Slashdot Mirror
Slashback: Panama, Leeches, Comeuppance
Excuse me, is this well already poisoned? PHPee writes "Yesterday Slashdot posted an article (only thieves block pop-up ads) regarding anti-leech.com's anti-theft campaign. I happened to be one of many people who sent an email to anti-leech, explaining my disappointment, and I received an auto-responder message today, indicating anti-leech has posted a FAQ regarding its anti-theft campaign."
Wish he'd have been arrested for fraud, instead. MojoT writes "Following up from a previous story, Madison Priest, the so called inventor of a broadband Magic Box, was arrested Friday on drug trafficking charges and possession of a firearm by a felon. He must have been confusing the bit rate of his Magic Box with the number of hits he was getting off his stash."
You mean this stuff is just a kind of data? pelle writes "As a (non Panamanian) geek in Panama, I've been following the UDP story quite heavily. The Panamanian paper La Prensa reports that the Panamanian Supreme court has suspended the infamous order to block UDP's used for VOIP the Enteregulador (the governments regulator of utilities). The suspension was done on a complaint by a company called Net2Net Corp. There has been strong uproar amongst people in Panama about the blocking of the UPD's. So this is seen as a welcome thing. The article quotes Gonzalo Córdoba, the Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation as saying "Blocking the ports for accessing voice is a form of censorship". For Spanish readers the article is at: La Prensa Note, my Spanish aint all that yet, so I might have missed out several finer points."
I'll wait out the battle in my hobbit hole, thanks. An anonymous reader writes "First scooped at theonering.net: The official Lord of the Rings site has put up an amazing feature that goes into a lot of detail on the motion-capture techniques and programming that goes into the movies' battle scenes. It is one of the best-designed web features I have seen, very informative with interviews from the people working on it and interactive "design your own army"-type features. This should answer any questions left by the recent Slashdot article, and raise many more... (Requires Flash to view.)"
Don't PanIP Timothy Beere writes "Just a quick update to the Slashdot faithful. I received notice several weeks ago that PanIP was suing me and the PanIP Defense Group for the www.youmaybenext.com web site.
The lawsuit claims trademark infringement, defamation and unfair competition. They obviously see the web site as a big threat to their grand plan of suing the potential thousands of e-commerce sites that they could have targeted.
In a preliminary court hearing last week, a judge resoundingly denied their request for a Temporary Restraining Order against the web site. This is the same judge that will be hearing the patent case. We will soon be filing a motion to have PanIP pay all attorney's fees for the web site case as we feel this was nothing less than a litigation threat meant to restrain our free speech. Apparently PanIP doesn't think we have the right to inform people about what they're are doing. Or maybe they are feeling very uncomfortable with the spotlight shining on them.
One other note. We currently have 16 members in our FightBack Defense Group. The FightBack group will soon be posted on the web site.
On a personal note. I can't say enough about the overwhelming response I got from the original slashdot post. I knew if I could get the word out there that people would be disgusted by what PanIP is doing.
We are in the process of filing our responses for the Group and the case will soon be under way in the court. We are still hunting for good prior art in an effort to have their patents invalidated. We intend to stop PanIP and we need your support!"
That's funny, they cite google as a "multinational company" with lots of money... But wait, didn't google just start putting small unobtrusive ads on the service relatively recently? How, then, did they get to be this big corporation?
Very funny, IMHO.
http://www.akardam.net/media/news/anti-leech-funny .png
That's all I'm going to say... this is too funny.
It seems that the site using anti-leech software (it blocks Opera in this instance) just got issued a notice from the RIAA to take down its CD cover scans section (must be due to lost profits!) If that's not juicy irony, I don't know what is.
"All art is quite useless." -- Oscar Wilde
"I'm borrowing my mother-in-law's PC on vacation, and it only has IE - it's been popup city here...."
Don't forget to clear the browser cache and URL history. You don't want her to start typing in www.hotbot.com and seven keystrokes into it do an AutoComplete to a different hot website.
Learn from my mistakes.
One of the many things that I liek about Linux is that it ignors Gator and all of the other assorted scumware out there. YAY!
I was writing a reply to the anti-leech website when I realized that using the same logic, I could charge the site for my content!
.02,
I realize, of course, that the owner of anti-leech.com did not request the content in question, but this fact seems largely irrelevant to Mr. Wennberg. After all, much like the "thieves" who "steal" from his clients, he did not actually ask that I compose a reply, but I did and it did cost me bandwidth to post, time to create, etc., and as such I expect Mr. Wennberg to pay for the resources that have been expended.
It is in this vein that I have billed Mr. Wennberg for my rebuttal (content) on a net-30 basis and fully intend to collect. I really hope that Mr. Wennberg is consistent with his application of fairness. After all, I did spend a lot of time putting together my response and if he does not pay my bill, it might very well cause me to go out of business altogether.
---------------------
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2002 19:42:05 -0500 (EST)
From: Jason Desjardins <jason@macross.com>
To: johan.wennberg@swipnet.se
Bcc: Jason Desjardins <jason@macross.com>
Subject: Crashspace: Invoice #0001
Anti-leech.com,
Thank you for your recent content purchase! Here is your order confirmation.
Invoice: 0001
Content:
----[%begin]----
From the FAQ [anti-leech.com]:
"A website cost time and money to run. Every time you visit a website you will cost the webmaster behind that website money as they have to pay for the bandwidth you use when downloading images, information etc. Most websites depend completely on revenue from advertising through banners and pop ups. If you start trying to block that income you will still cost the webmaster the same amount of money as before, but the webmaster won't earn any money from advertsing to cover the expence. The result is obvious as this get more and more common today. In the end this can mean that the website has to shut down!"
Whoa. Chill out there, spanky.
The internet is not your (or anyone elses) personal toll booth. You don't get to plop your ass down and start demanding fees. Nobody forced you to put up a website. Nobody forced you to put up content and expend effort making that content. Hell, I don't even care if you deny me your content if I don't jump through your hoops. That isn't the issue.
The issue here is simple; your branding of those who do not enthusiastically play your game as 'thieves.' On your front page [anti-leech.com] there is a graphic [anti-leech.com] which states, "15% of your visitors are thieves."
This is a little bit like having a store and thrusting pamphlets into the hands of people who enter the store, then calling them thieves if they refuse the material. Does it make sense to say that by refusing the pamphlet they are denying you a revenue stream? Do you think you would be kicked or merely laughed out of court with this argument?
Your argument that you've paid for content and people are stealing it is a bit like painting a picture, displaying it on the street and then charging people who look at it, calling those who refuse "thieves." It doesn't have any real-world analogue whatsoever and you're a fool if you think that the internet is your sandbox to do with as you please. Doubly so if you plan on trying to enforce it.
And while I'm here, what the hell makes you think you have the right, the right to control how my browser -- and my computer by extension -- acts?
Heck. I think I'm going to send you a bill right now for the time it took to write this content. I imagine you'll be happy to pay it, it's entirely consistent with your argument...
My
Limekiller
----[%end ]----
Total Charge: $90.00 USD
We bill on a net-30 basis. Past due accounts are charged an additional 18% annual APR fee, accrued every 30 days (1.5%).
Again, thank you for using Crashspace content!
Regards,
Jason
--
----
"I speak Spanish to God, Italian to women, French to men and German to my horse." - Charles V
My
Limekiller
Look closely at the banner ad that was running when I took a look at the Anti-Leech page.
Looks to be a one-man operation. Too bad ol' Johan here isn't a better programmer. He might have some up with some approach that wasn't so a) easy to rip off and b) easy to work around.
It doesn't have to be hard to rip off or work around. You see, Anti-Leech turns the pop-up ad to an access device that you are circumventing for the purposes of getting at controlled content. Thus, you are violating the DMCA, and can expect the FBI to come knocking down your door any day now...
Not only that... but I just checked it out with Netscape 3.04 with js and images off, and the site worked fine. So did calling the "test image" via context menu. Yeah, I'm real impressed too.
I'd be even more "impressed" if I were using an afflicted browser, and Anti-Theft was installed on a site I wanted to view, and I had to wait 25 seconds to be told I'd be allowed to continue using the site. I'd probably have already left under the assumption that the server was down or something.
Seems to me we need a new category for software like this. I suggest "Barnumware".
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
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General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
One of the many things that I liek about Windows is that it downloads Gator and all of the other assorted scumware out there. YAY!
III.IIVIVIXIIVIVIIIVVIIIIXVIIIXIIIIIIIIVIIIIVVIII
Hell, just install a different browser, like Opera or Mozilla. That way, your settings are seperate, and you avoid IE's history problem. I'd be more worried myself about accidentally seeing somewhere my mom goes...that would be far more damaging to the self...
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
ZeroAds: Eliminate popups and triple your browsing speed!!!
That is just de-licious :)