'grew up on' implies that the 'net was already in existence during the formative years of the persons life, say age 3 and up.
This week, I'm going to learn all about how technology can enable politics; and, while I'm at it, I'll also potty train! Words must be interpreted within the context with which they were written. The exposure of the average person into politics does not normally begin until mid teens.
Quiz time everybody. At 12 years old, which had more importance to you? Whether Jimmy stole Mary's notebook with the heart stickers all over it? Or whether the latest highway subsidy bill got out of committee in the House?
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Re:Here's the Real Facts
on
MAPS vs. ORBS
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· Score: 1
Thank you for the most important response to this whole article. I hope everyone reads this one.
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Re:Why neither should be used
on
MAPS vs. ORBS
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· Score: 1
I disagree. Central blacklists are a great idea, but you must understand and agree with the criteria the maintainer uses to add an entry to the list. Also, the maintainer must follow their stated criteria. Centralized blacklists make a great way for you to find out about abusers before they get to your network. It also happens to increase the pressure not to become an abuser on the first place.
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Re:ORBS is a hostile system
on
MAPS vs. ORBS
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· Score: 1
This is all part of ORBS' misinformation campaign. Alan Brown (i.e. ORBS) is attempting to confuse the public by claiming MAPS==Above.net. This is false.
ORBS has not been listed in the MAPS RBL for years. Vixie has stated recently, that he did list ORBS once, years ago, when he was running the list personally.
ORBS is not currently listed in the MAPS RBL.
ORBS is not currently being seriously considered for nomination to the MAPS RBL. (afaik) But I think they might be able to make a good case, should they decide to do so.
However. ORBSis being blocked by Above.net, per their right. The confusion lies in the possibility that Above.net was broadcasting externally that they, Above.net, were a route to ORBS, then/dev/null'ing the incoming traffic. If this is true, I have no information on whether it was intentional or not. Alan claims so.
All he's saying is that with no formal design spec or test process, a system can't be considered secure. No. He's saying it can't be proven secure by certifying authority. It obvious that the Dr. is, excuse the cliche, "thinking inside the commercial software box" because he's defining "secure" as a certification process only achievable through a decision by committee. A very corporate/academic thought process that. The open source movement appears more interested in the end results. Can infinite monkeys pounding on keys produce better code than a well-designed comittee process? Eventually. *grin*
Probably not, since Andover actually owns Slashdot. By its ownership, Andover has the potential to control what content appears on Slashdot and thus would share some legal liability for the content. The original charge made by the atheletes was suing them "as an ISP." That was quickly thrown out. They reapplied with a different charge. The company was also a "content provider" because they were the ones hosting the information on their webpage. This, also, was dismissed. This hits closer to Slashdot than one might think! The only difference being that Slashdot claims that comments are the responsiblity of the posters', not Slashdot.
This sort of article appearing on Slashdot really makes me wonder... What kind of imagined ulterior motive could Jon possibly have to trash this movie? You be the judge. Multiple choice:
A) He's short on John-Travolta stock and trying to make off with a bundle. B) He's involved in some sort of anti-Scientologist conspiracy. C) The movie truly sucked. I'll take (C) for 500 quatloos, Alex!
I would tend to agree with the consensus that although it's a cool story, it is probably not true. I would just think that if that many AOL usernames were snagged, we would have heard about somewhere else. Anyone have any more info? As an active member of the anti-spam community. I would like to attest that everything here checks out. It's legit. It's also outrageous and amazing, but none of the anti-spammers has managed to poke any major holes in it; and they're a very suspicious bunch. Premier has been on the anti-spammers' radar, but hasn't drawn any abnormal amount of attention up to now. However, that has changed now that this information was released. I suspect the spammer's ICQ accounts are going to have to be changed from the sheer volume of anti-spammers giving them grief. I've seen quite a few logs of post-hack discussions; they're making all sorts of lawyer threats. Which would be suicide, of course, because that would bring even more publicity, something they can't afford.
I also belive you should be able to leave your door unlocked. Just don't be surprised when your neighbors come for your head because someone is shooting a rifle at their houses from your house. Saying "my houseguest did it" is not going to fly. Even if the police don't arrest you, the hood is going to make your life hell.
please don't refer to this as "manpower."Memo To All Factory Employees: First of all, we would like to thank all employees on the production line for the outstanding work that was done last month. We produced a record number of automobiles in April and are on track for another stellar month for May. Unfortunately, it has been brought to our attention that many employees are insisting on the use of the term horsepower when referring to our product specifications. We remind all employees that all media contacts should be referred to the PR department; and that the correct term is just power. This is due to the fact that the zebra lobby is very powerful and might misinterpret an offhand comment from an unsuspecting employee. Those of you who have them, please dispose of your office dictionaries containing this [now out-of-date] word definition in the bins provided. They may be found in the breakrooms and hallways of all corporate buildings. New dictionaries will be provided no later than 3rd fiscal quarter of 2001, in the meantime, please make due with the materials at hand. -- The Management P.S. A big thanks to Politically Correct Publishers who are giving us a HUGE bulk discount on the new dictionaries!
Text trimmed: The writer could have used outlook express, or eudora, or pine, or any other email program had he wished to.. he simply programmed it for outlook. You're right, but a virus wouldn't be a virus if it couldn't spread. Outlook is what enabled it to spread. Anyone could have been infected, but only Outlook users were contagious. While innoculating potential victims against a disease is an admirable cause, going after the cause of the disease and eradicating it is going to get more immediate results for the effort expended. Disclaimer: All this puts aside the fact that "worm" is more descriptive of ILOVEYOU, but that's not really relevant to the thread.
actually, it's pretty easy. do not hang up, do not yell, do not curse... very nicely say "please put this number on your company wide 'do not call' list"...lather, rinse, and repeat... 100,000 times for each of the other telemarketers. Did you know that an umbrella will keep you dry if you jump in a swimming pool?
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Re:Don't you all realize this is a good thing?
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The IT Labor Shortage
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· Score: 1
If the only thing that is keeping you in your current job is the fact that you are the low bidder to do the work, you deserve to be flipping burgers. Exactly my point. Companies will, on the average, go with the lowest bidder. Which is going to be a lot closer to that $60k if the H1B visas are expanded. We seem to be on 2 different discussions here. I was answering your original question why there are people attempting to bust the illusion of a shortage. Good faith effort too. Instead, you turn on me; insulting, flaming and telling me I'm not worth a shit for not finding the market as lucrative as you have.
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Re:Don't you all realize this is a good thing?
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The IT Labor Shortage
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· Score: 2
That's funny, I know lots of people who make more than 60k..... I hope they enjoy their current jobs then, because if the market gets flooded with qualified 60k workers, and then they decide to change jobs, it might be a tad bit harder to find an equivalent salary elsewhere. No need to sneer. I'm not saying more visas is better or worse. I'm simply pointing out the economics of the situation. With 4 years military, a CS degree, and 2 years of unix experience, I sure didn't have anyone banging down my door last October. I feel the shortage is exaggerated.
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Re:Don't you all realize this is a good thing?
on
The IT Labor Shortage
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· Score: 1
Why is everyone so intent on "disproving this myth" that there is an IT talent shortage? Don't you people know this gives you leverage when you negotiate your salary? If it were true then, yes, it would help me negotiate my salary; but it isn't. Instead, the impression that there is a shortage is being broadcast loudly by corporations via lobbyists to get the H1B visa cap raised. What does this mean for native U.S. IT workers? It effectively caps our salaries at 60k (or somewhere around there), because that's the minimum pay a foreign H1B holder can be paid. As distasteful as I find this, I can't complain too loudly, as I've always felt protectionism is wrong. Disclaimer: I'm working from memory here. The amounts may be be wrong, but the overall point is not.
Still, I get about 1-5 spam messages per week. I don't find that number at all excessive. That's pretty low for your usage profile. Right now, there are few spammers (but they're growing). What if spamming becomes legitimized in the eyes of the general public? If 1% of every small business in the U.S. decided to send you one email per year, your mailbox would be useless; even assuming the net backbone infrastructure could handle that load. (it can't) On the other hand, I get at least 3 circulars (other than for stores & such - counting these, I don't want to know) a day. As much as I dislike circulars, and feel they're a waste of my time, I'm not paying for them. I find them much less objectionable. For me, at least, spam is not near as big a problem as are circulars - at least in the realm of how many I receive per day. I don't find theft-in-quantity any more objectionable than small theft. They're profiting by stealing from me and, in addition, are annoying me (like circulars do). It's the addition of the "theft" part that differentiates them. How many people are bombarded with spam each day? 10s of millions. My rough guess based on the number of people online. Who are these people that (as someone somewhere on/. today commented) get 10 spams for each email? I average about 10 a day, more or less. I'm not saying they don't exist: I'm wondering who they are, how they got targeted for this much spam, and how much they actually get charged for spam. 10 years on the net gets your name around. You wind up on all those email addy CDs. I, of my $20 for internet access, I would figure $3 of that my ISP must spend managing spam, those are $3 they could be better using to give me better service. That amount is growing. However, how much of a problem is it for individuals? Businesses, on the other hand, I can understand having a huge problem with spam. My time doesn't suddenly become less valuable once I'm at home. This means they're stealing from me, instead of my employers. This less of an annoyance? Anyhow, there are plenty of things that waste my time. Therefore, I'm not going after spammers for waste-of-time issues. Theft of service is the stronger point.
I don't pay a dime for the email i recieve. One flat fee gets me all the email and surfing i want. Your ignorance is showing. Maybe you need to tuck it into your belt and no one will notice. Do you honestly think all that bandwidth is free? Oh no. You're paying for it, along with everyone else who put in their $20. That flat rate will increase as the spam increases. Only the anti-spam proponents and the beleagured ISPs are holding the line. What's gonna happen when 0.1% of every small business in America wants to send you a "special offer?" Your email address will be useless; with or without the delete key or filter lists. And sorting through spam amounts to the same inconvience as sorting through real mail for letters and bills and then throwing away what i don't want. I'm not arguing about the time wasted. My time is valuable, but that's not the heinous part. Therefore, I'm skipping the time-wasted part of it for now as it's a different issue. Laws could and should be enforced to kick off the trully fraudulent offers, but "legitatmate" spam should be allowed to exist. "Only 'legitimate advertisers' should be allowed to steal." Not a chance.
I don't have to pay for your T-shirt if i don't want it. Just like spam. Just like anything else. Unless you go ahead and charge me for it without me saying yes, do whatever you'd like. The cost of receiving email is borne principally by the recipients. This is an inverted economic structure from postal mail; in which the sender pays an incrementally higher cost per copy. I'm gonna steal your $1 so you can have the privilege of receiving a T-shirt whether you wanted the shirt or not. Still don't like it? Too bad, I've already got your $1. No refunds. Besides there are lots of people who want my T-shirts! [yeah right] Anti-T-shirt-sending laws would inhibit my free speech. Spam isn't porn. Spam isn't [necessarily] obscene. Spam is theft.
"I can't wear this shirt because it has DeCSSsource code written on it, and that's a violation of my right to free speech, but I don't like what this person's sending me so let's make a law that make's them stop... Better yet, let's devise a way to block them from accessing our internet!" Tell you what. I'm going to print up 10,000 DeCSS T-shirts at a cost of US$1.00 each. I'm then going to send everyone a T-shirt whether they want one or not. Oh, by the way, you must pay $1 once yours arrives. What? You don't want it? But... that's inhibiting my right to free speech!
The "slashdot position" is that a little bit of censorship is like being a little bit pregnant. There's a "slashdot position"? I thought we were all individuals expressing our opinions. I feel so... homogenized now. Yet the "slashdoterotti" are delighted to have censorship for spammers. Why? Spammers annoy them, porn doesn't. Porn is about content. Spam is content neutral. This is a theft of service issue. Do I own my mailbox or not? I say I do. Spammers say I don't. The law hasn't figured it out either way yet.
That article clearly states that, and I quote verbatim: No Tax or duty shall be laid on Articles exported from any State.What part of this is ambiguous, and what part does not apply in this situation?Not only that, but just below, in article 1 section 10 (Powers prohibited of States) it clearly states that No State shall, without the Consent of the Congress, lay any Imposts or Duties on Imports or Exports.. They're not taxing the import or export. They're taxing the sale; just as they would if a resident of that state bought it locally. The tax-proponents are claiming that the fact that it leaves the state after the sale has no effect on the taxation of the sale. Your line of thought that no special rules should be implemented against out-of-state buyers only reinforces the pro-taxation argument. Currently, out-of-state buyers have a loophole where they can [technically illegally] not pay state tax, something in-state state buyers can't do. They are proposing to close this inequality somehow.
Ever watch any of those insipid infomercials? ... They clearly state that residents of the state in which the business is located (and typically one or two specific other states) must include x% sales tax. Now, if you live in one of the other 46-48 states, you pay no sales tax. You paid no sales tax. What you didn't know (until just now because I'm telling you) is that you were supposed to pay it. What? You didn't know this? Yes. All these years you haven't been paying it, you've been breaking the law. Don't worry, so have I. You see, the onus of paying these interstate taxes has been on you, not the seller. So, of course, people just ignored it. Is Congress considering taxing these transactions? Not to my knowledge. Congress is part of the federal government and, up to now, has been preventing the states from taxing these transactions. IMO, internet sales are no different. I could live with taxation of goods involved in intrastate commerce, but interstate commerce is another matter. I agree that internet interstate sales are no different than old interstate sales. The fact that you're ordering electronically is no different than catalog ordering. The key is that the internet has made interstate purchasing so easy! People are doing it in record numbers now, at the expense of brick-and-mortar businesses and local tax revenues. Therefore, since their influx of cash is fading, the powers that be are taking another look at a loophole in enforcement that has been previously ignored as too small a problem. That great technology that is causing the interstate commerce boom is the same technology that is going to help them push the responsibility of collecting interstate taxes onto the sellers. It'll be hard for them to claim "it's too complex for us to track all those rates" when there are a dozen software packages you can buy that will do this automatically with your shopping cart software.
I got the impression from the letter from @Home that their (my freinds) news access would be terminated if they where caught running a proxy server. I'm not familiar with @Home's AUP regarding servers. Other's have stated that no servers are permitted at all. Scanning for an "open server" and "any proxy server" would be two vastly different tasks. Testing for an "exploitable open server" would be simple. Just attempt to exploit a few well-known ports (Usenet ports in this case) and watch for the results. This is what I interpreted they were going to do. It is neither processor or bandwidth intense on an individual test basis. However, testing to see if someone is using a [secure] proxy server or not is an another animal. This entails unwrapping the TCP/IP packets and peeking inside to see if they're "nesting" packet information from machines behind the proxy. This is much more difficult. So much so that I doubt they'll do it. However, if they do... well... it's their network, and those users are violating the AUP. As distasteful at it may be. I won't use the word painful, but scanning someone else system/network/home is just plain creepy. I can understand your privacy concerns. However, the internet is, and has always been, a cooperative community. This implies a responsibility not to present a "public meanace" to your neighbors. Unfortunately, the advent of easy-to-use proxy software, which happens to come out of the box unsecure, has unleashed hordes of wanna-be administrators that don't know the consequences of what they're doing to the rest of the community. Catching and educating these pseudo-admins can only be achieved through pro-active measure (scanning for them). And, through custom, the prerogative and responsibility of doing this falls on the upstream provider. Failing that, the community at large takes up the stick (UDP).
essentially, they are saying taht it's clients who've set up proxy servers incorrectly, and that they will be more aggresive in helping customers fix mis-configured proxy servers.Anything to shift the blame to anyone other than themselves This has been a known problem from @Home in the e-mail abuse world as well, not just Usenet. Spammers use these open systems to relay e-mail spam. I believe they're not blowing smoke about the nature of the problem, but whether they have the skill, or desire, to implement the solution is questionable. It looks like Keeman the Klueless is going to be busy.
They are a bunch of fsck twits, I say the go though with the UDP just because @Home is so fscking stupid and trying to push this PR/Marketing BS off for actucally doing some type of security on their own network. It makes more sense to go after the [arguably] few people who run unsecure setups. Compare this quantity of work to the potenial nightmare of teaching every single @Home Usenet reader how to configure their software to authenticate and the solution of least resistance seems pretty clear. It is a pity that "your friends" are the victims of others' lack of admin experience. Yet, I fail to see where the massive inconvenience is. Are a few scan packets every week going to be that painful? Must be some sensitive systems! Should something that sensitive be on the internet?
Slashdot Mirror
'grew up on' implies that the 'net was already in existence during the formative years of the persons life, say age 3 and up. This week, I'm going to learn all about how technology can enable politics; and, while I'm at it, I'll also potty train! Words must be interpreted within the context with which they were written. The exposure of the average person into politics does not normally begin until mid teens. Quiz time everybody. At 12 years old, which had more importance to you? Whether Jimmy stole Mary's notebook with the heart stickers all over it? Or whether the latest highway subsidy bill got out of committee in the House?
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Thank you for the most important response to this whole article. I hope everyone reads this one.
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I disagree. Central blacklists are a great idea, but you must understand and agree with the criteria the maintainer uses to add an entry to the list. Also, the maintainer must follow their stated criteria. Centralized blacklists make a great way for you to find out about abusers before they get to your network. It also happens to increase the pressure not to become an abuser on the first place.
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- ORBS has not been listed in the MAPS RBL for years. Vixie has stated recently, that he did list ORBS once, years ago, when he was running the list personally.
- ORBS is not currently listed in the MAPS RBL.
- ORBS is not currently being seriously considered for nomination to the MAPS RBL. (afaik) But I think they might be able to make a good case, should they decide to do so.
However. ORBS is being blocked by Above.net, per their right. The confusion lies in the possibility that Above.net was broadcasting externally that they, Above.net, were a route to ORBS, then--
All he's saying is that with no formal design spec or test process, a system can't be considered secure. No. He's saying it can't be proven secure by certifying authority. It obvious that the Dr. is, excuse the cliche, "thinking inside the commercial software box" because he's defining "secure" as a certification process only achievable through a decision by committee. A very corporate/academic thought process that. The open source movement appears more interested in the end results. Can infinite monkeys pounding on keys produce better code than a well-designed comittee process? Eventually. *grin*
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Probably not, since Andover actually owns Slashdot. By its ownership, Andover has the potential to control what content appears on Slashdot and thus would share some legal liability for the content. The original charge made by the atheletes was suing them "as an ISP." That was quickly thrown out. They reapplied with a different charge. The company was also a "content provider" because they were the ones hosting the information on their webpage. This, also, was dismissed. This hits closer to Slashdot than one might think! The only difference being that Slashdot claims that comments are the responsiblity of the posters', not Slashdot.
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This sort of article appearing on Slashdot really makes me wonder... What kind of imagined ulterior motive could Jon possibly have to trash this movie?
You be the judge. Multiple choice:
A) He's short on John-Travolta stock and trying to make off with a bundle.
B) He's involved in some sort of anti-Scientologist conspiracy.
C) The movie truly sucked. I'll take (C) for 500 quatloos, Alex!
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I would tend to agree with the consensus that although it's a cool story, it is probably not true. I would just think that if that many AOL usernames were snagged, we would have heard about somewhere else. Anyone have any more info? As an active member of the anti-spam community. I would like to attest that everything here checks out. It's legit. It's also outrageous and amazing, but none of the anti-spammers has managed to poke any major holes in it; and they're a very suspicious bunch. Premier has been on the anti-spammers' radar, but hasn't drawn any abnormal amount of attention up to now. However, that has changed now that this information was released. I suspect the spammer's ICQ accounts are going to have to be changed from the sheer volume of anti-spammers giving them grief. I've seen quite a few logs of post-hack discussions; they're making all sorts of lawyer threats. Which would be suicide, of course, because that would bring even more publicity, something they can't afford.
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I also belive you should be able to leave your door unlocked. Just don't be surprised when your neighbors come for your head because someone is shooting a rifle at their houses from your house. Saying "my houseguest did it" is not going to fly. Even if the police don't arrest you, the hood is going to make your life hell.
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please don't refer to this as "manpower." Memo To All Factory Employees: First of all, we would like to thank all employees on the production line for the outstanding work that was done last month. We produced a record number of automobiles in April and are on track for another stellar month for May. Unfortunately, it has been brought to our attention that many employees are insisting on the use of the term horsepower when referring to our product specifications. We remind all employees that all media contacts should be referred to the PR department; and that the correct term is just power. This is due to the fact that the zebra lobby is very powerful and might misinterpret an offhand comment from an unsuspecting employee. Those of you who have them, please dispose of your office dictionaries containing this [now out-of-date] word definition in the bins provided. They may be found in the breakrooms and hallways of all corporate buildings. New dictionaries will be provided no later than 3rd fiscal quarter of 2001, in the meantime, please make due with the materials at hand. --
The Management P.S. A big thanks to Politically Correct Publishers who are giving us a HUGE bulk discount on the new dictionaries!
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Text trimmed: The writer could have used outlook express, or eudora, or pine, or any other email program had he wished to.. he simply programmed it for outlook. You're right, but a virus wouldn't be a virus if it couldn't spread. Outlook is what enabled it to spread. Anyone could have been infected, but only Outlook users were contagious. While innoculating potential victims against a disease is an admirable cause, going after the cause of the disease and eradicating it is going to get more immediate results for the effort expended. Disclaimer: All this puts aside the fact that "worm" is more descriptive of ILOVEYOU, but that's not really relevant to the thread.
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actually, it's pretty easy. do not hang up, do not yell, do not curse... very nicely say "please put this number on your company wide 'do not call' list" ...lather, rinse, and repeat... 100,000 times for each of the other telemarketers. Did you know that an umbrella will keep you dry if you jump in a swimming pool?
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If the only thing that is keeping you in your current job is the fact that you are the low bidder to do the work, you deserve to be flipping burgers. Exactly my point. Companies will, on the average, go with the lowest bidder. Which is going to be a lot closer to that $60k if the H1B visas are expanded. We seem to be on 2 different discussions here. I was answering your original question why there are people attempting to bust the illusion of a shortage. Good faith effort too. Instead, you turn on me; insulting, flaming and telling me I'm not worth a shit for not finding the market as lucrative as you have.
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That's funny, I know lots of people who make more than 60k..... I hope they enjoy their current jobs then, because if the market gets flooded with qualified 60k workers, and then they decide to change jobs, it might be a tad bit harder to find an equivalent salary elsewhere. No need to sneer. I'm not saying more visas is better or worse. I'm simply pointing out the economics of the situation. With 4 years military, a CS degree, and 2 years of unix experience, I sure didn't have anyone banging down my door last October. I feel the shortage is exaggerated.
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Why is everyone so intent on "disproving this myth" that there is an IT talent shortage? Don't you people know this gives you leverage when you negotiate your salary? If it were true then, yes, it would help me negotiate my salary; but it isn't. Instead, the impression that there is a shortage is being broadcast loudly by corporations via lobbyists to get the H1B visa cap raised. What does this mean for native U.S. IT workers? It effectively caps our salaries at 60k (or somewhere around there), because that's the minimum pay a foreign H1B holder can be paid. As distasteful as I find this, I can't complain too loudly, as I've always felt protectionism is wrong. Disclaimer: I'm working from memory here. The amounts may be be wrong, but the overall point is not.
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Still, I get about 1-5 spam messages per week. I don't find that number at all excessive. That's pretty low for your usage profile. /. today commented) get 10 spams for each email? I average about 10 a day, more or less. I'm not saying they don't exist: I'm wondering who they are, how they got targeted for this much spam, and how much they actually get charged for spam. 10 years on the net gets your name around. You wind up on all those email addy CDs. I, of my $20 for internet access, I would figure $3 of that my ISP must spend managing spam, those are $3 they could be better using to give me better service. That amount is growing. However, how much of a problem is it for individuals? Businesses, on the other hand, I can understand having a huge problem with spam. My time doesn't suddenly become less valuable once I'm at home. This means they're stealing from me, instead of my employers. This less of an annoyance? Anyhow, there are plenty of things that waste my time. Therefore, I'm not going after spammers for waste-of-time issues. Theft of service is the stronger point.
Right now, there are few spammers (but they're growing). What if spamming becomes legitimized in the eyes of the general public? If 1% of every small business in the U.S. decided to send you one email per year, your mailbox would be useless; even assuming the net backbone infrastructure could handle that load. (it can't) On the other hand, I get at least 3 circulars (other than for stores & such - counting these, I don't want to know) a day. As much as I dislike circulars, and feel they're a waste of my time, I'm not paying for them. I find them much less objectionable. For me, at least, spam is not near as big a problem as are circulars - at least in the realm of how many I receive per day. I don't find theft-in-quantity any more objectionable than small theft. They're profiting by stealing from me and, in addition, are annoying me (like circulars do). It's the addition of the "theft" part that differentiates them. How many people are bombarded with spam each day? 10s of millions. My rough guess based on the number of people online. Who are these people that (as someone somewhere on
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I don't pay a dime for the email i recieve. One flat fee gets me all the email and surfing i want. Your ignorance is showing. Maybe you need to tuck it into your belt and no one will notice.
Do you honestly think all that bandwidth is free? Oh no. You're paying for it, along with everyone else who put in their $20. That flat rate will increase as the spam increases. Only the anti-spam proponents and the beleagured ISPs are holding the line. What's gonna happen when 0.1% of every small business in America wants to send you a "special offer?" Your email address will be useless; with or without the delete key or filter lists. And sorting through spam amounts to the same inconvience as sorting through real mail for letters and bills and then throwing away what i don't want. I'm not arguing about the time wasted. My time is valuable, but that's not the heinous part. Therefore, I'm skipping the time-wasted part of it for now as it's a different issue. Laws could and should be enforced to kick off the trully fraudulent offers, but "legitatmate" spam should be allowed to exist. "Only 'legitimate advertisers' should be allowed to steal."
Not a chance.
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I don't have to pay for your T-shirt if i don't want it. Just like spam. Just like anything else. Unless you go ahead and charge me for it without me saying yes, do whatever you'd like. The cost of receiving email is borne principally by the recipients. This is an inverted economic structure from postal mail; in which the sender pays an incrementally higher cost per copy. I'm gonna steal your $1 so you can have the privilege of receiving a T-shirt whether you wanted the shirt or not. Still don't like it? Too bad, I've already got your $1. No refunds. Besides there are lots of people who want my T-shirts! [yeah right]
Anti-T-shirt-sending laws would inhibit my free speech. Spam isn't porn.
Spam isn't [necessarily] obscene.
Spam is theft.
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"I can't wear this shirt because it has DeCSSsource code written on it, and that's a violation of my right to free speech, but I don't like what this person's sending me so let's make a law that make's them stop... Better yet, let's devise a way to block them from accessing our internet!" Tell you what. I'm going to print up 10,000 DeCSS T-shirts at a cost of US$1.00 each. I'm then going to send everyone a T-shirt whether they want one or not.
Oh, by the way, you must pay $1 once yours arrives. What? You don't want it?
But... that's inhibiting my right to free speech!
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The "slashdot position" is that a little bit of censorship is like being a little bit pregnant. There's a "slashdot position"? I thought we were all individuals expressing our opinions. I feel so... homogenized now. Yet the "slashdoterotti" are delighted to have censorship for spammers. Why? Spammers annoy them, porn doesn't. Porn is about content. Spam is content neutral. This is a theft of service issue.
Do I own my mailbox or not? I say I do. Spammers say I don't. The law hasn't figured it out either way yet.
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That article clearly states that, and I quote verbatim: No Tax or duty shall be laid on Articles exported from any State. What part of this is ambiguous, and what part does not apply in this situation? Not only that, but just below, in article 1 section 10 (Powers prohibited of States) it clearly states that No State shall, without the Consent of the Congress, lay any Imposts or Duties on Imports or Exports.. They're not taxing the import or export. They're taxing the sale; just as they would if a resident of that state bought it locally. The tax-proponents are claiming that the fact that it leaves the state after the sale has no effect on the taxation of the sale. Your line of thought that no special rules should be implemented against out-of-state buyers only reinforces the pro-taxation argument. Currently, out-of-state buyers have a loophole where they can [technically illegally] not pay state tax, something in-state state buyers can't do. They are proposing to close this inequality somehow.
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Ever watch any of those insipid infomercials?
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They clearly state that residents of the state in which the business is located (and typically one or two specific other states) must include x% sales tax. Now, if you live in one of the other 46-48 states, you pay no sales tax. You paid no sales tax. What you didn't know (until just now because I'm telling you) is that you were supposed to pay it. What? You didn't know this? Yes. All these years you haven't been paying it, you've been breaking the law. Don't worry, so have I. You see, the onus of paying these interstate taxes has been on you, not the seller. So, of course, people just ignored it. Is Congress considering taxing these transactions? Not to my knowledge.
Congress is part of the federal government and, up to now, has been preventing the states from taxing these transactions. IMO, internet sales are no different. I could live with taxation of goods involved in intrastate commerce, but interstate commerce is another matter. I agree that internet interstate sales are no different than old interstate sales. The fact that you're ordering electronically is no different than catalog ordering. The key is that the internet has made interstate purchasing so easy! People are doing it in record numbers now, at the expense of brick-and-mortar businesses and local tax revenues. Therefore, since their influx of cash is fading, the powers that be are taking another look at a loophole in enforcement that has been previously ignored as too small a problem. That great technology that is causing the interstate commerce boom is the same technology that is going to help them push the responsibility of collecting interstate taxes onto the sellers. It'll be hard for them to claim "it's too complex for us to track all those rates" when there are a dozen software packages you can buy that will do this automatically with your shopping cart software.
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I got the impression from the letter from @Home that their (my freinds) news access would be terminated if they where caught running a proxy server. I'm not familiar with @Home's AUP regarding servers. Other's have stated that no servers are permitted at all. Scanning for an "open server" and "any proxy server" would be two vastly different tasks. Testing for an "exploitable open server" would be simple. Just attempt to exploit a few well-known ports (Usenet ports in this case) and watch for the results. This is what I interpreted they were going to do. It is neither processor or bandwidth intense on an individual test basis. However, testing to see if someone is using a [secure] proxy server or not is an another animal. This entails unwrapping the TCP/IP packets and peeking inside to see if they're "nesting" packet information from machines behind the proxy. This is much more difficult. So much so that I doubt they'll do it. However, if they do... well... it's their network, and those users are violating the AUP. As distasteful at it may be. I won't use the word painful, but scanning someone else system/network/home is just plain creepy. I can understand your privacy concerns. However, the internet is, and has always been, a cooperative community. This implies a responsibility not to present a "public meanace" to your neighbors. Unfortunately, the advent of easy-to-use proxy software, which happens to come out of the box unsecure, has unleashed hordes of wanna-be administrators that don't know the consequences of what they're doing to the rest of the community. Catching and educating these pseudo-admins can only be achieved through pro-active measure (scanning for them). And, through custom, the prerogative and responsibility of doing this falls on the upstream provider. Failing that, the community at large takes up the stick (UDP).
essentially, they are saying taht it's clients who've set up proxy servers incorrectly, and that they will be more aggresive in helping customers fix mis-configured proxy servers. Anything to shift the blame to anyone other than themselves This has been a known problem from @Home in the e-mail abuse world as well, not just Usenet. Spammers use these open systems to relay e-mail spam. I believe they're not blowing smoke about the nature of the problem, but whether they have the skill, or desire, to implement the solution is questionable. It looks like Keeman the Klueless is going to be busy.
They are a bunch of fsck twits, I say the go though with the UDP just because @Home is so fscking stupid and trying to push this PR/Marketing BS off for actucally doing some type of security on their own network. It makes more sense to go after the [arguably] few people who run unsecure setups. Compare this quantity of work to the potenial nightmare of teaching every single @Home Usenet reader how to configure their software to authenticate and the solution of least resistance seems pretty clear. It is a pity that "your friends" are the victims of others' lack of admin experience. Yet, I fail to see where the massive inconvenience is. Are a few scan packets every week going to be that painful? Must be some sensitive systems! Should something that sensitive be on the internet?