Slashback: Panama, Leeches, Comeuppance

Slashback tonight with more on "anti-leech" anti-browser technology, Panamanian VoIP blocking, the Magic Box fraud, and LotR battle scene creation, fighting back against PanIP, and more. Read on below for the details, and (if applicable) have a good holiday.

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!"

Comments

Opera...

[EverStoned]

A copy of IntelliTamper and Opera v7 get around the anti-leech technology.

Kinda says something about the US attitude...

[RollingThunder]

*mentally kisses karma goodbye*

The article headline:
"Inventor arrested on drug charges"

In the article, it says he had a pound of marajuana, and two assault rifles. The article then goes on about drugs, drugs, drugs, more drugs.

Excuse me? The pound of dope was more of a threat (well, more newsworthy) than ASSAULT RIFLES?

*shakes head*

Not meant to be a troll, though I'm sure it'll be moderated as such. Just boggles my mind.

Re:Kinda says something about the US attitude...

[Photon Ghoul]

I would agree with your position that the emphasis on a pound of wacky tobacky is ridiculous. The only problem is that they found actually found a 1,000-plant Dro Farm that he was running. That's nothing to sneeze, or cough, at.

Re:Kinda says something about the US attitude...

[BeBoxer]

Remember that marijuana plants are illegal in and of themselves. Assault rifles are not. Now in this guys case, his being a previously convicted felon meant that he wasn't allowed to posses any firearms at all, which is why he's being charged with that also. But an "assualt rifle" is not an illegal thing per se. In fact, the term assault rifle is purely a propaganda term used to make people think what he had is worse than it was. The legal definition of assault rifle is based purely on the cosmetic appearance of the firearm, with no mention of what caliber round it shoots or anything that actually affects it's performance. People think "machine gun" when they hear assault rifle, but that's not what is technically being said. That's why I say it's a propaganda term. But I digress.

Re:Kinda says something about the US attitude...

[FattMattP]

In the article, it says he had a pound of marajuana, and two assault rifles. The article then goes on about drugs, drugs, drugs, more drugs. Excuse me? The pound of dope was more of a threat (well, more newsworthy) than ASSAULT RIFLES?

I know this will sound like a troll but it's meant as the truth. You see, this happened in America and here in America, guns and violence are okay. Sex and drugs are not. That's why there are so many films with gun fights, people getting killed, people getting hands blown off, screaming, dying, etc. But if there's some drugs involved, then it has to be bad guys. No one just smoking pot on their back porch can be a good guy. No sex either. We can expose "the children" to that. But guns and suffering and people dying horrible painful deaths are okay. So the focus is on the drugs. We're so fixated on the fact that someone had some pot that it goes almost unnoticed that there were deadly weapons in his possession.

Re:Kinda says something about the US attitude...

[BeBoxer]

At the outset, let me say I'm trying to be informative, not to start a debate over the wisdom of gun control.

SNIP

True, assault weapons are not machine guns; they are semi-automatic, so one trigger pull fires one round.

SNIP

I don't think "assault weapon" is a propaganda term; certainly the military has a sense of the difference between assault weapons (M-16)

See. This is exactly what I'm talking about. Confusion between what is an "assault weapon" and flat out fully automatic machine guns which have been heavily regulated for years. The M-16 is not an "assault weapon", neither under the legal definition nor under your own. So did you call the M-16 an assault weapon because you're one of the ignorant masses whose fallen for all the propaganda they've heard? Apparently. You don't belive the term is a propaganda term, and more importantly on some level you've accepted that particular lie as truth. Despite your earlier statements in the same post which give a contrary opinion! Quite remarkable.

I disagree that the difference is cosmetic. Most of the elements in the definition focus on functional attributes that make the weapon more portable or more deadly and so on. I mentioned here [slashdot.org] a link to some information concerning the statutory definition.

If you want to present the impression of impartially "informing" the readers, don't reference the Brady Foundation. They are at least as biased as the NRA. From the more impartial University of Michigan here are the things that make a rifle an "assault weapon":

(B) a semiautomatic rifle that has an ability to accept a detachable magazine and has at least 2 of--

`(i) a folding or telescoping stock;

`(ii) a pistol grip that protrudes conspicuously beneath the action of the weapon;

`(iii) a bayonet mount;

`(iv) a flash suppressor or threaded barrel designed to accommodate a flash suppressor; and

`(v) a grenade launcher;

(i) has some impact on how concealable a weapon is, but in actual use the stock is unfolded and performs identically to a normal stock.

(ii) is really what makes a weapon look like a military weapon to the general public. I'm suprised that they didn't just ban all rifles with this style of grip. Note that in my opinion, this falls under cosmetic. I can shoot either type of rifle from either the hip or the shoulder. A pistol-style grip is a little easier from the hip perhaps, but I think this is largely cosmetic.

(iii) This is totally cosmetic. Are drug dealers and gang members really running around with bayonets?

(iv) Same thing. Is anybody that worried about flash suppressors? It's not like they actually supress the muzzle flash anyway.

(v) Totally ludicrous. Are any crimes commited with grenades? Besides I would be very suprised if grenades and grenade launchers were not already regulated under firearms laws covering destructive devices

The statute is quite clear which weapons are OK and which are not; and if you are prosecuted if will do you no good to point to a weapon that is similar but legal.

The statute is "clear" because it bans a number of weapons by name. The statute is quite unclear because you can buy post-ban weapons that are functionally identical to banned guns with minor cosmetic changes and new names. For example, the Colt AR-15 and Colt "Match Target HBAR". To 95% of the population, they look identical. And they are pretty much right. Colt took off the flash supressor and bayonet mount, slapped on a new name, and hey, legal weapon.

The bill is also quite unclear because there are several pairs of rifles where both are semi-automatic, both are magazine fed, and both shoot the same round. A specific example is the AR-15 and the Ruger Mini-14. But one is banned by name, and the other is exempted by name! What's the sense in that?

Re:Kinda says something about the US attitude...

[beej]

In the article, it says he had a pound of marajuana, and two assault rifles. The article then goes on about drugs, drugs, drugs, more drugs.

Actually, it gives more punch when the assault rifles are listed second. Most people don't think pot is that bad, so it needs to be reinforced with something evil.

Putting the more-important-thing first often comes out with the opposite effect: "They seized assault rifles and a pound of marijuana." See how flat that sounds?

People are also more likely to remember the last thing in a list, so it has the most power.

On that note: someone I knew, a kind gentle man, was arrested for growing pot (several plants, but not large-scale). This guy wouldn't, and didn't, ever threaten anyone with guns. But he had some in the house.

The guns were reported in the paper. I was surprised at just how evil and dangerous it made him sound, and realized that I had passed similar judgement against people I didn't know just for reading in they paper that their guns were seized.

Different than the story in question, I know, but just beware when you see things like that printed. You probably know people who own assault rifles.

Re:Sue PanIP?

[omaha]

It looks like they are taking contributions for the effort ala PayPal.
http://www.youmaybenext.com/help.html
If everyone pitched in a buck I bet we could blow PanIP out of the water. I know that I don't want any of my clients getting sued and all of them fit in the category that is being preyed upon by these parasites. Shoot, I just talked myself in to contributing a buck for every website I manage. I would suggest that if you build sites for others that you do the same.

The war of words...

[raytracer]

I'm frankly amazed at the degree to which people go to redefine words to try to change the tenor and direction of debate. A good example is the anti-leech trying to redefine your desire to not read their advertising as theft. To use the word theft to describe such actions is to belittle the meaning of the word theft, making it useless to describe actual property crimes.

Anti-leech would have you believe that you are under some obligation to make their particular business model (which is apparently to gain money by annoying people with popups) or else you are stealing from them. They admit that in a legal sense, it is of course incorrect to call it theft, but in a moral sense such a label is justified.

They are, well, full of it.

It isn't the responsibility of consumers to make a particular broken business model profitable: that is the responsibility of business owners. If you can't figure out a way to make money on the Internet, then you can't, but it seems pretty silly to bitch at your target audience for that problem. When your viewers decide to employ pop-up blocking or ad-filtering software, they are sending you as their content provider a message: this stuff is not of value to me, I don't want to waste even a single brain cell dealing with it. It is true that eventually your advertisers will likely notice that the response rate from web based advertisements are ridiculously low and will stop spending money on click-throughs and the like, and that will (at least according to anti-leech) spell an end to many websites.

Which would of course be a hideous tragedy, because who doesn't want to read through more advertising.

Businesses should learn a new lesson: intrusive pop up advertising doesn't work. Spam doesn't work. Stop paying for it. Be creative, and try to make information about your product visible to those who actually want it, don't cast it scattergun style in front of millions of people for whom it just represents an annoyance. Browsers such as Mozilla now have pop-up blocking because users want it, and that means that the users don't want to read your add for X-10 cameras or you've won a free prize while trying to access their bank accounts. Listen to your customers, and develop a business based upon respecting them, not on blanketing them with crap everytime they log in.

Re:Google

[Anonymous Coward]

hint #1: you don't succeed by calling people that visit your site "thieves"

hint #2: you don't succeed by creating a business that needs screenfuls of FAQs to justify it's existence.

Expect My Bill

[limekiller4]

From the FAQ:
"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 there is a graphic 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...

Re:Expect My Bill

[Kris_J]

HTML code is a request to render, not a demand. My browser can decide to do whatever it wants with the bit stream your website sends it. There is no implied contract.

If you want people to read your content...

[billstewart]

.... then put it on your web page. Inline the pictures, serve the banners from your own domain space, or whatever. The difficulty is finding a method for serving them that lets you convince the banner vendors that you're not faking hits, but that should be manageable.

What I really like about PopUP ads is that if you tell Mozilla not to load them, it won't load them. (I'm borrowing my mother-in-law's PC on vacation, and it only has IE - it's been popup city here....)

Easier if they beat them first

[billstewart]

Sometimes it makes sense to sue somebody while they're suing you, as a bargaining tactic that lets you both drop your suits against each other. But if you're not doing that, you're much more likely to succeed if you first win in their lawsuit against you, especially if you can get the court to award you your legal costs, which is a strong indication that their suit was bogus. In this case, the PanIP folks have gotten some people to pay them off rather than fighting a lawsuit, which makes their case look stronger, instead of looking like the bogus piece of fluff that it is, which is a bit tough on a preemptive countersuit.

The other way to play it is to tell them "drop the suit or we'll squash you into the ground for making a frivolous attack on us" and hope that works, but unfortunately the patent system is biased towards people who can talk the patent office into giving them patents, so this is difficult.

Re:voip

[Whatever Fits]

Well, it sounds like you have never lived in or know anyone in an area with expensive toll charges. Try calling someone on the other side of the planet sometime. $.55 per minute adds up quickly. Imagine how much it costs to those with a deflated currency. That is where VoIP is making it big.

Re:Does anyone else think...

[ncc74656]

Technical Contact:
Wennberg, Johan johan.wennberg@swipnet.se
Tanneforsv 17
Stockholm, Enskede S-122 47
SE
888 888 888 888

If that last line is supposed to be his phone number, isn't the obviously bogus number some sort of violation of whatever rules DNS runs under? The last time I bought a domain name, the signup form made a big stink about making sure that all of the contact info was valid. Maybe we can get whoever issued anti-leech.com to take it back. :-)

the ridiculous FAQ

[stinky wizzleteats]

Here's a response I was working on. I would send it, but I have no confidence they would actually read it.

Thank you for your response. I read your FAQ, and have the following questions and comments.

Running a website costs the webmaster behind that site time and money.

While I won't dispute that web sites take time to develop, many thousands of web sites operate non-commercially, and I've run several at no cost. The web is a place to share information. You characterize user preferences as theft, and even implicitly advocate turning that characterization into law:

Legally it is of course not theft to block pop ups (today),...

In essence, therefore, you are attempting to restrict an environment of free exchange of information to support a commercial venture, based upon the fallacious argument that the environment depends on the success of that venture. I find that reprehensible.

However, Google is a multinational huge company with an enourmous(sic) sale(sic) force and budget.

Actually, according to this: http://www.google.com/press/investors.html, Google is privately funded, owned by a small consortium of U.S. IT business leaders. And despite having actually used Google's advertising services, I have not been contacted by any member of their vast sales force. I have received not even a single piece of spam. I point this out because Google's business success has come from their attitude toward their intended customers. People want unbiased, accurate, ad-free search results. Google is successful because they have found a way to give people what they want and a way to make money on it, rather than trying to force an outdated business philosophy to the Internet, and screaming epithets such as "thief!" when it doesn't work.

Re:This is ironic.

[Desert Raven]

You all are making this too complicated. The easiest way to test if you received the ad is to do a quick compare if your IP did a request for example index.html and also popup.js and that would confirm you got it.

Yup, you've just invented a method for blocking AOL users. (Not that that's necessarily a bad thing.)

See, if you actually had any experience at all in reviewing web logs, you'd notice that most AOL users come through a proxy system that utilises many different IP addresses to retrieve content. On a typical hit to a single page with 6 graphic images, I'll have seven different IP addresses in my log.

Leave the excercises in programming logic to the professionals, you're just embarrasing yourself.

It is the only way

[Ted_Green]

For some websites. Generaly the ones who use Anti-leech.

Frankly I have *no* problem with Anti-Leech. I think they put it quite eloquently in their faq:

You are the thief! You steal my screen by poping up pop ups

If you don't like pop ups, then use a pop up blocker! But then you are not welcome to Anti-Theft protected websites as you are not ready to give something in return.

If a website wants to use Anti-Leech, *let it* There's no reason it shouldn't.
True, I think that people who say "We should force you to view our ads if you use are service" are missing a key element that people who don't want to view they ads probably aren't going to click on them.. but hey it's their content and their choice to block, charge or whatever with it*

*So long as they don't try to prevent others from providing the same content *cough* siaa *cough*

Re:It is the only way

[Anonymous Coward]

"If the MPAA can claim that California has juristiction in a lawsuit because the web site is available in California, why can't you? "

You just touched on the issue generally known as "equal protection"
and it is exactly why the people making all this anti-consumer litigation
noise right now (??AA) should simmer down. Any precedents they establish
might end up creating the very tools with which they are broght down.

On a bigger political note, wonder at the enormous power grab that the
Bush administration is making. They are 2, or maybe 6, or maybe 10,
short years away from handing to their political opponents the same power
which they have taken for their own ends in the Executive branch.
By the time the Federal reorganization is really done (probably not even
within 5 years, honestly), there could easily, and likely will be, a party
in power who is not only in opposition to the Republicans, but also, could
very easily have a radically, unpredictably different agenda for how that
power should be used.

I believe that is precisely the reason why no administration prior to
the Bush II has ever made such a sweeping change, positioning the
executive branch to have imbalanced power vis-a-vis the other two
branches. All they are doing is creating specific means for a future
regime to take it a step further. Much further in the direction they
are headed today, and we will have to call it tyranny by Anybody's
standards.

Here's your darwin award

[Thaelon]

Nature doesn't acknowledge pleas or namecalling if you can't get your food to survive. The buisness world is just another part of nature, if your methods of survival don't work, then you don't get to survive.

Nobody likes banners, popups, or spam all they do is annoy users and steal OUR bandwidth, so when your buisness model based on popups, banners or spam fails, analagously speaking you die.

Google's advertisments work because they're TARGETED. You search for something and they slip in a couple of text based ads related to WHAT YOU'RE LOOKING FOR.

Here's a weird analogy: In Vietnam the U.S. dropped more blanketing bombs on North Vietnam than in all of WWII and it accomplished almost nothing. It was a stupid strategy because just like with mass spamming/popups the liklihood of any given bomb accomplishing something was nil just like the odds of any single ad generating a profit are nil, you're just wasting "bombs" that never make an impact just like your untargeted ads face a disinterested audience.

Google gets to survive because their method works, you don't because yours doesn't.

No hurry up and croak, we're tired of your bs.

Re:"The only way..."

[whereiswaldo]

If people don't see the ads, the site can't continue, and so people no longer get to visit it.. ... and order is restored once again.

If I put up a website, it is because I have something to say or something to sell. I don't expect anyone to pay for my site if I have something to say. I did it out of my own volition. What I get is a warm, fuzzy feeling that I've made someone else's day, or in the case of a commercial site, I get customers.

Ad banners should go the way of the dinosaur. Their benefit is negligible while their drain on the web community is measurable and tiresome.

Anti-leech fiasco

[atgrim]

Here is a letter that I sent to Anti-Leech support...

Greetings,

I am disappointed with your service. As stated in your FAQ, I am one of many that already pays to be online. I understand that webmasters need to make a living, however, Doubleclick and other advertising companies are getting more rich off webmasters because the webmaster only gets a pitence of the revenue generated from companies like Doubleclick.

The simple fact that you have taken it upon yourselves to provide this service is both a blessing and a curse. It is a blessing in that, it assists webmasters, who subscribe to your service, in attaining a paycheck. It is a curse in that, you have now removed that website from places I would like to visit. In essence, you are hindering rather than assisting the webmasters.

I block pop-ups and banners because I do not want to receive spam. I do not want my information stolen from me and sold to the highest bidder. I value my privacy and you should value your privacy as well. How much spam do you receive?

The reason I would visit a web page is because I found something interesting and what I felt was of value. Too many times have I visited web pages only to be bombarded and completely distracted by banners and pop-ups hawking services and products that I either have no interest in or don't use. What I wanted was to see the article or the product that I came to the web site for in the first place. By implementing your service, webmasters have now blocked and more than likely, irrevocably lost business due to the fact that we netizens value our privacy.

If we do not block pop-ups and banners, then our information is stolen by bots, processed, and sold. We, the viewer, receive no compensation for this injustice. Yes it costs the webmasters money to maintain a site. It costs us to even access the internet. Who do we block to receive just compensation for our time and bandwidth? It is a two way street. You cannot say that we are stealing when you are not compensating us. I reiterate, that we only visit a site because we found something in interest or of value. Are individuals sought out by law inforcement if they pass by a store front and don't stop to look at the ads in the window?

If we visit a brick and morter store and see something we might like to buy, but are then blasted with signs and sales-persons trying to sell us everything else that we are not interested in, including going to another store, are we to be fined, imprisoned, hunted down like rabbits? I don't think so. Myself, if I walk into a store and I am harrassed by a pushy salesperson, I am more than likely to walk out of that store never to return and I will tell all my frinends as well. Unintended consequences are a real pain.

Please remember. The Internet and the WWW were not intended to be a service for businesses and mass marketers. It was originally intended for research and to link people together. It was some rather savvy entrepreneurs who discovered that you could make a profit on the net.

I ask one final question. Your site is named Anti-Leech. You are in the business of providing blocks against those who would "Leech" or as you put it, "Steal" profits from a web site. We viewers, pay to access the net. We pay to conduct business on the net. We pay to be entertained on the net. Who exactely is the leech here? Thank you for your time. I look forward to your response.

Not sure if they will respond but if they do I will post immeadiately to /.

Kinda says something about Slashdotters

[Platinum Dragon]

I'm blown away.

It appears most people who replied read this:

Excuse me? The pound of dope was more of a threat (well, more newsworthy) than ASSAULT RIFLES?

and promptly went into Gun Defense mode.

A few people pointed out the legality of guns vs. the illegality of weed. That's not what he asked. He asked which was more of a threat.

A few other people pointed out the media's and authority's tendency to exaggerate the nature of weapons found during raids. "Assault rifles" could be, well, anything. However, a person firing a bullet from a rifle is more likely to threaten a person's life than a person lighting up a fatty, which is what RollingThunder was trying to get at.

If there weren't an insane War on (Some) Drugs that turns people who grow plants and brew chemicals to trade with others for personal use into criminals, this raid would never have happened.

I'm disappointed. A lot of people completely failed to answer his (possibly rhetorical) question regarding which is a greater threat to human life, instead falling back on the law or media/police exaggerations to dodge the issue at the root of this.

You can support a person's right to own weaponry and still acknowledge that the availability of weapons poses a greater threat to peace and life than the availability of a plant.