Point 1: It would be easy enough for an ISP to opt-in on a case by case basis so users could pay $20/month for access but $25/month for "premium" access.
I'm not sure if I understand what you're saying? Are you saying that ISPs would create tiered services where their users would opt in for access to restricted sites. This would mean that someone like CNN would go from 1 million readers to something like 20 thousand. First, many ISPs won't be extorted like this and will pass on it, most likely cutting CNN to something like 20% of its current traffic. Then if end users of the ISPs who do pay have to opt-in to get access to the one or two top sites they want access to, many would pass on the additional $5 for those couple of sites. If 10% actually opt-in, your talking about cutting down to 2% of the original visitors.
If instead you mean that content providers might strip adds if ISPs pay them to (basically bulk subscription), that would be interesting, but still unlikely.
Point 3: Thats the thing about the internet, they wouldn't have to get to every ISP, just a few. Those could then sell full access or proxy access. "Your ISP isn't signed up for Slashdot? Pay $5 to foobar.com and get Slashdot and 50 other great sites!"
Proxy access has a few problems. First, many site visitors won't go looking for a proxy until the site is no longer reachable. Some sites may redirect the requests to a list of paid ISPs and proxies, but that could be a hassle to maintain.
Second, if the only site you want out of the ones offered by the proxy is Slashdot, would you pay $5 for access to it?
Third, users won't be able to go to slashdot.org via a proxy by typing slasdot.org into their browser instead they'd have to go to something like foobar.com/?slashdot.org and then foobar.org will have to rewrite all the internal site URLs.
Do you? Netscape killed Netscape, but I wouldn't expect a Slashdotter to understand.
Well, perhaps this is a troll, but I'll bite.
I've been using Netscape since version 0.99. And watched its demise. As the courts have upheld, Microsoft abused it's market position to paint Netscape into a corner. If you've built a business on selling an Internet Suite (TCP stack, Browser, Mail and News programs), how do you compete with a competitor that not only gives the same stuff away, but pays ISPs to give it away (and bars them from supporting Netscape as part of the distro agreement)? Remember that when IE was first added to Windows (part of 95b) you could download netscape, but it was at a blazing 33.6kbps max speed.
I'm sure Netscape could have done a better job defending itself, but being inept at self defense is not the same thing as suicide.
They would do this in order to take the content away from the small ISP's, which in turn would drive more users to the large ISP's. Then once again the larger services are giving away what the smaller services cannot afford to.
You raise a good point, however I think that large ISPs could only keep out the small ones if the content providers were willing to charge a flat, high price. I don't think content providers would expect some mom and pop ISP to pay as much as AOL for access to their site.
Also, content providers would have to be willing to cut off the majority of their visitors if they only deal with large ISPs. If you look at the access stats for a large site, the highest percentage for a given domain (usually AOL, is in the teens.) This would likely be death for community sites, like/. for example. They'd have to blindly abandon their current business model and put themselves at the mercy of getting all their revenue from a few large clients.
It's not unimaginable, just highly unlikely and doomed to fail.
From a peer's point of view a content provider will consume bandwith, it might provide bits... but it still consumes bandwith. Only backbones provide bandwith, hosts never.
Actually, backbones provide bandwidth capacity, not bandwidth data. Hosts are responsible for nearly all of the data. Some of it is fairly symetrical (e.g. SMTP) and some (e.g. streaming media) is highly assymetrical. In a settlement system, things like email would essentially be a wash. NNTP and the various 'web' protocols have the greatest imbalance.
If you have a T3 peering connection, you'd compare the difference between inbound and outbound traffic over that connection and settle the difference. If you've got nothing but web hosts on your side, you'll send more bandwidth out over that connection than you'll receive in over it (something like 6:1.) If you've got nothing but modems, you'll see almost the exact opposite in traffic patterns (1:6.)
The biggest side effect of this would be higher prices for bandwidth capacity for small ISPs who'll have to learn how to provide collocation services to balance their circuit, or die.
It might be a nice idea in theory to charge towards peers who consume data and away from peers who provide data, with a slight surcharge per bit to pay for bandwith costs, but hosting a spammer or a DOS attack will provide data just as well as good content.
DOS attacks are illegal and hosting spammers will turn your ISP into a rogue that'll be blacklisted by groups like MAPs and most have acceptible use clauses in the bandwidth agreements with their backbone provider. The last ISP that actively pursued spammers as customers, AGIS, was virtually destroyed by it. Even their legitimate customers found their email blocked as AGIS found their entire IP space blocked my mail administrators.
Also keep in mind that settlements will provide a mechanism to pay for quality multi-media content. It'll also reduce some of the strain on the backbone by encouraging ISPs to implement caching of static content.
This will not happen in the US for several reasons, including:
The only sites that have enough of a percentage of any one ISPs user base that an ISP would even consider paying, are the ones already making money. Usually, it's is the big guys in price wars who give it away to eliminate competition (remember how Microsoft killed Netscape's 90% marketshare.)
There are better models under consideration. A better system is settlements. Like the current TelCo model, peers pay each other for the imbalance of traffic across their peering points. The concensus opinion on how to do it is to pass the charge toward the people consuming bandwidth away from the people providing it. This would ultimately drop the cost of being on the Internet for the people who are providing content. One of the chief reasons this hasn't happened yet was PSINet's refusal to go along with it (reason they offered free peering.) Now their failing and turning off peers.
Who is an ISP? Internet access comes in more forms than simply from a traditional ISP. It would be a major undertaking just to contact all of the people who control an access point to the Internet. There's something like 14M usuable Class C networks in the IP v4 address space. Even if the typical ISP has 10 of them, that's still 1.4M places to try to shake down for money. Good luck reliably figuring out which are in the US.
The constitution doesnt guarantee anonymous speech. In Talley v California (1960), three of the justices said "I stand second to none in supporting Talley's right of free speech -- but not his freedom of anonymity. The Constitution says nothing about freedom of anonymous speech."
One small but significant point here. You're quoting the decenting opinion. Here's a quote from the judgement:
... This ordinance simply bars all handbills under all circumstances anywhere that do not have the names and addresses printed on them in the place the ordinance requires.
There can be no doubt that such an identification requirement would tend to restrict freedom to distribute information and thereby freedom of expression....
My emphasis added. Anonymous speech is an essential defense of liberty. Thomas Paine's Common Sense, a lightning rod for popular support of the American revolution, was an anonymous publication.
This means aliens won't come steal our precious water and sell it $1,000,000,000/gram on the galactic market after all. What a relief!
Maybe this is bad news. Maybe NASA was hoping to get out of the red by selling water to thirsty aliens. So much for the Culligan module on Alpha (or whatever it's called today)
PC manufacturers will have the option to remove the Start menu entries and icons that provide end users with access to the Internet Explorer components of the operating system. Microsoft will include Internet Explorer in the Add/Remove programs feature in Windows XP.
How gracious of them. Note how this does not say that OEMs can actually *remove* the IE software itself. Proof that this isn't just an oversight in the phrasing comes in another benefit where "consumers will have the option to remove the IE program using Add/Remove Programs."
Oh, and won't it be grand to have the desktop icons as added revenue for OEMs. I'm gonna hold out for the Gateway "HornyGuy 3000" which comes with a desktop full of 31337 pr0n link icons.
As others have pointed out, it's looking for really bad first sentences to fictional novels. Their submissions are made up for the contest, by the participants. However, here's the original that inspired it (sorry, but you asked):
"It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents --except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in
London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness."
--Paul Clifford (1830) by Edward George Earl Bulwer-Lytton (1803-73)
Does the U.S. Congress have the authority to regulate taxes on space-commerce (as they have claimed the authority to do so regarding e-commerce, namely, saying there is no tax)?
Two things. First this is an issue of property tax, not some kind of commerce related thing (like sales tax)
Second, if the US has ratified any treaty saying that space is unowned, it puts these into the federal governments' power to regulate trade as the satellites are outside the US.
Of course, IANAL, as such, those are just my uninformed opinions. Just my $.02, keep the change.
According to the State of Georgia, one single Distributed.net client costs 59 cents per second in datatraffic.
First, let me start by saying that they're on crack as far as this goes. Maybe it uses that much for the rare second it actually uses the network, but even then, they're getting raped by their bandwidth provider.
Of course, what this guy failed to recognize is that access != permission. Just because you have access to a computer doesn't mean you can do whatever you please with it.
This was just stupid, but they're WAY off on the damages. As for the jail time, they're probably equally off base. Heck, if the math finally works out to less than $1000 worth of bandwidth, he probably cannot even get jail time.
My APEX player, with loopholes, was made in China. Actually, APEX got in a lot of trouble with MPAA over the loopholes menu. They claimed that the Chinese left it open;)
Similarly, some toolkits are designed for purposes other than breaking into someone else's servers.
1. Can anyone name a legal use for a root kit?
2. Can anyone justify blindly distributing root kits through pratices like anonymous FTP?
While I cannot think of a reason to write a root kit, other than for hacking into a computer I don't have root access on, I'm willing to concede that one of you might. But, knowing the power of such a tool, how could any author take a hands off approach in its distribution and not expect some responsiblity for the havoc it causes.
To use your gun anology it doesn't matter that a gun is designed only to kill. It only matters if someone uses it to unjustifiably do so.
Some guns are illegal or very tightly regulated (e.g. automatic weapons.) There are legal distinctions about the intended use of the gun.
While a root kit *can* be used to do lawful things, they are typically written with the intent to, at the very least, trespass.
Making something that has no lawful purpose, regardless of intent, and acting with little or no descretion in its distribution, could easily be considered facilitation at the very least.
You should be able to charge rent for the sq ft it occupies in your apartment.
Actually, with proper notice, I believe you can infact do just that. But figuring out what you need to do vs what is a reasonable cost to store something the size of a modem would seem to be a waste of time.
Your state may also have a statute about when these kind of things become "abandoned." You are not obliged to hold onto it indefinitely. At some point, if they fail to facilitate its return, it should become yours. You might have to tell them, in writing that you're gonna keep it if they don't pick it up in X # of days.
Could this be applied to the terms and services links that are common at the bottom of some websites?
You're probably right that they're not gonna be valid unless you have to click an affirmation of them. However, most that I've seen are like a short "Copyright Law for Dummies."
The ones that do more than reiterate copyright law, usually have some interactive feature that they're trying to regulate use of. They would be wise to have a click-through Terms of Use page whenever someone goes to create a login to use those features. Ones that allow you to use interactive features anonymously get what they deserve and having an agreement for their main page won't help them.
Kinda makes me wonder what sort of De Facto license there is on software. As one of the millions of people who've downloaded software under this arrangement, do I still have the right to use it? Is Netscape simply out of luck on some provisions (e.g. do not redistribute)? I'd hate to think that I have no rights regarding the software. Likewise, I'd hate to think Netscape has no rights. Where does a decision like this leave us?
You may be getting your wish. For example, Arizona just recently passed a bill popularly referred to as the "Stupid Drive Law" which requires that if a driver enters a flooded road and needs to be rescued, they pay for the rescue.
I too wonder when it became government's responsibility to protect stupid people from themselves. Maybe they figure it's only stupid people that will volunteer to go fight in wars for the rest of us.
Of course, most stupid people, if left to fend for themselves, will end up broke and starving way more often than accidentally killing themselves. Broke and starving people make for desperate criminals. Perhaps it's cheaper to protect them from themselves than to protect others from them.
So, which one of these amendments do these systems violate, in your opinion? If you believe that the Fourth Amendment protects against this, you're wrong. There are a number of precidents set for the government to capture unique personal information and later use that information for identification. Fingerprints, DNA, and now Biometrics are all things that are not afforded Constitutional protection. Using any of these things is not a search or seizure of your person. For example, if someone takes a picture of you, they're capturing light that has bounced of you.
I don't look forward to how wide spread this is gonna get and the extremes that it'll get taken to, but there's nothing unconstitutional about the practice.
"Doesn't Microsoft know they are not the Government?"
This is one of the few things I find easy to understand about Microsoft. Ever since Bill Gates started marketing "his" < 4k implementation of Basic, he's had a thing about people "stealing" software by making copies they haven't paid for.
Their licenses and all other documentation is written as if they need to threaten you to keep you from violating it. It's Bill's personal pet peeve made into corporate culture.
Filming The Matrix in space might have made it easier for the actors to walk all over the place on the walls and the ceiling, and do super-duper zero-gee stuffs.
While zero-g means that you wouldn't fall off the ceiling while walking on it, the act of walking would send you hurtling toward the floor.
I always thought Linux meant to be the most stable, productive and fun Operating System... how is copying everything that Microsoft does going to make that happen???
Excellent question. Here's another one: Do you use an actual IBM PC or someone elses clone?
We can have a fun operating system AND move to marginalize MS by making.NET tools into a commodity product. MS is throwing a great deal of resources at.NET with the expectation that they'll make money off it. If the Linux community delivers a.NET "clone", well that's one more thing to legitimize Linux in the eyes of the masses and give MS haters something to beat their chest about.
Slashdot Mirror
Point 1: It would be easy enough for an ISP to opt-in on a case by case basis so users could pay $20/month for access but $25/month for "premium" access.
I'm not sure if I understand what you're saying? Are you saying that ISPs would create tiered services where their users would opt in for access to restricted sites. This would mean that someone like CNN would go from 1 million readers to something like 20 thousand. First, many ISPs won't be extorted like this and will pass on it, most likely cutting CNN to something like 20% of its current traffic. Then if end users of the ISPs who do pay have to opt-in to get access to the one or two top sites they want access to, many would pass on the additional $5 for those couple of sites. If 10% actually opt-in, your talking about cutting down to 2% of the original visitors.
If instead you mean that content providers might strip adds if ISPs pay them to (basically bulk subscription), that would be interesting, but still unlikely.
Point 3: Thats the thing about the internet, they wouldn't have to get to every ISP, just a few. Those could then sell full access or proxy access. "Your ISP isn't signed up for Slashdot? Pay $5 to foobar.com and get Slashdot and 50 other great sites!"
Proxy access has a few problems. First, many site visitors won't go looking for a proxy until the site is no longer reachable. Some sites may redirect the requests to a list of paid ISPs and proxies, but that could be a hassle to maintain.
Second, if the only site you want out of the ones offered by the proxy is Slashdot, would you pay $5 for access to it?
Third, users won't be able to go to slashdot.org via a proxy by typing slasdot.org into their browser instead they'd have to go to something like foobar.com/?slashdot.org and then foobar.org will have to rewrite all the internal site URLs.
Do you? Netscape killed Netscape, but I wouldn't expect a Slashdotter to understand.
Well, perhaps this is a troll, but I'll bite.
I've been using Netscape since version 0.99. And watched its demise. As the courts have upheld, Microsoft abused it's market position to paint Netscape into a corner. If you've built a business on selling an Internet Suite (TCP stack, Browser, Mail and News programs), how do you compete with a competitor that not only gives the same stuff away, but pays ISPs to give it away (and bars them from supporting Netscape as part of the distro agreement)? Remember that when IE was first added to Windows (part of 95b) you could download netscape, but it was at a blazing 33.6kbps max speed.
I'm sure Netscape could have done a better job defending itself, but being inept at self defense is not the same thing as suicide.
They would do this in order to take the content away from the small ISP's, which in turn would drive more users to the large ISP's. Then once again the larger services are giving away what the smaller services cannot afford to.
/. for example. They'd have to blindly abandon their current business model and put themselves at the mercy of getting all their revenue from a few large clients.
You raise a good point, however I think that large ISPs could only keep out the small ones if the content providers were willing to charge a flat, high price. I don't think content providers would expect some mom and pop ISP to pay as much as AOL for access to their site.
Also, content providers would have to be willing to cut off the majority of their visitors if they only deal with large ISPs. If you look at the access stats for a large site, the highest percentage for a given domain (usually AOL, is in the teens.) This would likely be death for community sites, like
It's not unimaginable, just highly unlikely and doomed to fail.
From a peer's point of view a content provider will consume bandwith, it might provide bits... but it still consumes bandwith. Only backbones provide bandwith, hosts never.
Actually, backbones provide bandwidth capacity, not bandwidth data. Hosts are responsible for nearly all of the data. Some of it is fairly symetrical (e.g. SMTP) and some (e.g. streaming media) is highly assymetrical. In a settlement system, things like email would essentially be a wash. NNTP and the various 'web' protocols have the greatest imbalance.
If you have a T3 peering connection, you'd compare the difference between inbound and outbound traffic over that connection and settle the difference. If you've got nothing but web hosts on your side, you'll send more bandwidth out over that connection than you'll receive in over it (something like 6:1.) If you've got nothing but modems, you'll see almost the exact opposite in traffic patterns (1:6.)
The biggest side effect of this would be higher prices for bandwidth capacity for small ISPs who'll have to learn how to provide collocation services to balance their circuit, or die.
It might be a nice idea in theory to charge towards peers who consume data and away from peers who provide data, with a slight surcharge per bit to pay for bandwith costs, but hosting a spammer or a DOS attack will provide data just as well as good content.
DOS attacks are illegal and hosting spammers will turn your ISP into a rogue that'll be blacklisted by groups like MAPs and most have acceptible use clauses in the bandwidth agreements with their backbone provider. The last ISP that actively pursued spammers as customers, AGIS, was virtually destroyed by it. Even their legitimate customers found their email blocked as AGIS found their entire IP space blocked my mail administrators.
Also keep in mind that settlements will provide a mechanism to pay for quality multi-media content. It'll also reduce some of the strain on the backbone by encouraging ISPs to implement caching of static content.
% whois
No match for domain "ALPHASUCKS.COM".
One small but significant point here. You're quoting the decenting opinion. Here's a quote from the judgement:
My emphasis added. Anonymous speech is an essential defense of liberty. Thomas Paine's Common Sense, a lightning rod for popular support of the American revolution, was an anonymous publication.
This means aliens won't come steal our precious water and sell it $1,000,000,000/gram on the galactic market after all. What a relief!
Maybe this is bad news. Maybe NASA was hoping to get out of the red by selling water to thirsty aliens. So much for the Culligan module on Alpha (or whatever it's called today)
How gracious of them. Note how this does not say that OEMs can actually *remove* the IE software itself. Proof that this isn't just an oversight in the phrasing comes in another benefit where "consumers will have the option to remove the IE program using Add/Remove Programs."
Oh, and won't it be grand to have the desktop icons as added revenue for OEMs. I'm gonna hold out for the Gateway "HornyGuy 3000" which comes with a desktop full of 31337 pr0n link icons.
Big deal! bah.
As others have pointed out, it's looking for really bad first sentences to fictional novels. Their submissions are made up for the contest, by the participants. However, here's the original that inspired it (sorry, but you asked):
Not sure what the tax rate is in LA, but if it's like 5%, then the annual tax on eight satellites would be like $40M/year.
Sounds like a good reason to load up the truck and move out of Beverly.
Does the U.S. Congress have the authority to regulate taxes on space-commerce (as they have claimed the authority to do so regarding e-commerce, namely, saying there is no tax)?
Two things. First this is an issue of property tax, not some kind of commerce related thing (like sales tax)
Second, if the US has ratified any treaty saying that space is unowned, it puts these into the federal governments' power to regulate trade as the satellites are outside the US.
Of course, IANAL, as such, those are just my uninformed opinions. Just my $.02, keep the change.
According to the State of Georgia, one single Distributed.net client costs 59 cents per second in datatraffic.
First, let me start by saying that they're on crack as far as this goes. Maybe it uses that much for the rare second it actually uses the network, but even then, they're getting raped by their bandwidth provider.
Of course, what this guy failed to recognize is that access != permission. Just because you have access to a computer doesn't mean you can do whatever you please with it.
This was just stupid, but they're WAY off on the damages. As for the jail time, they're probably equally off base. Heck, if the math finally works out to less than $1000 worth of bandwidth, he probably cannot even get jail time.
My APEX player, with loopholes, was made in China. Actually, APEX got in a lot of trouble with MPAA over the loopholes menu. They claimed that the Chinese left it open ;)
Similarly, some toolkits are designed for purposes other than breaking into someone else's servers.
1. Can anyone name a legal use for a root kit?
2. Can anyone justify blindly distributing root kits through pratices like anonymous FTP?
While I cannot think of a reason to write a root kit, other than for hacking into a computer I don't have root access on, I'm willing to concede that one of you might. But, knowing the power of such a tool, how could any author take a hands off approach in its distribution and not expect some responsiblity for the havoc it causes.
To use your gun anology it doesn't matter that a gun is designed only to kill. It only matters if someone uses it to unjustifiably do so.
Some guns are illegal or very tightly regulated (e.g. automatic weapons.) There are legal distinctions about the intended use of the gun.
While a root kit *can* be used to do lawful things, they are typically written with the intent to, at the very least, trespass.
Making something that has no lawful purpose, regardless of intent, and acting with little or no descretion in its distribution, could easily be considered facilitation at the very least.
You should be able to charge rent for the sq ft it occupies in your apartment.
Actually, with proper notice, I believe you can infact do just that. But figuring out what you need to do vs what is a reasonable cost to store something the size of a modem would seem to be a waste of time.
Your state may also have a statute about when these kind of things become "abandoned." You are not obliged to hold onto it indefinitely. At some point, if they fail to facilitate its return, it should become yours. You might have to tell them, in writing that you're gonna keep it if they don't pick it up in X # of days.
Could this be applied to the terms and services links that are common at the bottom of some websites?
You're probably right that they're not gonna be valid unless you have to click an affirmation of them. However, most that I've seen are like a short "Copyright Law for Dummies."
The ones that do more than reiterate copyright law, usually have some interactive feature that they're trying to regulate use of. They would be wise to have a click-through Terms of Use page whenever someone goes to create a login to use those features. Ones that allow you to use interactive features anonymously get what they deserve and having an agreement for their main page won't help them.
Kinda makes me wonder what sort of De Facto license there is on software. As one of the millions of people who've downloaded software under this arrangement, do I still have the right to use it? Is Netscape simply out of luck on some provisions (e.g. do not redistribute)? I'd hate to think that I have no rights regarding the software. Likewise, I'd hate to think Netscape has no rights. Where does a decision like this leave us?
You may be getting your wish. For example, Arizona just recently passed a bill popularly referred to as the "Stupid Drive Law" which requires that if a driver enters a flooded road and needs to be rescued, they pay for the rescue.
I too wonder when it became government's responsibility to protect stupid people from themselves. Maybe they figure it's only stupid people that will volunteer to go fight in wars for the rest of us.
Of course, most stupid people, if left to fend for themselves, will end up broke and starving way more often than accidentally killing themselves. Broke and starving people make for desperate criminals. Perhaps it's cheaper to protect them from themselves than to protect others from them.
So, which one of these amendments do these systems violate, in your opinion? If you believe that the Fourth Amendment protects against this, you're wrong. There are a number of precidents set for the government to capture unique personal information and later use that information for identification. Fingerprints, DNA, and now Biometrics are all things that are not afforded Constitutional protection. Using any of these things is not a search or seizure of your person. For example, if someone takes a picture of you, they're capturing light that has bounced of you.
I don't look forward to how wide spread this is gonna get and the extremes that it'll get taken to, but there's nothing unconstitutional about the practice.
"Doesn't Microsoft know they are not the Government?"
This is one of the few things I find easy to understand about Microsoft. Ever since Bill Gates started marketing "his" < 4k implementation of Basic, he's had a thing about people "stealing" software by making copies they haven't paid for.
Their licenses and all other documentation is written as if they need to threaten you to keep you from violating it. It's Bill's personal pet peeve made into corporate culture.
Oh, well if you've got users to torture, try aliasing some common commands on them, like this:
alias rm echo "Sorry, but No! Request sent to your boss"
alias mv echo "Won't budge, press any key to delete."
Filming The Matrix in space might have made it easier for the actors to walk all over the place on the walls and the ceiling, and do super-duper zero-gee stuffs.
While zero-g means that you wouldn't fall off the ceiling while walking on it, the act of walking would send you hurtling toward the floor.
I always thought Linux meant to be the most stable, productive and fun Operating System... how is copying everything that Microsoft does going to make that happen???
.NET tools into a commodity product. MS is throwing a great deal of resources at .NET with the expectation that they'll make money off it. If the Linux community delivers a .NET "clone", well that's one more thing to legitimize Linux in the eyes of the masses and give MS haters something to beat their chest about.
Excellent question. Here's another one: Do you use an actual IBM PC or someone elses clone?
We can have a fun operating system AND move to marginalize MS by making