The claimed informational interest is plainly insufficient to support the statute's disclosure requirement, since the speaker's identity is no different from other components of a document's contents that the author is free to include or exclude,
In other words, it appears that theyre ruling A) that laws may not be passed abridging free speech, whether or not you are anonymous B) that part of free speech is the freedom to not include your identification in your speech
It does NOT appear to be saying that you are guarenteed the right NOT to be identified-- that is, you may choose not to identify yourself, but there is no right to not be identified by others.
ARP only works on your local segment. Your computer has an arp cache that can be displayed with arp -a, but it is IMPOSSIBLE (aside from using client-side programs and scripts, ie javascript) to get a Mac address on the other end of the internet using TCP/IP datagrams.
Heres the low-down on how it works. Your computer crafts a packet. It then encapsulates it with Layer-3 (IP) data-- source ip, destination ip, etc. It then encapsulates that with a layer 2 header-- source mac, destination mac, etc. It finally "encapsulates" that in electrical signals at layer 1 (the physical layer).
The router receives that packet, strips the layer2 data completely, and does a MAC lookup on the next layer-3 destination (ie, its next IP hop). It then re-encapsulates the packet with a brand new layer-2 header containing the router's MAC as the source, and the next hop's MAC as the destination, and forwards it on.
Once it reaches the final destination, your computer's MAC address was long since stripped out of the equation. The only way that your MAC is being captured is if there is client-side programming (scripting etc) that is sending the MAC as part of the layer 7 payload. The packets themselves do NOT keep a record of the MAC.
If any of the above is incorrect, please correct me-- it has been a little while since I reviewed all of this.
You figure out which bit of data is being hammered, and you move it across to the SSD. Rather like profiling an application: pick the function that takes 90% of the time in the software, optimise the wazoo out of it, and you get a significant improvement (rather than picking something at random and optimising it to billy-oh, and getting not much return for your investment.)
Or you do what eBay is apparently doing and say, screw it, we're doing 5 blades, and throw all of your storage on SSD,
Dunno, I see your comment just fine with no adjustments. And I dont think its a problem that Slashdot and Amazon et al rank logged in users higher than anonymous-- anonymous users are undeniably more likely to post goatse, fristpsot, etc, and less likely to contribute meaningfully.
Hes not talking about safety, hes talking about this, and on that count hes not wrong-- people DO behave better when theyre not totally anonymous.
Whether or not we actually want this enforced by an agency with teeth is a totally different conversation (I vote no).
Also, Im not sure I (or Ben, for that matter) would qualify "being anonymous on the internet" as "Essential Liberty". It is a disservice to take the mans words and stretch them way beyond what he was referring to.
Open Source actually stimulates economic activity inherently - it makes people more productive.
Er, non sequitur. Just because someone isnt using OpenOffice (or libre), doesnt mean theyre not using a word processor. Just because youre not using Audacity, doesnt mean youre not doing sound editing.
Your statement would only be true if it could be shown that all Open Source software is inherently better at the task it sets out to do than proprietary; and we can look at the state of graphics drivers on linux (noveau vs nVidia blobs) and see an immediate, disproving counter-example.
Re:Could Someone Help Me Out With This?
on
Debt Deal Reached
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· Score: 1
Exactly. What if I don't want any credit? Then I am not to be trusted?
They have no reason to trust you. But I believe rent and utilities payments also reflect on your credit score.
Regardless, you really should look at credit. Functionally, you can treat it as debit, but with credit fraud protections and a 2% return (if you get the right card).
Re:Could Someone Help Me Out With This?
on
Debt Deal Reached
·
· Score: 1
So at the end of that 20 years, you still have a huge asset that you can sell... and if housing prices rise faster than inflation you might even earn back some of that interest you paid.
And if i havent wasted my money over 20 years, the principle that I invested in the house was invested elsewhere, accruing around 5-10% per year. Thats not particularly compelling. Meanwhile, if the housing market tanks, (and im really suprised people are STILL saying "houses are guarenteed return" in this market), youre stuck with a massive loss.
So no, youre not simply flushing money if you dont buy a house. And as for those tax deductions-- those are not guarenteed.
What's more, your money may work harder for you if can invest it in a higher yeild endeavor and pay a mortgage instead. Consider, if your interst rate is 5%, but you can get 7% somewhere else.. you gain a net 2% by paying a mortgage and investing that money.
Or, simply not take the mortgage and invest the full amount.
Things just aren't as cut and dried as you want to pretend.
No, I think they are.
Re:Could Someone Help Me Out With This?
on
Debt Deal Reached
·
· Score: 1
Paying rent might make it so you can make your income/debt ratio is favorable month-to-month, but over time the rent is just throwing money out the window.
I was considering purchasing a house a number of years ago, and ran the numbers, and consulted an advisor. When I presented him with that argument, he reminded me that mortgages have interest rates, and the interest rate is generally much higher than the current rent that I pay-- so over 20 years, I would throw away MORE money by purchasing a house and paying interest on the mortgage.
Regardless, if you cannot afford the mortgage, it is irrelevant whether long term it makes more sense to own the house. Long term it also makes more sense to purchase all the businesses in the world, but most people cannot afford that and do not seriously consider it as an option.
I went to college at a relatively cheap school, only $10k/year, I worked throughout, and still ended up with about $15k in debt. Very manageable, and I ended up just paying them off, but still if you're coming from nothing you're going to end up with a debt by the time you're done with school.
Im attending college currently, and taking 1 class / semester as I work full time. After tax credits, I think my total bill per year is a few hundred dollars. Debt is NOT a necessity.
But people like you werent really my target-- 15k is perfectly reasonable (in fact, when I think back, I DID have about that much debt when I graduated, but paid it off rather quickly). I was talking more about the people who attend Georgetown U or Berkeley, and then lament their $250k debt.
Car payments are dumb, but even a decent used car that doesn't crap out every week will set you back about $7k.
This is why you save money up, and avoid the aforementioned debts. Its called having a "rainy day fund", and is part of fiscal responsibility.
Re:Could Someone Help Me Out With This?
on
Debt Deal Reached
·
· Score: 1
In other words, the store refused to trust me because I didn't have any debt.
That is not accurate. My bank account has never in my life been negative, and the longest I ever carried a credit card balance was about 4 months (due to a mistake in auto-pay). Generally, all of my cards are auto-paid every month, on the dot, and spending doesnt generally ever exceed 5-10% of my balance.
I have an incredibly high credit rating because of this, and because of my history with various utilities.
All you need for credit history, is some history of paying off your credit.
Re:Could Someone Help Me Out With This?
on
Debt Deal Reached
·
· Score: 1
Really? You don't spend more than you take in? You don't have a car loan, or a mortgage, or student loans?
If not, then you're probably lucky enough to be in a situation where that's possible.
Some thoughts to those in those situations-- And while I dont want to be insensitive, I do think this needs to be said.
A) Did you REALLY need to buy a home? Was renting not an option? Or moving to a place where housing prices are lower?
B) Did you take the most expensive school in the area? If you are considering schools, have you looked at decent public schools, or taking it slowly and paying it off as you go? If schools are expensive in your area, have you thought of moving? (Tip-- move to Virginia, establish residency over 1 year [rent is about $5000 for a year], and go to any of the incredibly high-ranked state schools here: tuition is quite low).
C) Is it possible that many of the things we see as "must haves" (and this includes both at a personal level, and at the federal entitlement level) arent really necessities of life, and that responsible living means doing without?
For instance, if you have a pile of debt and a mortgage, consider NOT having that $170 a month triple play package. More reasonable plans can be had for about 1/3 of that; TV and ultra-highspeed internet are NOT necessities. Or consider doing without a 24-pack of beer every week, and eating out every week, and going to the bar every saturday; these are not life necessities, and eat up huge chunks of money.
Its called fiscal responsibility, and the thing that sucks about it is that sometimes it means saying "NO" to your wants.
Re:Could Someone Help Me Out With This?
on
Debt Deal Reached
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· Score: 3, Insightful
TEA PARTY: Yes, but NOT the things we benefit off of.
Making that into a Tea Party-only sentiment is a little dishonest.
Incidentally, I do not intend offense by my first line. Please do not take it as an attack on you; I possibly was a little too emphatic, and did not catch it on initial preview.
Problem is, this collides with the only sane standard regarding physical property (I get to do what I want with my property, as long as it doesn't directly affect anyone else).
And apparently you dont understand what a contract is. When you "purchase" Microsoft software (and certainly once you click the "I AGREE TO THE ABOVE" box during install), you have entered into an agreement with them. You could argue that its a shrinkwrap license, and not enforceable, but that gets a LOT less compelling when you read Slashdot and know darn well what the contract says and that it is a part of the conditions of use (and again, you have to click "i agree", or intentionally bypass that page with a hack).
And part of that agreement is that you do not retain full rights to the software. From the Win7 EULA:
You may not
work around any technical limitations in the software;
reverse engineer, decompile or disassemble the software, except and only to the extent that applicable law expressly permits, despite this limitation;
use components of the software to run applications not running on the software;
make more copies of the software than specified in this agreement or allowed by applicable law, despite this limitation;
publish the software for others to copy;
rent, lease or lend the software; or
use the software for commercial software hosting services.
Which doesnt preclude you from making copies; but you are not allowed to distribute them. You could POSSIBLY convince me that the "not copying for others" might not apply if you copied the disk from a Mac, having never installed any MS software; but including a generated install key would certainly fall afoul of the law. And I believe that there are terms on the actual packaging that tell you not to copy the disk; you can disregard those but once again they might be contractual.
So if that is a bit too draconian and creepy for you, thats fine; you can choose not to enter into that legally binding contract. But making the purchase and then utterly disregarding the terms that you agree to just means that you think somehow contract law doesnt apply to you. If you think such a contract is unenforceable, I think you would find that part of getting out of it would involve proving that you had no knowledge of it, which as a slashdot reader I can assert is almost certainly false.
Our sense of morality is often based on what we're used to - what we think is absolute, is really just a convention that's been drilled into us from such an early age it's hard to conceive it being different.
Yes, and in order for a society to function, contracts need to be enforced. It is a ridiculous position that, because we're dealing with software, the contract is irrelevant.
Which is only a problem if you assume they have a right to earn money.
By the laws of economy that have been around from time immemorial, if you make a product and others obtain it, you have a right to compensation (both for the good itself, and for your worksmanship). Anything else has always been considered theft, and detrimental to the economy, as it discourages innovation and work.
Copyright means, for example, that the creator of a song can stop anyone else from singing it, the creator of a play can stop anyone else from performing it, and so on. What entitles him to do that?
The fact that society decided to do so, and standard contract law-- at least when it comes to MS software.
Reforming the system would be better, but I'm glad people fileshare, so they'll have an incentive to vote in favour of reduced copyright.
No, it means they have an incentive not to care as they already get what they want. What do they care or know about copyright when they utterly
Windows 7's security capabilities are generally considered superior to that of a bog-standard Linux and a bog-standard Mac install. Break out SELinux, Apparmor and the rest and the score starts to get even, but Windows can be hardened to a remarkable extent (require signatures on all binaries, mark all user-writeable locations as non-executable, ASLR, kernel patch protections, automatic replacement of corrupted / infected system binaries, etc).
If you think the attack I described for Windows is not technically and trivially possible to implement on Linux or Mac, you are sadly mistaken. Possibly if you have apparmor or something it would mitigate java flaws to some extent (assuming you have it properly configured)-- but getting that set up starts to sound as complicated as parent's windows protection plan.
If your computer can load arbitrary code as an unpriveleged user, it can be infected as an unpriveleged user. If your computer can load JAR, SWF, PDF, and MOV files, theres a good chance it shares its vulnerabilities with 99% of the rest of the computer world (evince, gnash etc not withstanding).
Do you have a solution that doesnt involve trying to turn back the clock, or force companies to pay people for doing absolutely nothing (which really doesnt help)?
Most people worldwide cant legitimately afford a corvette either. Doesnt mean theyre entitled to go take one.
And in case you are tempted to bring up "But copying has no real tangible costs", thats utter bollocks:
A) you didnt make the product, you dont set the rules. Microsoft made it, they get to set the rules, both by any sane legal standard, and by common sense.
B) Pirating software reduces the real value of the software-- when people simply take it for free, it lowers the demand and perceived value of the software. It does not directly take money from the dev's bank account; it merely skims a tiny bit off of their sales by encouraging others to pirate as well.
C) Just because you want something doesnt entitle you to it, REGARDLESS of whether it hurts someone else when you take it.
D) And just in case you think the current system sucks and you want to stick it to the man, by simply taking what you want without reforming the actual system, you are perpetuating the system you claim is so bad-- and this ignores the fact that this system that is claimed to be a failure motivates companies to create the software that you want.
Slashdot Mirror
A quick look-over of the case ruling @ http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=CASE&court=US&vol=514&page=334, seems to show you are misrepresenting what they ruled. Not being a lawyer, I may be mistaken, but I think youll need to do a better job of defending your case.
The claimed informational interest is plainly insufficient to support the statute's disclosure requirement, since the speaker's identity is no different from other components of a document's contents that the author is free to include or exclude,
In other words, it appears that theyre ruling
A) that laws may not be passed abridging free speech, whether or not you are anonymous
B) that part of free speech is the freedom to not include your identification in your speech
It does NOT appear to be saying that you are guarenteed the right NOT to be identified-- that is, you may choose not to identify yourself, but there is no right to not be identified by others.
ARP only works on your local segment. Your computer has an arp cache that can be displayed with arp -a, but it is IMPOSSIBLE (aside from using client-side programs and scripts, ie javascript) to get a Mac address on the other end of the internet using TCP/IP datagrams.
Heres the low-down on how it works.
Your computer crafts a packet. It then encapsulates it with Layer-3 (IP) data-- source ip, destination ip, etc. It then encapsulates that with a layer 2 header-- source mac, destination mac, etc. It finally "encapsulates" that in electrical signals at layer 1 (the physical layer).
The router receives that packet, strips the layer2 data completely, and does a MAC lookup on the next layer-3 destination (ie, its next IP hop). It then re-encapsulates the packet with a brand new layer-2 header containing the router's MAC as the source, and the next hop's MAC as the destination, and forwards it on.
Once it reaches the final destination, your computer's MAC address was long since stripped out of the equation. The only way that your MAC is being captured is if there is client-side programming (scripting etc) that is sending the MAC as part of the layer 7 payload. The packets themselves do NOT keep a record of the MAC.
If any of the above is incorrect, please correct me-- it has been a little while since I reviewed all of this.
Mac addresses cannot be seen past a router, since that divides segments up and Mac addresses are confined to a layer 2 segment.
Tracking a MAC address is normal these days.
I would LOVE to know how a website is getting your MAC address, since that doesnt pass your local segment (ie, doesnt pass the router).
And a quick search shows that the javascript to get that info is blocked clientside.
What are the failure rates? That seems rather relevant when youre dealing with massive RAID arrays.
You figure out which bit of data is being hammered, and you move it across to the SSD. Rather like profiling an application: pick the function that takes 90% of the time in the software, optimise the wazoo out of it, and you get a significant improvement (rather than picking something at random and optimising it to billy-oh, and getting not much return for your investment.)
Or you do what eBay is apparently doing and say, screw it, we're doing 5 blades, and throw all of your storage on SSD,
Dunno, I see your comment just fine with no adjustments. And I dont think its a problem that Slashdot and Amazon et al rank logged in users higher than anonymous-- anonymous users are undeniably more likely to post goatse, fristpsot, etc, and less likely to contribute meaningfully.
Is that anonymous ONLINE person running his own fiber, or is he relying on Corporate people to handle the "online" part for him?
Guess corporations are good for something, after all.
I doubt Ben would have agreed that "anonymity" qualifies as "Essential Liberty".
Hes not talking about safety, hes talking about this, and on that count hes not wrong-- people DO behave better when theyre not totally anonymous.
Whether or not we actually want this enforced by an agency with teeth is a totally different conversation (I vote no).
Also, Im not sure I (or Ben, for that matter) would qualify "being anonymous on the internet" as "Essential Liberty". It is a disservice to take the mans words and stretch them way beyond what he was referring to.
Open Source actually stimulates economic activity inherently - it makes people more productive.
Er, non sequitur. Just because someone isnt using OpenOffice (or libre), doesnt mean theyre not using a word processor. Just because youre not using Audacity, doesnt mean youre not doing sound editing.
Your statement would only be true if it could be shown that all Open Source software is inherently better at the task it sets out to do than proprietary; and we can look at the state of graphics drivers on linux (noveau vs nVidia blobs) and see an immediate, disproving counter-example.
Exactly. What if I don't want any credit? Then I am not to be trusted?
They have no reason to trust you. But I believe rent and utilities payments also reflect on your credit score.
Regardless, you really should look at credit. Functionally, you can treat it as debit, but with credit fraud protections and a 2% return (if you get the right card).
So at the end of that 20 years, you still have a huge asset that you can sell... and if housing prices rise faster than inflation you might even earn back some of that interest you paid.
And if i havent wasted my money over 20 years, the principle that I invested in the house was invested elsewhere, accruing around 5-10% per year. Thats not particularly compelling. Meanwhile, if the housing market tanks, (and im really suprised people are STILL saying "houses are guarenteed return" in this market), youre stuck with a massive loss.
So no, youre not simply flushing money if you dont buy a house. And as for those tax deductions-- those are not guarenteed.
What's more, your money may work harder for you if can invest it in a higher yeild endeavor and pay a mortgage instead. Consider, if your interst rate is 5%, but you can get 7% somewhere else.. you gain a net 2% by paying a mortgage and investing that money.
Or, simply not take the mortgage and invest the full amount.
Things just aren't as cut and dried as you want to pretend.
No, I think they are.
Paying rent might make it so you can make your income/debt ratio is favorable month-to-month, but over time the rent is just throwing money out the window.
I was considering purchasing a house a number of years ago, and ran the numbers, and consulted an advisor. When I presented him with that argument, he reminded me that mortgages have interest rates, and the interest rate is generally much higher than the current rent that I pay-- so over 20 years, I would throw away MORE money by purchasing a house and paying interest on the mortgage.
Regardless, if you cannot afford the mortgage, it is irrelevant whether long term it makes more sense to own the house. Long term it also makes more sense to purchase all the businesses in the world, but most people cannot afford that and do not seriously consider it as an option.
I went to college at a relatively cheap school, only $10k/year, I worked throughout, and still ended up with about $15k in debt. Very manageable, and I ended up just paying them off, but still if you're coming from nothing you're going to end up with a debt by the time you're done with school.
Im attending college currently, and taking 1 class / semester as I work full time. After tax credits, I think my total bill per year is a few hundred dollars. Debt is NOT a necessity.
But people like you werent really my target-- 15k is perfectly reasonable (in fact, when I think back, I DID have about that much debt when I graduated, but paid it off rather quickly). I was talking more about the people who attend Georgetown U or Berkeley, and then lament their $250k debt.
Car payments are dumb, but even a decent used car that doesn't crap out every week will set you back about $7k.
This is why you save money up, and avoid the aforementioned debts. Its called having a "rainy day fund", and is part of fiscal responsibility.
Just like radio!
Oh, wait.
In other words, the store refused to trust me because I didn't have any debt.
That is not accurate. My bank account has never in my life been negative, and the longest I ever carried a credit card balance was about 4 months (due to a mistake in auto-pay). Generally, all of my cards are auto-paid every month, on the dot, and spending doesnt generally ever exceed 5-10% of my balance.
I have an incredibly high credit rating because of this, and because of my history with various utilities.
All you need for credit history, is some history of paying off your credit.
Really? You don't spend more than you take in? You don't have a car loan, or a mortgage, or student loans?
If not, then you're probably lucky enough to be in a situation where that's possible.
Some thoughts to those in those situations-- And while I dont want to be insensitive, I do think this needs to be said.
A) Did you REALLY need to buy a home? Was renting not an option? Or moving to a place where housing prices are lower?
B) Did you take the most expensive school in the area? If you are considering schools, have you looked at decent public schools, or taking it slowly and paying it off as you go? If schools are expensive in your area, have you thought of moving?
(Tip-- move to Virginia, establish residency over 1 year [rent is about $5000 for a year], and go to any of the incredibly high-ranked state schools here: tuition is quite low).
C) Is it possible that many of the things we see as "must haves" (and this includes both at a personal level, and at the federal entitlement level) arent really necessities of life, and that responsible living means doing without?
For instance, if you have a pile of debt and a mortgage, consider NOT having that $170 a month triple play package. More reasonable plans can be had for about 1/3 of that; TV and ultra-highspeed internet are NOT necessities. Or consider doing without a 24-pack of beer every week, and eating out every week, and going to the bar every saturday; these are not life necessities, and eat up huge chunks of money.
Its called fiscal responsibility, and the thing that sucks about it is that sometimes it means saying "NO" to your wants.
TEA PARTY: Yes, but NOT the things we benefit off of.
Making that into a Tea Party-only sentiment is a little dishonest.
Incidentally, I do not intend offense by my first line. Please do not take it as an attack on you; I possibly was a little too emphatic, and did not catch it on initial preview.
Problem is, this collides with the only sane standard regarding physical property (I get to do what I want with my property, as long as it doesn't directly affect anyone else).
And apparently you dont understand what a contract is. When you "purchase" Microsoft software (and certainly once you click the "I AGREE TO THE ABOVE" box during install), you have entered into an agreement with them. You could argue that its a shrinkwrap license, and not enforceable, but that gets a LOT less compelling when you read Slashdot and know darn well what the contract says and that it is a part of the conditions of use (and again, you have to click "i agree", or intentionally bypass that page with a hack).
And part of that agreement is that you do not retain full rights to the software. From the Win7 EULA:
You
may not
work around any technical limitations in the software;
reverse engineer, decompile or disassemble the software, except and only to the extent that applicable law expressly permits, despite this limitation;
use components of the software to run applications not running on the software;
make more copies of the software than specified in this agreement or allowed by applicable law, despite this limitation;
publish the software for others to copy;
rent, lease or lend the software; or
use the software for commercial software hosting services.
Which doesnt preclude you from making copies; but you are not allowed to distribute them. You could POSSIBLY convince me that the "not copying for others" might not apply if you copied the disk from a Mac, having never installed any MS software; but including a generated install key would certainly fall afoul of the law. And I believe that there are terms on the actual packaging that tell you not to copy the disk; you can disregard those but once again they might be contractual.
So if that is a bit too draconian and creepy for you, thats fine; you can choose not to enter into that legally binding contract. But making the purchase and then utterly disregarding the terms that you agree to just means that you think somehow contract law doesnt apply to you. If you think such a contract is unenforceable, I think you would find that part of getting out of it would involve proving that you had no knowledge of it, which as a slashdot reader I can assert is almost certainly false.
Our sense of morality is often based on what we're used to - what we think is absolute, is really just a convention that's been drilled into us from such an early age it's hard to conceive it being different.
Yes, and in order for a society to function, contracts need to be enforced. It is a ridiculous position that, because we're dealing with software, the contract is irrelevant.
Which is only a problem if you assume they have a right to earn money.
By the laws of economy that have been around from time immemorial, if you make a product and others obtain it, you have a right to compensation (both for the good itself, and for your worksmanship). Anything else has always been considered theft, and detrimental to the economy, as it discourages innovation and work.
Copyright means, for example, that the creator of a song can stop anyone else from singing it, the creator of a play can stop anyone else from performing it, and so on. What entitles him to do that?
The fact that society decided to do so, and standard contract law-- at least when it comes to MS software.
Reforming the system would be better, but I'm glad people fileshare, so they'll have an incentive to vote in favour of reduced copyright.
No, it means they have an incentive not to care as they already get what they want. What do they care or know about copyright when they utterly
Windows 7's security capabilities are generally considered superior to that of a bog-standard Linux and a bog-standard Mac install. Break out SELinux, Apparmor and the rest and the score starts to get even, but Windows can be hardened to a remarkable extent (require signatures on all binaries, mark all user-writeable locations as non-executable, ASLR, kernel patch protections, automatic replacement of corrupted / infected system binaries, etc).
If you think the attack I described for Windows is not technically and trivially possible to implement on Linux or Mac, you are sadly mistaken. Possibly if you have apparmor or something it would mitigate java flaws to some extent (assuming you have it properly configured)-- but getting that set up starts to sound as complicated as parent's windows protection plan.
If your computer can load arbitrary code as an unpriveleged user, it can be infected as an unpriveleged user. If your computer can load JAR, SWF, PDF, and MOV files, theres a good chance it shares its vulnerabilities with 99% of the rest of the computer world (evince, gnash etc not withstanding).
Do you have a solution that doesnt involve trying to turn back the clock, or force companies to pay people for doing absolutely nothing (which really doesnt help)?
Most people worldwide cant legitimately afford a corvette either. Doesnt mean theyre entitled to go take one.
And in case you are tempted to bring up "But copying has no real tangible costs", thats utter bollocks:
A) you didnt make the product, you dont set the rules. Microsoft made it, they get to set the rules, both by any sane legal standard, and by common sense.
B) Pirating software reduces the real value of the software-- when people simply take it for free, it lowers the demand and perceived value of the software. It does not directly take money from the dev's bank account; it merely skims a tiny bit off of their sales by encouraging others to pirate as well.
C) Just because you want something doesnt entitle you to it, REGARDLESS of whether it hurts someone else when you take it.
D) And just in case you think the current system sucks and you want to stick it to the man, by simply taking what you want without reforming the actual system, you are perpetuating the system you claim is so bad-- and this ignores the fact that this system that is claimed to be a failure motivates companies to create the software that you want.
Didnt they also remove raw sockets in sp3? Ive had at least one person remark that they refuse to upgrade for that reason.