ICANN and the internet registries should start charging maintenance fees.
For a small charge of, say, 1 dollar a year per IP address, you get the privilege of having a routeable IP address, officially recognized by the IANA and all the global internet registries.
You quit paying your maintenance fee, boom, you lose your address, and it goes to someone else.
This token amount would, as a result of being very small for a single IP address, but large for address space hogs, encourage economy and get them to give up the masses of IPs that they're squatting on.
Also, we need to move away from this "ownership" paradigm. Routing protocols like BGP greatly benefit from aggregation, which, in turn, can be facilitated by heirarchial numbering schemes. Ownership and squatting kill those.
With such extreme punishments though, I'd want strong controls to make DAMN SURE that the justice system doesn't screw it up.
I agree that white collar crime needs more punishment, and massive forfeiture is probably a good start, as most of their assets are probably illegal anyway.
Working them to pieces and saying "if you can't get medical care then screw you" pretty much amounts to capital punishment, so I wouldn't go that far.
Scammers are humans. They are scum, but still, they're human.
The fallacy in your comparison of Redhat to the Soviet gov't is that developers working for Red Hat have a choice.
If you don't want to play ball with them, the worst that could happen is that you'd be out of a job, or working with someone else, or perhaps even doing freelance work.
Against the repressive communist regime, bucking the system could very well be hazardous to your health.
Perhaps, also, putting up with the constant boredom of non-creative work is worth the bulk of the profits. Something about intrinsic value of creativity being its own reward or something.
At any rate, Linus Torvalds (or any other programmer) is nowhere NEAR in the same position as Alexy. They don't have potential death warrants hanging over their heads for speaking out, a relevant point, as governments that are economically repressive are often politically repressive as well.
Effectively, yes, but in this case the free market effects it.
If every ISP jumps on the G-rated bandwagon as a parent-friendly market maneuver, that's purely capitalism at its raw, uncut self. It would be just like everyone boycotting the NRA because of its liberal views.
The distinction that prevents this from being censorship is that compliance is purely voluntary.
It's like this:
If I sell earplugs so nobody has to listen to you, I'm not engaged in censorship.
If I start duct taping your mouth shut so you can't speak, THAT's censorship.
If p2p traffic like bittorrent really is cloggin their pipes, why don't they just start charging for it?
Media, legal or not, is friggin HUGE. Even a second of video in ANY format is going to take up a good chunk of space. So charging to carry it would bring in a crapload of service charges.
So let Comcast switch to a per-megabyte policy, and then they can rake in some BIG DOUGH.
Why aren't they?
Comcast's meddling makes no sense from a profit making point of view...they're passing up a major source of revenue.
Hmm...is the RIAA pressuring them to meddle with BT? Are some powerful media interests jingling the changebox or playing hardball?
Actually if your ISP has a decent proxy server and especially if you are using HTTP keepalive, your web traffic gets consolidated before the NAT kicks in.
I agree that computer-literate legislation is badly needed. However, the basic analogies still hold.
Internet access is very much a utility, *paid for* by a specific person.
If internet access was truly a cooperative peer-peer effort, then perhaps there should be an "internet tax" levied on the general population, and the proceeds used to supply free internet for everyone.
However, internet access, like electricity and water, is a utility, and should therefore be treated as such.
If I weren't the one picking up the tab for hotspot leakage, I might very well not mind sharing the bounty. But as long as it's coming out of my own pocket, you damn well better believe that I'll exercise my prerogative to say exactly who can and cannot use it.
System administrators and network sysops get to pull rank because they pay the bills, so why shouldn't I?
Suppose that I am an incompetent nincompoop who couldn't figure out how to secure my wireless router. You, looking for a hot spot, decide to leech, and as a result, you run up my wireless bill.
Now maybe my router did give you permission, but maybe it (and me) just either didn't want to, or couldn't figure out how to tell your device apart from my own devices.
It's just like an idiot who leaves his front door unlocked. An unlocked door does not automatically give you permission to enter. You set foot in my house without my OK, you are trespassing, lock or not. A lock doesn't grant or deny permission, it's merely an enforcement mechanism.
I may be stupid and lazy if I don't put a lock on my door, but a lack of lock doesn't give you the right to just barge in.
Similiarly, whether or not my device elects to service yours may have nothing to do with my property rights. You are running up my wireless bill without my consent, and it's just as if you stuck a machine into my outlets and ran up my power bill. My device might accept your device's requests simply because it doesn't know any better (the "no lock on the front door") part. It's still not my device that's accessing it, and furthermore, I'm not even sure if my "device" has legal power of attorney to grant access on my behalf.
Two cases where it most DEFINITELY doesn't follow is if you use forged credentials or MAC addresses to masquerade or bypass my security, and cracking my passwords and then leeching.
Just because my *device* says it's ok, doesn't mean that *I* do. There could very well be a hardware defect that lets you in. Almost like some nut case putting a sign on my front door without my permission that says "come in"
Yes, it's a right, but that doesn't make it right.
I have the right to be a total asshole and kick you out of my private club just because I don't like the color of your hair, or because your wife made a snide commment about my business.
But you can't do shit because it's my club and I'll invite and give the boot to anybody I damn please.
All this "at-will" crap is, at best, a shortcut to keep a company from being tied up with red tape when it can make a local "referee call" much cheaper and faster than if it had to go through the same motions a landlord does when evicting someone.
However, at worst, it's just an excuse to throw your weight around and either tighten a leash around someone's freedoms, or just plain be a jerk. With "at will" employment, I can be as much of an asshole as I want to and there's not a thing you can do about it. Perfect for me, because I'm a big company and can afford to be a jerk. Nice way to satisfy my ego and make "power plays" whenever I feel the need to agress, as Freud would say.
You, however, are depending on my payroll department for your very survival, and so you had better toe the mark and do what I say. When your job is held hostage, your freedoms are quite limited indeed. You pretty much have a gun to your head in the form of "talk nice about us or we'll fire you", so you really don't have much choice but to keep your trap shut if you value your career.
Of course, I hope that this guy didn't sign any NDA's. If he did, then
A) He would have been fired "for cause" B) He would have broken a civil contrac clause.
Otherwise, I hope this guy gives a blog rant to make CNN regret firing him. Now that he's already been terminated, CNN no longer has anything to use as leverage to keep him quiet.
Considering all the FUD they spew, plus all the lobbying they do, software patents should be limited to what they are supposed to be limited to, not perpetuated endlessly.
Honestly, if software patents expired HALF as quickly as they were supposed to, the EFF would have a crapload lighter of a workload.
Unfortunately, duress is an affirmative defense that you have to raise yourself...and if the person putting you under duress does a nice enough job of sweeping the evidence under the rug, you're screwed.
Sorta like being held indefinitely by the FBI as a terrorist until you confess, and you are tortured without witnesses.
Good luck recanting, some guy already tried that and failed.
Having someone else do your dirty work for you brings in all the vagaries of agency law:)
Re:Do you accept these terms? Only option is "Next
on
UK Report Slams EULAs
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· Score: 1
I think that counts as duress, becuase you've already repartitioned/reformatted/whatever you call it, and anything you had before is kaplooey.
They should make you agree to it BEFORE you install it. Won't do much as far as enforceability is concerned, but it will let you decide on how you want your eggs before they've already been cooked.
What's sad is that it's thanks to crooks like him that compnaies even NEED to spend on security costs in the first place.
If there were no burglars, we wouldn't need locks on our doors.
So, individually, a crook can break in and we can lock them up, but collectively they can jack up security costs and we can't do a damn thing about it?
Give me a break.
Put some more teeth into laws against stealing and start throwing some of those bastards in jail. And get some non-asshat prosecutors who actually know what they're doing at the wheel.
Proceeds of crime would actually be the perfect way to seize these ill gotten gains.
Slashdot Mirror
GP's statement about a need for software patents was a qualified one requiring a few changes to the status quo, Obi-Wan.
Actually copyright infringement can be considered criminal.
Ever see those "FBI Warnings" on movies that say it could be a federal offense?
I hear that from chinese folks.
I hear "wakime honsaitemo makimukemotosande desdensai saiyan dbz pokemon kitsune warimesu" from japanese folks.
ICANN and the internet registries should start charging maintenance fees.
For a small charge of, say, 1 dollar a year per IP address, you get the privilege of having a routeable IP address, officially recognized by the IANA and all the global internet registries.
You quit paying your maintenance fee, boom, you lose your address, and it goes to someone else.
This token amount would, as a result of being very small for a single IP address, but large for address space hogs, encourage economy and get them to give up the masses of IPs that they're squatting on.
Also, we need to move away from this "ownership" paradigm. Routing protocols like BGP greatly benefit from aggregation, which, in turn, can be facilitated by heirarchial numbering schemes. Ownership and squatting kill those.
A little extreme, but I mostly agree with you.
With such extreme punishments though, I'd want strong controls to make DAMN SURE that the justice system doesn't screw it up.
I agree that white collar crime needs more punishment, and massive forfeiture is probably a good start, as most of their assets are probably illegal anyway.
Working them to pieces and saying "if you can't get medical care then screw you" pretty much amounts to capital punishment, so I wouldn't go that far.
Scammers are humans. They are scum, but still, they're human.
What you describe, is torture.
DDR using 102.4 gbps?
Wow, I didn't know you could dance that fast.
Looks like the "Hindenberg" could be triggering another Godwin's Rule
The fallacy in your comparison of Redhat to the Soviet gov't is that developers working for Red Hat have a choice.
If you don't want to play ball with them, the worst that could happen is that you'd be out of a job, or working with someone else, or perhaps even doing freelance work.
Against the repressive communist regime, bucking the system could very well be hazardous to your health.
Perhaps, also, putting up with the constant boredom of non-creative work is worth the bulk of the profits. Something about intrinsic value of creativity being its own reward or something.
At any rate, Linus Torvalds (or any other programmer) is nowhere NEAR in the same position as Alexy. They don't have potential death warrants hanging over their heads for speaking out, a relevant point, as governments that are economically repressive are often politically repressive as well.
Counting the number of bytes sent through your connection is dirt cheap.
Please review soviet economic policy before making such an offensive statement.
Alexy was under the soviet regime, so he in all communist likelihood was FORBIDDEN to profit from his invention.
All of the revenues were property of the government.
I'm sure that if Alexy had invented it in the US, AND some sleazy company didn't steal it, then Alexy would be very rich indeed.
He was a genius, but unfortunately he got screwed by the system.
Effectively, yes, but in this case the free market effects it.
If every ISP jumps on the G-rated bandwagon as a parent-friendly market maneuver, that's purely capitalism at its raw, uncut self. It would be just like everyone boycotting the NRA because of its liberal views.
The distinction that prevents this from being censorship is that compliance is purely voluntary.
It's like this:
If I sell earplugs so nobody has to listen to you, I'm not engaged in censorship.
If I start duct taping your mouth shut so you can't speak, THAT's censorship.
If p2p traffic like bittorrent really is cloggin their pipes, why don't they just start charging for it?
Media, legal or not, is friggin HUGE. Even a second of video in ANY format is going to take up a good chunk of space. So charging to carry it would bring in a crapload of service charges.
So let Comcast switch to a per-megabyte policy, and then they can rake in some BIG DOUGH.
Why aren't they?
Comcast's meddling makes no sense from a profit making point of view...they're passing up a major source of revenue.
Hmm...is the RIAA pressuring them to meddle with BT? Are some powerful media interests jingling the changebox or playing hardball?
True words of wisdom.
I'm an American citizen and I have my fair share of gripes about our current administration as well.
Honestly, I'm getting fed up with the way that Bush is trying to play "World's Police Chief".
We've got enough dang problems domestically to be worrying about anyone else.
Actually if your ISP has a decent proxy server and especially if you are using HTTP keepalive, your web traffic gets consolidated before the NAT kicks in.
I agree that computer-literate legislation is badly needed. However, the basic analogies still hold.
Internet access is very much a utility, *paid for* by a specific person.
If internet access was truly a cooperative peer-peer effort, then perhaps there should be an "internet tax" levied on the general population, and the proceeds used to supply free internet for everyone.
However, internet access, like electricity and water, is a utility, and should therefore be treated as such.
If I weren't the one picking up the tab for hotspot leakage, I might very well not mind sharing the bounty. But as long as it's coming out of my own pocket, you damn well better believe that I'll exercise my prerogative to say exactly who can and cannot use it.
System administrators and network sysops get to pull rank because they pay the bills, so why shouldn't I?
Not always.
Suppose that I am an incompetent nincompoop who couldn't figure out how to secure my wireless router. You, looking for a hot spot, decide to leech, and as a result, you run up my wireless bill.
Now maybe my router did give you permission, but maybe it (and me) just either didn't want to, or couldn't figure out how to tell your device apart from my own devices.
It's just like an idiot who leaves his front door unlocked. An unlocked door does not automatically give you permission to enter. You set foot in my house without my OK, you are trespassing, lock or not. A lock doesn't grant or deny permission, it's merely an enforcement mechanism.
I may be stupid and lazy if I don't put a lock on my door, but a lack of lock doesn't give you the right to just barge in.
Similiarly, whether or not my device elects to service yours may have nothing to do with my property rights. You are running up my wireless bill without my consent, and it's just as if you stuck a machine into my outlets and ran up my power bill. My device might accept your device's requests simply because it doesn't know any better (the "no lock on the front door") part. It's still not my device that's accessing it, and furthermore, I'm not even sure if my "device" has legal power of attorney to grant access on my behalf.
Two cases where it most DEFINITELY doesn't follow is if you use forged credentials or MAC addresses to masquerade or bypass my security, and cracking my passwords and then leeching.
Just because my *device* says it's ok, doesn't mean that *I* do. There could very well be a hardware defect that lets you in. Almost like some nut case putting a sign on my front door without my permission that says "come in"
Insightful.
With all the crap people pull these days, they might as well.
Yes, it's a right, but that doesn't make it right.
I have the right to be a total asshole and kick you out of my private club just because I don't like the color of your hair, or because your wife made a snide commment about my business.
But you can't do shit because it's my club and I'll invite and give the boot to anybody I damn please.
All this "at-will" crap is, at best, a shortcut to keep a company from being tied up with red tape when it can make a local "referee call" much cheaper and faster than if it had to go through the same motions a landlord does when evicting someone.
However, at worst, it's just an excuse to throw your weight around and either tighten a leash around someone's freedoms, or just plain be a jerk. With "at will" employment, I can be as much of an asshole as I want to and there's not a thing you can do about it. Perfect for me, because I'm a big company and can afford to be a jerk. Nice way to satisfy my ego and make "power plays" whenever I feel the need to agress, as Freud would say.
You, however, are depending on my payroll department for your very survival, and so you had better toe the mark and do what I say. When your job is held hostage, your freedoms are quite limited indeed. You pretty much have a gun to your head in the form of "talk nice about us or we'll fire you", so you really don't have much choice but to keep your trap shut if you value your career.
Of course, I hope that this guy didn't sign any NDA's. If he did, then
A) He would have been fired "for cause"
B) He would have broken a civil contrac clause.
Otherwise, I hope this guy gives a blog rant to make CNN regret firing him. Now that he's already been terminated, CNN no longer has anything to use as leverage to keep him quiet.
That's my point. They should be, but they aren't.
Considering all the FUD they spew, plus all the lobbying they do, software patents should be limited to what they are supposed to be limited to, not perpetuated endlessly.
Honestly, if software patents expired HALF as quickly as they were supposed to, the EFF would have a crapload lighter of a workload.
"'Between March 15th and April 15th 2007"
Er, either the year is wrong, or this is old news.
Unfortunately, duress is an affirmative defense that you have to raise yourself...and if the person putting you under duress does a nice enough job of sweeping the evidence under the rug, you're screwed.
Sorta like being held indefinitely by the FBI as a terrorist until you confess, and you are tortured without witnesses.
Good luck recanting, some guy already tried that and failed.
Bullshit.
If the company that retailed it to you goes bankrupt, aren't you kinda SOL?
Having someone else do your dirty work for you brings in all the vagaries of agency law :)
I think that counts as duress, becuase you've already repartitioned/reformatted/whatever you call it, and anything you had before is kaplooey.
They should make you agree to it BEFORE you install it. Won't do much as far as enforceability is concerned, but it will let you decide on how you want your eggs before they've already been cooked.
What's sad is that it's thanks to crooks like him that compnaies even NEED to spend on security costs in the first place.
If there were no burglars, we wouldn't need locks on our doors.
So, individually, a crook can break in and we can lock them up, but collectively they can jack up security costs and we can't do a damn thing about it?
Give me a break.
Put some more teeth into laws against stealing and start throwing some of those bastards in jail. And get some non-asshat prosecutors who actually know what they're doing at the wheel.
Proceeds of crime would actually be the perfect way to seize these ill gotten gains.