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Microsoft's 'Naughty or Nice' Patent Application
theodp writes "Those of you worried about Microsoft's stance on network neutrality won't find much comfort in the software giant's just-published patent application for systems and methods to facilitate self regulation of social networks through trading and gift exchange, which classify users as good or bad and call for network bandwidth to be reduced for those deemed 'less desirable.'"
Can we have a limit please on the number of patents one company may have.
Why UNIX?
I see someone's finally figured out how to have an entertaining Slashdot thread.
If you post a link to the patent instead of an article, you're virtually guaranteeing that no one will read the fucking article, let alone understand it! And just think of the wacky hijinks and hilarity that are bound to ensue from there!
Goo goo g'joob.
Having the members of a community reduce a persons presence on an website? Slashdotters would never stand for such a thing, surely.
(PS pls mod me up!)
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
In most other situations, market/social forces will usually make the right result come out.
...but I did find the part where bandwidth is mentioned as an asset that can be controlled via this system.
While you can look at it one way and say this is just a logical extension of rewarding 'good' users, the fact that the system can be used to punish 'bad' users and explains nothing about how this definition of 'good' and 'bad' will be determined makes me more concerned for the people using such a service.
I bloody well wouldn't.
"It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him." - Tolkien
What happens if a lot of Linux/Mac users give Microsoft a bad rating. Doesn't this mean that they should have reduced bandwidth? What about all of those who still use Windows but hate MS because Word just ate their essay, Powerpoint destroyed the presentation that is about to happen in a few hours. I can see this raising very interesting prospects, just need a large enough group of people.
But MS probably have insulated themselves against it anyway...
I always wondered where this setting was...
What has this to do with net neutrality? They are talking about social networks. I don't see anything about reducing bandwidth in the article. Way to muddy the waters Slashdot editors!
No, those would take the hit who don't agree with the crowd. Now go find previous bad examples for that.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
Here is the first claim of the patent:
... on whether the user behavior is desireable" is obviously a big part of the moderation system (flamebait, troll, are ways to discoiurage undesirable behavior).
"1. A system that facilitates self-regulation of a social network comprising: a network monitoring component that watches user behavior on the social network; and an asset allocation component that allocates or re-allocates one or more assets among one or more network users based at least in part on whether the user behavior is desirable."
As I read that, the Slashdot moderation system infringes. The "network monitoring component" is the editors and the moderators. They "watch user behavior on the social network". The "asset allocation component" is the karma, which affects how broadly users' messages get seen. Lastly, "based
The more you regulate a company, the worse its products become.
Yay! That way we can stamp out anything but the average, the mediocre and the banal.
Deleted
if ($comments =~ "linux" || $comments =~ "gnu"){
$bandwidth--;
}
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
From what I've read from the patent, it sounds like it's some sort of moderation system for a website (social networks. Like myspace and MS's own Live Spaces site). Basically, it rewards productive users of a site while punishing trolls and spammers.
Although the patent is questionable, (it sounds similar to the Slashdot Karma System to me) it doesn't sound like something that will be used for net neutrality.
In Soviet Russia, Trojan exploits YOU!
So how long unitl Anonymous Cowards lose bandwidth on /.?
For that matter does this mean my karma might buy me more bandwidth?
Creationist Textbook Stickers Declared Unconstitutional by CowboyNeal
This seems like a variation of the old evil bit idea.
Many ISPs and social networks already use similar criteria to guide subscribers on correct behaviour of the network. My ISP imposes restrictions on the bandwidth I can use every month and when I can use it during the day (a maximum of 10Gb@peak time every month). Many bit torrent communities also specify that you have to share at least the amount of data that you have downloaded, to deter leechers.
And of course there's http://freenetproject.org/ which added with 0.7 darknet mode - a network supposed to be based on an already existing social network, which automatically awards tokens to connections based on their behaviour, which controls their bandwidth and frequency of requests.
There's so many prior art examples of this it's just silly.
[ cruise / casual-tempest.net / xenogamous.com / transference.org / quantam sufficit ]
As if I wasn't a total outcast before, now I get to be e-rejected by VIRTUAL people! Awesome!
I never spellcheck and I freely admit it. Save your karma for more worthwhile "lol erorrs" replies
Somebody submit Slashdot's comment moderation system as prior art. Go ahead. I dares ya.
*chuckle*
Anyhoo, just what we need -- more technologically-enforced tyranny by majority.
Ed R.Zahurak
You know, oblivion keeps looking better every day.
I'm sorry Microsoft but, Santa, has had prior art on this one for years.
How about XBox live's 'rep' system? Lower bandwidth for modded-down players, anyone?
only if you're in econ 101 do market forces "usually" make the "right" result come out.
there's a reason why phrases such as asymmetric information and channel management exist. and why poor people pay more for the same services as rich people. it's called marketing, appropriately enough.
weeeee. market forces!! they created the current patent system, moron, along with pro-business new jersey laws, and self-regulation schemes. not to mention redlining, and zipcode based insurance, and new products paying for space at grocery stores, and mail-in-rebates, and manufactured 'minutes' plans, and all sorts of other interesting little quirks and inefficiencies that occur when you don't have anywhere near perfect competition. Companies know and understand this and that, even in cases where the market will eventually 'deal' with problems, improvements in the market can be delayed again and again by managing the product and policies appropriately.
Pareto, Durkheim, Kropotkin, Simmel, Tonnies, Adam Smith, Hobbes, Jesus, Confucius, Democracy, Golden Rule. And bees.
If (Instr(Comments, "linux") Or Instr(Comments, "gnu")) Then
. . . Let Bandwidth = Bandwidth - 1
End If
(I haven't touched a BASIC-like language in a decade, so don't beat me up too badly if it's wrong.)
If you think that evolution and neural nets are doing anything more grandiose, you're in for a rude awakening one day.
The phrase "survival of the fittest" should always cause you to ask "fittest for what?". You should not assume "fit" in this sentence means the kind of "fit" that your doctor (hopefully) proclaims you when you go in for a physical, meaning "fit in all ways". Fittest in the "survival of the fittest" means "capable of surviving whatever hurdle has been put before you today" with no regard as to whether there's any sense of continuity whatsoever to any other hurdle on any other day. Evolution is not cranking out things that are fit for all purposes, it's cranking out things that are fit for the moment, given history only as "how you got there", not proof that you deserve to survive further. The dinosaurs survived hugely longer than man has, and were by all accounts fitter than we'll likely ever be. But then they went away--poof.
Nature favors what's best at the moment, very much like the stock market favors the stockholders of the moment. Nature has no long-term theory of what it is trying to achieve. In a desert ecology, the best design might be the ability to survive without water, but nature can go millions of years designing that model and then if there's a flood one day, nature will favor for survival only those desert creatures that can swim (or maybe that find a cactus to float on), which is not really that different than a corporation buying another just because it likes what's in its bank account and then disassembling the rest for spare parts, even if the part it's disassembling has no long-term value to the population.
Nature always has a myopic view of what it is trying to achieve. It cares about surviving to the next moment, nothing more. Not a lot different than modern corporations caring about surviving to the next quarter, and failing to plan for the long term.
And even neural nets, which you imagine are struggling to be more general, are really hugely dictated in what the will become by what their experience is "growing up". The implicit allegation of the Microsoft patent claim is that they have invented "good parenting, which is the standing "best practice" for training a neural net. Things don't come to be "best practice" without being "prior art".
You might also allege that the claim is equivalent to a perceptron, since the notion seems to be that by throttling the bandwidth based on isolated goodness/badness without coordinating activity with other goodness/badness that might operate in a sympathetic way that can generate good results even though it's been pretty well proven that this sort of simplistic system doesn't in fact result in such things.
The problem with patents is that they appear to be a credential. So even though this may be a proven-to-be-bad idea doesn't mean it won't get used. I've often thought of thinking up bad ideas myself and patenting those. They're easier to think up than good ideas, and their being bad doesn't seem to be a barrier to use. If you can get paid (through patent revenue) for other people being stupid, why wouldn't you? You'd think this would retard people moving toward the bad ideas (by making them more expensive) and so implicitly move them toward the good ones, but I fear that the number of bad ideas is so densely packed compared to the good ones that you'd not actually notice any beneficial effect of having lined out only a few of them.
Kent M Pitman
Philosopher, Technologist, Writer
So basically Microsoft is filing for a "One Clique" Patent?
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?