That's all well and good until they release an iPod that inexplicably only works with 10.6
How often does one need to upgrade their iPod, though? I don't know anyone off the top of my head with so much disposable income that they buy a new iPod with each subsequent release just because its available...
Heck, as hard as it may be to believe, I even know people (myself included) who have yet to buy an iPod at all...
Not sure about the affirmative action part, but I'd be fascinated to know your thoughts on how an astrological sun sign is able to find a grey area in a coin flip...
A 2003 study on French dietary intake showed an average intake of 3.6 micrograms cadmium per day. Multiply that by the us population of around 300 million, and the US population should be able to safely consume at least 9 grams of cadmium per day. Multiply that by 365 days a year, and we (as a nation) should be able to ingest at least 3.2 kilograms over the course of the year.
Therefore, the solution to the cadium waste is obvious. Put it in the water. After all, dilution is the solution to pollution.
Electricity is usually billed per kilowatt-hour. Therefore, if these panels are to be compared to buying power from the grid, one would need to know their electric production in watts per unit time. If they generate a watt of power, thats great - but is it a watt per minute (pretty good), a watt per hour (not very good), or a watt per day (almost worthless)?
I recall that troops in Iraq had already started using silly string to detect IED's. Now we're going to spray paint people to try to find who made the bombs? I'm waiting to see what 7-11 product shows up on the battlefeild next...
Could he be referring to the print edition? I don't live in the subscription area of the Washington Post (which barely reaches beyond DC and its very closest large cities), so I can't see what the printed paper says today. I can only say that I can read it online.
Anyone on slashdot subscribe to the print edition of the WashPo to check if it was actually withheld from printing?
I will point out I first looked at it quite early Sunday morning, so it could be that my browser cached it and won't let it go. But it seems to be there to me.
I just checked with a different browser, and indeed it is there. Can someone who can't see it at the Washington Post tell me what shows up instead? I'm a little puzzled by why the finger is being pointed at them.
The cynic in me doubts that having real information would get much more accomplished.
I guess I can also say that from my own experience having the data for domains available has been definitely useful on at least one event. As I mentioned before, the email addresses I use most often are in.edu domains. At one point years ago I was being spammed relentlessly by a west coast company (avtechdirect.com) that wanted to sell us computers at 'educational' discounts. By using both the nslookup data to discover their ISP and the WHOIS data to find their contact information, I was eventually able to aid in shutting them down.
Obviously I cannot be 100% sure that what I did lead to their being shut down, but along the way, they had to change ISPs (at least once) and their original email address was shut down as well. Being as I complained to both their ISPs and their email provider (as well as their secretary of state), I like to think that I may have helped it along.
One concession I offered up in another posting on this article was to offer anonymity only to those who are not opening domains for commercial / sales purposes. I could personally care less if I can get the WHOIS data for someone's private blog. I just want to see the factual data made available for those who are using the internet to make a buck (legit or otherwise) so that we can get through to real people with real information when needed.
More so, you have brought up some valid points as far as access to the WHOIS data. From my perspective it seems that the concern is that the number of people who would use the WHOIS data for not-good purposes (spam, in particular) may well outnumber the people who want it for well-meaning purposes (such as spam reporting). I wish I had a good answer to this issue beyond what I have suggested earlier for dividing the anonymity along profit / non-profit lines.
However, my own experience is that if a registrar is given the ability to mask obfuscate the WHOIS data, they will likely find something else to hide behind if they are doing it for nefarious purposes. And by the time any authorities are involved, the no'er-do-well in question has already moved on and there really is no longer any value in the previously obfuscated data.
If the registation companies are no longer allowed to provide obfuscation, then numerous 3rd party services will open, most run by the same people who run the registrars.
It's already happened. Some time ago, the nefarious registrar going by the name 'PacNames' started their own obfuscation service 'ShieldedWhois.com'. Strangely enough, I only saw one customer for that service, and they were repeatedly contacting me with great offers on software and v1@gr/\...
That is certainly a well thought out response. I haven't categorized my spam as thoroughly as you have, and to be fair I pay more attention to the drug and software spam than any others, so I may be overstating their presence. It could also be possible that because of the email addresses that I check most often (in.edu domains) I see more of those than one may in a different TLD. Somehow I doubt we'll get the spammers to reveal that to us.
As for your reasoning for the number of people who could be aided by the spammer's registration information being available, I may not have been sufficiently clear as to my reasoning on the issue.
I don't expect that someone who would be willing to buy the questionable drugs would be savvy enough to check the WHOIS data. Rather, I want the WHOIS data available for those of us who are receiving the spam, are savvy enough to utilize it, and concerned enough about the problem to want to take action to bring an end to it. I am concerned about both the safety of the public as well as the integrity of my own inbox.
From what I have noticed in terms of trends, a large amount of drug and software spam can be traced back to a very short list of irresponsible registrars and ISPs (mostly in other countries, unfortunately). If the WHOIS data were honestly made public, it could be possible to work towards stopping the problem. As an example, much of the spam I see points to domains that are registered to an individual who alternately claims to live in Tahiti or Finland. Its rather difficult to get either countries' law enforcement to care when there's only a certain set of data to even suggest this person lives there, and the registrars are willing to cover this person's trail continuously.
So in other words, if I don't want spam, I have to go out of my way not to get it. Thanks, buddy, for a while I was having a hard time there figuring out who exactly was in bed with the spammers.
Thats an interesting comment from someone who doesn't want to share their identity with slashdot.
More significantly, though, is that most people (at least that I know of) don't ask for the spam they already receive. Indeed, I have taken many steps to try to stop the spam that comes into my various email addresses, and that has not helped. So I don't see why someone would expect to be aided in avoiding spam for free. And the fact that to you this somehow equates to me intentionally helping the spammers is an interesting conclusion to say the least.
since spam, while an annoyance, is certainly not life-threatening in 99.9% of cases
Actually, I think my disagreement with you on that statement is probably the root of our disagreement on the issue itself. The bulk of spam that I receive is attempting to sell prescription drugs at a discount over the internet. I do view that as a life-threatening issue for two reasons:
First, assuming that the drugs are what they claim to be, there is inherent danger in selling them without a prescription. If the purchaser were to use them incorrectly, or if they were to go for sale elsewhere afterwards, they could cause life-threatening problems.
Second, at the prices they are selling them for, the drugs are likely counterfeit. Indeed, large caches of counterfeit drugs have been intercepted by border protection agents that were sold or intended for sale by mail-order or internet "pharmacies". The counterfeit drugs can pose potentially greater risks than the real drugs, because the user is likely to have no idea of the true identity of the compound they purchased. (I just like to hope that the counterfeit drugs are sugar pills, but there's no way to guarantee that much luck).
Companies should have their information available to the public, but individuals should be able to do whatever they wish.
I'm willing to agree to that compromise. What if it was required for any domain that exists to sell something to release its WHOIS data, while those who exist for non-profit (non-sales) purposes can keep their identities obfuscated?
Since your blog was likely a not-for-profit entity, and you probably weren't selling anything through it directly, what if we used profit as a distinction for registration data?
If your website exists to sell something, then the data must be public. If it does not sell anything, then the owner can chose to have it obfuscated.
This way, anti-spam people such as myself can find out where the spammers actually are, and people who are not selling anything online have nothing to worry about. It would be somewhat analogous to registering a business with your state department of commerce, in that it would only apply if you are in it for money.
There is a perfectly good system in place (at least in the US) for people who have a legal right to access the private information of a domain registrant. It's called due process.
I see a couple problems with this.
First, its (at least very nearly) impossible to impose US law elsewhere. If your problem is with someone who registered through a foreign registrar, you'll likely never be able to force them to release the data by any action through the US system.
Second, the US system is of course not very quick, to say the least. There is a very long list of registrars in this country, and if you were to start actions against registrar AAA, and the domain owner caught wind of it, they could just switch to registrar AAB, and continue down the alphabet while you keep having to play legal whack-a-mole to try to get the data released. And thats assuming that they don't tire of the game and switch to a foreign registrar, at which point of course you're back to my previous point.
The thing is, generally speaking, there's no reason for random people to need that information.
I want to agree with you on that. And if there was no such thing as internet crime or rampant spam, I would be able to to. Unfortunately, with the way that domain registration is abused for nefarious purposes, there needs to be some sort of accountability. If the registration data is not made available, then the public has no way to know who the actual owner of a site is. Likewise, if you are receiving spam from a given domain, it would be nice to be able to at least make one whole-hearted attempt to contact the owner of the domain to request that they remove you from their spamming list. If you have no actual contact information, it becomes impossible to do that.
Therefore, the intentionally obfuscated identity data becomes a shield for the operator of the nefarious site in question.
If someone is operating a site hosting child porn or other illegal materials, the registrar should be required to give up the registrant.
Unfortunately, one problem with this comes down to defining "illegal materials". By who's laws should that be dictated? There are some countries where child porn is considered more or less acceptable, and plenty of countries where the age of consent is something other than what it is here. All that the owner would have to do to claim that they are not in violation of the law is either have their registered domain or their hosting in a country where whatever they are doing is OK.
Slashdot Mirror
Imagine a beowulf cluster of those!
I guess that would probably be called a wall, yes?
How often does one need to upgrade their iPod, though? I don't know anyone off the top of my head with so much disposable income that they buy a new iPod with each subsequent release just because its available...
Heck, as hard as it may be to believe, I even know people (myself included) who have yet to buy an iPod at all...
And my OS still hasn't even perfected its flux capacitor relay yet. Egads, skunked by apple yet again.
Libralism: Finding the gray area in a coin flip.
Treatment? Would you be referring therefore to the dilution, or turning people into solar panels?
One of several ways that I may want to tag that comment...
Indeed. It should be watt*hour, not watt/hour. Not that I would count on the local electricity monopoly to get that correct in writing, either...
And you deserve extra points for not being condescending on that correction, though I have none to assign.
A 2003 study on French dietary intake showed an average intake of 3.6 micrograms cadmium per day. Multiply that by the us population of around 300 million, and the US population should be able to safely consume at least 9 grams of cadmium per day. Multiply that by 365 days a year, and we (as a nation) should be able to ingest at least 3.2 kilograms over the course of the year.
Therefore, the solution to the cadium waste is obvious. Put it in the water. After all, dilution is the solution to pollution.
Electricity is usually billed per kilowatt-hour. Therefore, if these panels are to be compared to buying power from the grid, one would need to know their electric production in watts per unit time. If they generate a watt of power, thats great - but is it a watt per minute (pretty good), a watt per hour (not very good), or a watt per day (almost worthless)?
Correct. Extra point for you, I see.
And I likely deserve to be docked for calling the new one "spray paint", as there is no paint involved. It is an aerosol spray, however.
Only the best in high-tech gadgetry and weaponry for our boys overseas, I guess...
I recall that troops in Iraq had already started using silly string to detect IED's. Now we're going to spray paint people to try to find who made the bombs? I'm waiting to see what 7-11 product shows up on the battlefeild next...
Or perhaps they want to cover "all your base"?
Sorry, I just couldn't resist...
Could he be referring to the print edition? I don't live in the subscription area of the Washington Post (which barely reaches beyond DC and its very closest large cities), so I can't see what the printed paper says today. I can only say that I can read it online.
Anyone on slashdot subscribe to the print edition of the WashPo to check if it was actually withheld from printing?
Perhaps for some reason I'm unique in being able to read it on the Washington Post?
p u/
http://wpcomics.washingtonpost.com/client/wpc/wpo
I will point out I first looked at it quite early Sunday morning, so it could be that my browser cached it and won't let it go. But it seems to be there to me.
I just checked with a different browser, and indeed it is there. Can someone who can't see it at the Washington Post tell me what shows up instead? I'm a little puzzled by why the finger is being pointed at them.
'taskisnotaverb'
(same tag was used in a different 'ask slashdot' article earlier this week)
I guess I can also say that from my own experience having the data for domains available has been definitely useful on at least one event. As I mentioned before, the email addresses I use most often are in
Obviously I cannot be 100% sure that what I did lead to their being shut down, but along the way, they had to change ISPs (at least once) and their original email address was shut down as well. Being as I complained to both their ISPs and their email provider (as well as their secretary of state), I like to think that I may have helped it along.
One concession I offered up in another posting on this article was to offer anonymity only to those who are not opening domains for commercial / sales purposes. I could personally care less if I can get the WHOIS data for someone's private blog. I just want to see the factual data made available for those who are using the internet to make a buck (legit or otherwise) so that we can get through to real people with real information when needed.
More so, you have brought up some valid points as far as access to the WHOIS data. From my perspective it seems that the concern is that the number of people who would use the WHOIS data for not-good purposes (spam, in particular) may well outnumber the people who want it for well-meaning purposes (such as spam reporting). I wish I had a good answer to this issue beyond what I have suggested earlier for dividing the anonymity along profit / non-profit lines.
However, my own experience is that if a registrar is given the ability to mask obfuscate the WHOIS data, they will likely find something else to hide behind if they are doing it for nefarious purposes. And by the time any authorities are involved, the no'er-do-well in question has already moved on and there really is no longer any value in the previously obfuscated data.
It's already happened. Some time ago, the nefarious registrar going by the name 'PacNames' started their own obfuscation service 'ShieldedWhois.com'. Strangely enough, I only saw one customer for that service, and they were repeatedly contacting me with great offers on software and v1@gr/\
That is certainly a well thought out response. I haven't categorized my spam as thoroughly as you have, and to be fair I pay more attention to the drug and software spam than any others, so I may be overstating their presence. It could also be possible that because of the email addresses that I check most often (in .edu domains) I see more of those than one may in a different TLD. Somehow I doubt we'll get the spammers to reveal that to us.
As for your reasoning for the number of people who could be aided by the spammer's registration information being available, I may not have been sufficiently clear as to my reasoning on the issue.
I don't expect that someone who would be willing to buy the questionable drugs would be savvy enough to check the WHOIS data. Rather, I want the WHOIS data available for those of us who are receiving the spam, are savvy enough to utilize it, and concerned enough about the problem to want to take action to bring an end to it. I am concerned about both the safety of the public as well as the integrity of my own inbox.
From what I have noticed in terms of trends, a large amount of drug and software spam can be traced back to a very short list of irresponsible registrars and ISPs (mostly in other countries, unfortunately). If the WHOIS data were honestly made public, it could be possible to work towards stopping the problem. As an example, much of the spam I see points to domains that are registered to an individual who alternately claims to live in Tahiti or Finland. Its rather difficult to get either countries' law enforcement to care when there's only a certain set of data to even suggest this person lives there, and the registrars are willing to cover this person's trail continuously.
Hence my name on slashdot - 'damn_registrars'
Thats an interesting comment from someone who doesn't want to share their identity with slashdot.
More significantly, though, is that most people (at least that I know of) don't ask for the spam they already receive. Indeed, I have taken many steps to try to stop the spam that comes into my various email addresses, and that has not helped. So I don't see why someone would expect to be aided in avoiding spam for free. And the fact that to you this somehow equates to me intentionally helping the spammers is an interesting conclusion to say the least.
Actually, I think my disagreement with you on that statement is probably the root of our disagreement on the issue itself. The bulk of spam that I receive is attempting to sell prescription drugs at a discount over the internet. I do view that as a life-threatening issue for two reasons:
First, assuming that the drugs are what they claim to be, there is inherent danger in selling them without a prescription. If the purchaser were to use them incorrectly, or if they were to go for sale elsewhere afterwards, they could cause life-threatening problems.
Second, at the prices they are selling them for, the drugs are likely counterfeit. Indeed, large caches of counterfeit drugs have been intercepted by border protection agents that were sold or intended for sale by mail-order or internet "pharmacies". The counterfeit drugs can pose potentially greater risks than the real drugs, because the user is likely to have no idea of the true identity of the compound they purchased. (I just like to hope that the counterfeit drugs are sugar pills, but there's no way to guarantee that much luck).
I'm willing to agree to that compromise. What if it was required for any domain that exists to sell something to release its WHOIS data, while those who exist for non-profit (non-sales) purposes can keep their identities obfuscated?
How about a compromise, then.
Since your blog was likely a not-for-profit entity, and you probably weren't selling anything through it directly, what if we used profit as a distinction for registration data?
If your website exists to sell something, then the data must be public. If it does not sell anything, then the owner can chose to have it obfuscated.
This way, anti-spam people such as myself can find out where the spammers actually are, and people who are not selling anything online have nothing to worry about. It would be somewhat analogous to registering a business with your state department of commerce, in that it would only apply if you are in it for money.
I see a couple problems with this.
First, its (at least very nearly) impossible to impose US law elsewhere. If your problem is with someone who registered through a foreign registrar, you'll likely never be able to force them to release the data by any action through the US system.
Second, the US system is of course not very quick, to say the least. There is a very long list of registrars in this country, and if you were to start actions against registrar AAA, and the domain owner caught wind of it, they could just switch to registrar AAB, and continue down the alphabet while you keep having to play legal whack-a-mole to try to get the data released. And thats assuming that they don't tire of the game and switch to a foreign registrar, at which point of course you're back to my previous point.
I want to agree with you on that. And if there was no such thing as internet crime or rampant spam, I would be able to to. Unfortunately, with the way that domain registration is abused for nefarious purposes, there needs to be some sort of accountability. If the registration data is not made available, then the public has no way to know who the actual owner of a site is. Likewise, if you are receiving spam from a given domain, it would be nice to be able to at least make one whole-hearted attempt to contact the owner of the domain to request that they remove you from their spamming list. If you have no actual contact information, it becomes impossible to do that.
Therefore, the intentionally obfuscated identity data becomes a shield for the operator of the nefarious site in question.
Unfortunately, one problem with this comes down to defining "illegal materials". By who's laws should that be dictated? There are some countries where child porn is considered more or less acceptable, and plenty of countries where the age of consent is something other than what it is here. All that the owner would have to do to claim that they are not in violation of the law is either have their registered domain or their hosting in a country where whatever they are doing is OK.