Agreed. In this case. Why in this case? Because a JUDGE has decided that this is a case of blackmail. And while I know no judge is infallible, they are human after all and the evidence presented may be incomplete or incorrect, I do generally trust their qualities. And if a judge says it's a case of blackmail then I would consider it a case of blackmail until proven otherwise.
So even though that judge may be in the UK and WP in the USA it would be nice for them to comply with the request and reveal the IP address from which the edit was done. After that it's again up to law enforcement to figure out who actually did it. Whether the information is enough is another matter, at least WP did what they could and should do.
MS likes software patents because it keeps competitors from entering the market.
MS has afaik only used them defensively, basically to be able to counter-sue claimants. E.g. IBM also owns many software patents, and I bet MS is infringing on some IBM patents and the other way around. The only solution: cross-licensing. So for MS to hold patents means they can get access to other companies' patents. This defensive use is not just for software patents, but a very common use of patents for larger companies.
The problem here is the emergence of patent trolls: companies that own patents and employ a bunch of lawyers, with their only purpose being suing other companies for infringement. Not having an own product means they do for sure not infringe on the defendant's patents, so no cross-licensing deals. And this is afaict pretty much unique for software patents.
Now to come back to the first statement: patents keep new entrants out of the market, as any new company making software is bound to infringe in some obscure way on some vague and broadly written patent, that this new company can be sued into oblivion or bought up cheaply. Those new companies do not have patents for themselves, so can not defend themselves and force cross-licensing deals. And that is the real reason for MS et. al to love software patents.
The police and judiciary are enforcing and upholding the law (that's why the police is called "law enforcement").
The government is making the laws - members of parliament are therefore also called "lawmakers". And this makes total sense if only you think about it: the government, by governing, tells what they want to happen in a country and how things should work. Those rules are written down in laws. After that it's up to the police and the judiciary to make sure the laws are followed by the people, and to punish people for breaking those rules, if necessary. The limits of punishment are usually prescribed by the government in said laws. The actual punishment is either fixed (e.g. a fine for running a red light), or decided upon by a judge.
Governments don't have to worry because they make the law. They can change any law, any time, including the constitution (if there is any; not all countries have one). Making and changing laws is actually their job.
Hong Kong too. Very important with all those multi-lane one-way streets (many streets have two to four lanes of one-way traffic, or even worse: four lanes with three lanes one direction and one lane the other direction). You really can not reliably assume traffic comes from the right when you start crossing a road, and from the left when you're halfway. Without those notes you really would have to look carefully both ways, just to figure out where traffic comes from. That said me coming from a right-driving country still tends to look both ways, just to be sure.
The right side to drive is the right side. The left side is not the right side. It's not called "right side" just because! Right is right. Left is not right. Ergo left is wrong.
As is being argued all the time: security is about layers. Layer upon layer. One layer to prevent executable code to reach your system in the first place by looking at the content of a message. Another layer to prevent code that does reach your system to be executed at all. Another layer to prevent untrusted code that does manage to be executed to do any damage (sandbox, permissions). Relying on a single layer of defense is not secure, no matter what that layer is or how strong that layer is. Breach that one layer and you're in.
This research gives at the very least a proof-of-concept on how to breach that first layer of security. And that of course is significant.
Of course there are no 100% secure systems - but the more layers of defense, the more secure it becomes. This takes away one layer of defense, thus making a system less secure. So yes it does make a difference even on "already-secure" systems.
> Data is a representation of information. Information wants to be free; not data.
Information is formatted, processed data.
It's actually the other way around. Think about it well, and you will realise data is processed, formatted information. If you read a text, e.g. a/. article, then that text is the data. It contains information which you decode by reading the letters. The in your brain the information you have collected becomes your knowledge. Which you can then relay again to other people as information to them, or nicely format it and write it down or type it out and it becomes data again.
Information wants to be free - and for that it is not necessary to copy data, as information transcends that.
They could use the web based system running on a local web server of course... same for the ERP system... or do they have other reasons to use a remote server for something as essential and full of highly sensitive data as an ERP?
But please remember that Google has wrangled a monopoly on the scanning and supplying of out of print books. It's got a few limitations, but it's basically a monopoly.
Now I realise they have some agreement with international author's associations, but I have not heard that this are exclusive contracts. In other words, everyone can still negotiate a contract with those copyright holders on scanning/republishing their works. Or have I missed something here? So is it a monopoly because they actively exclude other players, or because there are simply no other players in this market?
The biggest problem for most players of course will be the sheer scale of the project...
Please do not mix up information with data. They are related but very very different. Data is a representation of information. Information wants to be free; not data.
I prefer to keep my data on my server, subject to the laws of the country I live in. Google is a US company and as such I presume data I store on Google's servers (e-mail, docs) will be subject to US law and regulation.
Part of this will mean that I can be quite sure that if my data would be subpoenaed by the US government that I don't even know that this is happening. US citizens have much more chance to get to know about that.
So even though I agree with the part that Google seems to be the safest company to hand over your data to, I still don't like the idea to store my data on the servers of a foreign company subject to foreign laws and regulations. What may be legal here, may well be illegal there (think software patents that are still pretty much US-only).
Re:Gee, it's almost like they have a monopoly or s
on
Less Than Free
·
· Score: 1
So you need the government (or someone) to interfere with the free market in order to maintain a free market?
Interesting logic.
Well, sometimes, yes. In some cases government regulation is a good thing. And that is primarily in the case of natural monopolies: think rail roads (you don't want two overlapping railway systems) or water supplies or energy supplies. Here to get a free market the government has to either take ownership of infrastructure or regulate that a corporate owner must give other companies unlimited access (unless technical limits) to that infrastructure for a regulated fee.
Another example is telecom, mainly number portability. When numbers can be taken from network to network the lock-in is gone, and companies can start to compete for each other's customers. Here in Hong Kong this has resulted in very low fees (now starting at as little as USD 4.5 (yes that is $4.5, no typo) per month for subscription including 800 minutes air time, voice mail, etc!). Companies do not like this, they want to lock in their customers. Here the government can create a more free market than naturally would be.
Overall though I agree that governments better keep their hands off; if not they should have a good reason, and in some cases government regulation is a necessity to open up competition in a market.
Looking at VALUE of the product the US may be number one, but looking at VOLUME certainly not.
US makes mostly expensive, high value products. Those come usually in relative low volumes.
China makes lots and lots of cheap, low value products. China is known as the workshop of the world. In numbers of people employed directly in manufacturing, and volume of product shipped, they will beat the US hands down.
And finally you will have to see income from manufacturing as % of the economy to have a real number on how important manufacturing is for the overall economy.
Mining also doesn't belong in manufacturing, it's part the primary sector as is agriculture. Manufacturing is part of the secondary sector. IP and services (underdeveloped in China) I bet make up most of the US economy these days, as it does in most developed countries.
If you like feel free to look up the numbers to (dis)prove me.
China is doing in a way what the US did about 200 or so years ago. (Most of) Europe had signed the Berne convention on copyrights; the US which was busy building up their own industry didn't.
China is now building up their own industry - allowing them to look very closely to how it's done elsewhere helps a lot. That includes copying industrial designs and related infringements.
This is though by far from the first copyright case in China. There are many going on - mostly between Chinese companies suing each other for copyright or trademark infringements. And you bet the Chinese care about IP violations if it includes their own IP.
Sooner or later they will up their standards and come to international levels of enforcement. China has a patent office, and many Chinese companies are patenting their inventions. And those companies will start to demand enforcement.
I didn't count how often the word "corrupt" was used in that post of yours, but if anything, Sweden is not so. It is one of the cleanest and most transparent countries in the world, standing proud near the very top in the corruption index. One of the major advantages of such a country is that you can be pretty sure of a fair trial, and that if anything is wrong it is all clear in the open and thus can be corrected with relative ease. The USA for example come in at nr 19. Not bad, but not great either, especially not for a country that tries to impose it's own ideas on the rest of the world, with military might if need be.
If there is any sign of corruption or self-interest from the side of the judge in a country as free and open as Sweden you can count on the press to name and shame such judge and their behaviour, especially with this kind of high-profile cases.
IANAL, and neither are you, so unless you come up with some serious stuff to back up your claims I call them nonsense.
Re:Gee, it's almost like they have a monopoly or s
on
Less Than Free
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
you are very happy to point out that MS is convicted for abuse of a monopoly position, which is true, but please try not to make it complete fud-style.
First of all, having a monopoly is legal. Nothing wrong with that.
Secondly, MS got only convicted way after becoming a monopoly, AND abusing that position to work themselves into other market. Your comment makes it sound like it's the other way around.
Google can be argued to have a dominant position in search and online advertising, whether it qualifies as a monopoly you will have to ask a judge.
This subsidising of an ad-supported operating system imho does reek of abuse of position in one market (on-line advertising) to push out competitors in another market (mobile phone advertising).
It seems that part of the problem here is that computers still approach all displays as if the pixel size is the same. Fonts are displayed at so many pixels, not so many mm for size. That really should be changed.
I'd love to see smaller pixels: the smaller the pixels, the sharper the display becomes. Think of print, we consider 300 dpi normal quality for print. That looks nice and sharp to our eyes. But you are complaining here about a 128 dpi (ppi) monitor!
The solution is of course proper scaling of the output on the display. If you have a say 60 ppi monitor show fonts in 8 pixels height. If you have a 120 ppi monitor use 16 pixels for the same font. You end up with the same height, but better readability due to sharper font outlines. All graphics would start to look better as well.
From the comments here I read KDE4 is up to that task already, and Apple has been thinking about it (and didn't do it). Gnome no idea; and Windows also seems not up to it still. Pity. It's about time we get something better for our eyes.
OK it is a bit whining about semantics, but I wondered why they say "block port xxx at the firewall" instead of "do not open port xxx at the firewall unless you have a very good reason to do so". After all I expect a firewall in default state to block everything, that's why you have one such a device.
Now you say it is about outgoing connections even! That is normally by default all allowed indeed.
FedEx... excellent analogy, but you use it totally wrong.
To send parcels by FedEx or other couriers, you have to register first. That takes a while: phone call, fill in form, call back, and then they know you. Maybe a couple hours, maybe a day after the first call you can send out your first parcel with them.
Next time you have a parcel for them to deliver you just call, say "hi, it's me, this is my account, please deliver". And done.
Greylisting is like that. First prove you're a legitimate sender. Then I will accept your mail (and any subsequent mails) without any more fuss.
Now compare this with the postal services. There you can just go and send your stuff, no questions asked.
And to complete the analogy: spam. Junk mail. FedEx has yet to deliver any unsolicited junk to me. Hong Kong Post does so to me on a regular basis.
I don't see how knowing that it is the same computer, but not the same individual, helps in marketing, when marketing is targeted to people. Computers don't (yet) make buying decisions.
Identifying a computer for marketing purposes will not be much better/worse than tracking with cookies, as a cookie ALSO just identifies a computer, well actually an individual browser on an individual computer, NOT who is behind the keyboard. And most people sharing a computer will share user accounts/browsers as well.
The affiliate part can be argued to be necessary for user experience, and as such exempted. The cookie is a necessity to carry on the information that the user is expecting you to carry on in his/her behalf to/from affiliate sites.
E.g. I read a book review on your site, you say "it's available on Amazon, to order click here", then when clicking said link I would not expect any less than to go to Amazon to the page where that book can be ordered. And to get that promised affiliates discount Amazon has to know where I come from.
So nothing much to worry about for you under the proposal afaict.
The delay is only for new senders and admittedly can be irritating if you're waiting for a web sign-up reply or so (but then you could just use mailinator for that). It saves so much spam processing that I consider it a very good trade-off.
For anyone e-mailing me more than once every three months or so (as in all regular contacts) there is no extra delay.
Slashdot Mirror
Agreed. In this case. Why in this case? Because a JUDGE has decided that this is a case of blackmail. And while I know no judge is infallible, they are human after all and the evidence presented may be incomplete or incorrect, I do generally trust their qualities. And if a judge says it's a case of blackmail then I would consider it a case of blackmail until proven otherwise.
So even though that judge may be in the UK and WP in the USA it would be nice for them to comply with the request and reveal the IP address from which the edit was done. After that it's again up to law enforcement to figure out who actually did it. Whether the information is enough is another matter, at least WP did what they could and should do.
MS likes software patents because it keeps competitors from entering the market.
MS has afaik only used them defensively, basically to be able to counter-sue claimants. E.g. IBM also owns many software patents, and I bet MS is infringing on some IBM patents and the other way around. The only solution: cross-licensing. So for MS to hold patents means they can get access to other companies' patents. This defensive use is not just for software patents, but a very common use of patents for larger companies.
The problem here is the emergence of patent trolls: companies that own patents and employ a bunch of lawyers, with their only purpose being suing other companies for infringement. Not having an own product means they do for sure not infringe on the defendant's patents, so no cross-licensing deals. And this is afaict pretty much unique for software patents.
Now to come back to the first statement: patents keep new entrants out of the market, as any new company making software is bound to infringe in some obscure way on some vague and broadly written patent, that this new company can be sued into oblivion or bought up cheaply. Those new companies do not have patents for themselves, so can not defend themselves and force cross-licensing deals. And that is the real reason for MS et. al to love software patents.
The police and judiciary are enforcing and upholding the law (that's why the police is called "law enforcement").
The government is making the laws - members of parliament are therefore also called "lawmakers". And this makes total sense if only you think about it: the government, by governing, tells what they want to happen in a country and how things should work. Those rules are written down in laws. After that it's up to the police and the judiciary to make sure the laws are followed by the people, and to punish people for breaking those rules, if necessary. The limits of punishment are usually prescribed by the government in said laws. The actual punishment is either fixed (e.g. a fine for running a red light), or decided upon by a judge.
Governments don't have to worry because they make the law. They can change any law, any time, including the constitution (if there is any; not all countries have one). Making and changing laws is actually their job.
Just put it on a server outside of the USA. Then at least you won't have an issue with DMCA notices.
Hong Kong too. Very important with all those multi-lane one-way streets (many streets have two to four lanes of one-way traffic, or even worse: four lanes with three lanes one direction and one lane the other direction). You really can not reliably assume traffic comes from the right when you start crossing a road, and from the left when you're halfway. Without those notes you really would have to look carefully both ways, just to figure out where traffic comes from. That said me coming from a right-driving country still tends to look both ways, just to be sure.
No, no, no.
The right side to drive is the right side. The left side is not the right side. It's not called "right side" just because! Right is right. Left is not right. Ergo left is wrong.
As is being argued all the time: security is about layers. Layer upon layer. One layer to prevent executable code to reach your system in the first place by looking at the content of a message. Another layer to prevent code that does reach your system to be executed at all. Another layer to prevent untrusted code that does manage to be executed to do any damage (sandbox, permissions). Relying on a single layer of defense is not secure, no matter what that layer is or how strong that layer is. Breach that one layer and you're in.
This research gives at the very least a proof-of-concept on how to breach that first layer of security. And that of course is significant.
Of course there are no 100% secure systems - but the more layers of defense, the more secure it becomes. This takes away one layer of defense, thus making a system less secure. So yes it does make a difference even on "already-secure" systems.
> Data is a representation of information. Information wants to be free; not data.
Information is formatted, processed data.
It's actually the other way around. Think about it well, and you will realise data is processed, formatted information. If you read a text, e.g. a /. article, then that text is the data. It contains information which you decode by reading the letters. The in your brain the information you have collected becomes your knowledge. Which you can then relay again to other people as information to them, or nicely format it and write it down or type it out and it becomes data again.
Information wants to be free - and for that it is not necessary to copy data, as information transcends that.
They could use the web based system running on a local web server of course... same for the ERP system... or do they have other reasons to use a remote server for something as essential and full of highly sensitive data as an ERP?
But please remember that Google has wrangled a monopoly on the scanning and supplying of out of print books. It's got a few limitations, but it's basically a monopoly.
Now I realise they have some agreement with international author's associations, but I have not heard that this are exclusive contracts. In other words, everyone can still negotiate a contract with those copyright holders on scanning/republishing their works. Or have I missed something here? So is it a monopoly because they actively exclude other players, or because there are simply no other players in this market?
The biggest problem for most players of course will be the sheer scale of the project...
Please do not mix up information with data. They are related but very very different. Data is a representation of information. Information wants to be free; not data.
I prefer to keep my data on my server, subject to the laws of the country I live in. Google is a US company and as such I presume data I store on Google's servers (e-mail, docs) will be subject to US law and regulation.
Part of this will mean that I can be quite sure that if my data would be subpoenaed by the US government that I don't even know that this is happening. US citizens have much more chance to get to know about that.
So even though I agree with the part that Google seems to be the safest company to hand over your data to, I still don't like the idea to store my data on the servers of a foreign company subject to foreign laws and regulations. What may be legal here, may well be illegal there (think software patents that are still pretty much US-only).
So you need the government (or someone) to interfere with the free market in order to maintain a free market?
Interesting logic.
Well, sometimes, yes. In some cases government regulation is a good thing. And that is primarily in the case of natural monopolies: think rail roads (you don't want two overlapping railway systems) or water supplies or energy supplies. Here to get a free market the government has to either take ownership of infrastructure or regulate that a corporate owner must give other companies unlimited access (unless technical limits) to that infrastructure for a regulated fee.
Another example is telecom, mainly number portability. When numbers can be taken from network to network the lock-in is gone, and companies can start to compete for each other's customers. Here in Hong Kong this has resulted in very low fees (now starting at as little as USD 4.5 (yes that is $4.5, no typo) per month for subscription including 800 minutes air time, voice mail, etc!). Companies do not like this, they want to lock in their customers. Here the government can create a more free market than naturally would be.
Overall though I agree that governments better keep their hands off; if not they should have a good reason, and in some cases government regulation is a necessity to open up competition in a market.
Looking at VALUE of the product the US may be number one, but looking at VOLUME certainly not.
US makes mostly expensive, high value products. Those come usually in relative low volumes.
China makes lots and lots of cheap, low value products. China is known as the workshop of the world. In numbers of people employed directly in manufacturing, and volume of product shipped, they will beat the US hands down.
And finally you will have to see income from manufacturing as % of the economy to have a real number on how important manufacturing is for the overall economy.
Mining also doesn't belong in manufacturing, it's part the primary sector as is agriculture. Manufacturing is part of the secondary sector. IP and services (underdeveloped in China) I bet make up most of the US economy these days, as it does in most developed countries.
If you like feel free to look up the numbers to (dis)prove me.
China is doing in a way what the US did about 200 or so years ago. (Most of) Europe had signed the Berne convention on copyrights; the US which was busy building up their own industry didn't.
China is now building up their own industry - allowing them to look very closely to how it's done elsewhere helps a lot. That includes copying industrial designs and related infringements.
This is though by far from the first copyright case in China. There are many going on - mostly between Chinese companies suing each other for copyright or trademark infringements. And you bet the Chinese care about IP violations if it includes their own IP.
Sooner or later they will up their standards and come to international levels of enforcement. China has a patent office, and many Chinese companies are patenting their inventions. And those companies will start to demand enforcement.
I didn't count how often the word "corrupt" was used in that post of yours, but if anything, Sweden is not so. It is one of the cleanest and most transparent countries in the world, standing proud near the very top in the corruption index. One of the major advantages of such a country is that you can be pretty sure of a fair trial, and that if anything is wrong it is all clear in the open and thus can be corrected with relative ease. The USA for example come in at nr 19. Not bad, but not great either, especially not for a country that tries to impose it's own ideas on the rest of the world, with military might if need be.
If there is any sign of corruption or self-interest from the side of the judge in a country as free and open as Sweden you can count on the press to name and shame such judge and their behaviour, especially with this kind of high-profile cases.
IANAL, and neither are you, so unless you come up with some serious stuff to back up your claims I call them nonsense.
you are very happy to point out that MS is convicted for abuse of a monopoly position, which is true, but please try not to make it complete fud-style.
First of all, having a monopoly is legal. Nothing wrong with that.
Secondly, MS got only convicted way after becoming a monopoly, AND abusing that position to work themselves into other market. Your comment makes it sound like it's the other way around.
Google can be argued to have a dominant position in search and online advertising, whether it qualifies as a monopoly you will have to ask a judge.
This subsidising of an ad-supported operating system imho does reek of abuse of position in one market (on-line advertising) to push out competitors in another market (mobile phone advertising).
It seems that part of the problem here is that computers still approach all displays as if the pixel size is the same. Fonts are displayed at so many pixels, not so many mm for size. That really should be changed.
I'd love to see smaller pixels: the smaller the pixels, the sharper the display becomes. Think of print, we consider 300 dpi normal quality for print. That looks nice and sharp to our eyes. But you are complaining here about a 128 dpi (ppi) monitor!
The solution is of course proper scaling of the output on the display. If you have a say 60 ppi monitor show fonts in 8 pixels height. If you have a 120 ppi monitor use 16 pixels for the same font. You end up with the same height, but better readability due to sharper font outlines. All graphics would start to look better as well.
From the comments here I read KDE4 is up to that task already, and Apple has been thinking about it (and didn't do it). Gnome no idea; and Windows also seems not up to it still. Pity. It's about time we get something better for our eyes.
They do as soon as they try to pick up the package... so yes they do know your address is the correct one.
OK it is a bit whining about semantics, but I wondered why they say "block port xxx at the firewall" instead of "do not open port xxx at the firewall unless you have a very good reason to do so". After all I expect a firewall in default state to block everything, that's why you have one such a device.
Now you say it is about outgoing connections even! That is normally by default all allowed indeed.
FedEx... excellent analogy, but you use it totally wrong.
To send parcels by FedEx or other couriers, you have to register first. That takes a while: phone call, fill in form, call back, and then they know you. Maybe a couple hours, maybe a day after the first call you can send out your first parcel with them.
Next time you have a parcel for them to deliver you just call, say "hi, it's me, this is my account, please deliver". And done.
Greylisting is like that. First prove you're a legitimate sender. Then I will accept your mail (and any subsequent mails) without any more fuss.
Now compare this with the postal services. There you can just go and send your stuff, no questions asked.
And to complete the analogy: spam. Junk mail. FedEx has yet to deliver any unsolicited junk to me. Hong Kong Post does so to me on a regular basis.
I don't see how knowing that it is the same computer, but not the same individual, helps in marketing, when marketing is targeted to people. Computers don't (yet) make buying decisions.
Identifying a computer for marketing purposes will not be much better/worse than tracking with cookies, as a cookie ALSO just identifies a computer, well actually an individual browser on an individual computer, NOT who is behind the keyboard. And most people sharing a computer will share user accounts/browsers as well.
The affiliate part can be argued to be necessary for user experience, and as such exempted. The cookie is a necessity to carry on the information that the user is expecting you to carry on in his/her behalf to/from affiliate sites.
E.g. I read a book review on your site, you say "it's available on Amazon, to order click here", then when clicking said link I would not expect any less than to go to Amazon to the page where that book can be ordered. And to get that promised affiliates discount Amazon has to know where I come from.
So nothing much to worry about for you under the proposal afaict.
The delay is only for new senders and admittedly can be irritating if you're waiting for a web sign-up reply or so (but then you could just use mailinator for that). It saves so much spam processing that I consider it a very good trade-off.
For anyone e-mailing me more than once every three months or so (as in all regular contacts) there is no extra delay.