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Slashback: Stupidity, Telebastardy, Fast Search
"I read your Overture/FAST story on Slashdot and wanted to make a clarification.Thanks for the correction, Peter.Your headline implies that Overture is completely acquiring FAST. This is completely incorrect. Overture has only acquired FAST's Internet business unit assets, which includes FAST WebSearch, FAST PartnerSite and FAST's popular search site, AlltheWeb.com."
Isn't that the stuff that sells? icantblvitsnotbutter writes "In what looks like a scoop, The Register has an article covering the latest in the ongoing battle between Gary Kremen and VeriSign. The High Court of California has rejected a request to consider the legal issue of whether a domain can legally be deemed as property. This is a huge help for (relatively) money-strapped Kremen, whose opponent VeriSign was evidently using the request as a delaying tactic. VeriSign previously had breathlessly warned that a wrong decision would 'cripple the Internet'."
And they made such a pleasant version of Debian, too ... robmered writes "Three years after receiving US$135M in cash from Microsoft, and one and a half years after Xandros bought Corel's Linux assets, The Age is reporting that Corel has finally removed all Linux software from its website. The end of an era, or a margin note in history? The Age thinks the former, but the strength of Open Office, Gimp and numerous desktop environment efforts seem to indicate that the Linux bandwagon will roll on regardless."
Certainly, I would like to talk at length about your business proposal. Would you like to know my fees in advance? KC7GR writes "There's an article running at DMNews about a company called Castel, Inc. that has, supposedly, developed software that can be used by automated dialing equipment to bypass a TeleZapper, or similar SIT generators, and get through to your phone no matter what.
It is also claimed that the software can deliver any type of text or phone number to a recipient's caller ID box, no matter if it's true or false, and that it can also bypass the anti-telemarketer blocks made available by some telephone companies, such as SBC and Qwest.
Granted, this software is not cheap (about $2,700.00 per calling position, apparently), and Castel is quick to claim that they created this stuff primarily for collection agencies to help them get through to deadbeats who use TeleZappers. Does anyone here really think that'll stop telemarketers from using the same crap, just because they can?"
Brevity is one antidote to stupidity. Yoda2 writes "Here is Part II of the Salon story on the Loebner Prize that Slashdot covered yesterday."
So does that mean if you fight for the right to have a free trial you are going to commit a crime? Is it not possible for someone to fight for something based purely on ideology rather than self-interest? What happened to standing up for what you believed because you believe it, and not because you gain from it?
If you're not willing to fight for your privacy, you don't deserve it in the first place.
Posting as directed.
Since you claim to have nothing to hide, and there should be no concern for privacy, please post your full name and address. I'll be by shortly with a few miniature camera's to install in your bedroom, bathroom, and living room. A few taps for the phone, and other assorted recording and monitoring device. Please also pop the hood on your car so I can install the GPS tracking system. Got a cell phone? I'll need your ESN and number please.
What? You don't want to provide that? Not even your name, phone number, and address? Why ever not? I though you didn't think privacy mattered!
Gasp! You must have something to hide!
"They do not preach that their god will rouse them, a little before the Nuts work loose." Kipling, 'The Sons of Martha'
developed software that can be used by automated dialing equipment to bypass a TeleZapper, or similar SIT generators, and get through to your phone no matter what.
I would think that this would do far more to hurt the industry than help them, especially as far as the government deciding whether or not to regulate do not call lists.
1.My kids' names
2.Their ages
3.Their birthdates
4.The school they go to
5.My address
6.What they look like
7.What route they take home from school
8.Who their teachers are
9.Where hteir soccer practice is held
10.The secret password we use to authenticate and
11.When I am home and when I am not
authorize pick-up-the-kid-from-wherever functions
Oh and privacy isn't just about secrecy, it's about private spaceand private property. Private property means control over that property.
I think every address should have a public phone to which certain callers are restricted to only leaving messages. Kind of like how you can yell from across the street at me all you like, bu the minute you get on my property I cantell you to go away in which case refusal to do might cause your yell-from-across-the-street privileges to be legally revoked as well.
Dinner time is highly private property. Weekends and afternoons are highly private property. Ho
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
...and Castel is quick to claim that they created this stuff primarily for collection agencies to help them get through to deadbeats who use TeleZappers.
Ok, so let me get this straight. I'm Joe deadbeat, but I still pay for a phone. But, since I've been labled a "deadbeat" by EQUIFAX or some rabid collecation agency, it's OK for them to spoof my CallerID or bypass means that I have put in place to try to require callers to present a valid call?
This type of morality, it's OK to do X to Y beacuse they are Z, just sickens me. I personally think that anyone who subscribes to this kind of slipperly slope logic should get a punch in the mouth.
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
Wow, a business being held accountable for their actions? Who would have thought!
Of course VeriSign would have no problem nuking your domain should you fail to pay them for registering your domain name to you. By definition then you are paying for the domain name to be registered to you.
If I purchased a car and the dealership turned around and gave my car to someone else do you think they'd get away with it for long?
If I order food from a restaraunt and they make an error on my order do they turn around and tell my "Tough sh*t"?
Why then, if someone were to pay VeriSign for a service, should VeriSign not be accountable for said paid for service?
"They do not preach that their god will rouse them, a little before the Nuts work loose." Kipling, 'The Sons of Martha'
Well, then you should have no problem if I send you a set of envelope sized clear ziplock sandwich bags that you can use for your mail instead of wasting your money on envelopes, right?
If I included postage on them would you use them? It's not a bad deal really. I mean, if you have nothing to hide, why should you worry if the postman you hate across the street opens all your mail (undetected, because it's ziplock!) and gives it a peruse. Maybe he can even report any mistakes you've made on paying your Visa to the credit agency for you, or errors on your income tax report to the IRS! How excellent!
If you don't want that, well, you must have something to hide. I mean, it's not like it's even going to cost you anything to do this, you'd _make_ money, and your only cost is the privacy you don't value anyways!
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
It might even be possible to say that by intentionally bypassing someone's blocks they put on your incoming calls that you're harassing them. IANAL though. I only play one on slashdot.
The question remains:
If people are willing to subscribe to/buy telezappers, block lists, do not call lists, etc...
Can't telemarketers get the point that these people are not potential sales, they're only potential angry call recipients?
Not only that, but wouldn't forging a phone number come under some sort of legal troubles... especially if you used a number that somebody else owns?
Isn't Castle, Inc's software a direct violation of the DMCA? It purposely gets around blocks AND can falsely report information to a caller id box. Sounds like it's time to pull out the lawyers.
"There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV)
"Caller ID faking... Is that not illegal yet?"
It'll become illegal when somebody finds a way to block telemarketers with it.
The author has a very clear pro-Loebner bias that he doesn't even try to conceal. His hostility towards Minsky, Dennett, and the rest of the established academic community is so blatant (and unfounded) that it's embarrassing to read.
While I will agree with your asserion of a pro-Loebner bias, the embarrassment rests firmly with the Gods-o'-AI that Loebner has made look like fools.
Even if you ignore all the peripheral circumstances, this comes down to one issue only - If everyone hates Loebner, they all have the option of ignoring him. A wealthy eccentric offering real US cash for a sci-fi-esque goal does NO harm whatsoever to the field.
However, I do find it somewhat interesting the way AI has divided into different camps, separated into decision making processes (DS), and overt system behavior (MS, "mimetics sciences"). As much as DS has to offer computer science in general, no amount of grandstanding and assertion by the "experts" can hide the fact that, fundamentally, they no longer have anything to do with AI-proper. So if they dislike the label... Not a problem. Their work doesn't involve it anyway, just a sort of "natural" approach to design and analysis of algorithms. If they can live with that fact, that they've completely abandoned the goals they started with, I'll gladly call them "decision scientists". But I won't stop hoping that real AI researchers will eventually make something that acts passably human.
I personally feel (and suspect many geeks who grew up on Neuromancer, 2001, and countless other staples of sci-fi do as well), that "real" AI means "able to fake humanity well enough to convince a real human". If Minsky et al don't believe that, fine, they can do their own thing (which, ironically enough, they want to *deprive* the other camp of that same right). But going out of their way to denounce a contest... Who should feel ashamed of themselves?
If the Loebner prize isn't respected by your peers, then the competition isn't that much worth the work of cleaning up your system for the competition. If competing was simply a case of opening up a telnet port to the equivalent of your running nightly build, it wouldn't be such a big issue running in each and every competition out there.
OS Software is like love: The best way to make it grow is to give it away.
Since when do I pay for incoming calls??
The best thing you can do, to STOP them from calling someone else -- is to quicly say "OHHH! great, i was just looking ot buy a %whatever%. Can you hold a moment while I get a pad and paper".
;)
Then put the phone down until you hear it buzzing (they hang up).
this stretches the calls out so they cant bother more people.
pass it on
Q: How do you detect a radar detector? Aren't they merely passive devices that notice the radar beam?
"Software is too expensive to build cheaply"
Sure there is. Ditch the phone, and go cellular. I haven'd had a hard line phone for four years, and I've loved every minute of it. The few idiots that call my cell are quickly (in the first 60 seconds) that they called a cell phone, and that I don't accept solicitors on that line - please remove it from their list. I've only had to do it twice - in four years.
This was modded up as 'informative'?!
Telemarketers are usually high school kids. You're taking out your agression on children. Congratulations.
And murder-for-hire pays even more. So what? Good pay is no excuse for participating in unethical behavior...
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood