There's only one reason why you want your X-box to play copied games, and it's piracy.
Really? I think that the VAST majority of Australian posters here have made the point that parallel importation is LEGAL in Oz and that region-locking is ILLEGAL. If I have an early DVD player or an XBox or PS/2 that is region-locked, I have to chip it before I can play the games/DVDs I have legally imported from outside Australia. This is hardly piracy.
I am not Australian and I do not own a game console or a stand-alone DVD player. I DO own a combo CD-RW/DVD-ROM drive in my PC. I DO have libdvdcss installed so I can (sometimes unsuccessfully) try to play legally-purchased, original DVDs on my PC because I am Microsoft-free by choice. If a DVD refuses to play on my system, I return it to the store as a defective product, because they NEVER show "system requirements" on the outside of the packaging, thereby breaching, at minimum, the implied warranty of merchantability under the Uniform Commercial Code.
NO vendor is entitled to tell me that I MUST use Windows or any other particular software product AFTER the purchase. In fact, they have a duty to inform me, the purchaser, of any special requirements BEFORE the purchase so I can make an informed decision whether I want to make the purchase or not.
For Rosen, Valenti or YOU to accuse me of piracy in writing is libel and I demand a retraction.
There aren't that many modded systems out there to make more than the tiniest dent in actual sales of X-Box games.
What you fail to understand is that the central principle of Microsoft's overall business model is "ALL your dollar(yen, franc, mark, yuan, drachma) are belong to us. (And you will give them to us whether you want to or not)"
The poster continueth:
Microsoft, however, has the advantage of being on the "right" side of the WIPO treaties which forbid all this "digital theft", and effectively remove a person's right to do what he/she wants with their own property.
Please explain to me just where considerations of "digital theft" come into a transaction where a company has set a price for a tangible good and I have paid that price and taken delivery of the good. The good (which, legally, is chattel property) is now MY property. The seller no longer OWNS any rights in the property, and therefore, has no right to prohibit me from doing ANYTHING I want to do to it.
To make that point even MORE strongly, as long as my use of the good does not violate other laws (e.g., copyright infringement, in the case of bootleg games) NOBODY ANYWHERE has ANY right to prohibit any modification I choose to make to the good. It is MY property and I have an absolute right of dominion over it. If I want to mod-chip and X-Box and install Linux on it NONE of my use of the hardware that I have PAID for infringes anybody's rights. The only thing infringed is Microsoft's EXPECTATION of making a profit on follow-on game sales.
Too bad.
If Microsoft wants to impose this degree of control over what their customers make of the XBox , they need to try LEASING XBoxen instead of selling them (Want to guess what THAT decision would do to their market share?). Either that or they can raise the price so that game sales no longer subsidized their losses on the hardware (Want to guess what THAT decision would do to their market share?).
Microsoft has (so far) done a damned good job of designing high-end hardware components (their mice, keyboards and (the older models of their) joysticks are some of the finest products I have used (although, IMHO, the "Natural Keyboard" is an atrocity).
Personally, I think the XBox was the tiger that Microsoft tried to ride and couldn't get off of. They poured a couple of billion into developing a product that they couldn't sell at a profit in a market where they were faced with 2 dominant competitiors. They are now scrambling to come up with SOME way to make money on this turkey and not doing too damned well at finding one. They are too accustomed to making a roaring success of everything they try by virtue of their dominant position in MOST markets where they compete.
Too bad. Bill & Steve, maybe it's time to cut your losses and tell the shareholders "We made a mistake."
I think they have every right to do this. Not only is it THEIR product, but the mod chips hurt them very much.
Too bad, so sad it hurts little old Microsoft that people modify their products.
While I can't speak to Australian law, specifically, the following is derived from general Anglo-American common law principles that are followed pretty much everywhere English is the primary language.
What you describe as Microsoft's RIGHT to pressure a government into using the criminal law against their customers is, I think, based upon a flawed understanding of the underlying legal framework.
Unlike the sale of a software license, which is arguably subject to a (might be, might not be) enforceable EULA, the sale of a game console is a sale of goods. Once I hand over my money at BestBuy, CompUSA or Fry's and I receive the goods, they are MY property, NOT Microsoft's. Their rights in the transaction are limited to the following:
they can refuse to sell the goods to me, or
they can write their warranty so that the warranty is voided if I change ANYTHING inside the box.
While prohibition of anti-circumvention devices MIGHT be permissible with regard to items protected by copyright (i.e., DVDs, CDs), a manufacturer attempting to outlaw modification of a purely physical good they have sold is stepping WAY over the line. The reason for this is that there is NO enforceable contract inherent in an exchange of money for a physical good, and no attempt to wrap a hardware sale in a "thou shalt not modify" EULA is going to be enforceable.
Any court I can imagine that is governed by Anglo-American legal tradition is going to treat such an effort as pure overreaching by the seller for the purpose of locking out competition (like Microsoft hasn't tried THAT before).
Frankly, I HOPE Microsoft makes a SERIOUS effort to threaten Australia like the article appears to suggest they are. It's about time they found out that there is an effective limit to even THEIR market power.
For the benefit of those who weren't listening before, Microsoft's RIGHTS in a hardware sale are 1) a warranty that says, "if you try to modify it and break it you get to keep BOTH the pieces", and 2) the right NOT to sell in a particular market. I, for one, cannot see Microsoft forsaking the game console market in the entire Anglo-American portion of the world just because the law won't play their way.
Will it play on a computer that doesn't run Windows?
I recently purchased the "Full Screen Edition" of LotR:FotR only to find out that it won't play with ANY of the media players for Linux. Having browsed through the portion of the DVD that is recorded as an iso9660 filesystem, I suspect that it won't play on a Mac, either. I've have checked the packaging carefuly and there are NO indications on the outside that this is the case.
Since I am, and will remain, Microsoft-free, I'm returning the DVD to Wal-Mart because, as far as I'm concerned, it's a defective product.
Read the above 5 time real fast, let it sink in nice and deep. Don't make the same mistake twice.
Boss: Shred these accounting documents and make sure that the shredded documents get burned. We're filing bankruptcy day after tomorrow!
Neck_of_the_Woods: Yes SIR!
Sound familiar?
I once adminned a very small NT-based network for a company that was CONTINUALLY involved in litigation with their customers. The big boss decided that he wanted every employees password so he could (he claimed) "Check up that company standards for desktop configuration were being complied with." Truth of the matter was that he wanted to snoop through his employees e-mail.
I very carefully explained to him that if he collected up the passwords and opposing counsel in a lawsuit discovered that fact, it would destroy the evidentiary value of every single document stored on his system because he would no longer be able to prove who authored them.
He persisted in his request, and I told him I would NOT do it.
I wasn't fired BECAUSE I refused (yeah RIGHT), but I was let go shortly thereafter because "the company is bleeding money and SOMETHING has to be cut."
'Sokay by me, though. I got out of there with my sense of personal integrity intact and with the knowledge that, while I'm SURE my successor complied with his request, I never personally acted against the best interest of my employer.
A #2 pencil with a CLEAN eraser. An old trick I learned in the army is that the pink rubber eraser has just enough abrasiveness to do a really good job of cleaning gold-plated contacts without removing too much of the plating. You'd be amazed at how many "dead" cards can be resurrected this way when merely reseating them in their slots doesn't work.
I remember working as a lab assistant for Freshman Chem lab back in the late '60's. We would pack a baby food jar full of calcium carbide, pour it full of water then screw the lid on and toss it out the window of the lab (tehere was a fenced vacant lot behind the science building).
About three minutes later, there would be a relatively large explosion as the acetylene decided it was too overpressured for its taste. Nevr broke anything but the baby food jars, but it sure rattled some windows.
Considering that most static bodies of fresh water have a pH in the vicinity of 6 due to accumulated organic acids, the 3.5 pounds of sodium will only take the water a wee bit past neutral.
The sudden change may cause fish and other critters to go into shock, but I imagine the shock wave from the explosion(s) would be more harmful than the chemical change.
Actually, the best way to implement this would be in the shell. Trying to put MIME types into the kernel would be a REALLY Bad Thing(TM).
Of course, then you run into the whole sh, ash, bash, ksh, zsh, csh, tcsh thing, which means that you would have to get people working on separate projects to agree on the format of the configuration file and where to put the information.
Frankly, I don't understand why the OSF hasn't taken this by the horns and rolled it into POSIX. If compliance with POSIX is a Good Thing(TM) for shells, compliance with the MIME standard seems to be made to order for the OSF to address.
The problem with this 'solution' is simple to explain. A cease & desist letter is a prelude to a lawsuit. RIAA must know whom they are threatening with litigation in order for the threat to be meaningful.
Either that, or they have to file suit against "John Doe" AND Verizon in order to get subpoena power to discover the identity of their target, but Verizon, by 'cooperating' as a conduit for the cease and desist letter, has gained immunity from suit by the very terms of the DMCA.
The judge is right. It is a badly-crafted law. I'm not sure whether it is, in fact, vague and over-broad enough to be unconstitutional for that reason alone, but there are plenty of other reasons I consider it (and the new Berman bill) to be unconstitutional and, frankly, just plain BAD public policy.
I support the concept of intellectual property. I think American culture and industry would not have developed as it has without the protections afforded by patents and copyrights. That being said, patents and copyrights arise because of a SOCIAL CONTRACT which, in essence says, "you make the fruits of your creativity available to the general public and you will enjoy a marketplace free from competition for a period of time sufficient to compensate you for your work."
Congress, acting at the behest of the RIAA/MPAA seems to be tilting the terms of the contract in the direction of "you allow us to have access to the product of your work and you will own your ideas FOREVER." Since almost every new creation is, to some extent, founded on prior creations, eventually all ideas, plot devices, story lines, melodies and scientific concepts wind up being owned and there is no pool of prior art remaining from which to draw.
The public domain is the fountain from which all creativity flows. The destruction of the public domain is the evil inherent in the current trend in intellectual property law. The MPAA/RIAA demonstrate their collective corporate stupidity by failing to realize that they are eating their seed corn.
This is not really a plea for "security through obscurity". It's more a plea for common sense. Feeding disinformation to the black-het crowd is always a good idea. Returning a server string of "jkxyzxpl version 7.35.-1" hurts none of the legitimate users, but it completely hides the server name and version from the bad guys. They MAY be able to overcome the obstacles, but they have to work a little harder to do it. MOST crackers will look for easier targets instead.
She doesn't really expect to push it, or for it to pass.
I don't know about that. Here's the response I got to an e-mail I sent Rep. Lofgren. Please note, I am NOT one of her constituents and yet I got a response. This is one unusual Congresscritter...
[Personal Identifying info deleted]
Thank you for your kind words of support regarding my new bill, the Digital Choice and Freedom Act (H.R. 5522). I appreciate the time you took to contact me.
I have been thrilled that consumers from across the country and across the globe have emailed me their positive comments about the Digital Choice and Freedom Act. As you know, this bill seeks to maintain in the digital age the same balance that existing U.S. copyright law establishes between the interest of copyright holders in controlling the use of their works and the interests of the public in the free flow of ideas, information and commerce. The full text of my bill, along with a section-by-section analysis, is available on my website at http://zoelofgren.house.gov/.
Since you do not reside in the 16th California Congressional District, you may also wish to let your own Representative know your views on this subject.
Again, thank you for your support.
Sincerely,
Zoe Lofgren Member of Congress
Impromptu Open Standards Adherence Test:
I might also point out that the page linked to above does not render at all in Netscape 4.79 under Solaris even though MOST of the House's webservers are running Netscape Enterprise on Solaris (per Netcraft). It renders perfectly in IE6,in (blush) KFM under RH 6.2, in Mozilla 1.0.0, Konqueror, and even in Lynx, all under Debian sarge... Guess it's time to think about upgrading my Sun box at work to Solaris 9 so I can have Netscape 6...
Er, but isn't the student a partial owner of the resource? I'm not a college student, but one of the issues I have with college internet services, is that you have no choice but to pay for the system.
The student is no more the owner of the resource than an ISP's customer owns the resources he/she uses.
further quoth the poster:
Seems to me they have alot more right to the bandwidth than a libertarian system admin
The network exists for the primary purpose of furthering accomplishment of the university's core functions (e.g. education, communications and research). My work is directly in support of those functions, so no... the students DON'T have a higher right to the bandwidth. Besides, I've got you coming and going on this point because I'm also taking courses at the university, and no, unlike several large universities, this one does NOT give discounted/free tuition and fees to staff. If I take a course that requires computer accounts, I have to pay the computer usage fee for that course for the privilege of using the acccounts I have to have to do my job.
The poster then inquireth:
Anyone know of any schools that will let you opt out of computer usage, andd corresponding fees?
No
and further inquireth:
Can I buy more bandwidth from the school?
Seems I have heard of a few schools where this is done, but it's more on the order of a penalty charged for using more than a certain quota per month.
I agree. I'm an admin at a large university and I've seen the damage P2P does to our network. It doesn't materially slow down on-campus commections because we have a fiber backbone. However, we have a limited bandwidth (big limit, but it's a limit) connection to the internet (I don't have access to our i2 connection, darnit).
DURING BUSINESS HOURS (read, when the student body is supposed to be in class) some 40% of our BACKBONE bandwidth is taken up by P2P running between the dorms. Personally, I'd like to see all that traffic blocked at the layer 3 switches, but that will not happen in an academic environment.
The net result is that if I connect to my Linux box at home to perform a security test on a Unix box at work (you're not testing unless you're attacking from an uinauthorized host), I have a terminal with a frame rate problem... . I can literally type 6-10 keystrokes faster than the packets can get through the network. In addition, I occasionally have to download 3-4 isos (new Linux/FreeBSD/Solaris version). A year ago, before they moved the dorms to the new backbone, it was a piece of cake... I could DL a 3 CD-image set for Solaris in about an hour. Now, it's an overnight job (if I'm lucky).
In short, quitcherbitching... there are people on campus who have a productive use for the bandwidth... the fact that UCI is permitting ANY P2P is (in my mind) a very tolerant step. If I had my way, I'd block it all.
(and yes, I am one of those terribly libertarian slashdotters, but the ownership of a resource implies the right to control it's use)
The New York Times (registration required) is reporting that hearings will beThe New York Times (registration required) is reporting that hearings will be held today on a bill by Billy Tauzin R-Disney) to require the digital broadcast flag, end analog broadcasts by 2006, and (according to the Consumer Federation of America) obsolete VCRs and make taping of television shows subject to the control of broadcasters.
Now THIS is gonna go over with the voters like a lead balloon: "Mr. SixPacque, you will have to buy all new TVs within the next four years whether your current TVs need replacement or not. And, while you're at it, you better plan on buying new VCRs too, because come Football Day (oops, New Years Day) 2007, NONE of your old ones will work again." Nothing like a nice "pocketbook issue" to get the voters' attention.
Another bill by Howard Berman (D-Hollywood) will also be debated, which bill allows record companies to attack peer-to-peer networks without liability for 'accidental' damages."
Errm... will somebody explain to Senator Berman from the Disney Party in the People's Republic of California that there's no such thing as 'accidental damages' when someone is attacked. The damage done is intentional! I find it interesting that Congress has within the last year passed a law that treats attacking a computer system as an act of terrorism, including the possibility of life imprisonment as a sentence for a convicted offender. Then the Congress Critters turn right around and wants to give the RIAA permission to commit this act of terrorism without fear of prosecution and with a shield against being sued for the harm they might cause! Seems to violate a little constitutional principle called "Equal Protection under the Law."
See, when I think of "well-known" female folk & rock singers of the 60's and early 70's, I think of Mama Cass, Janis Joplin, Joni Mitchell, and Mary Travers (of Peter, Paul and Mary, for you youngsters following along).
Yes, and Janis was a member of that elite group when I was in high school and college...
If Janis Ian was so huge, how is it that I can recite the lyrics to several songs from each of the women I just mentioned, yet I don't recall hearing any of her stuff anywhere?
Good question... only watched Hootenanny on TV? only listened to Top 40 radio stations? Suffered a "social conscience disconnect" after Kent State? I don't know... I do know this... after Janis bought back her catalogue, the "major labels" did pretty much a "you'll never work in this town again" act on her, burying her as deeply as they could in the social consciousness of pop culture... I'm very pleased to see her come roaring back after too many years...
IBM's claim seem reasonable - that MySQL isn't suited for extreme high end use. This seems reasonable.
Seems reasonable, yes... however, if you read the eWeek article linked to from the MySQL, Inc. news release about MySQL gaining transaction support, you'll see the REAL reason IBM and MS are dissing MySQL... in Ziff-Davis's benchmarking, MySQL+InnoDB's performance ate DB2 and SQL Server 2002's lunches (and SyBase's ASE, just for good measure) and tracked very nicely with Oracke 9i through the entire load range tested... and did we mention that it's FREE??t t MySQL may not be the BEST of all possible solutions (my personal favorite Open Source database is postgreql), BUT... in MANY applications, it's the best possible "engineering solution" (read, most bang (performance) for the buck ($0.00)).
I'm surprised that the/. readership isn't better informed on the subject of Microsoft hardware... their Sidewinders joysticks are/were the most rugged thing on the market, their mice are extremely reliable, and AFAIK, their keyboards are about the only ones that can still command $70-80 even in the discount stores.
Rugged, reliable, accurate and VERY tolerant of abuse... pity they're not as demanding of their software.
If access to a network is NOT restricted it should be considered an open invitation to outside users. After all, restricting access by MAC address is NOT rocket science and the tools to do so are included in the box with your shiny new WAP.
It's the same principle as running a webserver on the 'net. If port 80 is open, it's an open invite for people to connect to port 80. ANY responsible net user knows that it is their OWN responsibility to restrict access to resources they don't want to share with the world.
Look at it this way... whose responsibility is it to ensure that their mailserver is not an open relay? Whose responsibility is it to ensure their anonymous ftp server is properly chrooted? It is the responsibility of the system owner, that is who!
It is not theft to pick up money you find laying in the gutter, therefore, it is not theft to use bandwidth flying through the air. Companies and individuals who don't want to share their resources have all the tools they need to prevent unauthorized access, let them use them.
'Sysadmins' are the janitors of Information Technology, no matter HOW much the current crop of adolescents looks up to them...
From your remark, I presume that you would like to live in a world without janitors. Your statement is exactly correct, sysadmins ARE the janitors of IT because we are the ones who clean up behind users who have little knowledge of, and even less respect for, the systems and networks they use.
Actually, the way a proper clean-room project works is that one group of programmers analyzes the hell out of the target code and produce a product specification that is one heck of a lot more detailed than a "list of features". Basically, they produce a document that completely describes how the product will work.
This design specification is then turned over to a second group of coders who have never seen the target codebase. In a really good clean-room project this second group probably doesn't even know that they're working in a clean-room. They create a completely new codebase from scratch to fulfill the requirements of the design document. Since no one working on the new codebase have ever seen the codebase being reverse-engineered, there is NO issue of copyright infringement. The clean-room defense is even more airtight if the coders don't know they're working in a clean-room.
If both the target codebase and the end product are really well-written, I would not be surprised to see that large parts of the two codebases come out almost identical. Good coders will implement the same functionality in ways that are very similar, if not identical.
I'm not positive what electrical field strength is required to cause disassociation of silicon dioxide but ESD can result from a discharge of as little as 10 volts. Most people can't even feel a static discharge unless it has about 2500 volts behind it, so IMHO straps, mats, etc. are one of those Really Good Thing(TM)s.
Slashdot Mirror
Really? I think that the VAST majority of Australian posters here have made the point that parallel importation is LEGAL in Oz and that region-locking is ILLEGAL. If I have an early DVD player or an XBox or PS/2 that is region-locked, I have to chip it before I can play the games/DVDs I have legally imported from outside Australia. This is hardly piracy.
I am not Australian and I do not own a game console or a stand-alone DVD player. I DO own a combo CD-RW/DVD-ROM drive in my PC. I DO have libdvdcss installed so I can (sometimes unsuccessfully) try to play legally-purchased, original DVDs on my PC because I am Microsoft-free by choice. If a DVD refuses to play on my system, I return it to the store as a defective product, because they NEVER show "system requirements" on the outside of the packaging, thereby breaching, at minimum, the implied warranty of merchantability under the Uniform Commercial Code.
NO vendor is entitled to tell me that I MUST use Windows or any other particular software product AFTER the purchase. In fact, they have a duty to inform me, the purchaser, of any special requirements BEFORE the purchase so I can make an informed decision whether I want to make the purchase or not.
For Rosen, Valenti or YOU to accuse me of piracy in writing is libel and I demand a retraction.
What you fail to understand is that the central principle of Microsoft's overall business model is "ALL your dollar(yen, franc, mark, yuan, drachma) are belong to us. (And you will give them to us whether you want to or not)"
The poster continueth:
Please explain to me just where considerations of "digital theft" come into a transaction where a company has set a price for a tangible good and I have paid that price and taken delivery of the good. The good (which, legally, is chattel property) is now MY property. The seller no longer OWNS any rights in the property, and therefore, has no right to prohibit me from doing ANYTHING I want to do to it.
To make that point even MORE strongly, as long as my use of the good does not violate other laws (e.g., copyright infringement, in the case of bootleg games) NOBODY ANYWHERE has ANY right to prohibit any modification I choose to make to the good. It is MY property and I have an absolute right of dominion over it. If I want to mod-chip and X-Box and install Linux on it NONE of my use of the hardware that I have PAID for infringes anybody's rights. The only thing infringed is Microsoft's EXPECTATION of making a profit on follow-on game sales.
Too bad.
If Microsoft wants to impose this degree of control over what their customers make of the XBox , they need to try LEASING XBoxen instead of selling them (Want to guess what THAT decision would do to their market share?). Either that or they can raise the price so that game sales no longer subsidized their losses on the hardware (Want to guess what THAT decision would do to their market share?).
Microsoft has (so far) done a damned good job of designing high-end hardware components (their mice, keyboards and (the older models of their) joysticks are some of the finest products I have used (although, IMHO, the "Natural Keyboard" is an atrocity).
Personally, I think the XBox was the tiger that Microsoft tried to ride and couldn't get off of. They poured a couple of billion into developing a product that they couldn't sell at a profit in a market where they were faced with 2 dominant competitiors. They are now scrambling to come up with SOME way to make money on this turkey and not doing too damned well at finding one. They are too accustomed to making a roaring success of everything they try by virtue of their dominant position in MOST markets where they compete.
Too bad. Bill & Steve, maybe it's time to cut your losses and tell the shareholders "We made a mistake."
Too bad, so sad it hurts little old Microsoft that people modify their products.
While I can't speak to Australian law, specifically, the following is derived from general Anglo-American common law principles that are followed pretty much everywhere English is the primary language.
What you describe as Microsoft's RIGHT to pressure a government into using the criminal law against their customers is, I think, based upon a flawed understanding of the underlying legal framework.
Unlike the sale of a software license, which is arguably subject to a (might be, might not be) enforceable EULA, the sale of a game console is a sale of goods. Once I hand over my money at BestBuy, CompUSA or Fry's and I receive the goods, they are MY property, NOT Microsoft's. Their rights in the transaction are limited to the following:
While prohibition of anti-circumvention devices MIGHT be permissible with regard to items protected by copyright (i.e., DVDs, CDs), a manufacturer attempting to outlaw modification of a purely physical good they have sold is stepping WAY over the line. The reason for this is that there is NO enforceable contract inherent in an exchange of money for a physical good, and no attempt to wrap a hardware sale in a "thou shalt not modify" EULA is going to be enforceable.
Any court I can imagine that is governed by Anglo-American legal tradition is going to treat such an effort as pure overreaching by the seller for the purpose of locking out competition (like Microsoft hasn't tried THAT before).
Frankly, I HOPE Microsoft makes a SERIOUS effort to threaten Australia like the article appears to suggest they are. It's about time they found out that there is an effective limit to even THEIR market power.
For the benefit of those who weren't listening before, Microsoft's RIGHTS in a hardware sale are 1) a warranty that says, "if you try to modify it and break it you get to keep BOTH the pieces", and 2) the right NOT to sell in a particular market. I, for one, cannot see Microsoft forsaking the game console market in the entire Anglo-American portion of the world just because the law won't play their way.
Will it play on a computer that doesn't run Windows?
I recently purchased the "Full Screen Edition" of LotR:FotR only to find out that it won't play with ANY of the media players for Linux. Having browsed through the portion of the DVD that is recorded as an iso9660 filesystem, I suspect that it won't play on a Mac, either. I've have checked the packaging carefuly and there are NO indications on the outside that this is the case.
Since I am, and will remain, Microsoft-free, I'm returning the DVD to Wal-Mart because, as far as I'm concerned, it's a defective product.
Boss: Shred these accounting documents and make sure that the shredded documents get burned. We're filing bankruptcy day after tomorrow!
Neck_of_the_Woods: Yes SIR!
Sound familiar?
I once adminned a very small NT-based network for a company that was CONTINUALLY involved in litigation with their customers. The big boss decided that he wanted every employees password so he could (he claimed) "Check up that company standards for desktop configuration were being complied with." Truth of the matter was that he wanted to snoop through his employees e-mail.
I very carefully explained to him that if he collected up the passwords and opposing counsel in a lawsuit discovered that fact, it would destroy the evidentiary value of every single document stored on his system because he would no longer be able to prove who authored them.
He persisted in his request, and I told him I would NOT do it.
I wasn't fired BECAUSE I refused (yeah RIGHT), but I was let go shortly thereafter because "the company is bleeding money and SOMETHING has to be cut."
'Sokay by me, though. I got out of there with my sense of personal integrity intact and with the knowledge that, while I'm SURE my successor complied with his request, I never personally acted against the best interest of my employer.
True that ... BUT IE == Windows. Just ask Microsoft.
A #2 pencil with a CLEAN eraser. An old trick I learned in the army is that the pink rubber eraser has just enough abrasiveness to do a really good job of cleaning gold-plated contacts without removing too much of the plating. You'd be amazed at how many "dead" cards can be resurrected this way when merely reseating them in their slots doesn't work.
I remember working as a lab assistant for Freshman Chem lab back in the late '60's. We would pack a baby food jar full of calcium carbide, pour it full of water then screw the lid on and toss it out the window of the lab (tehere was a fenced vacant lot behind the science building).
About three minutes later, there would be a relatively large explosion as the acetylene decided it was too overpressured for its taste. Nevr broke anything but the baby food jars, but it sure rattled some windows.
Considering that most static bodies of fresh water have a pH in the vicinity of 6 due to accumulated organic acids, the 3.5 pounds of sodium will only take the water a wee bit past neutral.
The sudden change may cause fish and other critters to go into shock, but I imagine the shock wave from the explosion(s) would be more harmful than the chemical change.
Actually, the best way to implement this would be in the shell. Trying to put MIME types into the kernel would be a REALLY Bad Thing(TM).
Of course, then you run into the whole sh, ash, bash, ksh, zsh, csh, tcsh thing, which means that you would have to get people working on separate projects to agree on the format of the configuration file and where to put the information.
Frankly, I don't understand why the OSF hasn't taken this by the horns and rolled it into POSIX. If compliance with POSIX is a Good Thing(TM) for shells, compliance with the MIME standard seems to be made to order for the OSF to address.
Just my US$0.02
The problem with this 'solution' is simple to explain. A cease & desist letter is a prelude to a lawsuit. RIAA must know whom they are threatening with litigation in order for the threat to be meaningful.
Either that, or they have to file suit against "John Doe" AND Verizon in order to get subpoena power to discover the identity of their target, but Verizon, by 'cooperating' as a conduit for the cease and desist letter, has gained immunity from suit by the very terms of the DMCA.
The judge is right. It is a badly-crafted law. I'm not sure whether it is, in fact, vague and over-broad enough to be unconstitutional for that reason alone, but there are plenty of other reasons I consider it (and the new Berman bill) to be unconstitutional and, frankly, just plain BAD public policy.
I support the concept of intellectual property. I think American culture and industry would not have developed as it has without the protections afforded by patents and copyrights. That being said, patents and copyrights arise because of a SOCIAL CONTRACT which, in essence says, "you make the fruits of your creativity available to the general public and you will enjoy a marketplace free from competition for a period of time sufficient to compensate you for your work."
Congress, acting at the behest of the RIAA/MPAA seems to be tilting the terms of the contract in the direction of "you allow us to have access to the product of your work and you will own your ideas FOREVER." Since almost every new creation is, to some extent, founded on prior creations, eventually all ideas, plot devices, story lines, melodies and scientific concepts wind up being owned and there is no pool of prior art remaining from which to draw.
The public domain is the fountain from which all creativity flows. The destruction of the public domain is the evil inherent in the current trend in intellectual property law. The MPAA/RIAA demonstrate their collective corporate stupidity by failing to realize that they are eating their seed corn.
This is not really a plea for "security through obscurity". It's more a plea for common sense. Feeding disinformation to the black-het crowd is always a good idea. Returning a server string of "jkxyzxpl version 7.35.-1" hurts none of the legitimate users, but it completely hides the server name and version from the bad guys. They MAY be able to overcome the obstacles, but they have to work a little harder to do it. MOST crackers will look for easier targets instead.
I don't know about that. Here's the response I got to an e-mail I sent Rep. Lofgren. Please note, I am NOT one of her constituents and yet I got a response. This is one unusual Congresscritter
Impromptu Open Standards Adherence Test:
I might also point out that the page linked to above does not render at all in Netscape 4.79 under Solaris even though MOST of the House's webservers are running Netscape Enterprise on Solaris (per Netcraft). It renders perfectly in IE6,in (blush) KFM under RH 6.2, in Mozilla 1.0.0, Konqueror, and even in Lynx, all under Debian sarge
The student is no more the owner of the resource than an ISP's customer owns the resources he/she uses.
further quoth the poster:
The network exists for the primary purpose of furthering accomplishment of the university's core functions (e.g. education, communications and research). My work is directly in support of those functions, so no
The poster then inquireth:
No
and further inquireth:
Seems I have heard of a few schools where this is done, but it's more on the order of a penalty charged for using more than a certain quota per month.
I agree. I'm an admin at a large university and I've seen the damage P2P does to our network. It doesn't materially slow down on-campus commections because we have a fiber backbone. However, we have a limited bandwidth (big limit, but it's a limit) connection to the internet (I don't have access to our i2 connection, darnit).
... . I can literally type 6-10 keystrokes faster than the packets can get through the network. In addition, I occasionally have to download 3-4 isos (new Linux/FreeBSD/Solaris version). A year ago, before they moved the dorms to the new backbone, it was a piece of cake ... I could DL a 3 CD-image set for Solaris in about an hour. Now, it's an overnight job (if I'm lucky).
... there are people on campus who have a productive use for the bandwidth ... the fact that UCI is permitting ANY P2P is (in my mind) a very tolerant step. If I had my way, I'd block it all.
DURING BUSINESS HOURS (read, when the student body is supposed to be in class) some 40% of our BACKBONE bandwidth is taken up by P2P running between the dorms. Personally, I'd like to see all that traffic blocked at the layer 3 switches, but that will not happen in an academic environment.
The net result is that if I connect to my Linux box at home to perform a security test on a Unix box at work (you're not testing unless you're attacking from an uinauthorized host), I have a terminal with a frame rate problem
In short, quitcherbitching
(and yes, I am one of those terribly libertarian slashdotters, but the ownership of a resource implies the right to control it's use)
The New York Times (registration required) is reporting that hearings will beThe New York Times (registration required) is reporting that hearings will be held today on a bill by Billy Tauzin R-Disney) to require the digital broadcast flag, end analog broadcasts by 2006, and (according to the Consumer Federation of America) obsolete VCRs and make taping of television shows subject to the control of broadcasters.
... will somebody explain to Senator Berman from the Disney Party in the People's Republic of California that there's no such thing as 'accidental damages' when someone is attacked. The damage done is intentional! I find it interesting that Congress has within the last year passed a law that treats attacking a computer system as an act of terrorism, including the possibility of life imprisonment as a sentence for a convicted offender. Then the Congress Critters turn right around and wants to give the RIAA permission to commit this act of terrorism without fear of prosecution and with a shield against being sued for the harm they might cause! Seems to violate a little constitutional principle called "Equal Protection under the Law."
Now THIS is gonna go over with the voters like a lead balloon: "Mr. SixPacque, you will have to buy all new TVs within the next four years whether your current TVs need replacement or not. And, while you're at it, you better plan on buying new VCRs too, because come Football Day (oops, New Years Day) 2007, NONE of your old ones will work again." Nothing like a nice "pocketbook issue" to get the voters' attention.
Another bill by Howard Berman (D-Hollywood) will also be debated, which bill allows record companies to attack peer-to-peer networks without liability for 'accidental' damages."
Errm
Yes, and Janis was a member of that elite group when I was in high school and college
Good question
Seems reasonable, yes
t
MySQL may not be the BEST of all possible solutions (my personal favorite Open Source database is postgreql), BUT
I'm surprised that the /. readership isn't better informed on the subject of Microsoft hardware ... their Sidewinders joysticks are/were the most rugged thing on the market, their mice are extremely reliable, and AFAIK, their keyboards are about the only ones that can still command $70-80 even in the discount stores.
... pity they're not as demanding of their software.
Rugged, reliable, accurate and VERY tolerant of abuse
Theft? I don't THINK so ...
... whose responsibility is it to ensure that their mailserver is not an open relay? Whose responsibility is it to ensure their anonymous ftp server is properly chrooted? It is the responsibility of the system owner, that is who!
If access to a network is NOT restricted it should be considered an open invitation to outside users. After all, restricting access by MAC address is NOT rocket science and the tools to do so are included in the box with your shiny new WAP.
It's the same principle as running a webserver on the 'net. If port 80 is open, it's an open invite for people to connect to port 80. ANY responsible net user knows that it is their OWN responsibility to restrict access to resources they don't want to share with the world.
Look at it this way
It is not theft to pick up money you find laying in the gutter, therefore, it is not theft to use bandwidth flying through the air. Companies and individuals who don't want to share their resources have all the tools they need to prevent unauthorized access, let them use them.
Nokia is all wet on this.
From your remark, I presume that you would like to live in a world without janitors. Your statement is exactly correct, sysadmins ARE the janitors of IT because we are the ones who clean up behind users who have little knowledge of, and even less respect for, the systems and networks they use.
Actually, the way a proper clean-room project works is that one group of programmers analyzes the hell out of the target code and produce a product specification that is one heck of a lot more detailed than a "list of features". Basically, they produce a document that completely describes how the product will work.
This design specification is then turned over to a second group of coders who have never seen the target codebase. In a really good clean-room project this second group probably doesn't even know that they're working in a clean-room. They create a completely new codebase from scratch to fulfill the requirements of the design document. Since no one working on the new codebase have ever seen the codebase being reverse-engineered, there is NO issue of copyright infringement. The clean-room defense is even more airtight if the coders don't know they're working in a clean-room.
If both the target codebase and the end product are really well-written, I would not be surprised to see that large parts of the two codebases come out almost identical. Good coders will implement the same functionality in ways that are very similar, if not identical.
I'm not positive what electrical field strength is required to cause disassociation of silicon dioxide but ESD can result from a discharge of as little as 10 volts. Most people can't even feel a static discharge unless it has about 2500 volts behind it, so IMHO straps, mats, etc. are one of those Really Good Thing(TM)s.
Just my US$0.02
Errrmmm ... NOTHING is secure against the dreaded Search Warrant exploit.
This story should be posted on Fark with the "Dumbass" tag.
...
One thing you DON'T do is screw around with military computer systems and then publicize it.
These guys oughta get the death penalty for criminal stupidity accompanied by a posthumous (is there any other kind?) Darwin award