitofsky said at the time that consumers had been overcharged by $480 million since 1997 and that CD prices would soon drop by as much as $5 a CD as a result.
In settling the lawsuit, Universal BMG and Warner said they simply wanted to avoid court costs and defended the practice.
"We believe our policies were pro-competitive and geared toward keeping more retailers, large and small, in business," Universal said in a statement.
Previously, the companies said that MAP was needed to protect independent music retailers from rising competition from discount chains such as Wal-Mart, Circuit City and Best Buy. They had slashed CD prices, below cost in some cases, in the hope that once consumers were in their stores they would buy other, more expensive products.
The music companies said that MAP did not directly help them because it didn't affect wholesale prices. Retailers added that they needed support to keep prices up because their rents, particularly for stores in malls, were higher than the discount chains.
Lately, several record companies have cut prices on some CDs, particularly for new acts, to counter the continuing industry slump. Album sales are off nearly 11% this year compared with the same period in 2001, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
I'm going to be voting for Hernandez only because I have met with him, he seems like a decent enough bloke, he's a "McCain Republican" who also cut his political teeth with Cesar Chavez, and he's also against the Berman Bill. But I do not hold much hope out for him to have any effect. Just look at the tale of the tape, courtesy of Opensecrets.Org. Hernandez has exactly zero in his war chest, Berman has almost $1 Million left. And guess where most of that comes from? Well take a wild flying guess, folks. Viacom and Walt Disney are his two biggest contributors.
No matter what we do at this late date, Berman will be back, just like the freakin' Terminator, next Congress. And after the election, he won't be as kindly bent to take outside input on his precious P2P hax0r bill.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
First spammers ask for regulation, then the RIAA starts to offer something close to what we've been asking for all along instead of trying to fsck us all outright. The devil's asscheeks must be mighty frosty today.
The recent speech from the throne makes a vague reference to Intellectual Property laws.
This speech is an outline of the plans of the federal gov't.
I am sick and tired of the RIAA/MPAA et al trying to punish law abiding users. One of my favorite rappers Jay Z, has taken a very innovative and effective approach to fighting piracy. Read about it here. I'm sure this guy won't be selling anymore bootlegs!
13 year old white supremacists are shitty web designers.
The best advice for regulating the internet is DON'T! All regulating the internet does is make criminals out of people doing nothing wrong. Parents need to be responsible enough to let minors make the right choices when browsing the net whether it be not going to porn sites, piracy, whatever. Law enforcement on the internet is too difficult. And impractical. Perhaps the music industry should take the initiative to secure its own music. Impossible you say? They need to adapt to the world, not the world adapt to them. Senators and Representatives are elected to act for the voters, and the voters alone. Perhaps being closer to the people who vote for you isn't such a bad thing. Ever wondered what percent of voters are in favor of extremely crippled computers? I'm not saying congressmen in general are evil. But it is the few bad and corrupt ones which should be shunned. Whatever Berman calls this crappy bill, don't even agree to put it up for vote unless you think most of the people you represent would vote the same way.
The measures and countermeasures that would be invented in such a vis-a-vis in hacking! In the long run, it might help open source developers build more secure networks which are more difficult to hack. In essence, the proposed law is already self-defeating in design because it forces P2P developers to write better software. Sure, the RIAA might be able to hack my machine, but who is to say that I couldn't find a way to sneak MY copyrighted work onto their machine so *I* can hack them without legal liability?
I think all of us could support it then!
I came to this article from a headline syndicated to Freshmeat. 'Berman retreats, only to regroup.'
Great, I thought!
As long as Piller goes with him, we might have the chance of a Trek sequel sometime in the next ten years that isn't clogged with mushy sentimentality and hackneyed plots. (This after watching the Berman/Piller scripted Insurrection on TV the other night.) Although that threat of regrouping is worrying... what dastardly new series does he plan? Will we see the same process with, say, Seinfeld: The Next Generation? So I clicked on the story to find out the bad news.
Imagine my relief when it just turned out to be some politician with his snout in the trough.
Imagine my relief when it
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
This is not to be confused with the claims by some people that there were subliminal messages hidden in the instrumental tracks. Seriously, I heard claims that if you played the guitar sounds (and just the guitar) backwards and slowed it down, there were discernable english words hidden in there. I even listened to some of it. Needless to say these people were hearing what they wanted to hear. (It wouldn't be the first time someone's done that)...
. --- If you're looking for free e-mail you won't find it here! http://www.noemailhere.com
"His Libertarian opponent, Kelley Ross, doesn't stand a chance."
Probably because people like you assume that they can't win, because no one will vote for them. If no one votes for them, they can't win. It's a terrible cycle caused by the US two party system. Break out of it by voting 3rd party.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
Ever notice how when you buy blank recording media, the RIAA gets a cut of the price, even though they do not manufacture, distribute, or own patents on the product in question?
I say that every time I buy media where I "pay the artists" (so to speak), I buy myself another copy of a song at a lower price, because that's the middle ground that seems to have been legistlated on me.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
...is politics in general. As many people,so tritely, observe... people who want power are usually very self-centered and have no concern for the betterment of their fellow man. This is, sadly, completely out of alignment with what politics were originally intended to be. Let's take a look at the official definition of politics and break it down:
c id=4536 155
The science of government; that part of ethics which has to do with the regulation and government of a nation or state, the preservation of its safety, peace, and prosperity, the defense of its existence and rights against foreign control or conquest, the augmentation of its strength and resources, and the protection of its citizens in their rights, with the preservation and improvement of their morals.
First, let's start with the fact the politics is considered a science, where "science" is taken to mean:
Any branch or department of systematized knowledge considered as a distinct field of investigation or object of study.
By this definition, a politician should have a great body of knowledge regarding ethics, citizens and their rights and proper morals. If you apply that branch of logic to the politicians of the last few decades, we find that there is something that has slowly gone seriously wrong. Our politicians tend to be anything but knowledgable, ethical, moral or have any concern for citizen's rights!
We will start with our current administration. While the polls say that G.W. Bush has had anywhere from a 49% approval rating at lowest and as high as his post Sept. 11th rating of 93%. While this speaks well of him, it completely obscures many well known facts regarding his knowledge (quite lacking), ethics, morality and feelings on citizen's rights. If we delve deeper, we find that he, in fact, has very little knowledge about the system. Further evidenced by the fact that he is a poor speaker and his father's former cabinet appears to be running the entire show. He is just a mouthpiece.
Regarding ethics, I would question any politician's ethics who would have other men in thir cabinet involved in scandal. Especially in a position so close to the power seat as vice-president Cheney. Mr. Cheney's desire to conceal the connections between Enron and the current administration are very disheartening. Even the staunchest conservative must admit that this was not one of the finer moments in conservative history. (The liberal-controlled media argument doesn't wash here either as the news sources that reported negatively on this story tend to be just as far right as you can get.)
While Mr. Bush professes to being a good christian. He hasn't always been that way. His morals are not exactly what one would call "good". It's very well known the George W. Bush, was quite the party down, rich kid. As he grew away from his "youthful errors", he became quite the shady businessman. I would have to say that his morals are questionable at best.
Civil rights and the current administration are at odds with each other. This has been an ever increasing problem since Sept. 11th. As most Americans blindly wave their flags, their ability to do much of anything else to affect their own well being is being erroded by things like "The Patriot Act". In the name of security, the man in the white house and his staff are trying to convince us that it's good to lose your freedoms sometimes. This is quite damning evidence that he does not understand or care about the citizen's of this country's rights.
Seeing that all of this is true, it appears that George W. Bush fails to live up to the definition of what a politician should be, as do many of his cabinet.
The last administration has it's blemishes on many counts as well. Analyzing Mr. Clinton in the same way, we find that his knowledge of the governmental system was stronger than Mr. Bush's. (If anyone can provide links to examples please do so, I couldn't find any.)
Where ethics are concerned, Bill Clinton had his share of gaffes. Not to mention the more serious allegations regarding his time as Governor of Arkansas. No... Sadly, we can't say that Mr. Clinton has shiny repution either.
Everyone knows about his moral problems since they've been beaten to death. Like him or not, Bill Clinton was not a man of morals by strict definition.
As geeks, we all know that it was his administration that passed the DMCA which has potential to seriously impinge on citizen's rights. Not just your ability to "swap songs", but you ability to write code freely!
So, by the same analysis, Bill Clinton fails the test of what a good politician is. As do most other politicians. Why is this? Because we are humans. We have imperfections that prevent us from being able to truly hold to the ideals of what how politics should work. Some do better than others, but in general the lot of them are corrupt.
Most politicians are only interested in politics due to their hunger for power. Just that alone is damning as it points to a deep seated greed and selfishness that is almost required to be a politician. So how is it that our system even works? In reality, it doesn't.
Most of what the operations of the government and the way they affect us are almost 100% happily incidental. Ocassionally one person somewhere deep in the system does one thing right. Another one somewhere else in the system does something else right. And so on... There are the few people here or there who intentionally or unintentionally (They're human, remember?) do something wrong. But the aggregate result is something that more or les resembles a system that works. This illusion trickles upward toward the leaders (Senators, congressmen, governors, and ultimately the president) and makes them look good. (It works this way in any large organization) So... for now we are stuck with a system that appears to work, but is solely based on chance. Or looking at it another way, real politics (as opposed to the ideal defined above) is just another form of gambling.
In closing, I'll offer you this joke about politics:
Son: Dad, I have a special report for school. Can I ask you a question?
Dad: Sure son, what's the question?
Son: What is politics?
Dad: Well son, let's take our home for example. I am the wage earner, so let's call me the management. Your mother is the administrator of the money, so let's call her the government. We take care of you and your needs, so let's call you the people. We'll call the maid the working class and your baby brother the future. Understand?
Son: I'm not really sure dad, I'll have to think about it.
That night, the boy is awakened by his baby brother's crying, so he went to see what was wrong. Discovering that the baby had a heavily soiled nappy, the boy went to his parent's room and found his mother fast asleep. He than went to the maid's room, where, peeking through the keyhole, he saw his father in bed with the maid. The boy's knocking went totally unheard. The boy went back to his room and went to sleep.
The next morning...
Son: Dad, I think I understand politics.
Dad: That's great son, explain it to me in your own words.
Son: While the management is screwing the working class, the government is fast asleep, the people are being completely ignored and the future is full of shit.
---Whew! All that work just to post this---
-I am a Windows user
-I am also a f4g0rt
-All Windows users are f4g0rtz
-Bill Gates loves men
-Linux is the sux0rz
-BSD is dying
-Stephen King loved goatse.cx before he died
-75% of people in the US make up 3/4 of the US population
-Adolph Hitroll is my bitch
-RecipeTroll loves the cock too
-Natalie Portman is naked and petrified
-I poured hot gritz down my pants and all I got was this lousy T-shirt
-R.M.S. is a commie
-Linus Torvalds is keeping his brotha down. Free him!
-Looser = Loser and vice-versa. Stop complaining and learn New English
-Imagine a Beowulf cluster of trolls
-The CowboyNeal jokes are old
-X is unstable, let's get rid of it
-KDE is the sux0rz, GNOME rules
-Real men use TWM
-vi is better then emacs (no it's not, emacs is better than vi)=Tastes great/Less Filling
-Ford sucks
-Chevy sucks
-Capitalism is dying
-Linux on the desktop is dead
-IE won the browser war, give it up Mozilla. (No. The war's not over yet M$)
-MySQL is robust and scalable
-PostgreSQL is better than MySQL. Nyah!
-So you like your pages W I D E N E D?
-I 4m 1337. giv3 m3 w4r3z d00dz.
-w00t!
-In other news...
-1. Steal concept from open sores 2. ??? 3. Profit!!!
-RMS is a dirty hippie
-Moderation sucks
-UNIX will never be as secure as VMS
-GayPee is not a hacker, he's a dork
-General strike!! Now!!!!!!
-ESR is a homo
-Grok THIS you GIMP!
-Corporations are evil
-Corporations are good
-Quake is the sux0rz, give me Unreal Tourney! (You Canadian f4g0rt, UT sucks, Quake 0wnz j00)
-Canadians are gay
-Americans are stupid
-Brits are assholes
-For hot gulrz see: http://www.bakla.net
-~the fux0rz has spoken~-
Trolls: please post this in all discussions vaguely related to politics.
To see the original post, go here:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=43344&
Fuck y o u, Eric Krught.