The Etoys thing was different than the issue with squaters. Most people like myself think of squaters as thieves (I like to think of domain names as still being free, just with a processing fee). These domains names shouldn't be owned and therefore shouldn't be auctioned etc.
Etoys was especially ofensive because the site they killed had been around longer then etoys.
I know of two companies that know how to do things reliably, both are in Austin, TX and are also end user ISPs, but they know there stuff.
First, is Texas.Net. I know several companies with high trafic web sites that use them, and have a lot of success. They run solaris, and are not too linux friendly, but I know people who use colocation with linux boxes. I used to work in the support department, but was for the end user customers and underpaid, but I saw they really had there act together.
Second is Jump.net. I knwo them mostly as a bandwith provider, but if they run there web server 1/2 as well, they would be as good if not better than the rest. Take a look at there list of BIG customers. I used to work for one of them.
It seems like the e comerce sites need to isolate the credit card numbers. How hard would it be for the web server to take the number, not cache it, and submit it to a secure machine for proccessing and storage. Now while secure may be impossible, we can get close.
Put it behind a firewall (or even just shutoff all services on a UNIX machine) and only have a system to procces credit cards, and have it setup so it is only accessable from the web server, and then only accepts credit card numbers, and NEVER puts them back out. If the store wanted to store numbers for quick access by customers (I like this, although the security is definatly a problem), the system can a assign a unique reference to that card number that can be stored on the web server.
If this program is written carefully, and doesn't have buffer overflows, there would be no way to get the credit card numbers from it without access to that machine. How the admin wants to keep it secure could vary, the ultimate would be using a dedicated connection to the credit card company (I am not sure how all these work, but it would be the same as any POS system), and even console only admin access, although the admin may choose to trust some form of remote access such as ssh or ssl telnet, etc, and of course if that is compromised the whole above system is insecure, but I think it would be secure enough if the sysadmin stayed on top of things.
One thing that doesn't seem to have been considered in this whole scheeme seems to be what happens if they remove a manufacturer? It has been mentioned that they planned to kill any keys that were compromised.
What would happen to all the consumers who had purchased DVD players that used that key? Is my brand new DVD player (of the home theater unit type) going to stop working on new movies if someone cracks and publishes JVC's key? I don't think they have the guts to actually do that, but it does seem to be what they are planning.
I think the manufactures will probally learn that they can't rely completely on encryption for copying, and with the failure of DIVX I doubt they will try per view marketing any time soon (They are offering $100 rebates to anyone who bought DIVX players before they anounced their failure, so it cost them big).
Ok, this discussion is possibly worse than the Urban legend was. Lets distance ourselves from the missuse of the term TAX and call it a fee!
It is clear to me that many people did not actually read the article but just posted anyways./. is to blame for using such an inflamatory headline.
As the article states, this is not new. In my local area this has come up many times. What the Bells want to do is classify the ISP's as Long distance carriers. Right now when you make a long distance call the LD carrier pays your local phone company a per minute rate, and then bills you at a higher one (alhough I think in Texas they pay like $.06/minute for in state, but regulated to a much lower rate for out of state).
The ISP's would then have to pay a per minute rate whenever someone called. This is probally not going to happen though. This has been pushed for years, and the FCC is still trying to look out for the consumers.
I agree that in rural areas this will be much more of a problem. With DSL and cable modems, neither of which use the standard switched voice network, this is a non-issue.
I have seen this bring up lots of references to ISDN without much information for the uninformed. I know in my area ISDN is availible in flat rate, but in some parts of the US it is billed per minute for local calls
Where I live I have a choice of phone companies, and a cable company, and now NoBell (A wireless ISP). A fee on ISP calls would not go very far here where I have that many choices.
Many ISP's in my area are not even using Bell telephone lines any more. Time warner offeres T1 lines and phone lines, along with about 4 other companies. When these companies worked out the interconnect agreements with SWBell, SWBell insisted on per minute fees from the originating carrier. Now everytime a SWBell customer calls an ISP on Time warners network, SWBell pays time warner a per minute fee. Needless to say SWBell lost on this, since the vast majority of calls are originating on their network.
Before I got my cable modem I had a dedicated dailup account with my ISP. I don't think the phone company was screwed too much, even though my line was open 24/7. The phone company has been upgrading its capicity, posting strong profits, and not had to raise its fees. The capicity upgrades also encourage them to add new services (like DSL).
In summary: I doon't think this is going to happen, the FCC won't allow it, and is mearly trying to apease the Bells with this. Second, we are near the end of the Bell monopoly, I have 3 choices for residential service, and there are about 10 for buisiness in my area. Third, it will be a non-issue as more people migrate to DSL and cable modems. The FCC would be less inclined to aprove such a fee unless the phone companies could demonstrate that their network is still overloaded. Third, Someday NoBell (http://www.nobell.com) will go national, and we won't rely on either the phone company nor the cable company for our internet access.
I am going to try and not just repeat what has been said, but will summerise to make my ideas clearer.
It seems everyone has an argument for your favorite window manager. I would be inclined to go with one of the more static ones, like fvwm and not KDE (It is flexible, but could be awkward in the same way windows and a Mac are).
If all this machine will be used for is Internet and writing, Linux is great. He should never need to know about the inner workings, and it can't be screwed up (easily) from a user account.
If he uses the computer a lot, and wants the ability to expand and do his own thing (and you trust him not to mess up the computer), you might want to consider the imac.
My feelings are the Linux works very well for the person who mearly wants a reliable computer for a small set of tasks. It is easy to learn (from a user point of view, not admin). It is also unlikely to get any viruses and such.
If the user wants to move into doing more, install their own programs and stuff, then Imac or windows98 are the best choice. I don't have a stance one way or the other on these OS's, I have very little experience with recent version of MacOS, and dislike Windoze, but nontheless linux isn't ready for this group.
I don't see any need to discuss the group we fall into.
I don't know if this legistlation is exactly how we want to stop domain sqauting, but we do need some law to prevent it. I generally am for less regulation, but I am not anit-government.
Why don't some of us think about how the Internet worked at the begining of this decade. It doesn't resemble what it is now, but we can still use many of the ideals for guidence.
The idea of a domain name was to get a unique name that people could remember assigned to a network or computer. This was not an advertising tool, but the easy to remember bit should cover the rights of those who want it to be. As such microsoft should be able to get microsoft.com.
These domain names were free, a public namespace that mearly required a form to use. As long as you kept a name server attached, you were fine. If all you want to do with a domain name is point to your home machine, but you should pick something appropriate, easy to remember, and usefull for you, your friends, your future uses, etc. The future uses should not however entail selling the name. Rather than comparing this to buying and squating on property near a city, lets compare it to a more public resource like the domain name space is. What if someone paid their $5 to enter a National park, find a really nice camping spot, and park a car their, and refuse to let someone else use the spot unless they pay them, not ever intending to camp on the spot themselves. I believe the rangers would put a stop to this, so why do we tolerate it on the Internet?
I think we should send our congressman a thumbs up on this issue, the courts are usually good at dealling with good faith issues. Someone with gwbush.com, displaying information about gwbush (that is not slanderous, that would be covered under existing law), is using the name in a proper way.
Domain name squating was encouraged by initial legitimate collisions in the name space. The party sometimes ofered lots of money, and this is ok. Our current system of squaters has turned it into a trademark problem. Here is a true example of an early domain collision.
My friend registered his nick name many years ago, and was later contacted by a large auto dealership to use it. They ofered lots of money, but that was not why he registered it. He kept the name. They ended up hiring him to do their web page (uner the name...motors.com). Do you think anyone was in the wrong (this is prior to any fees in domain names).
Some people have argued that charging more and then letting people willing to spend the money do whatever, but this is rediculous. This keeps the poor college student from registering a name for legitimate reasons, and doesn't stop the big bad trademark holders at all. This would only make the Internet name space even more dominated by the wealthy.
I think our current fee structure is good because it provides a way to keep the name space open. Higher fees would restrict access.
So, lets keep the name space public (as much as possible, without it being funded by other taxes). Lets make a stand against squaters, through legal means. This bill seems to be that stand.
There have been times that I have gotten fed up with problems with XFree86, and downloaded trials of Accel-X, goign back to 2.1 and most recently with 4.x or 5 (I don't remember) for a laptop.
The first was a problem on an old S3_911 card, that would occasionally crash X, and with the old version of XiG (this was in 1995) it took out the whole machine. I went back and tolerated the smaller XFree problems.
There have been other instances I don't remember clearly, but recently with a Laptop using a CL 7548. I had wierd problems with XFree, and X-accell just took the machine out. Needless to say I have never purchased the non demo of their product. If it crashes in 10 minutes, I am not going to buy it.
On a side note, I have always been very happy with XFree's quick resolution of these problems. My current computers, my desktop with a Matrox Millinium 2, and my Laptop with a Neomagic, seem to work great on XFree, and I have no desire to introduce instablity in machines that haven't ever crashed with the current versions of the software.
I hope someone at Xig is reading this. Mabey they will cut the FUD.
I think you have the wrong idea of Dell. Sure you got their Dimension line right, it is entirely what you described, but Dell does create many products. The may not create Hard drives like IBM, and they may not manufacture their own stuff, but much of it is designed by Dell.
It has been a long time since I worked there, so I will not get too specific, as I may not remember the details and don't want to post incorrect information here. One thing I do remember clearly about when I did work there was the Latitudes were designed in house, but made by someone else, and many of the Optiplex and poweredge components were the same. (this includes everything from Motherboards and up).
Gateway and Dell are simular because they got in on the ground floor of mail order computers, not because they are "Box Movers".
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The Etoys thing was different than the issue with squaters. Most people like myself think of squaters as thieves (I like to think of domain names as still being free, just with a processing fee). These domains names shouldn't be owned and therefore shouldn't be auctioned etc.
Etoys was especially ofensive because the site they killed had been around longer then etoys.
I know of two companies that know how to do things reliably, both are in Austin, TX and are also end user ISPs, but they know there stuff.
First, is Texas.Net. I know several companies with high trafic web sites that use them, and have a lot of success. They run solaris, and are not too linux friendly, but I know people who use colocation with linux boxes. I used to work in the support department, but was for the end user customers and underpaid, but I saw they really had there act together.
Second is Jump.net. I knwo them mostly as a bandwith provider, but if they run there web server 1/2 as well, they would be as good if not better than the rest. Take a look at there list of BIG customers. I used to work for one of them.
It seems like the e comerce sites need to isolate the credit card numbers. How hard would it be for the web server to take the number, not cache it, and submit it to a secure machine for proccessing and storage. Now while secure may be impossible, we can get close.
Put it behind a firewall (or even just shutoff all services on a UNIX machine) and only have a system to procces credit cards, and have it setup so it is only accessable from the web server, and then only accepts credit card numbers, and NEVER puts them back out. If the store wanted to store numbers for quick access by customers (I like this, although the security is definatly a problem), the system can a assign a unique reference to that card number that can be stored on the web server.
If this program is written carefully, and doesn't have buffer overflows, there would be no way to get the credit card numbers from it without access to that machine. How the admin wants to keep it secure could vary, the ultimate would be using a dedicated connection to the credit card company (I am not sure how all these work, but it would be the same as any POS system), and even console only admin access, although the admin may choose to trust some form of remote access such as ssh or ssl telnet, etc, and of course if that is compromised the whole above system is insecure, but I think it would be secure enough if the sysadmin stayed on top of things.
One thing that doesn't seem to have been considered in this whole scheeme seems to be what happens if they remove a manufacturer? It has been mentioned that they planned to kill any keys that were compromised.
What would happen to all the consumers who had purchased DVD players that used that key? Is my brand new DVD player (of the home theater unit type) going to stop working on new movies if someone cracks and publishes JVC's key? I don't think they have the guts to actually do that, but it does seem to be what they are planning.
I think the manufactures will probally learn that they can't rely completely on encryption for copying, and with the failure of DIVX I doubt they will try per view marketing any time soon (They are offering $100 rebates to anyone who bought DIVX players before they anounced their failure, so it cost them big).
Ok, this discussion is possibly worse than the Urban legend was. Lets distance ourselves from the missuse of the term TAX and call it a fee!
/. is to blame for using such an inflamatory headline.
It is clear to me that many people did not actually read the article but just posted anyways.
As the article states, this is not new. In my local area this has come up many times. What the Bells want to do is classify the ISP's as Long distance carriers. Right now when you make a long distance call the LD carrier pays your local phone company a per minute rate, and then bills you at a higher one (alhough I think in Texas they pay like $.06/minute for in state, but regulated to a much lower rate for out of state).
The ISP's would then have to pay a per minute rate whenever someone called. This is probally not going to happen though. This has been pushed for years, and the FCC is still trying to look out for the consumers.
I agree that in rural areas this will be much more of a problem. With DSL and cable modems, neither of which use the standard switched voice network, this is a non-issue.
I have seen this bring up lots of references to ISDN without much information for the uninformed. I know in my area ISDN is availible in flat rate, but in some parts of the US it is billed per minute for local calls
Where I live I have a choice of phone companies, and a cable company, and now NoBell (A wireless ISP). A fee on ISP calls would not go very far here where I have that many choices.
Many ISP's in my area are not even using Bell telephone lines any more. Time warner offeres T1 lines and phone lines, along with about 4 other companies. When these companies worked out the interconnect agreements with SWBell, SWBell insisted on per minute fees from the originating carrier. Now everytime a SWBell customer calls an ISP on Time warners network, SWBell pays time warner a per minute fee. Needless to say SWBell lost on this, since the vast majority of calls are originating on their network.
Before I got my cable modem I had a dedicated dailup account with my ISP. I don't think the phone company was screwed too much, even though my line was open 24/7. The phone company has been upgrading its capicity, posting strong profits, and not had to raise its fees. The capicity upgrades also encourage them to add new services (like DSL).
In summary: I doon't think this is going to happen, the FCC won't allow it, and is mearly trying to apease the Bells with this. Second, we are near the end of the Bell monopoly, I have 3 choices for residential service, and there are about 10 for buisiness in my area. Third, it will be a non-issue as more people migrate to DSL and cable modems. The FCC would be less inclined to aprove such a fee unless the phone companies could demonstrate that their network is still overloaded. Third, Someday NoBell (http://www.nobell.com) will go national, and we won't rely on either the phone company nor the cable company for our internet access.
I am going to try and not just repeat what has been said, but will summerise to make my ideas clearer.
It seems everyone has an argument for your favorite window manager. I would be inclined to go with one of the more static ones, like fvwm and not KDE (It is flexible, but could be awkward in the same way windows and a Mac are).
If all this machine will be used for is Internet and writing, Linux is great. He should never need to know about the inner workings, and it can't be screwed up (easily) from a user account.
If he uses the computer a lot, and wants the ability to expand and do his own thing (and you trust him not to mess up the computer), you might want to consider the imac.
My feelings are the Linux works very well for the person who mearly wants a reliable computer for a small set of tasks. It is easy to learn (from a user point of view, not admin). It is also unlikely to get any viruses and such.
If the user wants to move into doing more, install their own programs and stuff, then Imac or windows98 are the best choice. I don't have a stance one way or the other on these OS's, I have very little experience with recent version of MacOS, and dislike Windoze, but nontheless linux isn't ready for this group.
I don't see any need to discuss the group we fall into.
Remember this is a California Law against the gambling loan, so it wouldn't apply in Vegas.
On a side note, in Texas it is illeagal to sell the state's lottery tickets on a credit card, but debit cards are OK since they aren't a loan.
You also need to keep in mind that the ATM's are giving cash advances, with all the extra fees etc, and cash is then cash.
This probally wouldn't be an isolated case (although in TX the courts are probally more conservative than in CA).
I don't know if this legistlation is exactly how we want to stop domain sqauting, but we do need some law to prevent it. I generally am for less regulation, but I am not anit-government.
...motors.com). Do you think anyone was in the wrong (this is prior to any fees in domain names).
Why don't some of us think about how the Internet worked at the begining of this decade. It doesn't resemble what it is now, but we can still use many of the ideals for guidence.
The idea of a domain name was to get a unique name that people could remember assigned to a network or computer. This was not an advertising tool, but the easy to remember bit should cover the rights of those who want it to be. As such microsoft should be able to get microsoft.com.
These domain names were free, a public namespace that mearly required a form to use. As long as you kept a name server attached, you were fine. If all you want to do with a domain name is point to your home machine, but you should pick something appropriate, easy to remember, and usefull for you, your friends, your future uses, etc. The future uses should not however entail selling the name. Rather than comparing this to buying and squating on property near a city, lets compare it to a more public resource like the domain name space is. What if someone paid their $5 to enter a National park, find a really nice camping spot, and park a car their, and refuse to let someone else use the spot unless they pay them, not ever intending to camp on the spot themselves. I believe the rangers would put a stop to this, so why do we tolerate it on the Internet?
I think we should send our congressman a thumbs up on this issue, the courts are usually good at dealling with good faith issues. Someone with gwbush.com, displaying information about gwbush (that is not slanderous, that would be covered under existing law), is using the name in a proper way.
Domain name squating was encouraged by initial legitimate collisions in the name space. The party sometimes ofered lots of money, and this is ok. Our current system of squaters has turned it into a trademark problem. Here is a true example of an early domain collision.
My friend registered his nick name many years ago, and was later contacted by a large auto dealership to use it. They ofered lots of money, but that was not why he registered it. He kept the name. They ended up hiring him to do their web page (uner the name
Some people have argued that charging more and then letting people willing to spend the money do whatever, but this is rediculous. This keeps the poor college student from registering a name for legitimate reasons, and doesn't stop the big bad trademark holders at all. This would only make the Internet name space even more dominated by the wealthy.
I think our current fee structure is good because it provides a way to keep the name space open. Higher fees would restrict access.
So, lets keep the name space public (as much as possible, without it being funded by other taxes). Lets make a stand against squaters, through legal means. This bill seems to be that stand.
There have been times that I have gotten fed up with problems with XFree86, and downloaded trials of Accel-X, goign back to 2.1 and most recently with 4.x or 5 (I don't remember) for a laptop.
The first was a problem on an old S3_911 card, that would occasionally crash X, and with the old version of XiG (this was in 1995) it took out the whole machine. I went back and tolerated the smaller XFree problems.
There have been other instances I don't remember clearly, but recently with a Laptop using a CL 7548. I had wierd problems with XFree, and X-accell just took the machine out. Needless to say I have never purchased the non demo of their product. If it crashes in 10 minutes, I am not going to buy it.
On a side note, I have always been very happy with XFree's quick resolution of these problems. My current computers, my desktop with a Matrox Millinium 2, and my Laptop with a Neomagic, seem to work great on XFree, and I have no desire to introduce instablity in machines that haven't ever crashed with the current versions of the software.
I hope someone at Xig is reading this. Mabey they will cut the FUD.
I think you have the wrong idea of Dell. Sure you got their Dimension line right, it is entirely what you described, but Dell does create many products. The may not create Hard drives like IBM, and they may not manufacture their own stuff, but much of it is designed by Dell.
It has been a long time since I worked there, so I will not get too specific, as I may not remember the details and don't want to post incorrect information here. One thing I do remember clearly about when I did work there was the Latitudes were designed in house, but made by someone else, and many of the Optiplex and poweredge components were the same. (this includes everything from Motherboards and up).
Gateway and Dell are simular because they got in on the ground floor of mail order computers, not because they are "Box Movers".