White House Effect: The phenomenon whereby government agencies trap climate control funding, caused by the presence in the atmosphere of Republican FUD that allows donator-friendly information to pass through but absorbs evidence radiated back from concerned scientists.
(original definition)
As seen in many comments on solutions to this, more often than not software patents lead to people *avoiding* the technology and using alternatives (arguably worse ones), rather than paying for it. At the end of the day, who wins from this? Not Eolas, not Microsoft, and *certainly* not the end users.
This is what I can't stand about the picture the RIAA and others continually try to paint. They assume that (1) people who download music would pay for it if they couldn't download, (2) they would do so at current prices, i.e. a ridiculous mark-up even with the latest reductions, (3) they can dupe Joe Public into believing that a sizeable proportion of the money actually goes to the artists and not higher-ups in the RIAA, for whom nobody has any sympathy.
I hate the way they strangle artists with ridiculous mark-ups and unfair division of revenue, then when sales drop they keep the proportions the same and point to the "starving artists". Take a pay cut yourselves, you [...] hypocritical [...]-[...] bunch of [...]s. End Of Flame.
It's a really great idea, anonymity, plausible deniability and all the rest. Unfortunately it's written in Java, eats resources like there's no tomorrow (which is a big problem, at least on machines that aren't brand new), and also has to delay information randomly for some of the anonymity features to work.
It's also quite a small community at the moment. What it really needs is more users, which will happen when someone writes a nicer implementation, which will happen when it gets more users, which... oh, fsck.
When you get a mail that happens to go in a category the rules wouldn't normally put it in, because of what it mentions in passing for example, what do you do? Add something contrived to the rules? The fault I find with most virtual folder systems is they are purely views of database queries.
What needs to happen is that the rules set one or more categories for the message, and then where you have virtual folders or database views today, you instead have simpler queries of what is in each category, with an easy way to turn a given category on or off when viewing a message. In short, you need to be able to correct categories for a given message without editing the rules.
In this instance the obvious motive for the DoS is to protect spammers' interests, so there's a good chance the attacker is a spammer (well, either that or someone *really* angry about a bad blocking decision). I think it's worth devoting special effort to finding and prosecuting the originator of this attack, since it might lead to a spammer being locked up as well, which can only ever be a good thing.:-)
Guarantees that the client would show their advertising. Cannot be guaranteed with anything open source, obviously.
Guarantees that the client would... well, do anything, really. Not allow certain operations... report certain information to them... since anything can be changed, nothing about potential derivatives can be guaranteed.
Per-user fees. Even a fraction of a penny would mean there would have to be *some* kind of charge for the client, obviously free software is screwed again.
Hell, even a single large fee per-application or per-version-upgrade could be really bad for a lot of people, since each individual small project would have trouble raising large amounts of cash.
It'll be interesting to see what happens to people who try to co-operate with them, and what happens when some of the conditions turn out to be impossible for a particular client. Of course, that client will have already drawn themselves to M$' attention... trouble could enSUE.
I'd understand if there were "Reply to this" links on the front page (the one for this story would be nice and close to the headline for the last one).
Hmm, I guess the same happened with "Read More...", someone's brain was on autopilot to click reply, not looking at the story at all...
It need not be the same server, this info can be transmitted from one to another. The blocking itself can be done with frames or iframes (and holding off sending the HTTP response with the content until those with the ads are completed), so it need not remember whether you DLd the ads last time around, which solves all the problems about dynamic IPs, proxies, etc.
Cookies would be a very weak way to implement this, they can be faked quite easily. The client could connect to the ad server, get the header of the response (and thus the cookie), and close the connection.
That leaves the problem of whether the ads are displayed or not. The only way to do this would be at the client side with JavaScript or something, which they wouldn't get away with (at least I hope not...). But you still have to download the ads.
Anyway I'm sure reverse-engineering will prevail, it has before. I for one will quite happily spend a few hours with ethereal to try and get round anything advertisers throw at me.
Sites like this are basically providing a service in exchange for the opportunity to show you ads. Magazines are partly doing the same thing. IMHO, skipping over / ignoring ads is fair, but automatically hiding them is not.
With TV and radio you can just switch stations or leave the room or whatever, but you risk missing a bit of the programme. I think that's fair.
Equally, I consider popups and these "jump-through" tactics unfair. I think ads this "active" are an unfair attempt to force you to read them, OTOH more "passive" things like banners are ok: they have only until you scroll past them to attract your attention.
Banners in a separate frame (and anything else that keeps the ad in view) are _definitely_ not ok IMNSHO. Either I'm interested in a given ad or I'm not, and the fact that it's sitting there the whole time while I read through a page is not going to make me interested.
Obviously this is just my 0.02. Ultimately if you don't like it, don't use their site.
Popups can be disallowed with some browsers, though I haven't yet seen anything which allows you to filter only window.open (as opposed to all JavaScript) on a site-by-site basis.
I suppose a proxy with rewriting support might be able to bypass the ad page, depending on how it's done. If the URL is in the request for the ad page, it's very simple, but otherwise you'd have to wait for the ad page to download, and then follow the redirect immediately, or find the link you have to click.
Whether you _should_ use filtering technologies on ad-funded sites is another matter, because in some sense you are committing theft.
The new CompSci building is partly funded by Microsoft, who are also putting an MS Research building on the site.
I'll hopefully be studying there soon, and _AFAIK_ it won't make any difference who it was funded by, though it does make me shudder slightly to think I'll be studying in the "William H Gates building".
The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act passed into UK law last year, despite a campaign by the website stand.org.uk based on this very idea (they called it "Operation Dear Jack", it was against the then Home Secretary Jack Straw).
There is now a penalty of 2 years in jail for failing to disclose a key, and 5 years in jail if you tell anyone you've been asked for a key! The full text of the law is available here.
Slashdot Mirror
...a ring-3 circus to me.
I'll get my coat.
White House Effect: The phenomenon whereby government agencies trap climate control funding, caused by the presence in the atmosphere of Republican FUD that allows donator-friendly information to pass through but absorbs evidence radiated back from concerned scientists. (original definition)
It is easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.
As seen in many comments on solutions to this, more often than not software patents lead to people *avoiding* the technology and using alternatives (arguably worse ones), rather than paying for it. At the end of the day, who wins from this? Not Eolas, not Microsoft, and *certainly* not the end users.
This is what I can't stand about the picture the RIAA and others continually try to paint. They assume that (1) people who download music would pay for it if they couldn't download, (2) they would do so at current prices, i.e. a ridiculous mark-up even with the latest reductions, (3) they can dupe Joe Public into believing that a sizeable proportion of the money actually goes to the artists and not higher-ups in the RIAA, for whom nobody has any sympathy.
I hate the way they strangle artists with ridiculous mark-ups and unfair division of revenue, then when sales drop they keep the proportions the same and point to the "starving artists". Take a pay cut yourselves, you [...] hypocritical [...]-[...] bunch of [...]s. End Of Flame.
It's a really great idea, anonymity, plausible deniability and all the rest. Unfortunately it's written in Java, eats resources like there's no tomorrow (which is a big problem, at least on machines that aren't brand new), and also has to delay information randomly for some of the anonymity features to work.
It's also quite a small community at the moment. What it really needs is more users, which will happen when someone writes a nicer implementation, which will happen when it gets more users, which... oh, fsck.
...the US and UK governments each promising not to spy on their citizens... and then quietly spying on each other's and swapping info.
When you get a mail that happens to go in a category the rules wouldn't normally put it in, because of what it mentions in passing for example, what do you do? Add something contrived to the rules? The fault I find with most virtual folder systems is they are purely views of database queries.
What needs to happen is that the rules set one or more categories for the message, and then where you have virtual folders or database views today, you instead have simpler queries of what is in each category, with an easy way to turn a given category on or off when viewing a message. In short, you need to be able to correct categories for a given message without editing the rules.
...hold down right shift while inserting it.
...their obvious aim being, after all, to generate revenue. They can go after a larger number of less knowledgeable people.
In this instance the obvious motive for the DoS is to protect spammers' interests, so there's a good chance the attacker is a spammer (well, either that or someone *really* angry about a bad blocking decision). I think it's worth devoting special effort to finding and prosecuting the originator of this attack, since it might lead to a spammer being locked up as well, which can only ever be a good thing. :-)
Guarantees that the client would show their advertising. Cannot be guaranteed with anything open source, obviously.
Guarantees that the client would... well, do anything, really. Not allow certain operations... report certain information to them... since anything can be changed, nothing about potential derivatives can be guaranteed.
Per-user fees. Even a fraction of a penny would mean there would have to be *some* kind of charge for the client, obviously free software is screwed again.
Hell, even a single large fee per-application or per-version-upgrade could be really bad for a lot of people, since each individual small project would have trouble raising large amounts of cash.
It'll be interesting to see what happens to people who try to co-operate with them, and what happens when some of the conditions turn out to be impossible for a particular client. Of course, that client will have already drawn themselves to M$' attention... trouble could enSUE.
The Archos 6GB recorder mentioned further up the page does exactly that. The Creative/Nomad Jukebox also has a mic input, but (AFAIK) only records to WAV.
...that it's the hottest console around! =)
Well of course they don't like binaries. Would you really expect someone who's been reduced to their component substances to interpret attachments?
I'd understand if there were "Reply to this" links on the front page (the one for this story would be nice and close to the headline for the last one).
Hmm, I guess the same happened with "Read More...", someone's brain was on autopilot to click reply, not looking at the story at all...
Oh well, it _is_ Monday morning =)
It need not be the same server, this info can be transmitted from one to another. The blocking itself can be done with frames or iframes (and holding off sending the HTTP response with the content until those with the ads are completed), so it need not remember whether you DLd the ads last time around, which solves all the problems about dynamic IPs, proxies, etc.
Cookies would be a very weak way to implement this, they can be faked quite easily. The client could connect to the ad server, get the header of the response (and thus the cookie), and close the connection.
That leaves the problem of whether the ads are displayed or not. The only way to do this would be at the client side with JavaScript or something, which they wouldn't get away with (at least I hope not...). But you still have to download the ads.
Anyway I'm sure reverse-engineering will prevail, it has before. I for one will quite happily spend a few hours with ethereal to try and get round anything advertisers throw at me.
Sites like this are basically providing a service in exchange for the opportunity to show you ads. Magazines are partly doing the same thing. IMHO, skipping over / ignoring ads is fair, but automatically hiding them is not.
With TV and radio you can just switch stations or leave the room or whatever, but you risk missing a bit of the programme. I think that's fair.
Equally, I consider popups and these "jump-through" tactics unfair. I think ads this "active" are an unfair attempt to force you to read them, OTOH more "passive" things like banners are ok: they have only until you scroll past them to attract your attention.
Banners in a separate frame (and anything else that keeps the ad in view) are _definitely_ not ok IMNSHO. Either I'm interested in a given ad or I'm not, and the fact that it's sitting there the whole time while I read through a page is not going to make me interested.
Obviously this is just my 0.02. Ultimately if you don't like it, don't use their site.
...another.com, who now require you to click a banner ad to complete logging out!
Popups can be disallowed with some browsers, though I haven't yet seen anything which allows you to filter only window.open (as opposed to all JavaScript) on a site-by-site basis.
I suppose a proxy with rewriting support might be able to bypass the ad page, depending on how it's done. If the URL is in the request for the ad page, it's very simple, but otherwise you'd have to wait for the ad page to download, and then follow the redirect immediately, or find the link you have to click.
Whether you _should_ use filtering technologies on ad-funded sites is another matter, because in some sense you are committing theft.
http://www-building.arct.cam.ac.uk/westc/cl/cl.htm l
The new CompSci building is partly funded by Microsoft, who are also putting an MS Research building on the site.
I'll hopefully be studying there soon, and _AFAIK_ it won't make any difference who it was funded by, though it does make me shudder slightly to think I'll be studying in the "William H Gates building".
The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act passed into UK law last year, despite a campaign by the website stand.org.uk based on this very idea (they called it "Operation Dear Jack", it was against the then Home Secretary Jack Straw).
There is now a penalty of 2 years in jail for failing to disclose a key, and 5 years in jail if you tell anyone you've been asked for a key! The full text of the law is available here.
KDE Dot News has a story, and there's more info on KMail's homepage.