Yeah, but they didn't "gather enough data to draw broad conclusions." They didn't gather enough data to draw any conclusions at all. That didn't stop them from drawing conclusions and publishing them.
Just as an example, suppose that marking your package "Fragile" actually results in better handling on average. Telling people the opposite of that is not just publishing entertaining stories, it's doing actual harm.
Yes, I read the article. But many people won't, so putting that crap in the summary without any caveats isn't much better than just making stuff up. Slashdot is supposed to be "stuff that matters."
You're entitled to your opinions, but your factual assertions about Telnet and SMTP are just plain wrong. The closest thing to "several RFC patches" is the simple statement in RFC 1123 that "A host MUST carefully follow the rules of RFC-854 to avoid option-negotiation loops." In other words, if you don't follow the protocol, then the not-the-actual-protocol that you are using may not work right. And other commenters have already pointed out that SMTP poses no restrictions on the text of a message body, although some implementations change the message body when delivering to a mailbox.
FTP uses two connections partly because it was designed to allow a third party to initiate a transfer. Whether that's a reasonable requirement is a matter of opinion, but there's no way to meet that requirement without separating the control and data channels. FTP was designed, for better or for worse, with interactive use in mind. And a truly ancient hacker would know that some of the operating systems where ASCII and binary modes actually make a difference don't support the distinction in the filesystem, so putting that requirement in the protocol would simply make it impossible to implement for those OSes (which were common and important at that time).
Are you a lawyer? Neither am I, but your "plain reading" is not what I see in the words you quoted. Your interpretation seems to be, if a "technological measure" (some DRM system) is ever used on any non-copyrighted work, then it suddenly loses its special status as a technological measure protecting a copyrighted work, and anyone can circumvent it with impunity.
The straight-forward reading is that any technological measure that is ever used to protect any copyrighted work acquires the special status that makes it illegal to circumvent it, regardless of the whether the circumvention is to enable a legal use.
The fact that a DRM system was once used on something that didn't have copyright protection wouldn't have any more bearing on its coverage by DMCA than, say, the fact that I'm breaking the DRM for a legal purpose such as fair use. But lawyers seem to agree that the DMCA makes it illegal to break DRM for legal uses. So, I'd go with the assumption that the DMCA was written by clever lawyers who did not leave a huge hole in it which has not been spotted by other clever lawyers.
I like this line..."Bronfman contended that this revenue comes nowhere near what they need in compensation for each individual's enjoyment of each work" - it's a complete summary of the way the labels are thinking.
It might be that, but it's also a complete fabrication. Here's what TFA actually said:
Free streaming services still pay royalties for each song played, usually supported by ads. But Bronfman contends that those royalties are far less than what Warner earns on download sales or from its cut of a monthly subscription.
Kind of different, no? In particular, the one that isn't made up says nothing about "needing" compensation for "enjoyment," it just says they make more money doing it this way than doing it that way. But that just makes them sound like good businessmen rather than social parasites. That won't do at all.
Obviously, this is just the first step. First, they register everyone with IT skills. Then they'll impose a tax on bits. Eventually, we'll be denied our constitutional right to keep and bear keyboards.
I'm not sure what point TFA (the Fox article) is trying to make, but it jumps all over the map and pretty much throws everything at the wall to see what sticks. For example, "making sure everyone carries an RFID tag linked to a biometric data file" is certainly scary sounding, but what does the biometric data have to do with tracking people's locations?
And if RFID tags are easily copied, isn't that a good thing? It will discourage attempts to use them for surveillance.
The comparison of RFID tags and Social Security numbers is entertaining, but the risk with SSNs is largely because they are treated as if they are secret when they are not. (Okay, they've also been overused as a primary key because too many public and private organizations were too lazy to generate their own unique ids, which does make it easier to aggregate information *once you have access to it*.)
The article refers to "Paget's cloning experiment." But it doesn't actually say that any cloning was involved, only reading at a distance. Is cloning as easy as reading? I don't know, and neither does the article's author, I would guess.
Not only are PASS cards not passports, but they use a completely different technology.
This story is pretty much debunked at http://www.rfidjournal.com/blog/entry/4615.
I don't understand why magazine publishers think that we need to pay for their content twice. I mean, I'm already paying for their content via the magazine subscription fee so why should I even have ads? Either get rid of the subscription fees or get rid of the ads. This is like paying for a "premium" website only to get hit by pop ups on every page. I mean, I could even understand an ad or two at the start and after the end of an article, but why do they think they need to have pages of ads for every issue when I'm already paying for their content?
That part about "mostly college students" comes from the interviewer, not from Google:
JP: So are these raters college students or random folks responding to a job post? What are the requirements?
SH: It's a pretty wide range of folks. The job requirements are not super-specific. Essentially, we require a basic level of education, mainly because we need them to be able to communicate back and forth with us, give us comments and things like that in writing.
Funny how the introduction restates the interviewer's preconception even though the actual interview implies otherwise.
In regards to being forced into using the company's cable box, the FCC has mandated this to be illegal. Simply go down to your local electronics store and pickup a CableCard enabled converter...which according to the FCC, should be available nationwide. Oh wait...no manufacturer has started making them in the last 3 years. Go FCC! There's always TiVo, I suppose...
But there's a good reason the TV manufacturers stopped (not never started) making sets with CableCard. By all accounts, CableCard was a disaster for the consumer: compatibility was poor and the subscriber was left high and dry while the TV manufacturer and the cable company pointed fingers at each other. Oh, it didn't help that the cable companies all required a service technician visit to install the damned card!
Couple that with the inability to access all that free on-demand content the cable companies have been pushing, and you can see why demand for CableCard sets went straight through the floor.
Will Tru2way (OCAP rebranded) work any better? We'll see.
Seriously can you be charged with witness tampering, by not even issuing a threat, to either the witness or his family?
I'm not a lawyer, but I'd say that's a big yes. Section 1513 of Title 18, "Retaliating against a witness, victim, or an informant," says:
Whoever knowingly, with the intent to retaliate, takes any action harmful to any person, including interference with the lawful employment or livelihood of any person, for providing to a law enforcement officer any truthful information relating to the commission or possible commission of any Federal offense, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 10 years, or both.
So if the "badmouthing" was done with the intention to retaliate (causing harm by interfering with his relationship with his spouse and her family), then a federal crime was committed. Further, if intimidation of anyone (not just the witness) was used with the intent to influence, delay, or prevent testimony, then Section 1512, "Tampering with a witness, victim, or an informant" would apply.
As for "how they managed to determine it was him," you might consider this part of the complaint:
[A]t a court proceeding in United States v. Albert Santoro, a lawyer for ROMBOM informed the court that it was ROMBOM who went to the house of the California family.
I found it very curios that such an important and popular issue was barely discussed.
My first reaction was to think that Wal-mart, one of the largest and most powerful capitalist enterprises in the world, has lobbyists progressing the Wikipedia page into propaganda.
That's certainly my first reaction when I find errors or omissions in Wikipedia.
Restricts back-up copies: Song can only be copied to 5 computers
But the files have no restriction on back-up copies; you can have as many back-up copies as you like. You can only play those files on five computers at a time, but that's hardly the "plain English" meaning of "back-up."
The article shouldn't be distorting the facts to make its case.
The problem most people here have with OneClick is that it is an incredibly obvious and simple idea that doesn't appear to have required any real work on the part of anyone at Amazon.
The problem I have with "most people here" is that if OneClick is such an incredibly obvious idea, why didn't anyone think of it before Amazon? OneClick is certainly simple. OneClick is definitely useful, if you're in the business of selling things on the web. And thousands of companies were in that business before Amazon came up with OneClick. If it was simple, useful, and obvious, what was the matter with all those other companies?
Why am I required to give evidence against myself if I get pulled over?
...we don't check our civil rights every time we climb into an automobile.
Yes we do. You waived your fifth amendment right against self-incrimination when you requested the privilege of piloting a ton of steel at sixty miles an hour on roads shared with other drivers. If you didn't understand what you were signing and want to change your mind, I'm sure the state will be happy to exchange your driving license for a non-driving photo ID.
And maybe you should ask yourself exactly why it is that you've been pulled over three times and asked if you've been drinking. Is there something about your sober driving that resembles other people's drunk driving?
It depends on if the broadcaster creates files, or just sends it to QSS/DSS. We'll see when we get our xserves.
You're covered, according to the web page:
Instant VOD: In addition to recording your broadcast to disk, QuickTime Broadcaster can automatically hint the file for immediate posting to a streaming server for on-demand viewing after the event has occurred--just what you need for quick video-on-demand posting.
So you only need one desktop system to run the broadcaster, and you can stream both live and on-demand from Linux or Solaris or even Windows 2K servers.
And Bill Clinton was not a Rhodes scholar, merely a candidate. He was tossed out of Cambridge after a co-ed charged him with rape.
Ah, I see. So, the Rhodes trust mistakenly sent him to Cambridge instead of Oxford, and Oxford mistakenly claims that he was a Rhodes scholar for the usual two-year term.
Who is this guy and why should I pay any attention to him? His tone is whining at best, and his facts are rubbish.
The DMCA "threat" was debunked back when the story first appeared: OWC was violating Apple's license. (You remember licenses, the good things that make Free Software possible?) Furthermore, Apple had a reason for restricting iDVD to running only on Apple-branded SuperDrives: they owed royalties to a third party for the software, and the royalty payment was keyed to the hardware so the software could be bundled.
Second, where did this guy come up with the bizarre notion that Apple sponsored the DMCA? I've never seen such a claim anywhere else before. Sounds like Stuff Made Up.
Finally, it's nice to know that this fellow speaks for the whole Free Software community about "the expectations of [the] GNU Project." But Apple isn't part of the GNU project, and it never made any commitment to anything other than open source. So, it's not clear what expectations this fellow has had, why he had them, and why now is the time that he's tired of waiting for his expectations to be fulfilled.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, but they didn't "gather enough data to draw broad conclusions." They didn't gather enough data to draw any conclusions at all. That didn't stop them from drawing conclusions and publishing them.
Just as an example, suppose that marking your package "Fragile" actually results in better handling on average. Telling people the opposite of that is not just publishing entertaining stories, it's doing actual harm.
Yes, I read the article. But many people won't, so putting that crap in the summary without any caveats isn't much better than just making stuff up. Slashdot is supposed to be "stuff that matters."
The number of times they tested the same route with the same carrier was 0. The results are meaningless.
You're entitled to your opinions, but your factual assertions about Telnet and SMTP are just plain wrong. The closest thing to "several RFC patches" is the simple statement in RFC 1123 that "A host MUST carefully follow the rules of RFC-854 to avoid option-negotiation loops." In other words, if you don't follow the protocol, then the not-the-actual-protocol that you are using may not work right. And other commenters have already pointed out that SMTP poses no restrictions on the text of a message body, although some implementations change the message body when delivering to a mailbox.
FTP uses two connections partly because it was designed to allow a third party to initiate a transfer. Whether that's a reasonable requirement is a matter of opinion, but there's no way to meet that requirement without separating the control and data channels. FTP was designed, for better or for worse, with interactive use in mind. And a truly ancient hacker would know that some of the operating systems where ASCII and binary modes actually make a difference don't support the distinction in the filesystem, so putting that requirement in the protocol would simply make it impossible to implement for those OSes (which were common and important at that time).
Are you a lawyer? Neither am I, but your "plain reading" is not what I see in the words you quoted. Your interpretation seems to be, if a "technological measure" (some DRM system) is ever used on any non-copyrighted work, then it suddenly loses its special status as a technological measure protecting a copyrighted work, and anyone can circumvent it with impunity.
The straight-forward reading is that any technological measure that is ever used to protect any copyrighted work acquires the special status that makes it illegal to circumvent it, regardless of the whether the circumvention is to enable a legal use.
The fact that a DRM system was once used on something that didn't have copyright protection wouldn't have any more bearing on its coverage by DMCA than, say, the fact that I'm breaking the DRM for a legal purpose such as fair use. But lawyers seem to agree that the DMCA makes it illegal to break DRM for legal uses. So, I'd go with the assumption that the DMCA was written by clever lawyers who did not leave a huge hole in it which has not been spotted by other clever lawyers.
I like this line..."Bronfman contended that this revenue comes nowhere near what they need in compensation for each individual's enjoyment of each work" - it's a complete summary of the way the labels are thinking.
It might be that, but it's also a complete fabrication. Here's what TFA actually said:
Free streaming services still pay royalties for each song played, usually supported by ads. But Bronfman contends that those royalties are far less than what Warner earns on download sales or from its cut of a monthly subscription.
Kind of different, no? In particular, the one that isn't made up says nothing about "needing" compensation for "enjoyment," it just says they make more money doing it this way than doing it that way. But that just makes them sound like good businessmen rather than social parasites. That won't do at all.
Are you intentionally dense or is english not your first, second or third language?
Are you intentionally dense or do you fail to understand the difference between nouns and verbs in English?
I do insist to not call them "costs"
Cost (transitive verb): cause the loss of
As in, "Responding to your nonsense cost me more time than it was worth."
Obviously, this is just the first step. First, they register everyone with IT skills. Then they'll impose a tax on bits. Eventually, we'll be denied our constitutional right to keep and bear keyboards.
Is Slashdot now Fox News?
Unfortunately for Fox News, that would mean that they could not quote anyone or use excerpts from books or speeches without prior approval.
Yeah, that would be a serious hindrance if Fox News were in the business of reporting facts.
And if RFID tags are easily copied, isn't that a good thing? It will discourage attempts to use them for surveillance.
The comparison of RFID tags and Social Security numbers is entertaining, but the risk with SSNs is largely because they are treated as if they are secret when they are not. (Okay, they've also been overused as a primary key because too many public and private organizations were too lazy to generate their own unique ids, which does make it easier to aggregate information *once you have access to it*.)
The article refers to "Paget's cloning experiment." But it doesn't actually say that any cloning was involved, only reading at a distance. Is cloning as easy as reading? I don't know, and neither does the article's author, I would guess.
Not only are PASS cards not passports, but they use a completely different technology. This story is pretty much debunked at http://www.rfidjournal.com/blog/entry/4615.
I don't understand why magazine publishers think that we need to pay for their content twice. I mean, I'm already paying for their content via the magazine subscription fee so why should I even have ads? Either get rid of the subscription fees or get rid of the ads. This is like paying for a "premium" website only to get hit by pop ups on every page. I mean, I could even understand an ad or two at the start and after the end of an article, but why do they think they need to have pages of ads for every issue when I'm already paying for their content?
JP: So are these raters college students or random folks responding to a job post? What are the requirements?
SH: It's a pretty wide range of folks. The job requirements are not super-specific. Essentially, we require a basic level of education, mainly because we need them to be able to communicate back and forth with us, give us comments and things like that in writing.
Funny how the introduction restates the interviewer's preconception even though the actual interview implies otherwise.
But there's a good reason the TV manufacturers stopped (not never started) making sets with CableCard. By all accounts, CableCard was a disaster for the consumer: compatibility was poor and the subscriber was left high and dry while the TV manufacturer and the cable company pointed fingers at each other. Oh, it didn't help that the cable companies all required a service technician visit to install the damned card!
Couple that with the inability to access all that free on-demand content the cable companies have been pushing, and you can see why demand for CableCard sets went straight through the floor.
Will Tru2way (OCAP rebranded) work any better? We'll see.
As for "how they managed to determine it was him," you might consider this part of the complaint:
The article shouldn't be distorting the facts to make its case.
The problem I have with "most people here" is that if OneClick is such an incredibly obvious idea, why didn't anyone think of it before Amazon? OneClick is certainly simple. OneClick is definitely useful, if you're in the business of selling things on the web. And thousands of companies were in that business before Amazon came up with OneClick. If it was simple, useful, and obvious, what was the matter with all those other companies?
And maybe you should ask yourself exactly why it is that you've been pulled over three times and asked if you've been drinking. Is there something about your sober driving that resembles other people's drunk driving?
If I had Linux in mind when I wrote a haiku, is it a derived work?
This units issue has been covered before. There's even an actual standard.
Ah, I see. So, the Rhodes trust mistakenly sent him to Cambridge instead of Oxford, and Oxford mistakenly claims that he was a Rhodes scholar for the usual two-year term.
Easy mistakes to make.
The DMCA "threat" was debunked back when the story first appeared: OWC was violating Apple's license. (You remember licenses, the good things that make Free Software possible?) Furthermore, Apple had a reason for restricting iDVD to running only on Apple-branded SuperDrives: they owed royalties to a third party for the software, and the royalty payment was keyed to the hardware so the software could be bundled.
Second, where did this guy come up with the bizarre notion that Apple sponsored the DMCA? I've never seen such a claim anywhere else before. Sounds like Stuff Made Up.
Finally, it's nice to know that this fellow speaks for the whole Free Software community about "the expectations of [the] GNU Project." But Apple isn't part of the GNU project, and it never made any commitment to anything other than open source. So, it's not clear what expectations this fellow has had, why he had them, and why now is the time that he's tired of waiting for his expectations to be fulfilled.
Am I missing something here?