I already run a mail server "somewhere else", and sined up for Mindspring just to have a local dial-up. I never gave my Mindspring address away to anyone, as I did not intend to use it for anything but communication with Mindspring.
From day one, I received *exactly* one spam per day on that account. Mind you, Mindspring also boasts their oh so effective Spaminator.
Interestingly, I have been thinking of the very same idea. I just never got around to actually do it. What I *do* however, is that everyone I know are put in my white list and automatically get sorted in a "Safe Inbox". People who are not in my white list remain in the normal Inbox. I keep my eye on the safe inbox, but only occationally look in the normal inbox, to see if there were any new addresses I should white list.
I also give out custom e-mail addresses to anywhere I sign up, so that I can determine where my address leaked, and disable such an account.
And finally, I have a spam attractor account; as soon as a spammer sends e-mail to this account, all other recepient in the same SMTP session turn "unknown". Only the spam attractor address will be "accepted" (but not stored, of course).
Re:Bleeding edge compatibility
on
MP3Pro Released
·
· Score: 1
I'm sitting on about 8 Gigabytes, and still haven't ripped all my CDs yet. (Got about 350 CDs) And then they tell me "Oh, but you should be doing Ogg Vorbis" - sorry, but until there's Ogg-support in my video editing software, I am stuck with MP3. Not to mention, I didn't find any easy Windows software to decode Ogg - just encoding... what happens when I want to make that music mix for mah car?
So if I have WinAmp read the MP3-file from a file system shared by SAMBA, I'd be transferring it by TCP, with just "slightly" other packaging than HTTP - does this mean that I am illegally streaming the MP3?;^)
> I guess the studios believe that so few people
> travel internationally that we just won't mind.
Yes... from what I understand of the movie industry, this is based of an understanding that there are only two flights per year between the US and Europe, and it's really sad for people in Australia who have to take big sail boats that use six months to get to Europe. Naturally, they do this only once every two years. And South America? They don't even have electronics. And when they go overseas, they ahve to walk to the US border. As for Asia - they are not even allowed to leave their own homes.
I hear ya! I used to be a Norwegian living in North America. I was cut off from my Norwegian heritage. TV shows that I grew up with made it on DVD, but I couldn't import them because of the region encoding. I even explicitly asked them if they couldn't release it in region 1, but they didn't see enough market there to justify doing so.
I eventually decided to move back to Norway, which caused another problem; my entire DVD collection was region 1. What should I do? Sell my entire collection at a lower price than retail, and then buy the same titles again in Norway at a higher price than US retail? I don't think so! So I sold my DVD player, and got a region free player when I came home to Norway.
Of course, this means that I'm watching my movies illegally, since the license says that "this movie can only replayed in North America" - even if I had brought my region 1 player with me to Norway and fixed the power the way I did with my surround sound receiver, it would still be illegal for me to watch the movie... figures!
A friend of mine in Toronto claimed that region encoding was "good for the industry" and that was all that mattered. He didn't see that it could hurt consumers, even though I made a clear case to him.
Actually, if you paid attention to Art Bell, you'd know that the "face" photo, as well as some other "artifacts" are most likely forgeries. This does not, however, mean that SOME of the artifacts might be real. Rather, it raises the question, why would someone conduct such a forgery?
Gotta love this... the topic was "ask ANY questions" - and I ask my favourite questions, and I get modded down as "offtopic", even though nothing is offtopic when you can ask ANYTHING...
Of course, I'll get modded down for pointing this out, too.
Doesn't this mean that RIAA should be suing them for keeping a database of illegally copied data from their CDs?
Re:User OS vs. System OS.
on
Is UNIX An OS?
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· Score: 1
Um... Java doesn't have pointers. It has references. The JVM uses pointers to implement the references, but the user doesn't get to manipulate
them.
Well, excuse me... I must have been mistaken then... because, you see, the argument was that pointers were confusing, but references were not. Because, you see, when you pass a pointer, you're passing... a pointer, whatever that is, and not the actual data... but when you pass a REFERENCE... then... then... you pass a... finger that shows you where the value is, but not the actual value.
The only difference is that in Java, you don't get to manipulate the pointers. And oh... yeah... so, in Java, you can't actually pass the actual value unless it is a primitive. I see that as a castration of C++. But that's just because I happen to know what I'm doing.
Yes, the argument for not being able to manipulate the pointers is that you do less mistakes, but these mistakes occur more often with people who do not know what they are doing. Just like the argument that most Java advocates uses for Java is that the language forces you to do certain things, which is good because you don't have to be an expert on everything to do anything. But they all agree that if you know what you're doing, these protections aren't necessary. They are protections against unconditioned programmers.
Let me put it this way: Do you still use supporting wheels on your bicycle to stop you from tilting over? They are really great when you're learning, because you don't get all those fall and scratch experiences. But once you have the balance, they are just in the way.
Stick shift or automatic? Automatic is great when you're just learning to drive, but if you get used to stick, you have so much more control over your car. Of course, the stick shift is just an obstacle to people who don't know how to drive them. But automatic is an obstacle to those who have learned stick. Especially when they come to slippery roads, stick is definitely preferred - if you know how.
Same thing in C++ vs. Java: I pretty much know what I'm doing, so why should I have to have these shackles on pointers restrict me? These restrictions might be an advantage to YOU, but they are an obstacle to ME.
Same thing with the entire Linux vs. Mac discussion... a Mac user will say it is so difficult to use Linux. Well, guess what... the Mac environment is such an obstacle to the Linux power user. It is not that Mac is difficult... hell, Mac is easy peasy. But it is restricting you.
Or the Linux distribution thing... Red Hat? Great when you don't fully understand Linux internals, but once you get used to Slackware (stick shift), you wouldn't touch Red Hat with a 20 foot pole unless you really really had to. The average Red Hat user, however, would probably be lost in Slackware, because a lot of their Red Hat automation (automatic shift) is missing, and they are wondering what the hell is the deal with Slackware, anyway... it's so... primitive...
Re:User OS vs. System OS.
on
Is UNIX An OS?
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· Score: 1
Except in this case it does mean virtual. As far as the program can tell, the computer has, say, 400 MB of RAM, while there is not that much physical RAM...
First, I'd say... come on now... 400 MB is a lot. Anything about 48k of RAM is a lot. Don't tell me you have a harddisk, too!!!
But what I really wanted to say... I am not arguing that swap space and virtual RAM isn't the same thing. But just like "favourites" vs. "bookmarks", the original poster was talking about how everything in Windows had to be "virtual"-something. The word is like the plague. It spreads everywhere.
"Swap space" is what you call it when you want normal people to think you are a smart computer geek.
Actually, it doesn't matter what you tell normal people. Sure, "Swap space" goes above their heads, but so does "Virtual Memory"... they go... "Huh? Do computers have memory?" And if you try with RAM, they might just start bleating.
Ever tried to ask someone how much RAM they have on their computer?
"What do you mean RAM?"
"Memory. How much memory does your computer have?"
"Uhhhh... I'm not sure... uh... I think I have 2."
"No, it's usually a bigger number than that."
"Yea, I mean I have two memories or something."
"Oh... well, how big are they?"
"Uh... one is... 30, I think... does that sound like a number?"
"Let me see... three is a number, zero is a number... thirty... yeah, it's a number. But is that like 32 Megs of RAM or 30 Gigs of harddisk?"
"I don't have any RAM, I think. So... so... it's probably the last one... the hardsomething..."
Catch my drift? After THIS discussion, try thinking of what it would be like to ask them about their VIRTUAL memory!!! "You mean my computer's memory isn't real? Did they trick me?"
So you mean to tell me that implementing classes, inheritence, etc. in C is desireable (or at least just as good as using an OO language)? These features of C++ and Java are not buzzwords," they're fundamental language features. By your argument "functions" are just a bunch of
buzzword crap for an automated jmp.
Actually, I prefer a bsr or a jsr, but that's besides the point. No, it is not desirable to implement a class in C, when you have a BETTER Macro Assembler, like C++. But a method within a class is still just a function (or even subroutine) where you keep passing it a pointer to its workspace, allowing these functions to work under different, simultaneous environments (as opposed to having one global environment).
Re:User OS vs. System OS.
on
Is UNIX An OS?
·
· Score: 1
Duh! I think the point was that everything has to be "virtual something". It's a buzzword, and doesn't really have to MEAN virtual, but it sounds good, and it sells good. It's goes in the same line as the word "synergy". It's a buzzword that businesses love to use, because they sound good, but they don't actually act it out.
I read this article in Psychology Today. Their concept was this... you take the top 100 companies in for a meeting, and ask all the CEOs, what's the MOST important thing for a company to successd in the 21st century? And everytone goes "Creativity and innovation!" - all across the board. But how many knew how to FOSTER creativity and innovation in their company? About 60%. And then the kicker... how many of them actually DID it? About 6%. But by all means, all companies are creative and innovative.
It's just like this guy who came on IRC once, when a new version of IE was out, and he urged everyone to download it. "So what's so special?" I asked. "Why shoudn't I continue to use Netscape?"
"Well," he explained to me. "There's this thing called 'favourites' - Netscape doesn't have favourites." Of course not. Netscape has BOOKMARKS. Netscape are SO behind on these things...
And Java has programming patterns, and C is completely patternless. And Java has interfaces and a class can "extend" another class and stuff. It is SO much better than C! The kicker was the comment I once read, that Java is better than C, because there are no pointers in Java! Hahahahaha!!! No pointers in Java my ass! They are ALL pointers! There's ONLY pointers!!! My GOD!
I love to take photos. Sometimes I see a great scene to take a photo of. Sometimes something is going on. Sometimes I just see something weird. I do not carry my camera with me all the time, however. That's where this watch comes in. Even though it is not the best ever quality, these scenes will not go by uncaptures.
It also functions great as a notebook, when I need to transport something graphical to a meeting (it happens!) - I can just snap it, and show the images, and we can decide between the different snapshots that way, instead of having to go through a long and expensive development process.
Same day as they were out? Hahahaha! I read about this watch in an in-flight magazine in *August*, and I already BOUGHT one as soon as a store had them available here in Canada, at the beginning of September. Yes, sire! I've had mine for a month, and I've known about it for the last two months.
"So," I hear you ask. "Why didn't you submit a story about it then?" Well, my dear friend. It don't matter what I submit, because it gets rejected every time, even though when someone else comes up with the story two months later, they jump in to print it as if it was news.
Sad, really.
Actually, the "anonymous call block" only works against normal people who try to make an anonymous call. So you can protect yourself from ordinary people who want to call you anonymously, but you can't protect yourself from telemarketers.
Similarly, the "anonymous call" also works only when calling ordinary people. If you call a large corporation, using the "anonymous call" feature, they will still be able to get your phone number and know who you are.
In other words, the "anonymous call block" only blocks the people you want to let through (such as relatives calling from overseas; these numbers often show up as "unknown" because they don't transfer to the North American phone system. Same goes for some cell phone carriers), and "anonymous call" does not keep you anonymous when calling the people you don't want to know who you are.
No, what I need to do is hook a tape recorder up to the phone and record all the telemarketing calls, make fun of them, and put them all out on mp3.com.
Did I mention that I own corporate-abuse.com? This gives me the opportunity to answer the phone with "corporate-abuse.com, how may I address your call?" and not lie.:^)
But then, isn't the whining aimed at the wrong goal? Would it not be better to say "I don't like AIM because they are not following the standard for Instant Messaging?"
Then again, there isn't really a standard, is there? So before we start whining, let's make that standard.
The AOL "buddy" system existed before they decided to have the more independent AIM-client. Their extention WAS the AIM client. And as far as I can tell, this is financed through advertising, as well as extending the user base beyond AOL users. However, it is still their system. And as such, IMHO, this system sucks.
The fact that their technology has not been completelty up to date, is reflected by the fact, that until recently, they were not fully capable of keeping out unauthorized clients. Here, the analogy is that you have a phone central. Subscribers get to use your "chat" service for free, and you make special phones that display advertising for people who don't subscribe, but want to talk to subscribers anyway.
Then, someone finds a backdoor, so that he doesn't have to go see all the advertising. This does not automatically entitle him to do this, it just means that there was a flaw in the design (security through obscurity), allowing unauthorized access.
Another analogy is to say that, because Microsoft allows DNS lookups on their dial-ups, allowing tunneling over DNS, does NOT make this use of Microsoft's phone lines "authorized use". Or are you also going to whine when Microsoft blocks DNS for non-MSN domains on those phone lines, claiming that it was your right?
Face it. AIM is a proprietary messaging system. AOL owns it. Same goes for ICQ. It is proprietary. Do not demand anything from these, unless you are paying for it. Do not even count on them. If you want something real, use a non-proprietary standard, such as IRC or Jabber.
Uhm... so what you are saying is that... AOL's servers should not be legally entitled to shut out clients that they don't like, even though it is THEIR hardware.
On the other hand, the sentiment is that spammers should not be allowed to send their junk mail to YOUR machine, because it is YOUR hardware.
Let's be consistent, shall we? Either you allow spammers access to your hardware, or you allow AOL to deny unauthorized access to their hardware.
Far from it, hun. Babelfish only translates the text. It does not translate the IMG tags other than to modify the source, so that the source still comes from the original site. Try to translate a porn site and "view image" on any of the graphics. Look at the URL for the graphic.
So while your pornographic novel might be translated to French for you, the actual image is blocked by your local Net Nanny.
I think the REAL reason Babelfish is blocked, is because it allows you to read all the foreign "dangerous opinions" that you're not supposed to know about. I mean... what would Americans do if they found out that Europeans have more vacation time than they do?
Slashdot Mirror
Really cool geeks read e-mail with more, delete old messages with grep and sed, and send mail with telnet.
You just have to countersue for unauthorized use of sunlight.
From day one, I received *exactly* one spam per day on that account. Mind you, Mindspring also boasts their oh so effective Spaminator.
Interestingly, I have been thinking of the very same idea. I just never got around to actually do it. What I *do* however, is that everyone I know are put in my white list and automatically get sorted in a "Safe Inbox". People who are not in my white list remain in the normal Inbox. I keep my eye on the safe inbox, but only occationally look in the normal inbox, to see if there were any new addresses I should white list.
I also give out custom e-mail addresses to anywhere I sign up, so that I can determine where my address leaked, and disable such an account.
And finally, I have a spam attractor account; as soon as a spammer sends e-mail to this account, all other recepient in the same SMTP session turn "unknown". Only the spam attractor address will be "accepted" (but not stored, of course).
I'm sitting on about 8 Gigabytes, and still haven't ripped all my CDs yet. (Got about 350 CDs) And then they tell me "Oh, but you should be doing Ogg Vorbis" - sorry, but until there's Ogg-support in my video editing software, I am stuck with MP3. Not to mention, I didn't find any easy Windows software to decode Ogg - just encoding... what happens when I want to make that music mix for mah car?
So if I have WinAmp read the MP3-file from a file system shared by SAMBA, I'd be transferring it by TCP, with just "slightly" other packaging than HTTP - does this mean that I am illegally streaming the MP3? ;^)
> I guess the studios believe that so few people
> travel internationally that we just won't mind.
Yes... from what I understand of the movie industry, this is based of an understanding that there are only two flights per year between the US and Europe, and it's really sad for people in Australia who have to take big sail boats that use six months to get to Europe. Naturally, they do this only once every two years. And South America? They don't even have electronics. And when they go overseas, they ahve to walk to the US border. As for Asia - they are not even allowed to leave their own homes.
I hear ya! I used to be a Norwegian living in North America. I was cut off from my Norwegian heritage. TV shows that I grew up with made it on DVD, but I couldn't import them because of the region encoding. I even explicitly asked them if they couldn't release it in region 1, but they didn't see enough market there to justify doing so. I eventually decided to move back to Norway, which caused another problem; my entire DVD collection was region 1. What should I do? Sell my entire collection at a lower price than retail, and then buy the same titles again in Norway at a higher price than US retail? I don't think so! So I sold my DVD player, and got a region free player when I came home to Norway. Of course, this means that I'm watching my movies illegally, since the license says that "this movie can only replayed in North America" - even if I had brought my region 1 player with me to Norway and fixed the power the way I did with my surround sound receiver, it would still be illegal for me to watch the movie... figures! A friend of mine in Toronto claimed that region encoding was "good for the industry" and that was all that mattered. He didn't see that it could hurt consumers, even though I made a clear case to him.
Ah! That would be when you have then open lines. You should check out his interview with Patch Adams.
Actually, if you paid attention to Art Bell, you'd know that the "face" photo, as well as some other "artifacts" are most likely forgeries. This does not, however, mean that SOME of the artifacts might be real. Rather, it raises the question, why would someone conduct such a forgery?
Gotta love this... the topic was "ask ANY questions" - and I ask my favourite questions, and I get modded down as "offtopic", even though nothing is offtopic when you can ask ANYTHING...
Of course, I'll get modded down for pointing this out, too.
Yeah... death by electrocution is Florida. The irony.... :^)
Doesn't this mean that RIAA should be suing them for keeping a database of illegally copied data from their CDs?
Well, excuse me... I must have been mistaken then... because, you see, the argument was that pointers were confusing, but references were not. Because, you see, when you pass a pointer, you're passing ... a pointer, whatever that is, and not the actual data... but when you pass a REFERENCE... then... then... you pass a ... finger that shows you where the value is, but not the actual value.
The only difference is that in Java, you don't get to manipulate the pointers. And oh... yeah... so, in Java, you can't actually pass the actual value unless it is a primitive. I see that as a castration of C++. But that's just because I happen to know what I'm doing.
Yes, the argument for not being able to manipulate the pointers is that you do less mistakes, but these mistakes occur more often with people who do not know what they are doing. Just like the argument that most Java advocates uses for Java is that the language forces you to do certain things, which is good because you don't have to be an expert on everything to do anything. But they all agree that if you know what you're doing, these protections aren't necessary. They are protections against unconditioned programmers.
Let me put it this way: Do you still use supporting wheels on your bicycle to stop you from tilting over? They are really great when you're learning, because you don't get all those fall and scratch experiences. But once you have the balance, they are just in the way.
Stick shift or automatic? Automatic is great when you're just learning to drive, but if you get used to stick, you have so much more control over your car. Of course, the stick shift is just an obstacle to people who don't know how to drive them. But automatic is an obstacle to those who have learned stick. Especially when they come to slippery roads, stick is definitely preferred - if you know how.
Same thing in C++ vs. Java: I pretty much know what I'm doing, so why should I have to have these shackles on pointers restrict me? These restrictions might be an advantage to YOU, but they are an obstacle to ME.
Same thing with the entire Linux vs. Mac discussion... a Mac user will say it is so difficult to use Linux. Well, guess what... the Mac environment is such an obstacle to the Linux power user. It is not that Mac is difficult... hell, Mac is easy peasy. But it is restricting you.
Or the Linux distribution thing... Red Hat? Great when you don't fully understand Linux internals, but once you get used to Slackware (stick shift), you wouldn't touch Red Hat with a 20 foot pole unless you really really had to. The average Red Hat user, however, would probably be lost in Slackware, because a lot of their Red Hat automation (automatic shift) is missing, and they are wondering what the hell is the deal with Slackware, anyway... it's so... primitive...
First, I'd say... come on now... 400 MB is a lot. Anything about 48k of RAM is a lot. Don't tell me you have a harddisk, too!!!
But what I really wanted to say... I am not arguing that swap space and virtual RAM isn't the same thing. But just like "favourites" vs. "bookmarks", the original poster was talking about how everything in Windows had to be "virtual"-something. The word is like the plague. It spreads everywhere.
"Swap space" is what you call it when you want normal people to think you are a smart computer geek.
Actually, it doesn't matter what you tell normal people. Sure, "Swap space" goes above their heads, but so does "Virtual Memory"... they go... "Huh? Do computers have memory?" And if you try with RAM, they might just start bleating.
Ever tried to ask someone how much RAM they have on their computer?
"What do you mean RAM?"
"Memory. How much memory does your computer have?"
"Uhhhh... I'm not sure... uh... I think I have 2."
"No, it's usually a bigger number than that."
"Yea, I mean I have two memories or something."
"Oh... well, how big are they?"
"Uh... one is... 30, I think... does that sound like a number?"
"Let me see... three is a number, zero is a number... thirty... yeah, it's a number. But is that like 32 Megs of RAM or 30 Gigs of harddisk?"
"I don't have any RAM, I think. So... so... it's probably the last one... the hardsomething..."
Catch my drift? After THIS discussion, try thinking of what it would be like to ask them about their VIRTUAL memory!!! "You mean my computer's memory isn't real? Did they trick me?"
So you mean to tell me that implementing classes, inheritence, etc. in C is desireable (or at least just as good as using an OO language)? These features of C++ and Java are not buzzwords," they're fundamental language features. By your argument "functions" are just a bunch of buzzword crap for an automated jmp.
Actually, I prefer a bsr or a jsr, but that's besides the point. No, it is not desirable to implement a class in C, when you have a BETTER Macro Assembler, like C++. But a method within a class is still just a function (or even subroutine) where you keep passing it a pointer to its workspace, allowing these functions to work under different, simultaneous environments (as opposed to having one global environment).
I read this article in Psychology Today. Their concept was this... you take the top 100 companies in for a meeting, and ask all the CEOs, what's the MOST important thing for a company to successd in the 21st century? And everytone goes "Creativity and innovation!" - all across the board. But how many knew how to FOSTER creativity and innovation in their company? About 60%. And then the kicker... how many of them actually DID it? About 6%. But by all means, all companies are creative and innovative.
It's just like this guy who came on IRC once, when a new version of IE was out, and he urged everyone to download it. "So what's so special?" I asked. "Why shoudn't I continue to use Netscape?"
"Well," he explained to me. "There's this thing called 'favourites' - Netscape doesn't have favourites." Of course not. Netscape has BOOKMARKS. Netscape are SO behind on these things...
And Java has programming patterns, and C is completely patternless. And Java has interfaces and a class can "extend" another class and stuff. It is SO much better than C! The kicker was the comment I once read, that Java is better than C, because there are no pointers in Java! Hahahahaha!!! No pointers in Java my ass! They are ALL pointers! There's ONLY pointers!!! My GOD!
I love to take photos. Sometimes I see a great scene to take a photo of. Sometimes something is going on. Sometimes I just see something weird. I do not carry my camera with me all the time, however. That's where this watch comes in. Even though it is not the best ever quality, these scenes will not go by uncaptures. It also functions great as a notebook, when I need to transport something graphical to a meeting (it happens!) - I can just snap it, and show the images, and we can decide between the different snapshots that way, instead of having to go through a long and expensive development process.
Same day as they were out? Hahahaha! I read about this watch in an in-flight magazine in *August*, and I already BOUGHT one as soon as a store had them available here in Canada, at the beginning of September. Yes, sire! I've had mine for a month, and I've known about it for the last two months. "So," I hear you ask. "Why didn't you submit a story about it then?" Well, my dear friend. It don't matter what I submit, because it gets rejected every time, even though when someone else comes up with the story two months later, they jump in to print it as if it was news. Sad, really.
I know, I know... "watered down version of UNIX"... arrrr...
Actually, the "anonymous call block" only works against normal people who try to make an anonymous call. So you can protect yourself from ordinary people who want to call you anonymously, but you can't protect yourself from telemarketers. Similarly, the "anonymous call" also works only when calling ordinary people. If you call a large corporation, using the "anonymous call" feature, they will still be able to get your phone number and know who you are. In other words, the "anonymous call block" only blocks the people you want to let through (such as relatives calling from overseas; these numbers often show up as "unknown" because they don't transfer to the North American phone system. Same goes for some cell phone carriers), and "anonymous call" does not keep you anonymous when calling the people you don't want to know who you are. No, what I need to do is hook a tape recorder up to the phone and record all the telemarketing calls, make fun of them, and put them all out on mp3.com. Did I mention that I own corporate-abuse.com? This gives me the opportunity to answer the phone with "corporate-abuse.com, how may I address your call?" and not lie. :^)
Within the next 12 moons. But in Holland. And it'll be a Linux shop. Slackware, of course.
But then, isn't the whining aimed at the wrong goal? Would it not be better to say "I don't like AIM because they are not following the standard for Instant Messaging?"
Then again, there isn't really a standard, is there? So before we start whining, let's make that standard.
The AOL "buddy" system existed before they decided to have the more independent AIM-client. Their extention WAS the AIM client. And as far as I can tell, this is financed through advertising, as well as extending the user base beyond AOL users. However, it is still their system. And as such, IMHO, this system sucks. The fact that their technology has not been completelty up to date, is reflected by the fact, that until recently, they were not fully capable of keeping out unauthorized clients. Here, the analogy is that you have a phone central. Subscribers get to use your "chat" service for free, and you make special phones that display advertising for people who don't subscribe, but want to talk to subscribers anyway. Then, someone finds a backdoor, so that he doesn't have to go see all the advertising. This does not automatically entitle him to do this, it just means that there was a flaw in the design (security through obscurity), allowing unauthorized access. Another analogy is to say that, because Microsoft allows DNS lookups on their dial-ups, allowing tunneling over DNS, does NOT make this use of Microsoft's phone lines "authorized use". Or are you also going to whine when Microsoft blocks DNS for non-MSN domains on those phone lines, claiming that it was your right? Face it. AIM is a proprietary messaging system. AOL owns it. Same goes for ICQ. It is proprietary. Do not demand anything from these, unless you are paying for it. Do not even count on them. If you want something real, use a non-proprietary standard, such as IRC or Jabber.
Uhm... so what you are saying is that... AOL's servers should not be legally entitled to shut out clients that they don't like, even though it is THEIR hardware.
On the other hand, the sentiment is that spammers should not be allowed to send their junk mail to YOUR machine, because it is YOUR hardware.
Let's be consistent, shall we? Either you allow spammers access to your hardware, or you allow AOL to deny unauthorized access to their hardware.
Far from it, hun. Babelfish only translates the text. It does not translate the IMG tags other than to modify the source, so that the source still comes from the original site. Try to translate a porn site and "view image" on any of the graphics. Look at the URL for the graphic.
So while your pornographic novel might be translated to French for you, the actual image is blocked by your local Net Nanny.
I think the REAL reason Babelfish is blocked, is because it allows you to read all the foreign "dangerous opinions" that you're not supposed to know about. I mean... what would Americans do if they found out that Europeans have more vacation time than they do?