Your finest moment in court
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Ask Kevin Mitnick
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· Score: 5, Interesting
What would you say was your finest moment in court? While you seem to have been pretty much beat up by the court system I'm quite sure you must have had a shining moment or 2, either as a defendant, or perhaps an expert witness?
Re:And the FTC doesn't pursue the following
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Spammers Busted
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· Score: 1
Moving a minor across state lines to solicit sex is a felony in all states.
And the FTC doesn't pursue the following
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Spammers Busted
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· Score: 2
Spam I have recieved that HASN'T been pursued, and I would gather is probably making false claims, and may be fraud. A small sample of the SPAM I have recieved today (just subject lines)
Increase your penis size by 2" to 3"!
(If my penis grew 1 mm for every add I had recieved I could have sex with people in other states, and not leave home
A business proposistion
Involves me paying them 10k and me getting nothing. Although the letter says I'll get either gold, or millions in cash. Somehow I don't believe them
I saw you bio on-line
I don't HAVE a bio on line, and no I don't want to look at your russian web cams
Re: Your computer has a virus
No, my computer is a linux machine, it doesn't have a virus and your bullshit copy of norton wouldn't help if it did
news,Married women await you!
Somehow I don't think my signifigant other cares. In fact if your married, and your trying to get me to cross state lines to have sex with you for money, isn't that illegal?
Add about 10 more messages to the list that got through(after spam assasin tagged and discared the usual slew). I still believe that the law should be changed so that myself, and a few close "friends" can introduce spammers to baseball bats. Only when you take the consequences out of the cyber world and bring it into the real world will SPAM start to slow down. Baseball bats are an excellent choice of a good "real world" consequence. Think I'm too harsh? then you have never had to administer a large mail server and deal with the "results" of spamming day in or day out.
Alpha's have always had awesome specs, hell I think slashdot started on a UDB (early alpha unit, small compact case, built in sound). The alpha processor has long been one of the best performing and worst marketed main processors in the history of computers.
The fact is that DEC wasn't in a posistion to market it, and when they COULD have sold the chip to use in apples (instead of PPC) they declined (morons). Compaq bought DEC and had NO clue what the hell to do. It took them almost 2 years to wrap their head around the fact that the alpha servers where the only profitable product they had. (See service support contracts and high margins for the high end alphas). By then it was too late, they were working on the merger with HP.
No HP's here, and doesn't want to compete with it's own inferior equipment. Lines are being drawn and you can bet that the superiour technology of the alpha will again suffer. Remember that the EV78 is an OLD alpha design and it still kicks ass. Compaq basically stopped developing the alpha series AGES ago. (the EV8 was supposed to be out early last year according to one of the early compaq alpha ropadmaps)
Too bad the alpha is dead. It is taking years for intel and IBM to come up with a chip that comes close to alpha performance. Good thing that they are competing against old alpha designs and the EV8 has been killed. Otherwise those darn pesky spec numbers would have been embarassing.
The squeaky wheel gets the grease, write your congressperson. Joining the EFF is a small step, but getting yourself personally involved is better. Voice your opinions to many people often on this matter. For the most part the reason the law still exists is that many people just don't know about it. Good article, perhaps it can provide YOU with your next "talking points" around the water cooler.
Clever message on the open relay. How about this one?
220 mail.XXXXX.com: By connecting to this host 220 you agree to be open relay tested by 220 njabl.org. You also agree 220 to only send traffic that complies with our 220 AUP and our providers AUP. ESMTP
Seeing that your server must connect to mine first, I wonder which contract will be upheld in court?
1. If SPAM wasn't so bad or annoying, or system resource draining the USE of RBL's would not only decline it would likely stop.
_NOTE_ IOHE RBL's in on a single mailserver rejected over 70% of all incoming requests. It took more than 90 days before we had our first complaint from using that RBL. Think of all the mail that didn't get delivered and the saved disk space, system resources et al.
2. Any RBL used is the choice of **insert org here** and not on the people sending mail.
_NOTE_ Very often the people charged with running **insert org here**'s mail server have been told "you must reduce the amount of spam I recieve". For many RBL's are an affective way of doing just that.
3. If the authors point about the legality of relay testing can in fact be upheld in a court, then ALL SPAM is illegal. Since this has not been found to be the case in US courts, then relay testing must be legal. (i.e. 18 USC Sec. 1030 (a) 2 (c))
4. If the Sherman anti-trust act can be applied here then it would also apply for spammers. SPAM is more in violation of the anti-trust act than RBL lists. (Why? because it prevents the delivery of legitimate e-mail, thus purposely causing delays and interfering with commerce)
Other solutions mentioned are worth merit, but it should be pointed out that these solutions are most often used and are most effective when used in conjunction with RBLs. A better solution would be to fundamentally change the way e-mail delivery works. DJB (http://cr.yp.to) had an idea some time ago where the cost of e-mail sent is born by the sender, not the reciever. That system may be the best bet. The ability to then block senders becomes a lot easier and your ISP doesn't have to do the very much "heavy lifting". The spammers get to do it. I like that idea better.
Theft of services and resources is already illegal, isn't it?
Spam doesn't count as that "legally", or so I've been told many, many times when I've tried to pursue that avenue of recourse. Please see the original post, if CC companies would allow us to charge a spam clean up fee and MAKE IT STICK, then a large part of thise problem would go away. It would simply get to expensive to spam.
BTW the 500 dollar fee is what we charge for "spam clean up".
So? I've shown that there's at least one exception to your $10,000 rule. So your rule which you made up is bullshit.
If you think the rule is made up do the following. Call up any FBI field office nearest you. Complain that you had your walkman stolen by someone on ebay who didn't pay up. The crime occured across state lines. I'll bet the field officer tells you to go fill out a report at your local police station thank you and have a nice day. I wonder if your "fraud" case involved other people that had likewise been defrauded. I wonder what the total amount was? I wonder if it was over 10,000? Hmmmm.......
I reported a person breaking into a customer's computer and putting up pictures of Osamaa Bin Laden in October 2001. It took them nearly 1 full year to follow up with me (September of 2002). From my previous experiences with the FBI, they are of little help and are slow to respond to almost any computer crime, and the field agents I spoke with were far from "technicaly savvy". Although I hear they are getting better I have yet to experience it personally.
If you want your business to profit off spam then fine, but I'm blocking your email. When enough people do the same, maybe then you'll be forced to stop being a spam haven in order to compete.
Lets take this single paragraph, shall we, I'll keep it simple.
1. In every post I have said that spam is bad, and that spam needs to be eliminated. Nowhere did I ever say that I spammed, allowed spam, or thought spam might be justified in some special case. You seem to be missing this point repeatedly.
2. You seem to be implying that "my business" is a spam haven. I have said in every single post that the opposite is the case and wished I had stronger laws to help me pursue legal remedies for those that violate our AUP. I'm not really sure where you got the idea that I have anything to do with a "spam haven". Is english your second laguage ?
3. Since I don't spam, and I don't allow spam, what is blocking my e-mail going to do? I don't send e-mail to you now. Lets see, I'm not a source of spam, any network I adminsiter is not a source of spam, thus your logic is flawed. You seem to want to block the wrong people.
4. The point of many previous posts is that spammers often use innocent third parties to send spam. When that avenue for spamming is closed down they move on. There will always be innocent third parties UNLESS there are REAL consequences for sending spam. See previous posts. (If english is your second language I can have them translated)
I never said anything about small claims court.
That would be because your ignorant of the laws where I live. Unless the total dollar amount for the damages is over 5,000 USD, small claims court is your only legal avenue for recourse in a civil matter. Many states are the same in this regard.
Then get a deposit, or do a credit check.
See previous posts regarding that
Or at least give me the name of the spammer so I can sue him/her myself.
Start a website, request spammers names, addresses and details so that you can sue them (for?). Get yourself bonded and insured and written up in slashdot. Well be happy to help.
I wonder, do you pass that spam cleanup fee on to the people who received the spam, or do you add it to your profits?
You seem unclear on the concept. A spam clean up fee is charged to any user that spams. This fee is in the AUP and the moneis are used to cover the adminsitrative costs of removing the spammers, and any mail he/she may have sent that is still in the queue.
Now looking at your second bizzare suggestion, since we aren't the spammers, and we don't send the spam how would we identify the spammed? If we can't collect the clean up fee (see first post) then how would we distribute these imaginary moneis?
Please back up that assertion. Most spam I get seems to be from big time spammers, not small time ones.
Your logic is so flawed and your interpretation so skewed and your asking ME to back up my assertion. Your funny, is english your second language? The easiest way to back it up is to look at recently published articles about spammers. Check out the recent article about mini rc cars spam that slashdot commented on. The spam scum at the top of the food chain is pennmedia. Who does HE have do his dirty work several "contractors". These "contractors" are often people using dialups or DSL to send their crap. The big spammer may be penn media, but we must stamp out the little fish that work for him as well.
Once again, that's the company's own fault! If a customer is potentially a liability for you, you should be giving them unlimited access accounts without doing a credit check or taking a deposit.
For every 500 customers we get, perhaps 1 will try to spam. Do the f*cking math. Who is going to put down a 500 deposit for a 19.95 dial up? Would you? (yeah right!). It costs too much to do what you suggest. No other provider does it, and thus we wouldn't get customers or retain customers if we started doing it. What you are doing as asking a company to commit finacial suicide.
If you want to take the cheap route, that's perfectly fine, but give me your IP addresses so I can blacklist your servers.
Why don't you start by black listing the following providers who have the same policy. MSN, AOL, earthlink, mindspring, verizon, bellsouth, southwest bell, time warner, shaw cable, cox cable, UUnet, Sprint, Level Three, The university system of NY state (SUNY). Let me know if it helps.
You can make penalties stick. It's really easy and simple to do.
My turn, BULLSHIT Prove it, so far your answers have shown a lack of knowledge regarding common tort law in at least 5 states that I'm familliar with. Putting our company out of business trying your previously mentioned suggestion isn't going to fly, so try again.
ISPs do have the right to pursue spammers! They're just not willing to spend the money to do so.
See previous paragraph, and let me again remind you of the age old saying bullshit
Oh, you meant "until the government spends taxpayer money to pursue these theives on behalf of the ISPs?" Sorry, it's not my problem, I'm not paying for it.
BZZZZZZ your wrong again! This habit you have of picking these ideas out of thin air is quite amazing. Do you get them from "voices" or is english a second language for you? The only thing I want my govt to do is give me the legal right to pursue people for theft of services and resources (which spamming is) or allow me to break the spammers knee caps. I don't want them to do it, I want them to allow ME to do it.
What is it that we agree on?
Well, since you have trouble understanding my posts, and you have trouble with some basic concepts, such as "I", "you" and "them". I'm not sure there is much we will ever agree on.
What needs to be done is that people need to stop accepting "we've deleted their account" from the ISPs which are profiting off the spammers. We need to take the George Bush approach to spam reduction. "We will make no distinction between the spammers who send us the spam and the ISPs which harbor them."
Ahh, I see, Let me ask you, what exactly are you asking ISP's to do? Is it "outlaw all ISPs, they are all guilty of spamming no matter what." Oh wait, were you saying "All ISPS must monitor every bit of traffic so that they can stop spam, privacy be damned". Perhaps you were saying "By law every ISP must collect a 500 deposit from each customers before providing service of any kind".
Ahh wait I get it, you are saying "ISP's that harbor them", and "ISPs that profit from spammers". I get it. You don't mean me.
To extend its reach further, Penn Media pays 25 contractors to send the ads to millions of e- mail addresses they have purchased from various Web sites.
Contractors = small time spam artists that will obtain dial up accounts and use them until kicked off OR people using open relays and korean school proxy servers.
Of the people mentioned in the article 1. John Nesbit john@pennmedia.com (Spam Haus) PennMedia
19001 S Old LaGrange Rd.
Mokena, IL 60448
USDomain servers in listed order:
Notice the nice name servers. I'll be adding whole chunks of these guys to my ACLs (If they aren't already there)
The also mention another spammer named Steve Harper. He lives in Dover Del.
Now, I won't buy one of these cars, because doing so promotes the sh*t I get in my inbox. See my other slashdot posts on the subject, these fools won't stop unless we take the consequences out of the cyber world and put them into the real world. So does anyone think that certain people (or ALL people for that matter) at pen media needs to get a free subscription to the NAMBLA ? Anyone in Oregeon or another state with strong anti-spam laws get spam mentioning RC cars? Want to press charges? Any Lawyer out there want to file a civil case against these guys for harrassament? How many times do I have to be harassed or ask to be "removed from the list" before I can sue? How many times does my mailserver have to reject mail for addresses that don't exist and have never existed before it's a Denial of Service attack?
That's interesting since I've once had them get involved with a simple stereo system was that was stolen using my credit card number.
The FBI got involved because of the credit card company. Not because of your stereo system. Commercial banks as a sector contributed 15.2 million dollars to political campaigns last year. Do the math. If it's credit card fraud the fbi will be very interested.
Tough shit. If you don't want to pay for the credit check, give a deposit or don't get an email account. Alternatively, limit emails sent to 4 or 5 a day if you refuse the credit check.
You obviously live in some world where you don't have to compete. The profit to provide dial up is already very, very slim. To do what you ask puts ANY company providing dial up service in an anti-competitive posistion. You can't pursue spammers if your out of business.
If the person has good credit you're probably going to collect triple damages. As long as 1 in three pay (or you get at least 33% from a credit agency) you'll do fine.
A little education on how small claims court works. If you win a judgement, you don't automatically collect. Only in very, very rare circumstances will a judge actually dock someone's income. It's pretty much up to you to collect, if you can't collect you can try to ruin their credit record. This isn't stuff that I'm making up, it's fact. These avenues that you have suggested have already been pursued long ago, and are occasionally tried again.
Fuck it then. If you're going to be a haven for spammers then I'm blocking your ISP. Please let me know the netblocks.
No company I have ever worked for, or currently work will ever be a haven for spammers. You spam you get kicked off. We charge a spam clean up fee for wasting our time. The problem is that we can't collect the spam clean up fee. It's exceedingly difficult for a company or person to pursue action in the real world against such spammers, i.e. there is no real penalty for these scum. They will simply surface somewhere else after you have kicked them off and added their name and phone number to your "people we don't do business with" database.
Let me spell this out for you, keep your eye on the ball here. The concepts may seem daunting, but I'll use little words.
1. Small time individual spammers are a problem because they are lots of them.
2. A company has very little recourse against them (Some states are better than others). You can kick them off of your system, and wipe their filth from the mail queue, but they simply go elsewhere.
3. Unless you can make penalties stick for these people in the real world, SPAM will continue to be a problem. Until we are given the right to pursue these thieves, we must simply make their life more difficult. RBL, tear-grubbing, large ACL's blocking known spamming blocks etc.
I think we both agree on what needs to be done, the difference is that I have tried to do it and you haven't. Your suggestions are good, but don't work. See the original post.
It doesn't matter if your right, it doesn't matter if you've done nothing illegal, what matters is who has the better attorneys. The logic used here is the same that is used with gun control. Punish the innocent and the people capable of potentially commiting a crime. Assume they are guilty first, ask questions later.
The cable company capitulated because the legal expenses to fight the threat of legal action is more than sending out a letter to each user. It's really that simple. If this isn't a SURE sign our legal system needs a review, then I don't know what is.
So far I have yet to find a sympathetic ear to bend in that regard. I have tried that angle on both local authorities and federal. The answer that comes back from those that even remotelyget it is Mail servers accept mail, that is there job.
FBI: if it's less than 10,000 in damages (and they ASK for documnetation) they don't get involved.
Credit Checks: These things cost US money, are inaccurate and would rule out a lot of our good subscribers. These include fixed income subscribers and since our largest subscriber demographic is college aged, it would be a fair bet that it would rule many of them out as well.
It costs one more to pursue the claim in small claims court in time, effort, cash outlay AND you have no guarantee of collection even after you win. All your ideas sound really great but you obviously have never had to actually do it, especially on a large scale when you have 50,000 subscribers. Your "sue'em" comment is especially farcical.
Noting the history of MS and it's policy, this is the mating ritual of a company that wants to get bought by MS. They are just making sure that their asking price gets accepted.
NUMBER ONE REASON SPAM CONTINUES - Little or no consequences for the SPAMMER. No way to make your AUP stick easily. Until you start taking the consequences for thievery out of the cyber world and start applying them in the real world, SPAM will continue.
If your an ISP (or related industry) your credit card vendor/bank automatically places you in a category called "high risk". This means that if a customer refutes a charge then you the money is taken AWAY from you and you are charged an additional charge called a charge back. Congratulations, you have a iron clad AUP, but if you don't have a signature (and most ISP's take signups over the phone) then your screwed should the SPAMMER SPAM. It's such a nice feeling to know your getting nailed twice by the spammer,
a. They use your system for something illegal, taking up resources in addition to the time it takes to hunt them down and turn them off. b. They then charge their credit card back for the account and the AUP violation charge (SPAM Cleanup fee).
I have worked for ISP's for almost 10 years now (Yes THAT long). In that time I have watched and fought against the huge rise in SPAM. Currently I help administer mail servers for several domains that are high profile SPAM targets. So that you can get an idea of how bad spam is let me give you some statistics from the trenches.
1. One popular domains recieves about 120,000 messages/day for accounts that don't exist. There are actually only 35 mail accounts on that box. The target is very popular because of the domain name. That doesn't count the faked bounces which often constitute a few thousand messages/day
2. With one domain that services about 10,000 users, the implementation of a "mailgate" (BSD box with postfix and RBL and other anti-spam measures) reduced the amount of spam by 2/3s. Statistically that meant that 89% of all attempted connections to that box were refused.
3. The equipment used to deliver mail as little as 8 years ago can not be used now for reliable mail delivery. It would not survive the load. A SPARC 2 running sendmail could easily handle mail for thousands of users 8 years ago. With the advent of spam and the shere VOLUME of mail transactions such a solution today would be problematic at best. Moore new law may say something like "Every 3 years the amount of computing power required to run an e-mail server will triple"
The number one cause of complaints for ISP's is e-mail problems. If e-mail fails customers go nuts (as the rightly should). This means ISP's must invest serious money, time and effort into an e-mail solution. Stopping SPAM or preventing it from overwheling your e-mail servers is no easy task. It takes time, energy, intelligence and precious resources away from other things.
Spammers do such nice things as fake bounce messages, hijack school computers in the far east, use several dial up connectiosn concurrently and start running spam until the get shut down. The use faked return addresses from a legitimate domain, overloading those domain's mail servers as thousands of bounces go to it. The take over poorly maintainted machines with highbandwidth and open up hundreds of simultanteous connections to mailserver essentially preventing legitimate traffic from hitting those servers until the spam run is done.
BUT I HAVE A SOLUTION!! Using spammers logic here is my solution. I have automatically signed up every e-mail sender to a new contract. This contract says that if you send me an e-mail that I don't like I can break your kneecaps. If you don't like this arangement you can "opt-out". Just send your opt out message to dev-null@aol.com and I'll be sure to add you to the list of people that don't want their knee caps broken!
SPAMMING is nothing more than common thievery, it is a theft of services, it is theft of time, it is theft of resources and finally most spam runs should be considered a denial of service attack. In fact for small ISP's they often are. Until you bring consequences out of the cyber world into the real world there will never be a solution. Knee cap breaking is a fine real world consequence.
Fair use has a lot of reasons to be in existance. The least of which was media degradation.
In the bad old days, merely playing any recorded material degraded the quality of it. A record, tape or VHS tape would eventually wear out. Thus making "copies" from a master was a necessity if you wanted to listen/view it over a long period of time. With todays digital media that is no longer the case, or much less so. Look for the "MPAA" supporters to try and use this fact to ban ALL fair use. Think revisionist history here (an mpaa lawyers will be!), fair use was needed because of the failure of that times recording technology. It (fair use) has no other reason to be in existance they will argue. It's outmoded and needs to be gotten rid of they will say. Reverse engineering, fair use, personal use will all be attacked (and are being attacked).
I find it ironic that a record company that can't even pay it's own employees/sub contractor (the artists) correctly is worried about a piece of DVD copying software. I guess if your accounting is THAT BAD then any percieved potential loss must be made up for. Thus the industry that can't even keep track of it's own sales accurately swings into action with a cadre of lawyers. Eventually musicians will seel directly to the people, and they will cut out the middle man. Eventually people will listen to music because they want to, not because they are told to. I can't wait for that day.
See Sig, Many who have looked "science" from the research side will agree with it. Now there is mare hard evidence to prove what some of us have known all along. Science is about politics, money, ego, greed, fame, and discovery gets the short shift. Sometime it's the people, sometimes it's the system. Either way it sucks when the truth takes second spot to any of the previously mentioned traits that go into "discovery".
Read the sig if you don't know what I'm talking about.
The 3 times that have happened. All in Florida BTW.
Daytona Beach FL The first instance happened when I was in college. My roomate and I were returning home from a local AM radio station that was broadcasting a tape delay of our univerities basketball finals at about 3:00am. A group of drunk rednecks decided they would try to run us off the road. Failing to succeed at that, they followed us home, crashing through the gate of the community that we lived in. Long story short, they tried to run my roomate over with their car. A warning shot from my rifle changed their mind. The scoundrals in this case tried to charge me with assault. The DA decided not to prosecute. To this day I have no idea why we were picked out for their attack or why they weren't charged with DUI.
Miami FL I volunteer for afs and was seeing my students off to their year in south america returned to check out of my hotel and drive home. I always bring my pistol with me and keep it in the hotel safe on long trips. After checking out I went to fill up on gas. At the service station I was approached by 5 men, drinking beer from large bottels and at least one of them playing with a large bowie knife. The "lead" gentleman informed me that he would look really good driving my car, and asked me what I thought of that. His compatriats began to surround me, and the gas station attendant started lowering a large metal grate over her window. I simply pulled my shirt to the side so that he could see the outline of my pistol and insinuated that it would be in his better interest to not drive my car. His friends dissapeared so fast that it startled me. His response was to tell me that he was "just playing with me". When the police arrived he had long since left. (the gas station attendant had called them) I was told that I didn't belong in that part of town. No police report was filled out as no crime actually occured.
Daytona Beach Florida While buying food at a middle eastern store 2 people came in and asked to use the phone. One of the 2 people had a large (3/8") chain with a master paddlock around his neck. The chain wearer became agitated at his friend and started threatening to kill him and bust his head open. He began swinging the chain around. I told him that he was busting no one's head open and that he needed to put the chain down, or back around his neck. He complied and no one wanted the police called, so we paid for our stuff and left.
In all cases I was very, very scared. In each case, if I had not been armed I or someone else would have suffered seriuos grievous injury. While I have been in several other "tight spots" with obviously violent or agitated people (I used to work in a bar) these are the only times that I ever felt that carrying my firearm was necessary.
In truth the most compelling thing I have to offer is personal experience. I have used a fiream 3 times in my life to defend both myself and others, including a total stranger from harm. In two of the three cases the firearm did not even have to be drawn or displayed to be an effective deterrant.
The ability to let it be known to the assailants that I was armed was enough. In each case people's lives were at stake, and I was outnumbered in 2 of the 3 instances and in every case the assailant was armed with a weapon (car, chains, and knives). In my view a firearm in the hands of a competent and level headed citizen is more effective at stopping crime than an our armed police, search and seizure laws and no knock warrants.
Bought a good senator lately? What, no you say?? You need to. This grass roots thing isn't owning your own senator. Buy your US congressperson today!
cluge
Our test were very different
on
IDE RAID Examined
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· Score: 3, Interesting
Our test of the promise raid under redhat linux with the "open source" drivers (2.4.19 vanilla) compared with the 3ware product were VERY different.
I don't have the exact numbers off hand, but the 3 ware product was roughly 3 times faster at reading (raid 0+1 and raid 1). The 3ware was also faster at writing albeit the numbers were much closer. The number that DOES stick in my head was the postmark benchmark from netapp we ran. The promise did 2500 files, from 2 to 200k with 500 operations in about 35 seconds. The 3ware product did the same in 12.
The moral of the story is TEST TEST TEST, these types of articles only give you an idea. Promise worked great for me personally in several applications. After testing it for a production machine at work, we went with the 3ware because the promise did not perform well for our application. Test for youself, or forever be dissapointed.
Never met Bon Jovi, but did meet Bruce Springsteen. Let's just say I'm glad you had a nice experience. He was in a cry baby mood the day I met him in Miami.
I think the moral of the story is, you can catch anybody on a bad day, and that people change. If Bruce is still the same way or in the same mood that he was when I met him, he would be wearing depends now.
RH should include a default KDE and default Gnome desktop for those that want it (those of us that want it can handle the custimization). Call this an advanced set up feature for those that require it. I'm quite used to many of the KDE feature set personally, and use gnome apps in my desktop. If I cannot easily or reasonably setup a default KDE env, then I will go elsewhere for my distribution. I will also make that recomendation to others.
Consider this RH, I've been using your product since before 4.2, I've been paying for it since 6.2 (I felt you deserved my bucks) If I can't easily install my favorite WM during the install process, you will loose this customer.
cluge
PS: Yes, you have managed to cripple some of the neater features of both desktops or at least hide them, and you have also turned out an ugly compromise.
I keep reading the first amendment over and over. I just can't find where it says I have to pay for another person's free speech. Can somone enlighten me as to how this is a "Free Speech" issue as opposed to a theft of services issue?
Slashdot Mirror
What would you say was your finest moment in court? While you seem to have been pretty much beat up by the court system I'm quite sure you must have had a shining moment or 2, either as a defendant, or perhaps an expert witness?
Moving a minor across state lines to solicit sex is a felony in all states.
Increase your penis size by 2" to 3"!
(If my penis grew 1 mm for every add I had recieved I could have sex with people in other states, and not leave home
A business proposistion
Involves me paying them 10k and me getting nothing. Although the letter says I'll get either gold, or millions in cash. Somehow I don't believe them
I saw you bio on-line
I don't HAVE a bio on line, and no I don't want to look at your russian web cams
Re: Your computer has a virus
No, my computer is a linux machine, it doesn't have a virus and your bullshit copy of norton wouldn't help if it did
news,Married women await you!
Somehow I don't think my signifigant other cares. In fact if your married, and your trying to get me to cross state lines to have sex with you for money, isn't that illegal?
Add about 10 more messages to the list that got through(after spam assasin tagged and discared the usual slew). I still believe that the law should be changed so that myself, and a few close "friends" can introduce spammers to baseball bats. Only when you take the consequences out of the cyber world and bring it into the real world will SPAM start to slow down. Baseball bats are an excellent choice of a good "real world" consequence. Think I'm too harsh? then you have never had to administer a large mail server and deal with the "results" of spamming day in or day out.
Alpha's have always had awesome specs, hell I think slashdot started on a UDB (early alpha unit, small compact case, built in sound). The alpha processor has long been one of the best performing and worst marketed main processors in the history of computers.
The fact is that DEC wasn't in a posistion to market it, and when they COULD have sold the chip to use in apples (instead of PPC) they declined (morons). Compaq bought DEC and had NO clue what the hell to do. It took them almost 2 years to wrap their head around the fact that the alpha servers where the only profitable product they had. (See service support contracts and high margins for the high end alphas). By then it was too late, they were working on the merger with HP.
No HP's here, and doesn't want to compete with it's own inferior equipment. Lines are being drawn and you can bet that the superiour technology of the alpha will again suffer. Remember that the EV78 is an OLD alpha design and it still kicks ass. Compaq basically stopped developing the alpha series AGES ago. (the EV8 was supposed to be out early last year according to one of the early compaq alpha ropadmaps)
Too bad the alpha is dead. It is taking years for intel and IBM to come up with a chip that comes close to alpha performance. Good thing that they are competing against old alpha designs and the EV8 has been killed. Otherwise those darn pesky spec numbers would have been embarassing.
cluge
The squeaky wheel gets the grease, write your congressperson. Joining the EFF is a small step, but getting yourself personally involved is better. Voice your opinions to many people often on this matter. For the most part the reason the law still exists is that many people just don't know about it. Good article, perhaps it can provide YOU with your next "talking points" around the water cooler.
cluge
Clever message on the open relay. How about this one?
220 mail.XXXXX.com: By connecting to this host
220 you agree to be open relay tested by
220 njabl.org. You also agree
220 to only send traffic that complies with our
220 AUP and our providers AUP. ESMTP
Seeing that your server must connect to mine first, I wonder which contract will be upheld in court?
cluge
1. If SPAM wasn't so bad or annoying, or system resource draining the USE of RBL's would not only decline it would likely stop.
_NOTE_ IOHE RBL's in on a single mailserver rejected over 70% of all incoming requests. It took more than 90 days before we had our first complaint from using that RBL. Think of all the mail that didn't get delivered and the saved disk space, system resources et al.
2. Any RBL used is the choice of **insert org here** and not on the people sending mail.
_NOTE_
Very often the people charged with running **insert org here**'s mail server have been told "you must reduce the amount of spam I recieve". For many RBL's are an affective way of doing just that.
3. If the authors point about the legality of relay testing can in fact be upheld in a court, then ALL SPAM is illegal. Since this has not been found to be the case in US courts, then relay testing must be legal. (i.e. 18 USC Sec. 1030 (a) 2 (c))
4. If the Sherman anti-trust act can be applied here then it would also apply for spammers. SPAM is more in violation of the anti-trust act than RBL lists. (Why? because it prevents the delivery of legitimate e-mail, thus purposely causing delays and interfering with commerce)
Other solutions mentioned are worth merit, but it should be pointed out that these solutions are most often used and are most effective when used in conjunction with RBLs. A better solution would be to fundamentally change the way e-mail delivery works. DJB (http://cr.yp.to) had an idea some time ago where the cost of e-mail sent is born by the sender, not the reciever. That system may be the best bet. The ability to then block senders becomes a lot easier and your ISP doesn't have to do the very much "heavy lifting". The spammers get to do it. I like that idea better.
cluge
Theft of services and resources is already illegal, isn't it?
Spam doesn't count as that "legally", or so I've been told many, many times when I've tried to pursue that avenue of recourse. Please see the original post, if CC companies would allow us to charge a spam clean up fee and MAKE IT STICK, then a large part of thise problem would go away. It would simply get to expensive to spam.
BTW the 500 dollar fee is what we charge for "spam clean up".
cluge
So? I've shown that there's at least one exception to your $10,000 rule. So your rule which you made up is bullshit.
If you think the rule is made up do the following. Call up any FBI field office nearest you. Complain that you had your walkman stolen by someone on ebay who didn't pay up. The crime occured across state lines. I'll bet the field officer tells you to go fill out a report at your local police station thank you and have a nice day. I wonder if your "fraud" case involved other people that had likewise been defrauded. I wonder what the total amount was? I wonder if it was over 10,000? Hmmmm.......
I reported a person breaking into a customer's computer and putting up pictures of Osamaa Bin Laden in October 2001. It took them nearly 1 full year to follow up with me (September of 2002). From my previous experiences with the FBI, they are of little help and are slow to respond to almost any computer crime, and the field agents I spoke with were far from "technicaly savvy". Although I hear they are getting better I have yet to experience it personally.
If you want your business to profit off spam then fine, but I'm blocking your email. When enough people do the same, maybe then you'll be forced to stop being a spam haven in order to compete.
Lets take this single paragraph, shall we, I'll keep it simple.
1. In every post I have said that spam is bad, and that spam needs to be eliminated. Nowhere did I ever say that I spammed, allowed spam, or thought spam might be justified in some special case. You seem to be missing this point repeatedly.
2. You seem to be implying that "my business" is a spam haven. I have said in every single post that the opposite is the case and wished I had stronger laws to help me pursue legal remedies for those that violate our AUP. I'm not really sure where you got the idea that I have anything to do with a "spam haven". Is english your second laguage ?
3. Since I don't spam, and I don't allow spam, what is blocking my e-mail going to do? I don't send e-mail to you now. Lets see, I'm not a source of spam, any network I adminsiter is not a source of spam, thus your logic is flawed. You seem to want to block the wrong people.
4. The point of many previous posts is that spammers often use innocent third parties to send spam. When that avenue for spamming is closed down they move on. There will always be innocent third parties UNLESS there are REAL consequences for sending spam. See previous posts. (If english is your second language I can have them translated)
I never said anything about small claims court.
That would be because your ignorant of the laws where I live. Unless the total dollar amount for the damages is over 5,000 USD, small claims court is your only legal avenue for recourse in a civil matter. Many states are the same in this regard.
Then get a deposit, or do a credit check.
See previous posts regarding that
Or at least give me the name of the spammer so I can sue him/her myself.
Start a website, request spammers names, addresses and details so that you can sue them (for?). Get yourself bonded and insured and written up in slashdot. Well be happy to help.
I wonder, do you pass that spam cleanup fee on to the people who received the spam, or do you add it to your profits?
You seem unclear on the concept. A spam clean up fee is charged to any user that spams. This fee is in the AUP and the moneis are used to cover the adminsitrative costs of removing the spammers, and any mail he/she may have sent that is still in the queue.
Now looking at your second bizzare suggestion, since we aren't the spammers, and we don't send the spam how would we identify the spammed? If we can't collect the clean up fee (see first post) then how would we distribute these imaginary moneis?
Please back up that assertion. Most spam I get seems to be from big time spammers, not small time ones.
Your logic is so flawed and your interpretation so skewed and your asking ME to back up my assertion. Your funny, is english your second language? The easiest way to back it up is to look at recently published articles about spammers. Check out the recent article about mini rc cars spam that slashdot commented on. The spam scum at the top of the food chain is pennmedia. Who does HE have do his dirty work several "contractors". These "contractors" are often people using dialups or DSL to send their crap. The big spammer may be penn media, but we must stamp out the little fish that work for him as well.
Once again, that's the company's own fault! If a customer is potentially a liability for you, you should be giving them unlimited access accounts without doing a credit check or taking a deposit.
For every 500 customers we get, perhaps 1 will try to spam. Do the f*cking math. Who is going to put down a 500 deposit for a 19.95 dial up? Would you? (yeah right!). It costs too much to do what you suggest. No other provider does it, and thus we wouldn't get customers or retain customers if we started doing it. What you are doing as asking a company to commit finacial suicide.
If you want to take the cheap route, that's perfectly fine, but give me your IP addresses so I can blacklist your servers.
Why don't you start by black listing the following providers who have the same policy. MSN, AOL, earthlink, mindspring, verizon, bellsouth, southwest bell, time warner, shaw cable, cox cable, UUnet, Sprint, Level Three, The university system of NY state (SUNY). Let me know if it helps.
You can make penalties stick. It's really easy and simple to do.
My turn, BULLSHIT Prove it, so far your answers have shown a lack of knowledge regarding common tort law in at least 5 states that I'm familliar with. Putting our company out of business trying your previously mentioned suggestion isn't going to fly, so try again.
ISPs do have the right to pursue spammers! They're just not willing to spend the money to do so.
See previous paragraph, and let me again remind you of the age old saying bullshit
Oh, you meant "until the government spends taxpayer money to pursue these theives on behalf of the ISPs?" Sorry, it's not my problem, I'm not paying for it.
BZZZZZZ your wrong again! This habit you have of picking these ideas out of thin air is quite amazing. Do you get them from "voices" or is english a second language for you? The only thing I want my govt to do is give me the legal right to pursue people for theft of services and resources (which spamming is) or allow me to break the spammers knee caps. I don't want them to do it, I want them to allow ME to do it.
What is it that we agree on?
Well, since you have trouble understanding my posts, and you have trouble with some basic concepts, such as "I", "you" and "them". I'm not sure there is much we will ever agree on.
What needs to be done is that people need to stop accepting "we've deleted their account" from the ISPs which are profiting off the spammers. We need to take the George Bush approach to spam reduction. "We will make no distinction between the spammers who send us the spam and the ISPs which harbor them."
Ahh, I see, Let me ask you, what exactly are you asking ISP's to do? Is it "outlaw all ISPs, they are all guilty of spamming no matter what." Oh wait, were you saying "All ISPS must monitor every bit of traffic so that they can stop spam, privacy be damned". Perhaps you were saying "By law every ISP must collect a 500 deposit from each customers before providing service of any kind".
Ahh wait I get it, you are saying "ISP's that harbor them", and "ISPs that profit from spammers". I get it. You don't mean me.
To extend its reach further, Penn Media pays 25 contractors to send the ads to millions of e- mail addresses they have purchased from various Web sites.
Contractors = small time spam artists that will obtain dial up accounts and use them until kicked off OR people using open relays and korean school proxy servers.
Of the people mentioned in the article
1. John Nesbit john@pennmedia.com (Spam Haus)
PennMedia
19001 S Old LaGrange Rd.
Mokena, IL 60448
USDomain servers in listed order:
Notice the nice name servers. I'll be adding whole chunks of these guys to my ACLs (If they aren't already there)
NS1.SENDOUTMAIL.COM 209.125.134.10
NS2.SENDOUTMAIL.COM 207.241.30.136
NS3.SENDOUTMAIL.COM 209.125.134.140
The also mention another spammer named Steve Harper. He lives in Dover Del.
Now, I won't buy one of these cars, because doing so promotes the sh*t I get in my inbox. See my other slashdot posts on the subject, these fools won't stop unless we take the consequences out of the cyber world and put them into the real world. So does anyone think that certain people (or ALL people for that matter) at pen media needs to get a free subscription to the NAMBLA ? Anyone in Oregeon or another state with strong anti-spam laws get spam mentioning RC cars? Want to press charges? Any Lawyer out there want to file a civil case against these guys for harrassament? How many times do I have to be harassed or ask to be "removed from the list" before I can sue? How many times does my mailserver have to reject mail for addresses that don't exist and have never existed before it's a Denial of Service attack?
Cluge
That's interesting since I've once had them get involved with a simple stereo system was that was stolen using my credit card number.
The FBI got involved because of the credit card company. Not because of your stereo system. Commercial banks as a sector contributed 15.2 million dollars to political campaigns last year. Do the math. If it's credit card fraud the fbi will be very interested.
Tough shit. If you don't want to pay for the credit check, give a deposit or don't get an email account. Alternatively, limit emails sent to 4 or 5 a day if you refuse the credit check.
You obviously live in some world where you don't have to compete. The profit to provide dial up is already very, very slim. To do what you ask puts ANY company providing dial up service in an anti-competitive posistion. You can't pursue spammers if your out of business.
If the person has good credit you're probably going to collect triple damages. As long as 1 in three pay (or you get at least 33% from a credit agency) you'll do fine.
A little education on how small claims court works. If you win a judgement, you don't automatically collect. Only in very, very rare circumstances will a judge actually dock someone's income. It's pretty much up to you to collect, if you can't collect you can try to ruin their credit record. This isn't stuff that I'm making up, it's fact. These avenues that you have suggested have already been pursued long ago, and are occasionally tried again.
Fuck it then. If you're going to be a haven for spammers then I'm blocking your ISP. Please let me know the netblocks.
No company I have ever worked for, or currently work will ever be a haven for spammers. You spam you get kicked off. We charge a spam clean up fee for wasting our time. The problem is that we can't collect the spam clean up fee. It's exceedingly difficult for a company or person to pursue action in the real world against such spammers, i.e. there is no real penalty for these scum. They will simply surface somewhere else after you have kicked them off and added their name and phone number to your "people we don't do business with" database.
Let me spell this out for you, keep your eye on the ball here. The concepts may seem daunting, but I'll use little words.
1. Small time individual spammers are a problem because they are lots of them.
2. A company has very little recourse against them (Some states are better than others). You can kick them off of your system, and wipe their filth from the mail queue, but they simply go elsewhere.
3. Unless you can make penalties stick for these people in the real world, SPAM will continue to be a problem. Until we are given the right to pursue these thieves, we must simply make their life more difficult. RBL, tear-grubbing, large ACL's blocking known spamming blocks etc.
I think we both agree on what needs to be done, the difference is that I have tried to do it and you haven't. Your suggestions are good, but don't work. See the original post.
cluge
It doesn't matter if your right, it doesn't matter if you've done nothing illegal, what matters is who has the better attorneys. The logic used here is the same that is used with gun control. Punish the innocent and the people capable of potentially commiting a crime. Assume they are guilty first, ask questions later.
The cable company capitulated because the legal expenses to fight the threat of legal action is more than sending out a letter to each user. It's really that simple. If this isn't a SURE sign our legal system needs a review, then I don't know what is.
cluge
So far I have yet to find a sympathetic ear to bend in that regard. I have tried that angle on both local authorities and federal. The answer that comes back from those that even remotely get it is Mail servers accept mail, that is there job.
FBI: if it's less than 10,000 in damages (and they ASK for documnetation) they don't get involved.
Credit Checks: These things cost US money, are inaccurate and would rule out a lot of our good subscribers. These include fixed income subscribers and since our largest subscriber demographic is college aged, it would be a fair bet that it would rule many of them out as well.
It costs one more to pursue the claim in small claims court in time, effort, cash outlay AND you have no guarantee of collection even after you win. All your ideas sound really great but you obviously have never had to actually do it, especially on a large scale when you have 50,000 subscribers. Your "sue'em" comment is especially farcical.
Noting the history of MS and it's policy, this is the mating ritual of a company that wants to get bought by MS. They are just making sure that their asking price gets accepted.
NUMBER ONE REASON SPAM CONTINUES - Little or no consequences for the SPAMMER. No way to make your AUP stick easily. Until you start taking the consequences for thievery out of the cyber world and start applying them in the real world, SPAM will continue.
If your an ISP (or related industry) your credit card vendor/bank automatically places you in a category called "high risk". This means that if a customer refutes a charge then you the money is taken AWAY from you and you are charged an additional charge called a charge back. Congratulations, you have a iron clad AUP, but if you don't have a signature (and most ISP's take signups over the phone) then your screwed should the SPAMMER SPAM. It's such a nice feeling to know your getting nailed twice by the spammer,
a. They use your system for something illegal, taking up resources in addition to the time it takes to hunt them down and turn them off.
b. They then charge their credit card back for the account and the AUP violation charge (SPAM Cleanup fee).
I have worked for ISP's for almost 10 years now (Yes THAT long). In that time I have watched and fought against the huge rise in SPAM. Currently I help administer mail servers for several domains that are high profile SPAM targets. So that you can get an idea of how bad spam is let me give you some statistics from the trenches.
1. One popular domains recieves about 120,000 messages/day for accounts that don't exist. There are actually only 35 mail accounts on that box. The target is very popular because of the domain name. That doesn't count the faked bounces which often constitute a few thousand messages/day
2. With one domain that services about 10,000 users, the implementation of a "mailgate" (BSD box with postfix and RBL and other anti-spam measures) reduced the amount of spam by 2/3s. Statistically that meant that 89% of all attempted connections to that box were refused.
3. The equipment used to deliver mail as little as 8 years ago can not be used now for reliable mail delivery. It would not survive the load. A SPARC 2 running sendmail could easily handle mail for thousands of users 8 years ago. With the advent of spam and the shere VOLUME of mail transactions such a solution today would be problematic at best. Moore new law may say something like "Every 3 years the amount of computing power required to run an e-mail server will triple"
The number one cause of complaints for ISP's is e-mail problems. If e-mail fails customers go nuts (as the rightly should). This means ISP's must invest serious money, time and effort into an e-mail solution. Stopping SPAM or preventing it from overwheling your e-mail servers is no easy task. It takes time, energy, intelligence and precious resources away from other things.
Spammers do such nice things as fake bounce messages, hijack school computers in the far east, use several dial up connectiosn concurrently and start running spam until the get shut down. The use faked return addresses from a legitimate domain, overloading those domain's mail servers as thousands of bounces go to it. The take over poorly maintainted machines with highbandwidth and open up hundreds of simultanteous connections to mailserver essentially preventing legitimate traffic from hitting those servers until the spam run is done.
BUT I HAVE A SOLUTION!! Using spammers logic here is my solution. I have automatically signed up every e-mail sender to a new contract. This contract says that if you send me an e-mail that I don't like I can break your kneecaps. If you don't like this arangement you can "opt-out". Just send your opt out message to dev-null@aol.com and I'll be sure to add you to the list of people that don't want their knee caps broken!
SPAMMING is nothing more than common thievery, it is a theft of services, it is theft of time, it is theft of resources and finally most spam runs should be considered a denial of service attack. In fact for small ISP's they often are. Until you bring consequences out of the cyber world into the real world there will never be a solution. Knee cap breaking is a fine real world consequence.
cluge
Fair use has a lot of reasons to be in existance. The least of which was media degradation.
In the bad old days, merely playing any recorded material degraded the quality of it. A record, tape or VHS tape would eventually wear out. Thus making "copies" from a master was a necessity if you wanted to listen/view it over a long period of time. With todays digital media that is no longer the case, or much less so. Look for the "MPAA" supporters to try and use this fact to ban ALL fair use. Think revisionist history here (an mpaa lawyers will be!), fair use was needed because of the failure of that times recording technology. It (fair use) has no other reason to be in existance they will argue. It's outmoded and needs to be gotten rid of they will say. Reverse engineering, fair use, personal use will all be attacked (and are being attacked).
I find it ironic that a record company that can't even pay it's own employees/sub contractor (the artists) correctly is worried about a piece of DVD copying software. I guess if your accounting is THAT BAD then any percieved potential loss must be made up for. Thus the industry that can't even keep track of it's own sales accurately swings into action with a cadre of lawyers. Eventually musicians will seel directly to the people, and they will cut out the middle man. Eventually people will listen to music because they want to, not because they are told to. I can't wait for that day.
See Sig, Many who have looked "science" from the research side will agree with it. Now there is mare hard evidence to prove what some of us have known all along. Science is about politics, money, ego, greed, fame, and discovery gets the short shift. Sometime it's the people, sometimes it's the system. Either way it sucks when the truth takes second spot to any of the previously mentioned traits that go into "discovery".
Read the sig if you don't know what I'm talking about.
The 3 times that have happened. All in Florida BTW.
Daytona Beach FL
The first instance happened when I was in college. My roomate and I were returning home from a local AM radio station that was broadcasting a tape delay of our univerities basketball finals at about 3:00am. A group of drunk rednecks decided they would try to run us off the road. Failing to succeed at that, they followed us home, crashing through the gate of the community that we lived in. Long story short, they tried to run my roomate over with their car. A warning shot from my rifle changed their mind. The scoundrals in this case tried to charge me with assault. The DA decided not to prosecute. To this day I have no idea why we were picked out for their attack or why they weren't charged with DUI.
Miami FL
I volunteer for afs and was seeing my students off to their year in south america returned to check out of my hotel and drive home. I always bring my pistol with me and keep it in the hotel safe on long trips. After checking out I went to fill up on gas. At the service station I was approached by 5 men, drinking beer from large bottels and at least one of them playing with a large bowie knife. The "lead" gentleman informed me that he would look really good driving my car, and asked me what I thought of that. His compatriats began to surround me, and the gas station attendant started lowering a large metal grate over her window. I simply pulled my shirt to the side so that he could see the outline of my pistol and insinuated that it would be in his better interest to not drive my car. His friends dissapeared so fast that it startled me. His response was to tell me that he was "just playing with me". When the police arrived he had long since left. (the gas station attendant had called them) I was told that I didn't belong in that part of town. No police report was filled out as no crime actually occured.
Daytona Beach Florida
While buying food at a middle eastern store 2 people came in and asked to use the phone. One of the 2 people had a large (3/8") chain with a master paddlock around his neck. The chain wearer became agitated at his friend and started threatening to kill him and bust his head open. He began swinging the chain around. I told him that he was busting no one's head open and that he needed to put the chain down, or back around his neck. He complied and no one wanted the police called, so we paid for our stuff and left.
In all cases I was very, very scared. In each case, if I had not been armed I or someone else would have suffered seriuos grievous injury. While I have been in several other "tight spots" with obviously violent or agitated people (I used to work in a bar) these are the only times that I ever felt that carrying my firearm was necessary.
cluge
In truth the most compelling thing I have to offer is personal experience. I have used a fiream 3 times in my life to defend both myself and others, including a total stranger from harm. In two of the three cases the firearm did not even have to be drawn or displayed to be an effective deterrant.
The ability to let it be known to the assailants that I was armed was enough. In each case people's lives were at stake, and I was outnumbered in 2 of the 3 instances and in every case the assailant was armed with a weapon (car, chains, and knives). In my view a firearm in the hands of a competent and level headed citizen is more effective at stopping crime than an our armed police, search and seizure laws and no knock warrants.
cluge
Hey Cauce!
Bought a good senator lately? What, no you say?? You need to. This grass roots thing isn't owning your own senator. Buy your US congressperson today!
cluge
Our test of the promise raid under redhat linux with the "open source" drivers (2.4.19 vanilla) compared with the 3ware product were VERY different.
I don't have the exact numbers off hand, but the 3 ware product was roughly 3 times faster at reading (raid 0+1 and raid 1). The 3ware was also faster at writing albeit the numbers were much closer. The number that DOES stick in my head was the postmark benchmark from netapp we ran. The promise did 2500 files, from 2 to 200k with 500 operations in about 35 seconds. The 3ware product did the same in 12.
The moral of the story is TEST TEST TEST, these types of articles only give you an idea. Promise worked great for me personally in several applications. After testing it for a production machine at work, we went with the 3ware because the promise did not perform well for our application. Test for youself, or forever be dissapointed.
Cluge
Never met Bon Jovi, but did meet Bruce Springsteen. Let's just say I'm glad you had a nice experience. He was in a cry baby mood the day I met him in Miami.
I think the moral of the story is, you can catch anybody on a bad day, and that people change. If Bruce is still the same way or in the same mood that he was when I met him, he would be wearing depends now.
cluge
RH should include a default KDE and default Gnome desktop for those that want it (those of us that want it can handle the custimization). Call this an advanced set up feature for those that require it. I'm quite used to many of the KDE feature set personally, and use gnome apps in my desktop. If I cannot easily or reasonably setup a default KDE env, then I will go elsewhere for my distribution. I will also make that recomendation to others.
Consider this RH, I've been using your product since before 4.2, I've been paying for it since 6.2 (I felt you deserved my bucks) If I can't easily install my favorite WM during the install process, you will loose this customer.
cluge
PS: Yes, you have managed to cripple some of the neater features of both desktops or at least hide them, and you have also turned out an ugly compromise.
I keep reading the first amendment over and over. I just can't find where it says I have to pay for another person's free speech. Can somone enlighten me as to how this is a "Free Speech" issue as opposed to a theft of services issue?