What is worth fighting for, and rabble-rousing, and upsetting the status quo? Or should we be complacent in the name of stability?
Any case in which the government has killed off large portions of the population. If they're not doing that, anything you could do would make things worse.
Woah.. hold on there! What are you saying? The only thing a government can do that is bad enough to warrant a political uprising (let alone the example used above, "rabble rousing and upsetting the status quo") is killing off large portions of the population?
If you can make a statement like that, there's nothing I can possible say or write to explain to you why it's so wrong. Examples are like quotes, too easy to pick apart on a detail, so I won't bother.
The gent in the article claims that it "immediately stopped the problems they were having". Of course it did - they just changed the path of least resistance.
It's like the corset analogy. If a large individual wears a corset to get thinner, it doesn't make them thinner, it just makes them bulge in other places. If you cut off internet access to porn sites, illegal sites, or whatever the kids choose to look at, then they either get around your censorship or they go somewhere that's not censored. In other words, they're all surfing porn in the cybercafe around the corner, or in the safety of their own bedrooms, rather than in the library in question.
Privacy is a right, it's also a bit of a luxury in certain cicumstances, but it also causes a lot of hassle as it empowers vandals.
But what it comes down to is that there is no equivalent of putting aitbags in cars for the internet at the moment and we nevertheless want to stop the DoS attacks, therefore we go at the problem with the only lever we have available to us - removal of anonymity.
I wonder if removal of anonymity is the same as removal of privacy. We have no right to anonymity as far as I know, and only by arguing that the two are the same can we justify keeping the internet untraceable. Hmm - what do you think?
Agreed, but if the anonymity is being abused to the point that services are being taken down, then a tradeoff has to be made. Perhaps that means that a few people can't write theses on the internal structure of terrorist organisations, and I'm sure there will be other repercussions too, but there's a cost and a benefit, and if the benefit of privacy results in the cost of making the internet extremely vulnerable to 15-year olds with a lack of sense, then I'm sorry, I still opt for a way to shut them down.
The argument in the bottom of your message, in italics, is not at all what I am saying. What I am saying is that the abuse of our rights to the point where the cost becomes unacceptable should lead to questions about what can be done to limit the abuse of those rights. The problem is that limiting abuse of rights is very difficult in an internet we have no way of policing, and therefore any approach to limit the damage of that abuse is going to cause collateral damage to the rights in question.
Just because someone wants to write a thesis on a terrorist organisation doesn't mean my ISP should be made vulnerable to script kiddies. If that's the tradeoff, then I vote they change thesis. If it isn't, then let's think of a way to stop them that doesn't result in measures of this kind.
Sheep huh? Cheap emotional argumentation, although I also was guilty of that.
We keep saying that the internet is great because it creates the free flow of information. The nature, destination, source and size of that information is just more information, which, if the means can be created, can just as freely be collected by individuals.
People protect Napster because it's something that allows information to flow even more freely - good, it's a valid argument and I will defend that argument. But the creation of technology such as this is merely the same kind of development, but the nature of the information is different. Instead of enabling the infringment the rights of people who make music/films/software/whatever, it enables (nothing more, after all it's what you do with it that counts, the makers of the technology can't be held responsible can they?) the infringement of the rights of people sending packets of data.
I think it's hypocritical to say that the internet is great because it allows the free-flow of information and data across the world and then to impose limits on that data flow when it relates to stuff we'd rather wasn't shared. I'm sure the musicians feel the same way about Napster, Gnutella, Scour, MP3.com and all the others.
I think that the reaction to the alleged "loss" of privacy on the net is a little extreme given the cost that privacy is beginning to create. I can live with people being able, provided it is not *too* easy, to get an idea of what I'm browsing, if it means that I can continue browsing it. If the cost is such that 15-year-old jerks with nothing better to do than get cheap thrills breaking things are taking away the services I want to use, then in my humble opinion, the privacy has come at too high a cost.
I don't like making the tradeoff, but I'd rather have a service that was not completely anonymous than be able to anonymously participate in a medium that has been reduced to complete uselessness.
What's the difference between this and a digital telephone exchange that knows where you're calling from. When people got bogus or malicious calls, companies created a system whereby those calls could be traced within seconds. That's a good thing. Your right to privacy over the telephone is gone already, and nobody's crying about that. What's the difference between that and this particular point-to-point connection system? Surely it's the privacy of the content that matters, and not your ability to send stuff to people without their knowing who it is that sent it?
Ok - so you want to browse anonymously.. Well firstly, why? I don't see the point. Secondly, nothing's stopping you - do the same as you would if you wanted to make an anonymous telephone call - use a phone box, or a public internet access point.
I'm stirring a little, but I get tired of people pouring their bleeding hearts over rights in the internet arena that they lost in other arenas years ago. They're not complaining about the postmark on their snail mail, or the telco's ability to see their phone numbers, or the CCTV in every store they "browse" in, or the bank recording every time they use their credit or debit cards, along with the name of the shop, time, place and everything else. You don't want to be on the store's CCTV tapes, don't go in.
Re:This is the problem - but where's the solution?
on
Two-Faced Napster?
·
· Score: 1
Wow - you agree with me - I expected to be burnt alive by the Slashdot community...
Rubbish - the use defines the service
on
Two-Faced Napster?
·
· Score: 1
If a service exists, regardless of the purpose it was created for, and that service is used almost entirely to facilitate criminal activities, then that service should be put down.
The comment at the top of the thread that said that "people don't seem to get this" is wrong, people get the fact that Napster isn't selling copyrighted stuff.
Napster is building a business model on the back of a service that would never have taken off if it were not used for the piracy of copyrighted material. In other words, deliberately or not, they are gathering economic benefits from the facilitation of criminal activities.
I don't care if they are telling their users to do this or not, the only thing that worries me about this case is where the line is drawn and whether or not this could spill over into linking to other websites, because in terms of the internet in general, a line has to be very carefully drawn to minimise litigation and to allow people to link to almost anything because that's what the internet is about.
This sounds contradictory, so let me recall the point at the top - Napster's entire business model would fall over if, for some reason, it was impossible to pirate copyrighted work over their network. Their entire strategy depends on the attraction of their content, and their content, be it hosted by them or merely facilitated by them, is to a huge extent illegal. They are unable to create or attract legal content of sufficient quality to get traffic - so they rely, whether they facilitate it deliberately or not, on the transfer of copyrighted work. Regardless of whether it hits their servers or not - their business model depends on it.
You want to see an honest business model, go look at Peoplesound.
This is the problem - but where's the solution?
on
Two-Faced Napster?
·
· Score: 2
the legal entity "Napster Inc." is not "stealing" or "sharing" anything -- they are enabling a more efficient way of sharing mp3 files among their users. If those users decide to make available copyrighted mp3s that are not freely distributable, then the *users* are the ones in trouble, not Napster
This is exactly the problem. The issue is not about what Napster does or doesn't do, it's about what people do with the Napster software. But, regardless of Napster's ambitions or claims of "It's not me, I'm just being used", an argument exists for making the use of this software illegal, exactly in the same way as an argument exists for making guns illegal (it's not me, it's the guy I sold it to).
I'm not saying which side of the argument I'm on, but that is the argument - does the tool add more than it takes away? Is the protection / added value worth the cost? And this is something that has to be dealt with.
So now we have two options:
(1) Make it illegal, screw the rights of the people using it.
(2) Protect it, screw the rights of the artists whose work is being stolen.
This situation is obviously begging for a third option, but people are too busy defending (1) or (2) to give a damn about other alternatives, and the judges will end up having to decide between the two. If the law hobbles them, then I wouldn't put it past the relevant authorities in various countries to change the laws underpinning the courts decisions (unless, of course, we come back to the sacred US constitution).
Unless someone finds another option or a way of creating a greyscale between the two we have, the courts will be forced to decide between a greater and a lesser evil, and I for one don't think that their decision is at all predictable.
I was talking about damage to groups of people, and the relative total damage that that causes. I also meant to refer to the point that both involve wanton damage to other people's property, and when you start ranking them in terms of "badness" you imply that one is "more Ok" or "less bad" than the other, whereas my argument is that the target is largely irrelevant, it's the act that deserves contempt.
If your argument is based on your personal emotions regarding this specific incident, then you can only be right, since only you can express how you feel about it.
You're probably right, but since I lack the knowledge to understand the encryption, when I think about it on a personal level, I'm just waiting for LiViD to work so that I can watch DVDs on my Linux box.
What's wrong with making money? If a site goes up that provides something I like, that makes money, then it's my tradeoff as to whether or not I choose to use it. If I choose to use it and it gets DoS-ed, then I'm annoyed.
Looking at it another way, if Kuro5hin gets DoS-ed, then the free time that someone committed to it is sacriliegiously abused. If a company gets DoS-ed, then the loss of profits, the damage to business and the aggro caused to the people that work there actually damages people's livings.
I'm not saying one is worse than the other, I'm saying that either way, it's a violation, and it's stupid, uneducated and bad, but I find it excessively "worthy" to cry about one and not the other. Especially when the immediate net cost to society in terms of hassle to people and loss of service is much higher when a site like Yahoo! goes down.
I'm really tired of reading news articles (ie the link) that continue to state that the purpose of deCSS is to copy DVDs. You'd have thought that they'd get over that particular item of technical ignorance by now.
But of course every time someone makes that mistake and publishes an article containing the implication that the purpose of deCSS is to copy/pirate/steal, it strengthens the MPAA's case. If people are copying DVDs, then go after them, sure, but isn't it time they came clean and declared once and for all that the CSS is a tool for segmenting the market, creating regional focuses that allow them to price discriminate, and potentially create a new source of revenue through the need to licence the CSS code to companies that want to make DVD players?
Does this also mean that amateur film-makers will be unable to create films for distribution on DVD because they won't be allowed to use the CSS encryption standard and therefore can't create content readable by CSS-hobbled DVD players? Or am I wrong about that last point?
It's no advantage once it becomes possible to do it with technology. One of two things will happen.
(1) Some can afford it and some cannot - you have a group of "enhanced" people and a group that isn't. Kind of a nightmare scenario.
(2) It's affordable to all, at which point, where's your advantage? It's no longer a choice but a necessary characteristic to be better than you otherwise would have been otherwise what you have in the absence of genetic meddling is a disadvantage
Not that this changes anything at all because the technology is coming and you can't shut your eyes and hope it goes away. Well, I suppose you could, but it wouldn't do you much good.
Altering the genetics of a person changes who that person is.
Changes what they are or what they would have been? If you're doing this to an embryo, are you changing a person or are you determining what they are about to become?
I know I'm just twiddling semantics here, but I think it's actually an important point. There's a big difference between changing a person to stop them behaving in a way you don't like or aren't proud of, because that's a whole other can of worms, but if you start defending the rights of the unborn, or potentially the unfertilised, then you're getting into familiar territory, and the comparison with abortion becomes inevitable.
If we ascribe to ourselves the right to abort an unborn child, we're nothing more than hypocrites if we then start forbidding another from changing an unborn child, and we don't have the moral high ground either because they can just answer, "Well at least I'm making them more capable of doing well in society, rather than killing them".
On a related point, your argument can be extended to mean that if two people get together and have a child that inevitably will carry some terrible inherited traits from their parents (disease, ugliness, something even more controvertial...), then they're doing something equally terrible, as they are in effect selecting the genes they will pass onto their child... Genetic manipulation (provided it is first properly understood) would be a selection of genes that would enhance rather than reduce (one would hope).
Please note that I'm following on from previous posts rather than replying to them so don't take offence!
Oh and another point - I'm not saying that I approve of genetically modifying people or future people, I'm just making a couple of points because I'm interested in the discussion! I think that deals with all of the disclaimers.
I quite like the idea that it might work, but I think he's wrong to assume that he's testing internet honesty. Given the language used to hype the event, the motivational factors influencing p[eople are not really honesty, but a chance to
(a) be part of the first potentially successful business model of it's kind (b) screw "big publishing"
Which of these factors is the clincher? Probably (b), given that a great many people out there love the thought of being part of the masses out to defend the poor helpless individual whose pocket and liberties are being infringed by any company with a capitalisation of more than two cents.
Oops.. I forgot to/sarcasm after my last post, that came out a bit heavy.
Good post. I think you're right that their business model is under threat and that if they don't adapt rather than cling to history, they'll suffer quite badly.
The problem here (as I see it) is that we have two arguments, and whilst each one on it's own is very valid and not *that* threatening in itself to these four-letter institutions, when you put the two together, they have every reason to be righteously pissed.
1) We have a right to privacy, I don't want a unique ID on my Pentium III, Doubleclick extrapolating my browsing habits to figure out my preferred colour of underwear or anybody anywhere figuring out character traits of mine by following what I do on the internet. - Fine.
2) We have a right to "fair use" and to exchange whatever files we choose to exchange, and nobody has the right to gag the medium we use to do that, be it called Napster, Scour, Gnutella or an envelope and a stamp. - Fine.
Put those two together and you have a situation in which people are going to copy stuff that they're allowed to copy, and make it available to other people, who will then download it in an environment that we are protecting so jealously that there is no way to police it, and that leads to potentially huge losses in revenue to the companies represented by these institutions.
Why? Because when people think they can't get caught, many of them quite happily do whatever they want, be it legal, moral, or not.
We sit here complaining about the MPAA and RIAA or whatever they're called, and protecting our medium's existence and privacy, but never offer them any viable solutions. Until someone bridges that gap and thinks of a solution, this problem isn't going to go away and the media companies will continue to try to gag what they perceive as a medium that facilitates the unlawful exchange of their product. Maybe we should try to come up with a solution to *their* problem instead of always just trying to slow them down. If we want them to go in another direction, lets open one up for them rather than just trying to close off the options that they have. What else can they do to protect the revenue flows they are entitled to arising from the goods they sell.
Now I'm no better than anyone else, because I don't want them treading all over my privacy or the tools for information exchange that exist on the internet, but I haven't got a solution for them either - I just think that that direction is more likely to succeed than the protection of a medium that is obviously being used to exchange pirated music and in vast volumes.
PS. On a related note - to say that "they make so much money that they had it coming to them" is economically rubbish. How much money they make is irrelevant. If you think the music costs too much, don't listen to it, in the same way that if you think a car costs too much, you don't buy it. You don't steal that car and then justify yourself by saying that it was overpriced in the first place.
Can you sue someone for collateral damages arising from their suit against someone else?
Interesting - I should get into a victimised frame of mind and start making money, because the court case against OJ caused Friends to be rescheduled, which meant I couldn't watch it, which caused psychological damage and clinical depression - how much money am I looking at in damages?
I hope you're right, but I'm unsure whether the courts would be willing to create a situation in which bringing a case to court in itself could lead to exposure to damages. Or is that what countersuits are all about? Sorry, my legal knowledge isn't up to this!
I understand the arguments saying that all of these intelligent hijackings of our messages and browsing habits is bad from a privacy/copyright point of view. I for one enjoy blocking cookies with junkbuster and am a particularly vehement anti-spam campaigner, but once you block out everything that could conceivably be perceived by anyone anywhere (and the Slashdot community is particularly good at sniffing these out) as a challenge to our rights in some way, what is left?
My argument is "not very much".
Leaving copyright concerns aside for a moment, from a marketing point of view, what deja have done is quite intelligent - it increases the value of their website to potential advertisers because it creates an automatic targeting of content to individuals based on what they are reading at any point in time.
What's nice about it is that it doesn't trespass on their privacy because it doesn't need to gather personal data over a long period of time to determine the habits of the individual, it just uses your current activity as a guide to what you are interested in and provides links to the relevant content.
Now I don't for a minute buy the argument that it's all "for the good of our users", but it most certainly is "for the good of our sales volumes", and if you value Deja.com's presence on the internet, that's probably not such a bad thing. If they cannot sustain proper revenues, at worst they fail as a business and shut down (or get bought by Microsoft), and at best they don't have the cash to develop their functionality to make it better for their users (which means that in the long run they're doomed anyway).
So - getting to the point - with all the great many things that we find unacceptable on the internet - tracking our browsing habits, changing so much as the formatting of our text, heaven forbid trying to find out our age, sex or name (all prerequisites to doing business with anyone in the non-digital world), that doesn't leave much space for business to act.
It also seems to be redefining business innovation as "how do I get around yet another aspect of marketing that online users find unacceptable?", when innovation used to be, "How do I provide something people really want/need, that isn't provided by anyone else?", and so in the end, the consumers lose out after all, so where does that leave online businesses that want to sell stuff to an online audience?
I don't claim to have the answer and I'm not arguing for doing away with privacy, so please don't misinterpret me, I'm just throwing this out there for discussion.
OK - I can't resist, I'll say it. If I were Deja.com, I would fight to keep my ability to do this, if not in the current way that it is done, then in some way that still forces the reader to take notice of my link, because it's damned hard to sell on the internet and if I'm running a company, I'm going to want to push my products in a way that gets them sold - this idea looks like it might work, and if my users object, my guess is they can always read usenet some other way - I provide a service, the cost of that service to the users is targeted advertising, and it's up to them to make the tradeoff. I'd probably dispute the fact that I'm stealing someone else's copyrighted content, and if not, I'd probably find a legal way around it through the use of page design. As far as I can see, it's not very intrusive, and I haven't changed the text of the message, I've just created relevant links and embedded them behind the text, in no way is the substance of the message changed.
That last paragraph's a bit strong, so I'll rely on Slashdot user intelligence to notice that I'm playing devils advocate to a certain extent.
I have to admit, when I first read the post, I thought she was joking.
By posting here I'm losing my ability to moderate in this discussion, so don't blame me for the "Troll" on the post at the top of the thread, it's not me.
In all honesty I find it hard to believe that you think it sensible to drive and speak on the phone at the same time. Admittedly there are a lot of people that do it, there are also many cases of car accidents caused by people driving and talking on the phone at the same time. A number of studies have been carried out and they indicate that even if you have a hands free kit, the attention you have to pay to the conversation you're having has a very detrimental effect on your reaction times.
So without wanting to use words like "Stupid", I still have to say that I find your point of view irresponsible - but that's just an opinion too.
Finally - being able to install Linux hardly makes you a rocket scientist, after all, even I managed to do it.
Slashdot Mirror
Any case in which the government has killed off large portions of the population. If they're not doing that, anything you could do would make things worse.
Woah.. hold on there! What are you saying? The only thing a government can do that is bad enough to warrant a political uprising (let alone the example used above, "rabble rousing and upsetting the status quo") is killing off large portions of the population?
If you can make a statement like that, there's nothing I can possible say or write to explain to you why it's so wrong. Examples are like quotes, too easy to pick apart on a detail, so I won't bother.
It's like the corset analogy. If a large individual wears a corset to get thinner, it doesn't make them thinner, it just makes them bulge in other places. If you cut off internet access to porn sites, illegal sites, or whatever the kids choose to look at, then they either get around your censorship or they go somewhere that's not censored. In other words, they're all surfing porn in the cybercafe around the corner, or in the safety of their own bedrooms, rather than in the library in question.
I've heard that tours very rarely make money, and that in general they act as a promotional device for the CD itself.
Privacy is a right, it's also a bit of a luxury in certain cicumstances, but it also causes a lot of hassle as it empowers vandals.
But what it comes down to is that there is no equivalent of putting aitbags in cars for the internet at the moment and we nevertheless want to stop the DoS attacks, therefore we go at the problem with the only lever we have available to us - removal of anonymity.
I wonder if removal of anonymity is the same as removal of privacy. We have no right to anonymity as far as I know, and only by arguing that the two are the same can we justify keeping the internet untraceable. Hmm - what do you think?
The argument in the bottom of your message, in italics, is not at all what I am saying. What I am saying is that the abuse of our rights to the point where the cost becomes unacceptable should lead to questions about what can be done to limit the abuse of those rights. The problem is that limiting abuse of rights is very difficult in an internet we have no way of policing, and therefore any approach to limit the damage of that abuse is going to cause collateral damage to the rights in question.
Just because someone wants to write a thesis on a terrorist organisation doesn't mean my ISP should be made vulnerable to script kiddies. If that's the tradeoff, then I vote they change thesis. If it isn't, then let's think of a way to stop them that doesn't result in measures of this kind.
We keep saying that the internet is great because it creates the free flow of information. The nature, destination, source and size of that information is just more information, which, if the means can be created, can just as freely be collected by individuals.
People protect Napster because it's something that allows information to flow even more freely - good, it's a valid argument and I will defend that argument. But the creation of technology such as this is merely the same kind of development, but the nature of the information is different. Instead of enabling the infringment the rights of people who make music/films/software/whatever, it enables (nothing more, after all it's what you do with it that counts, the makers of the technology can't be held responsible can they?) the infringement of the rights of people sending packets of data.
I think it's hypocritical to say that the internet is great because it allows the free-flow of information and data across the world and then to impose limits on that data flow when it relates to stuff we'd rather wasn't shared. I'm sure the musicians feel the same way about Napster, Gnutella, Scour, MP3.com and all the others.
I think that the reaction to the alleged "loss" of privacy on the net is a little extreme given the cost that privacy is beginning to create. I can live with people being able, provided it is not *too* easy, to get an idea of what I'm browsing, if it means that I can continue browsing it. If the cost is such that 15-year-old jerks with nothing better to do than get cheap thrills breaking things are taking away the services I want to use, then in my humble opinion, the privacy has come at too high a cost.
I don't like making the tradeoff, but I'd rather have a service that was not completely anonymous than be able to anonymously participate in a medium that has been reduced to complete uselessness.
Ok - so you want to browse anonymously.. Well firstly, why? I don't see the point. Secondly, nothing's stopping you - do the same as you would if you wanted to make an anonymous telephone call - use a phone box, or a public internet access point.
I'm stirring a little, but I get tired of people pouring their bleeding hearts over rights in the internet arena that they lost in other arenas years ago. They're not complaining about the postmark on their snail mail, or the telco's ability to see their phone numbers, or the CCTV in every store they "browse" in, or the bank recording every time they use their credit or debit cards, along with the name of the shop, time, place and everything else. You don't want to be on the store's CCTV tapes, don't go in.
Wow - you agree with me - I expected to be burnt alive by the Slashdot community...
The comment at the top of the thread that said that "people don't seem to get this" is wrong, people get the fact that Napster isn't selling copyrighted stuff.
Napster is building a business model on the back of a service that would never have taken off if it were not used for the piracy of copyrighted material. In other words, deliberately or not, they are gathering economic benefits from the facilitation of criminal activities.
I don't care if they are telling their users to do this or not, the only thing that worries me about this case is where the line is drawn and whether or not this could spill over into linking to other websites, because in terms of the internet in general, a line has to be very carefully drawn to minimise litigation and to allow people to link to almost anything because that's what the internet is about.
This sounds contradictory, so let me recall the point at the top - Napster's entire business model would fall over if, for some reason, it was impossible to pirate copyrighted work over their network. Their entire strategy depends on the attraction of their content, and their content, be it hosted by them or merely facilitated by them, is to a huge extent illegal. They are unable to create or attract legal content of sufficient quality to get traffic - so they rely, whether they facilitate it deliberately or not, on the transfer of copyrighted work. Regardless of whether it hits their servers or not - their business model depends on it.
You want to see an honest business model, go look at Peoplesound.
This is exactly the problem. The issue is not about what Napster does or doesn't do, it's about what people do with the Napster software. But, regardless of Napster's ambitions or claims of "It's not me, I'm just being used", an argument exists for making the use of this software illegal, exactly in the same way as an argument exists for making guns illegal (it's not me, it's the guy I sold it to).
I'm not saying which side of the argument I'm on, but that is the argument - does the tool add more than it takes away? Is the protection / added value worth the cost? And this is something that has to be dealt with.
So now we have two options :
(1) Make it illegal, screw the rights of the people using it.
(2) Protect it, screw the rights of the artists whose work is being stolen.
This situation is obviously begging for a third option, but people are too busy defending (1) or (2) to give a damn about other alternatives, and the judges will end up having to decide between the two. If the law hobbles them, then I wouldn't put it past the relevant authorities in various countries to change the laws underpinning the courts decisions (unless, of course, we come back to the sacred US constitution).
Unless someone finds another option or a way of creating a greyscale between the two we have, the courts will be forced to decide between a greater and a lesser evil, and I for one don't think that their decision is at all predictable.
If your argument is based on your personal emotions regarding this specific incident, then you can only be right, since only you can express how you feel about it.
I'm still pissed about the reporting inaccuracies though.
You're probably right, but since I lack the knowledge to understand the encryption, when I think about it on a personal level, I'm just waiting for LiViD to work so that I can watch DVDs on my Linux box.
Looking at it another way, if Kuro5hin gets DoS-ed, then the free time that someone committed to it is sacriliegiously abused. If a company gets DoS-ed, then the loss of profits, the damage to business and the aggro caused to the people that work there actually damages people's livings.
I'm not saying one is worse than the other, I'm saying that either way, it's a violation, and it's stupid, uneducated and bad, but I find it excessively "worthy" to cry about one and not the other. Especially when the immediate net cost to society in terms of hassle to people and loss of service is much higher when a site like Yahoo! goes down.
But of course every time someone makes that mistake and publishes an article containing the implication that the purpose of deCSS is to copy/pirate/steal, it strengthens the MPAA's case. If people are copying DVDs, then go after them, sure, but isn't it time they came clean and declared once and for all that the CSS is a tool for segmenting the market, creating regional focuses that allow them to price discriminate, and potentially create a new source of revenue through the need to licence the CSS code to companies that want to make DVD players?
Does this also mean that amateur film-makers will be unable to create films for distribution on DVD because they won't be allowed to use the CSS encryption standard and therefore can't create content readable by CSS-hobbled DVD players? Or am I wrong about that last point?
(1) Some can afford it and some cannot - you have a group of "enhanced" people and a group that isn't. Kind of a nightmare scenario.
(2) It's affordable to all, at which point, where's your advantage? It's no longer a choice but a necessary characteristic to be better than you otherwise would have been otherwise what you have in the absence of genetic meddling is a disadvantage
Not that this changes anything at all because the technology is coming and you can't shut your eyes and hope it goes away. Well, I suppose you could, but it wouldn't do you much good.
But it sure can do some great things to the wrapping.
Changes what they are or what they would have been? If you're doing this to an embryo, are you changing a person or are you determining what they are about to become?
I know I'm just twiddling semantics here, but I think it's actually an important point. There's a big difference between changing a person to stop them behaving in a way you don't like or aren't proud of, because that's a whole other can of worms, but if you start defending the rights of the unborn, or potentially the unfertilised, then you're getting into familiar territory, and the comparison with abortion becomes inevitable.
If we ascribe to ourselves the right to abort an unborn child, we're nothing more than hypocrites if we then start forbidding another from changing an unborn child, and we don't have the moral high ground either because they can just answer, "Well at least I'm making them more capable of doing well in society, rather than killing them".
On a related point, your argument can be extended to mean that if two people get together and have a child that inevitably will carry some terrible inherited traits from their parents (disease, ugliness, something even more controvertial...), then they're doing something equally terrible, as they are in effect selecting the genes they will pass onto their child... Genetic manipulation (provided it is first properly understood) would be a selection of genes that would enhance rather than reduce (one would hope).
Please note that I'm following on from previous posts rather than replying to them so don't take offence!
Oh and another point - I'm not saying that I approve of genetically modifying people or future people, I'm just making a couple of points because I'm interested in the discussion! I think that deals with all of the disclaimers.
I quite like the idea that it might work, but I think he's wrong to assume that he's testing internet honesty. Given the language used to hype the event, the motivational factors influencing p[eople are not really honesty, but a chance to
(a) be part of the first potentially successful business model of it's kind
(b) screw "big publishing"
Which of these factors is the clincher? Probably (b), given that a great many people out there love the thought of being part of the masses out to defend the poor helpless individual whose pocket and liberties are being infringed by any company with a capitalisation of more than two cents.
Oops.. I forgot to /sarcasm after my last post, that came out a bit heavy.
The problem here (as I see it) is that we have two arguments, and whilst each one on it's own is very valid and not *that* threatening in itself to these four-letter institutions, when you put the two together, they have every reason to be righteously pissed.
1) We have a right to privacy, I don't want a unique ID on my Pentium III, Doubleclick extrapolating my browsing habits to figure out my preferred colour of underwear or anybody anywhere figuring out character traits of mine by following what I do on the internet. - Fine.
2) We have a right to "fair use" and to exchange whatever files we choose to exchange, and nobody has the right to gag the medium we use to do that, be it called Napster, Scour, Gnutella or an envelope and a stamp. - Fine.
Put those two together and you have a situation in which people are going to copy stuff that they're allowed to copy, and make it available to other people, who will then download it in an environment that we are protecting so jealously that there is no way to police it, and that leads to potentially huge losses in revenue to the companies represented by these institutions.
Why? Because when people think they can't get caught, many of them quite happily do whatever they want, be it legal, moral, or not.
We sit here complaining about the MPAA and RIAA or whatever they're called, and protecting our medium's existence and privacy, but never offer them any viable solutions. Until someone bridges that gap and thinks of a solution, this problem isn't going to go away and the media companies will continue to try to gag what they perceive as a medium that facilitates the unlawful exchange of their product. Maybe we should try to come up with a solution to *their* problem instead of always just trying to slow them down. If we want them to go in another direction, lets open one up for them rather than just trying to close off the options that they have. What else can they do to protect the revenue flows they are entitled to arising from the goods they sell.
Now I'm no better than anyone else, because I don't want them treading all over my privacy or the tools for information exchange that exist on the internet, but I haven't got a solution for them either - I just think that that direction is more likely to succeed than the protection of a medium that is obviously being used to exchange pirated music and in vast volumes.
PS. On a related note - to say that "they make so much money that they had it coming to them" is economically rubbish. How much money they make is irrelevant. If you think the music costs too much, don't listen to it, in the same way that if you think a car costs too much, you don't buy it. You don't steal that car and then justify yourself by saying that it was overpriced in the first place.
Interesting - I should get into a victimised frame of mind and start making money, because the court case against OJ caused Friends to be rescheduled, which meant I couldn't watch it, which caused psychological damage and clinical depression - how much money am I looking at in damages?
I hope you're right, but I'm unsure whether the courts would be willing to create a situation in which bringing a case to court in itself could lead to exposure to damages. Or is that what countersuits are all about? Sorry, my legal knowledge isn't up to this!
ZDNet Story
MSNBC Story
Information Week Story
CNN Story
SANS Story
Also : Microsoft security bulletin (irony)
Microsoft FAQ + Patch
My argument is "not very much".
Leaving copyright concerns aside for a moment, from a marketing point of view, what deja have done is quite intelligent - it increases the value of their website to potential advertisers because it creates an automatic targeting of content to individuals based on what they are reading at any point in time.
What's nice about it is that it doesn't trespass on their privacy because it doesn't need to gather personal data over a long period of time to determine the habits of the individual, it just uses your current activity as a guide to what you are interested in and provides links to the relevant content.
Now I don't for a minute buy the argument that it's all "for the good of our users", but it most certainly is "for the good of our sales volumes", and if you value Deja.com's presence on the internet, that's probably not such a bad thing. If they cannot sustain proper revenues, at worst they fail as a business and shut down (or get bought by Microsoft), and at best they don't have the cash to develop their functionality to make it better for their users (which means that in the long run they're doomed anyway).
So - getting to the point - with all the great many things that we find unacceptable on the internet - tracking our browsing habits, changing so much as the formatting of our text, heaven forbid trying to find out our age, sex or name (all prerequisites to doing business with anyone in the non-digital world), that doesn't leave much space for business to act.
It also seems to be redefining business innovation as "how do I get around yet another aspect of marketing that online users find unacceptable?", when innovation used to be, "How do I provide something people really want/need, that isn't provided by anyone else?", and so in the end, the consumers lose out after all, so where does that leave online businesses that want to sell stuff to an online audience?
I don't claim to have the answer and I'm not arguing for doing away with privacy, so please don't misinterpret me, I'm just throwing this out there for discussion.
OK - I can't resist, I'll say it. If I were Deja.com, I would fight to keep my ability to do this, if not in the current way that it is done, then in some way that still forces the reader to take notice of my link, because it's damned hard to sell on the internet and if I'm running a company, I'm going to want to push my products in a way that gets them sold - this idea looks like it might work, and if my users object, my guess is they can always read usenet some other way - I provide a service, the cost of that service to the users is targeted advertising, and it's up to them to make the tradeoff. I'd probably dispute the fact that I'm stealing someone else's copyrighted content, and if not, I'd probably find a legal way around it through the use of page design. As far as I can see, it's not very intrusive, and I haven't changed the text of the message, I've just created relevant links and embedded them behind the text, in no way is the substance of the message changed.
That last paragraph's a bit strong, so I'll rely on Slashdot user intelligence to notice that I'm playing devils advocate to a certain extent.
By posting here I'm losing my ability to moderate in this discussion, so don't blame me for the "Troll" on the post at the top of the thread, it's not me.
In all honesty I find it hard to believe that you think it sensible to drive and speak on the phone at the same time. Admittedly there are a lot of people that do it, there are also many cases of car accidents caused by people driving and talking on the phone at the same time. A number of studies have been carried out and they indicate that even if you have a hands free kit, the attention you have to pay to the conversation you're having has a very detrimental effect on your reaction times.
So without wanting to use words like "Stupid", I still have to say that I find your point of view irresponsible - but that's just an opinion too.
Finally - being able to install Linux hardly makes you a rocket scientist, after all, even I managed to do it.