Slashback: Wireless, Radio, Ralsky

Slashback with more on GNU Radio; BeUnited's ongoing bid for Gobe Productive's source code; AOL, IM and the USPTO; the consequences one observer faced for watching spammer Alan Ralsky and more. Read on for the details.

Don't Post While Sleepy: Hi, Chrisd here apologizing about that false post on Sony/Nintendo Playstation Trademark Settlement. Oops. Doh. No excuse. Mea Culpa. I'll be more careful next time.

Is "Rubber stamping everything" a patentable business practice? Brian Dear writes "With all the news these days about the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issuing a patent to AOL/ICQ/Mirabilis for Instant Messaging, I thought the Slashdot community would be interested in reading about TERM-talk on PLATO, which was announced on the PLATO network on this day in 1973. Here is the URL with a screen shot of the actual announcement."

Turing, Marconi and Rosen: pick any two. squiggleslash writes "Salon is running an informative and sympathetic story about GNU radio. The article discusses how the project could end up pre-empting the Hollywood producers and other content cartel's attempts to destroy modifiable consumer hardware by creating a blatently legitimate space where programmable hardware is a requirement, as well as opening up radio to groups outside of the current cabals. Good stuff."

We've mentioned quite a bit about GNU Radio before (see also Eric Blossom's interview questions and answers; this article delves into the fight that the GNU Radio folks are gearing up for over broadcast flags.

Suiteness and light. To follow up on our mention of the effort to buy from Gobe (and release as Free software) the sourcecode of Gobe Productive, Simon Gauvin of beunited.org writes "beunited.org has been pledged over $10,000.00 by the public and corporate community for the release of Gobe Productive for BeOS. Linux users have also pledged, and we encourage more members of the Linux community to participate for the release of the Linux version. Call all your friends and send them over to beunited.org to help raise awareness!"

Here's the relevant discussion thread if you'd like to learn more about this effort; I wish the site had a bar chart of some sort showing how much money was currently raised, and an obvious PayPal link or similar. Note that for now, beunited's first goal is to open the source for the BeOS version of Productive.

Ralsky, Ralsky, Ralsky ... IsoRashi writes "Over at the Register they have this short article about a guy who took some photos of spammer Alan Ralsky's home. After taking the photographs, the man was chased by someone in a black jaguar and he began receiving threatening phone calls the next day. Here is a direct link to the site the photographer set up."

Read your TOS carefully before you start downloading ... Sergeant Beavis writes "Nate Carlson was kind enough to create a HOWTO for connecting your Linux box to Sprint's Vision network via a Sanyo SCP-4900 phone. However Sanyo's store shows the cable to be out of stock. Now comes FutureDial to the rescue with both the USB cable and SnapDialer software for connecting to the Vision network with Windows instead of Linux. Oh, the cable only cost $19.99 at your local Radio Shack. Enjoy!"

And let this be a lesson (of sorts) to you! gh0ul writes "Looks like Uzi Nissan (for those of you who don't recall owns nissan.com) has lost his fight with Nissan Motors to keep his nissan.com (last name by birthright/company) domain. The site now reads "In compliance with a ruling issued by the United States District Court in Los Angeles on November 14, 2002, in the lawsuit of Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. v. Nissan Computer Corporation, this web site has been converted to non-commercial use." Are we ever going to have any protection against these kind of things?"

The Eye was never there. You never saw it. It was not creepy. Finally, Rob writes "The creepy all-seeing eye logo from John Poindexter and the Total Information Awareness project is suddenly missing from the TIA web site. Old site ; Current site Perhaps TIA is seeking suggestions for a new logo?"

Comments

The VMS PHONE utility is just like TERM-talk too

[sys$manager]

I assume that PHONE on VMS has been around a lot longer than any of the current IM systems, but not as long as TERM-talk. It has basically the same functionality as described on the TERM-talk site.

Nissan

[intermodal]

That's ridiculous. Nissan is his last name, and his company's name. There needs to be some sort of public outcry one of these days.

Re:Nissan

[BJH]

So, you're saying that just the fact that one company is larger than another immediately gives the larger one first rights to the best domain names.

Hmmm...

Re:Nissan

[warpath]

There needs to be some sort of public outcry one of these days.

Well, we all whined about it a lot the last time it was posted on Slashdot.

Does that count?

Re:Nissan

[Pentagram]

If both are using it for commercial purposes, then the entity that has more to gain from it is more entitled to it

I assume you're not serious. Surely whoever registers it first is entitled to it?

Government: "Clearly Nissan (motors) will make more cash from that domain, so hand it over!"

Seems a bit totalitarian, to say the least. What happens if Mr. Nissan builds up a company that is bigger than Nissan? Does the domain switch back and forth?

Re:Nissan

[Ytrew Q. Uiop]

Well, basically, yeah. Given that only one entity can have the name, the question arises of who is more entitled to it.

The usual rule is the person who is currently renting something is entitled to use it. ;-)

Domain name lookups are esentially listings rented by ICANN; Uzi Nissan paid money for his listing, and then Nissan Motors decided to sue to take it away. The court was wrong.

If both are using it for commercial purposes, then the entity that has more to gain from it is more entitled to it.

I disagree. It's expropriation of property rights that you're talking about, for corporate, not public, gain. That's a textbook definition of corruption -- taking from the poor to give to the rich.

Imagine if this happened in the real world! People would howl bloody murder if their address was taken away! Companies already name streets after themselves: there's 1 Microsoft Way in Redmond, 1 Blue Jay Way at the Sky Dome ... if this became a trend, should I get evicted from my house at 1 Victoria Street because "Victoria's Secret" has customers who are too lazy to read a map?

Your answer would seem to be "yes" -- after all, they have "more to gain" from owning that particular address than I do.

So big companies do, indeed, have first rights to the best domain names.

How do you know the big companies have more to gain than small companies? Can you prove that a smaller company, (say, Microsoft in the early days), won't eventually out-compete a large company (say, IBM?)

I notice also that non-profit organizations don't seem to fit into your worldview. Should they be denied web pages, because you only value profit in your metric? Should freedom of speech exist only if you have enough money to merit it?

Do you really think that the rich should have more rights because they're rich?
--
AC

Mea Culpa

[unicorn]

Dear god. Does this mean that the editors are actually going to edit? Next thing you know they'll start reading posts to make sure they aren't dupes.

Re:Mea Culpa

[Random Data]

Dear god. Does this mean that the editors are actually going to edit? Next thing you know they'll start reading posts to make sure they aren't dupes.

Dear god. Does this mean that the editors are actually going to edit? Next thing you know they'll start reading posts to make sure they aren't dupes.

Threatening phone calls?

[hng_rval]

Operator: Hello, Mr Johnson?
Jon: Mr Jameson actually.
Operator: Did you take pictures of my house?
Jon: Yes, so what??
Operator: Perhaps you'd be interested in our new line of digital cameras?
Jon: What? No, god no...

(Here comes the threatening part..)
Operator: But my camera now bitch or you'll get a call like this every hour for the new 15 years.

Jon: Noooooooooooooooooooo (dies in horrible spam anguish)

Ralsky's thugs are amatuers.

[ChangeOnInstall]

Some facts regarding the harassing phone calls:

It's fairly easy to turn a license plate number into a name. I figured out how to do it last week trying to reregister my truck. While making the appointment with the DMV, they asked for my plate number, which I gave, and they said my name back to me. I had provided no information other than the plate number. While I'm not absolutely certain, I believe there are a fair number of other ways through which to obtain this someone's name from their plate, e.g. if you have friends in the police or DMV.

The rest of the information used can easily be obtained from semi-public records using services such as Lexis-Nexis. This includes info such as your driver's license number, address, previous addresses, telephone, vehicle registrations, creditors, etc. If you have a state and a name, you can obtain a tremendous amount of info about a person fairly easily. Lawyers and private investigators have accounts with these services.

Overall, Ralsky's tactic is not very impressive. This man really needs to hire some higher quality goons.

damn overcompensation!!!

[SHEENmaster]

I am sick of hearing that "the law still affects the internet" and all that shit!

The fact of that matter is that the internet(more specifically the web) is treated harsher by the law, and not just to "send a message!!!"

If it was a billboard, a newspaper, or a shop, the man would have been able to keep it! But no, because it was on the net; he lost it.

What is this fascination with .com domains?

[deek]

As far as I'm concerned, anything that ends with .com _should_ indicate that the domain is a company! I feel that it's just plain wrong for personal websites to be setup in the .com TLD.

Having said that, though, Uzi Nissan does have a business in that name. He is most definitely entitled to keep the domain name. I really wish there was a transcript of the conclusion that the Judge came to. I'd really like to know the reason why Nissan Motors won the case.

DeeK

Re:What is this fascination with .com domains?

[SweetAndSourJesus]

Nissan motors has a lot of money.

Uzi Nissan does not.

It was simply a matter of the judge finding a diplomatic way to say this.

Re:What is this fascination with .com domains?

[rmohr02]

I don't really know how it works out legally, but if Nissan Motors had the Nissan trademark before Uzi started using Nissan in his business name, then it might be possible for Nissan Motors to win.

Re:What is this fascination with .com domains?

[numark]

Under the domain name dispute rules ICANN adopted, it doesn't matter if you register a domain name that includes a trademark. What does matter if one of the following is true:

1. You bought the domain name specifically for the purpose of selling it to the trademark owner.

2. You have a past history of registering domains with trademarks specifically for the purpose of using them improperly.

3. You registered the domain specifically to disrupt the business of another company.

4. You intentionally registered the domain for the purpose of attracting people away from a legitimate company (note the inclusion of the word intentional).

Those are the rules under ICANN. Unfortunately, judges rarely follow these rules, instead using ancient laws concerning trademarks to turn over domain names to companies who sue specifically because they know ICANN won't give them the domain name. It's a pity, really.

Re:What is this fascination with .com domains?

[1u3hr]

As far as I'm concerned, anything that ends with .com _should_ indicate that the domain is a company! I feel that it's just plain wrong for personal websites to be setup in the .com TLD.

Unfortuantely, there isn't yet a "personal website" TLD. ORG and NET are just as inappropriate. And a person may well have commercial sections on his personal page, or it may evolve into that and it would be inconvenient to have to change the URL.

The reason the eye was removed...

[WillRobinson]

Either we poked a stick in it. Or they realized, it could only see half the world.

It seems like the Nissan case turned out OK

[Fizgig]

According to this article, Uzi Nissan was told to stop using his site to show car ads. That is a case of trademark dilution. If the guy's just selling computers, then I'm all for him keeping the domain. If he's trying to branch out into the auto business, then he's clearly abusing Nissan-the-car-company's trademark. So he gets to keep the domain, but not show car ads. Sounds like everything's good, right?

Re:It seems like the Nissan case turned out OK

[drinkypoo]

So what if you were from some family named Ford and you could trace that name back to the days when Jesus had not yet been perforated? Could you not have a car dealer called ford motors just because there already was one? Now if he were MAKING cars and selling them under the name "nissan" I would agree with you.

Re:It seems like the Nissan case turned out OK

[theLOUDroom]

If he's trying to branch out into the auto business, then he's clearly abusing Nissan-the-car-company's trademark.

Screw that. So what if he's showing car ads, has last name is nissan. He should be able to have a website at nissan.com. He could even start a car company and build cars. He just couldn't call his company nissan motors. He should be able to call it widget motors and have all the info about it on his site. Trademark dillution would be saying something was a nissan (car) when it wasn't. All this is, is using his last name to point to a website.
I have a very common last name, like smith. Does that mean if I had smith.com I could never post any info and anything that a company whose name includes smith is involved in? That's retarded. What names likes smith, jones, etc, that would basically mean you can't post anything, because there are going to be thousands or companies with that name.

Evil spammers.

[pla]

How really strange. I found one particular part of the call transcripts rather interesting...

"You don't know who the hell you were fucking with yesterday, man, you got the wrong guy, you don't even have the guy that you think you have"

Anyone else see a strong possibility of Ralsky having a deep dark secret that someone believed poor Rich had accidentally caught on film? Like meeting with someone to put a hit on Ralsky's detractors, or using the supposedly lucrative spam biz to launder mob money, or the like?

Yeah, slam me for baseless speculation, but the guy doesn't exactly have the cleanest legal record, and that quote just strikes me as so *REALLY* bizarre. Don't have the right guy? What does *that* mean?

Simpsons goons?

[helix400]

This man really needs to hire some higher quality goons.

Homer: [answering the door] Who is it?
Voice: Goons.
Homer: Who?
Voice: Hired goons.
Homer: Hired goons? [opens the door]
Goons: [take Homer roughly away]

(Aaah yes...The Simpsons Archive. Best site ever!)

Taking pics of the house? Dumba ass -And Nintendo

[puto]

I do not condone spam and I hate it. I think it is one of the worst things ever invented. Eats up time and bandwidth.

We joked the guy good too. Loads of crap delivered to his house. Threatening phone calls. And god knows what else. Fine, he is getting his medicine in spades.

However, if I come home and strange cars are parked in front of my house and people are taking photos. I am gonna be suspicious. Could be crooks, murderers, you name it. So while I might be the ultimate asshole in the unviverse, I am gonna do something. And If I am not an asshole but a regular joe, I am gonna so something.

Take pics of my house(I am a nice guy) while i am pulling up. I am gonna chase you down, get your plate, call a buddy in the dmv. And call you and ask you why the fuck you taking pics of my crib. I will even call the police.

He might be invading our mailboxes but he aint standing on our lawns with an instamatic. That is taking it a step way to far.

He spammed, we junk mailed em. Pretty much quid pro quo. He got the message. But what kinda loser decides to drive by the house and then take pics and then gets pissy when the guy tracks him down? And then whines about it on the net when the guy catches him. Both are assholes in my book.

As for the nintendo thing well penny-arcade had it sorted out a day before the slash dot post.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2002- 12 -16

Puto

Re:The VMS PHONE utility is just like TERM-talk to

[bakes]

There is also of course the Unix 'write', and later 'talk'.

write of course didn't have the char-by-char display that TERM-talk and PHONE had, but neither do today's IM systems.

Buddy list? who, or even who | grep friendsloginname if there were lots of people online.

Re:Anti-spam nuts

[pla]

These anti-spam nuts are beginning to act a lot like the anti-abortion nuts. Posting personal information about spammers online, making threats against them. Very similar to the so-called "wanted posters" that anti-abortionists post on their sites.

Taking pictures of someone's house, from the street, does not break the law (though you could argue it borders on stalking). Accessing public records to find things like addresses and phone numbers does not break the law. By Ralsky's own public statements, signing people up against their will for "exciting commercial opportunities" does not break the law.

Making threatening phone calls to a random person *does* break the law. Parking outside their house with the deliberate intent of scaring the hell out of them *does* break the law. Sending spam to people after they have opted out *does* break the law (in many states).

See the pattern? As much as I usually don't believe in such extremes, this really does look look like a case of "good guys vs bad guy".

Re:How about that other cheek thing?

[ctimes2]

For God's sake, stop hitting back and turn the other cheek. How else will we be able to stop this (imo) unfair treatments?

Hit back HARDER! At some point you both laugh at the pain you caused each other and agree to stop it, or one of you has to hide the body. Which is plenty hard and makes you sweat a lot, plus it's a hassle, so you tend to not get in any more fights. God, the death of common sense around here is annoying... *SMACK*

And yes, you might be stupid. The guy took some pictures of Ralsky's house - I would hardly call that 'hitting back' or disrespectful. Someone threatening this guy... that's hitting back. Or just hitting if you consider that the first 'hit' was taking a picture.

Furthermore, this isn't one of those turn the other cheek situations - the guy who took the pictures is getting anonymous threatening phone calls. He damned well better protect himself, turning the cheek could get him killed.

Look carefully

[dmaxwell]

C1everNickName versus CleverNickName.

This is an imposter.

Maybe Wil needs to end his posts with:

"The real CleverNickName has a uid of 129189."

Re:How about that other cheek thing?

[Twirlip of the Mists]

For historical reference, read about Hitler and WW2.

Does this mean the argument is over now? ;-)

Rawlsky

[bleckywelcky]

Probably a million people will sound the same on the phone, but if you listen to the phone call threats and Rawlsky's interview on NPR, they sound very similar. Although, I would think that Rawlsky wouldn't risk making threats at some guy just taking pictures, considering he gets death threats, etc. I find it funny too when NPR asks Rawlsky about blind relays and he responds with "no comment". If he wasn't using them he would condemn them as pollution and a problem in the email world, right? Because anyone can see the problem with leaving a blind relay completely open. Yet, he says "no comment" - pretty obvious he uses them (unless he has no idea what they are, which I find hard to believe). I don't feel sorry for this guy receiving death threats or being harassed every day. He does it to millions of people every day, and I doubt that when you want to be removed that he takes you off his list - what's his incentive? As far as I can tell, there are no "Do Not Email List" laws in the US, although some laws restricting the sending of some types of spam. The only miniscule incentive that exists is that it would give him some legitimacy as a marketer rather than some ass just sending bulk email - although, I think he has proably lost any chances at legitimacy already. I don't wish this guy any physical harm, but by all means, harass him to the end of time. (PS - You think he could afford a little more property rather than shoving his million dollar house right between two other houses with a couple feet on each side, sheesh!)

this guy should lose his domain since you're lazy?

[autopr0n]

Come on, it would take two seconds to use google. Nissan's domain is nissan-usa.com, They have it all their advertizements.

This guy has had that domain while Nissan was still called 'datsun'.

Re:this guy should lose his domain since you're la

[BJH]

I definitely don't agree with Nissan Motors' actions, but in the interests of accuracy, Datsun was the name used by a company (Kaishinsha Motors) which then was transferred to another company (Japan Motors) which changed its name to Nissan in 1934. Datsun was thereafter used as a brand name for Nissan-made cars.

Re:How about that other cheek thing?

[Mr. Slippery]

Hit back HARDER!

"An eye for an eye only leaves the whole world blind." - Gandhi

I'm all for self-defense. (Not only am I for it, I teach it.) Retribution, however, is counterproductive.

you slashdotted my cablemodem

[trelaneopn]

just for kicks, 2mbit.com is hosted on my cablemodem. (the link which shows the mirrors hosting the pictures of ralsky's house). I'd like to thank the committee and everyone who made the slashdotting of my cablemodem possible. I hope they don't can my account, but if they do it's been nice knowing you.

Did the ICQ people use PLATO's TERM-talk?

[platopeople]

What I am curious about is whether or not any of the four ICQ/Mirabilis gentlemen, or the investor father of one of them (Vardi), had any exposure to the PLATO system -- specifically, exposure to TERM-talk -- prior to developing ICQ.

I wonder this because Control Data Israel had a PLATO system installed in Israel in the 1980s and it was used extensively by the Israeli Defence Force, and it is known that at least some of ICQ's founders served in the IDF before the founded ICQ.

I've contacted the ICQ folks but none of responded to me.

- Brian (brian@platopeople.com)

$740,000 for THAT?

[Dr. Mu]

The sad thing about Mr. Ralsky's house is its proximity to his neighbors. In these parts, when someone pays three-quarter mil, they get some acreage to spread out in. Hell, he's crammed cheek-to-jowl with his neighbors like poor people! And where are the trees? Tsk. Such taste.

Here is the new Logo

[goombah99]

actually they already have a new logo. its just not on the front page yet. see http://www.darpa.mil/iao/TIASystems.htm.

also if you check out the program power point slides you will see they have scrubbed the blatantly skin crawling ones. It used to show that they were going to collect data about your dogs veternary records, your mortgage payments, magazine subscriptions and known associates. Now this is gone. Also they have heftier looking compartmentalization of the records keeping shown, suggesting they are thinking of protecting you. (ha!).

finally poindexter's resume has been cleaned up.

Re:Anti-spam nuts

[_Sprocket_]

These anti-spam nuts are beginning to act a lot like the anti-abortion nuts. Posting personal information about spammers online, making threats against them. Very similar to the so-called "wanted posters" that anti-abortionists post on their sites.

This would make a much better comparison if clinic workers were grabbing thousands of random people off the streets and performing operations on them. It would be a better point if anti-spam sites listed the home addresses of spammers with violent speach, blood-dripping graphics, and X-ed off the portraits of those who had been murdered.

It does make one good point - physical threats against spammers do no good. But then, the focus of this story thread has not been threatening the spammer in question. It has been uncovering his operation. And repaying the "service" this individual has performed for so many others.

So this guy goes and plays with fire and he gets burnt. Not too wise.

Perhapse it wasn't wise. But it does underscore that those behind these large scale spamming operations play rather fast and loose with morality and legal action. Those who decide to oppose spammers should keep this in mind and be prepared for this kind of behavior.

You mean this, right?...

[gosand]

I'll bet it was more like this: (give it some Monty Python voices when you read it...)

Operator: Perhaps you'd be interested in our new line of digital cameras?

Jon: What? No, god no...

(Here comes the threatening part..)
Operator: But my camera now bitch or you'll get a call like this every hour for the new 15 years.

Jon: What? What do you mean "but your camera"?

Operator: Huh?

Jon: You said "but my camera".

Operator: No I didn't. Oh, right. Sorry. I meant "buy".

Jon: And you'll call me for the "new" what?

Operator: Sorry?

Jon: You said you would call me for the "new 15 years". What does that mean?

Operator: I did?

Jon: Yes, you did. Are you mad?

Operator: No, sorry, my fault again. I meant to say the "next" 15 years.

Jon: Do you really think digital cameras will be selling in 15 years?

Operator: Well, I don't know. I suppose so.

Jon: And would you really call me every 15 minutes?

Operator: Would that be an inconvenience?

Jon: Yes, quite.

Operator: So sorry. I won't call then.

Jon: Thanks, I appreciate that.

Operator: So, are you happy with your penis size?

Jon: Pardon?