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!"
It's slightly different for the 'youmaybenext.com' application. That's clearly a commentary site describing the lawsuits and what they see as the fallout from them. No real malice or illegality there (just lots of indignation and anger). Many states have anti-SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation) laws. Running against those can get you bitch-SLAPPed.
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
One of many things I liek about Opera is that it ignors Gator and all of the other assorted scumware out there. YAY!
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
It looks like they are taking contributions for the effort ala PayPal.
<nitpick style="pedantic" value="trivial">
The expression a la is French for "in the manner or style of." I think the idiom you meant to use was via, which means "by the way of." I think you meant, "they are taking contributions for the effort via PayPal." On the other hand, you could have said, "they are taking contributions for the effort a la the EFF," which would have meant, "they are taking contributions in the same way that the EFF does." Whichever.
</nitpick>
I write in my journal
[Voice over IP] will replace phones as we know it... why isnt it more widely used?
Just about the worst telephone call you can make-- in my experience-- is the US to Sydney, Oz. The call must be routed over a satellite link or something, because the lag is on the order of half a second. When you're talking to someone in Australia, you get used to saying, "How are you today?" and then waiting while the perceptible lag passes to hear the reply, "Fuck off, you piker! It's three in the bloody mornin'!"
Every VOIP call is like that, only the lag varies from a merely noticeable fraction of a second to between one and two seconds from moment to moment, due to varying net traffic conditions.
VOIP, in other words, is more annoying and less effective than your average instant messaging system.
I write in my journal
Sure.
bash$ whois anti-leech.com
(snip)
Domain Name: ANTI-LEECH.COM
Administrative Contact:
Wennberg, Johan johan.wennberg@swipnet.se
Stockholm, Enskede S-122 47
Fair use, etc etc.
-- This
I translated this with a little help from Systran(Sherlock). I lay no claim to the words being mine though, as the article was written by someone else.
Court Suspends Internet Blockage Ruling
Mario A. Muñoz
andresm@prensa.com
The Supreme Court of Justice ordered to suspend the effects of the Public Services Regulating Body (ESRP) order that blocked the ports for voice over IP, due to a finding that it was constitutionally protected.
The motion was presented by the firm Infante, Garrido & Garrdio for the company Net2net Corp, in opposition to the Oct. 25th, 2002 resolution JD-3576 by the board of directors of the Regulating Body.
In a letter from the Chief Magistrate, Winston Spadafora, the Court asked for a report on the facts of the case and ordered the immediate suspension of the effects of the aforementioned resolution.
The President of the Regulating Body, Alex Anel Arroyo, thinks international calls made through the Internet are illegal.
The ESRP order was given to 50 Internet Service Providers, ordering them to block 24 UDP access ports that were used for voice transmission, including some companies that offered that service to the public.
Those ISPs have presented several requests to the ERSP for reconsideration (of the order).
Among the ISPs that issued the request are Intered, Ayayai.com, BellSouth Internet, Cable & Wireless Internet, Cable Onda, Compu Service Communications, GBNet a CCI Network, Inter.net, PanNet, Net2Net, and Senacyt.
The national Department of Science, Technology, and Innovation (Senacyt) criticized the resolution through its director, Gonzalo Cordova, who affirmed that blocking the voice access ports "constitutes a different form of censorship".
The ISPs position is added to that of the many users would be affected by blocking the access ports known as UDP (User Datagram Protocols)
All rights are reserved by Prensa corporation. internet@prensa.com
(hopefully those don't include translation rights)
"He's more machine now than man, twisted and evil."
Wrt to the copyright/defamation/etc. suit, California has a wonderful form for this called SLAPP (strategic lawsuits against public participation.) SLAPP lawsuits are basically lawsuits that try to shut down criticism, and California has a specific statute dealing with this (as do a number of other states). If you win a SLAPP claim, you can automatically get attorneys fees and costs.
Thalia