Slashdot Mirror
Slashback: Discipline, License, Name-calling
Every day, in every way, I am becoming a better and better Lt. Junior Grade. alanjstr writes "The Baltimore Sun reports 'The Naval Academy has disciplined 85 students who used a military Internet connection to illegally swap copyrighted music and movies, but it stopped short of carrying out its threat to impose the maximum penalties of expulsion or court-martial, an academy document shows.' It goes on to say that the raid was spurred less by the RIAA and more by the threat of losing the internet connection due to the enormous amount of bandwidth consumed. The academy had given students several warnings before raiding the dorm rooms. Some of the hard drives seized last November were found to contain one or two copyrighted files, while others ran into the hundreds or thousands."
I bet they could make a better agreement with Xiph.org Magnetic Confinement writes "In an effort to make life more difficult for civic-minded Mac users, NPR has decided to drop Quicktime from its available streams. Nothing specific on their webpage addresses it, just some suspicious vacancies remain. Their helpdesk response is officially:
'NPR.org had been offering some of its audio in the Apple QuickTime format under an arrangement with Apple QuickTime. We regret that we were unable to reach mutually acceptable terms for a new arrangement with Apple QuickTime. As a result, NPR is unable to continue offering its content in this format.You can also contact Apple QuickTime directly at: quicktime@apple.com
Weston
NPR Online'"
A note that got lost in the bin for too long ... JulesVD writes "Microsoft has agreed to tweak its Windows XP operating system in response to recent feedback from the Justice Department over its antitrust settlement with the federal government. (See news on Yahoo!) Microsoft will give more prominent display to a button in Windows that allows computer users to remove the company's Internet Explorer browser, company spokesman Jim Desler said. The Justice Department is overseeing Microsoft's compliance with the settlement. Placement of the button in a hard-to-reach spot in Windows was one of several complaints Microsoft's rivals made to the department last year."
Proportionality isn't just for the personals. You may still be boggling (I am) at the recently announced RIAA suits alleging that colleges and college students are liable for billions of dollars in damages to the music industry for facilitating online file trading. Reader Derek Lomas writes in with another editorial indicating "growing support at Yale for legal alternatives".
Even biggerness. The Gathering is billed by some as the the world's largest computer party. MC68040, though, writes "I'd like to remind everyone to have a look at dreamhack, that 'also' is the largest LAN in Sweden twice a year ... Which had over 5000 participants in 2001 and even more in 2002.. *arhem* Biggest you say?"
If you want to fight about "LAN party" vs. "Computer party," leave me out of it!
How about calling it "900t"? An anonymous reader writes "As previously reported, mozilla.org's Phoenix browser has been renamed to Firebird. This hasn't pleased supporters of the Firebird relational database project. In an Australian LinuxWorld article, one of their administrators calls the name change "one of the dirtiest deeds I've seen in open source so far." In a MozillaZine article, the same person accused mozilla.org of "theft" and "corporate bullying". They don't explain how it was different when they picked a name that was already used by a BBS, financial software manufacturer, Fenix IDE and games company. Meanwhile, IBPhoenix, an organisation that supports the development of the Firebird database, has put up a protest page, encouraging people to spam the MozillaZine forums (even though MozillaZine had nothing to do with the decision) and send masses of email to many Mozilla developers (most of whom were not involved in selecting the new name). I find it rather hypocritical that the Firebird database people are accusing Mozilla of "the filthiest of dirty tricks" while at the same time advocating the harassment of many Mozilla developers."
Point of clarification. batkid writes "In response to the article 'Microsoft pirating their own software,' Seems like MS is taking it pretty seriously. I got the following response from Microsoft (I am a faculty member, but the response should be the same to students).
April 9, 2003RE: Visual Studio .NET Professional Edition and Windows XP Professional software distributed during the Microsoft Faculty Seminars
Dear Faculty Member, Thank you for attending the recent Microsoft Faculty Seminar. The purpose of this letter is to clarify questions concerning the legal use of the Visual Studio .NET Professional and Windows XP Professional software distributed to faculty who attended the Seminar. The software received is governed by the electronic license embedded in the product set up that appears prior to installation and no additional documentation is required.
Notwithstanding language on the CD label for the copies of Visual Studio .NET Professional Edition and Windows XP Professional Edition that you received during your attendance at the Seminar, which appeared to indicate that a separate license document was required in order for you to legally use the software, this letter will confirm that use by you of the software received is governed by the electronic license embedded in the product setup that appears prior to installation.
You are required to agree to accept the terms and conditions of this license prior to proceeding with the products' installation. Acceptance by you of these "Click to Accept" licenses is the only license required for your use of the copies of Visual Studio.NET Professional Edition and Windows XP Professional Edition received. We recommend that you keep a copy of this letter in your personal files for future reference."
Thanks for passing that along.
What if Masterlock security was assured this way? Monday, you read that security researchers Billy Hoffman and Virgil Griffith (known as Vergil and Acidus) were were prevented from speaking at a security conference by means of a Cease and Desist order from Blackboard, Inc.. The two planned to talk about security flaws found in Blackboard's Transaction System.
In a mail posted at Declan McCullagh's Politech mailing list, David Yaskin of Blackboard responds to the criticism that the company's legal action has drawn. John R. Hall has posted a FAQ explaining some particulars of the Blackboard Transaction System which Virgil and Acidus aren't at liberty to discuss, as well as contradicting some claims that Yaskin makes in the posted email.
*highlights*
*Ctrl-C*
*Ctrl-V*
*Prints Letter*
*Launches Gnutella*
This space intentionally left blank.
In an effort to make life more difficult for civic-minded Mac users, NPR has decided to drop Quicktime from its available streams.
How do we know Apple wasn't being unreasonable in the terms they wanted?
BTW, those Phoenix database people sound really mature.
Don't worry. It opens in Open Office Impress just fine!
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Remember that joke about the kid who prooves that he has no time to attend school, since he must spend x days sleeping and x days eating and x days are weekends.....
The kid in this joke arrives at the figure that he does because the way he does it counts a good portion of time twice. (IE: Sleep and weekends overlaps...)
The RIAA I think is counting things twice when it obtains these "Billion Dollar" figures. I think that it counts the number of P2P transactions and multiplies it by the cost of an album. This dispite people downloading songs that they would never buy. In fact, one could further inflate the figures by including incompleted transactions as a full one.
Billions of Dollars? Baloney.
They should just rename it "TransAm", its the same thing anyways......
Slashdot is like Playboy: I read it for the articles
"Some kids were running miniature Napsters," said the academy official, referring to the now-defunct music-sharing site. "They had enormous drives - multigigabite drives - and they were on all the time. They became little Web sites."
Just goes to show how educated some naval personell are about computer technology. I mean MULTIgigabyte drives?!? Holy shit man, that's a lot of storage!!!
*note sarcasm above*
If you can't beat them, arrange to have them beaten. -George Carlin
We use the Blackboard transaction system here at LSU, and a lot of our food/drink machines with the system are usually offline... now, if you swipe your card in the machine while its offline, it'll display what's supposively stored on the card - your social security #.
Just something I thought was kind of interesting.
I don't believe that Microsoft intends to allow users to actually remove much software with any of these "new" features. Even if a user edits his/her sysoc.inf (you can find it in "%systemroot%\inf" if you so will) file and removes the word "hide" from applications which are not appearing under the "add/remove windows components" manager, most of the applications remain on the hard disk even after they are supposedly "uninstalled." I have found this to be true with Outlook Express and Media Player. Frankly who cares about Internet Explorer at this point. Most people I know use it on their windows machines anyway, regardless of how buggy and insecure it may. At this point, Microsoft being forced to alter XP so much that Internet Explorer is "uninstalled" is nothing more that a friendly pat on the ass compared to the original goals of the anti-trust case(s). The justice department should be absolutely ashamed.
It say that the Navy found some hard drives with 100s and 1000s of copyrighted files on them. It never says if the students had a right to have those files... I have 1000s of "copyrighted" files on my hdd in the form of mp3s, which I obtained by buying the CDs and then ripping them...
It's about time. Making internet explorer easy to remove will definately eliminate the problem with Microsoft's monopoly. The only reason Linux hasn't been adopted as a major desktop competitor is that it was widely felt that the internet explorer icon needed to be removed from Windows before you could install Linux, and this should clear that up. The justice department deserves a big pat on the back for this. Way to go DOJ!
My Blog
I guess most people have come to expect this from slashdot, but it should be pointed out all the same. It's too bad everyone (me included) puts up with it.
From the slashdot writeup:
From the linked article (slightly summarised):
Listing the eight technical project leaders at the end might have been a tad excessive, but I'd hardly call that "encouraging people to spam the mozillazine forums" or harrassing mozilla developers in the way that slashdot makes out to be. It looks like an ordinary informational page to tell people how they can contact the people who are able to make a decision.
"About the Mozilla naming thing...you can't pick a much less original name than Thunderbird..."
That may be why they're calling it Firebird.
Sheesh, confusing a Ford with a GM... People have been lynched for less...
Warning: Since Internet Explorer is part of the operating system, your operating system will no longer function after you click the button. Please forward all concerns to the US Department of Justice. Have a nice day.
Sigs are bad for your health.
I'm working on a project called sinapse that is a PHP/db portal for students. It's in use by Oklahoma University, Oklahoma State University, and I'm currently working on the Baylor University implementation. However, I've been writing a module for it specifically for teachers to be able to cover the same functions as Blackboard. Sinapse is the only education focused software for this usage AFAIK.
This is my digital signature. 10011011001
Yes, but where can you buy CDs for only $15? Enquiring minds want to know!
"The evil of the world is made possible by nothing but the sanction you give it." -- Ayn Rand
We carry BBC, Morning Edition, The Connection, Here & Now, Fresh Air, All Things Considered, Talk of the Nation, On Point, Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, Car Talk, et al... :)
And we originate most of those.
-T
Maybe because Quicktime streaming server is freely downloadable.
Well, okay, you've got to have OS X Server to get that one, but if you don't want to even run OS X Server, guess what? Darwin streaming server is both open source and runs on Linux, Solaris, OS X(server or regular, 10.1.x or better), AND WINDOWS(both win2k and NT).
If -that- isn't good enough for you, there's no shortage of MP3 streaming servers. If THAT isn't good enough, there's ogg-vorbis.
Something smells, folks. MS -bought- their way into this one, probably via strong-arming or simply bribing with free hardware+licenses. By the way, PBS dropped Quicktime recently too.
Please help metamoderate.
Having had a coworker who was a professional locksmith, I can say that absolutely everything you said is wrong. Point by point:
tumbler locks only have 10 height levels at most
Wrong. They have many, many possible height levels. They are completely analog devices. Any locksmith should be able to make pins that are whatever height he wants, completely analog. Its not just like they have a box of pins, only available in 10 different lengths.
Less secure tumbler locks will allow each individual tumbler to move independantly of the rest.
Wrong. All(that I know of) tumbler locks allow individual tumblers to move independently, otherwise you wouldn't be able to insert or remove the key(duuuh.)
oh and most locks also have a master key that will work on every lock of that type, not just the specific tumbler combination given to your door specifically.
Again, WRONG. Only if the key is set up with several separate pins in each tumbler. Otherwise, there is only ONE position where all the pins will clear.
It is simply amazing how such a simple, very plain and ordinary device is completely misunderstood and given an almost magical status. Locks are VERY simple devices. Even picking them isn't rocket science, just methodical and you need a ton of practice. Most of the tricks used by lock-pickers are very obvious once you see how a lock works.
Please help metamoderate.
http://www.blackboard.com/docs/Statement_on_System _Security.pdf
"How about calling it "900t"? [snip] In an Australian LinuxWorld article, one of their administrators calls the name change "one of the dirtiest deeds I've seen in open source so far." [that article quoted me, btw]
[snip]
"In a MozillaZine article, the same person accused mozilla.org of "theft" and "corporate bullying". They don't explain how it was different when they picked a name that was already used by a BBS, financial software manufacturer, Fenix IDE and games company."
I did post a comment about these other "Firebird" projects, which all except one are either more recent than ours, or are long defunct. The BBS project (a year older than our project) is a Chinese bulletin board, scarcely to be considered as being in the same space the way an open source browser and an open source database are...
"Meanwhile, IBPhoenix, an organisation that supports the development of the Firebird database, has put up a protest page, encouraging people to spam the MozillaZine forums"
This is a patent LIE - hence, no doubt, the poster's desire to stay anonymous. The readers were invited to write, not "encouraged to spam". As background to why the need to do so, our private emails to the Mozilla people at the start of all this have gone unanswered. What else could we do?
"(even though MozillaZine had nothing to do with the decision)"
Another misrepresentation. The announcement was made on the Mozillazine talkback forum and feedback was expressly invited.
" and send masses of email to many Mozilla developers"
Another outright lie. The suggestion was "You might like to write to..."
"(most of whom were not involved in selecting the new name)" The announcement said "we". Absent better information, how could anything be assumed except that the whole Mozilla team made the decision, since that was how it was announced.
"I find it rather hypocritical that the Firebird database people are accusing Mozilla of "the filthiest of dirty tricks" while at the same time advocating the harassment of many Mozilla developers."
I find it highly hypocritical that an anonymous poster would construct a spin like this -- and rather depressing that Craig Ringer and others are buying the spin.
Helen Borrie
Firebird Project Admin