a (mostly) male chimera who apparently had ovarian tissue
That would be a pretty freaky thing to discover about yourself. "Egad, I'm part female!" Gives a whole new meaning to, "getting in touch with your feminine side".
First, a distinction. I see there being two kinds of possible abuse here: info-crimes, and general abuse. Info-crimes are those instances where possession of or trafficking in data is the crime. This includes copyright infringements, kiddie-porn, and other kinds of information that can get you in hot water just for having them (classified military documents, anyone?). General abuse is everything else that can be done with a computer and counts as abuse, such as DoSing, h4x0ring, spamming, online fraud, and so on. Freenet can facilitate info-crimes, but not general abuse (unless there is an exploitable bug in it, but that's true of every program). Viruses of the kind which infected the computer in the news article can facilitate general abuse, as well as info-crimes.
So, what if Freenet becomes the next big thing for kiddie-porn creeps? Well, I have no idea what (if anything) ought to be done about it, since info-crimes aren't exactly a clear cut case of right or wrong, in my opinion. So let's assume, for the sake of argument, that The Government decides the good points of Freenet are no excuse for allowing kiddie-porn creeps safe haven, then consider the following.
Freenet is (among other things) a means of making information available, whilst hiding the identities of the contributors and users of that information.
Freenet contains kiddie-porn.
Thus, anyone who participates in Freenet wilfully facilitates the anonymous distribution of kiddie-porn.
In the case of the virus-infected computer, the defendant was let off the hook because of a lack of culpability. Participation in Freenet, however, is voluntary. The info-cops could issue a public warning to the Freenet providers: get rid of the kiddie-porn, or we start making arrests. The Freenet architecture probably does not allow such simple selective removal of information (that's its goal, as I understand), so the participants can abandon the Freenet or face arrest.
It seems to me that Freenet is already providing a perfectly viable trail of accountability. Thus, it does not fall into my category of "systems which facilitate abuse by evading accountability". It may or may not facilitate abuse (depending on whether you consider "info-crimes" to be abuse), but I don't see a problem with accountability. If you wanted to evade accountability, you'd have to h4x0r someone else's computer and set up a Freenet node on it without their knowledge. At that point, we're back to the original "virus" scenario, really.
(My knowledge of Freenet is patchy at best, and I may have been wrong about its ability to hide the activity of downloading. I suspect that the info-cops would only go after Freenet node operators if the system were actually effective in making it hard to identify the people who were accessing the contraband material. The courts, I understand, tend to take a dim view of the obstruction of justice.)
I didn't RTFNYTA. Even so, this is Slashdot, and I need not care much about that.
The question of culpability for the actions of a computer is going to become increasingly interesting. Spammers and other miscreants are getting more brazen about the use of third party computers by which to make mischief. I'm not saying that it's a new concept -- far from it -- only that the audacity factor is going up. Dealers in kiddie porn and other widely-considered-bad things may start to see third party computers as a safe medium for their wares; a good way to cover their tracks.
It seems unfair for a person with a virus-infected computer to be accountable (even in part) for the actions of a malicious third party who takes control of that computer without the owner's knowledge. On the other hand, it's risky to let them off the hook for it: genuinely culpable parties may install a virus on their own system as a legal defense measure! And if the owner of the computer were nailed for the actions of their computer, could they then sue some software or hardware vendor for enabling a malicious third party to use their computer without authorisation, thus exposing them to this risk? Presumably the end user doesn't haven't much of a case against the Internet Service Provider: I would expect the ISP to be offering a network service, leaving it up to you and your equipment as to what use is made of that service.
The real problem here, as I see it, is that we want to discourage systems which facilitate abuse by evading accountability. The real culprit -- the malicious third party who uses the computer as a zombie slave to get up to no good -- is safely hidden from accountability through anonymity. The owner of the equipment is deemed not culpable on the basis of inability to know or do anything about it. The owners of the network infrastructure are just providing the advertised service, and should be thought of as common carriers. The owner of the software which enables the virus, well, no software authors seem to want to be held accountable for their software either, and that's somewhat understandable.
But if we don't come up with some strategy for discouraging systems which facilitate abuse by third parties, the natural consequence will be an increase in unpolicable lawlessness. To complicate matters, insecure systems are already pervasive, so it's hard to know where to start. Who do we put the pressure on? I didn't RTFA, as I said (don't read NYT's website on principle), so I don't know what conclusions were drawn. It strikes me that perhaps we need to start holding the end user accountable for the mischief of their system if they don't take reasonable precautions to prevent it, such as using anti-virus software, or keeping modestly up to date with security patches. Maybe we can also hold commercial software/hardware sellers accountable to do their fair share in selling a merchantable product, with particular reference to reasonable standards of safety, and working as advertised. In the case of OEM-installed operating systems, it's probably the OEM that should foot the bill, as the seller of the product. Penalties should be relative to the cost of the product.
I'm not suggesting that these ideas ought to be implemented, but we ought to think about them. What seems fair and would have the desired impact? Most end users aren't aware how unsafe the Internet is, with regards to this kind of abuse, and they should be educated about it, or protected from it. Computer manufacturers are selling computers as internet-ready but by and large they are selling an unsafe product. Selling a machine bundled with anti-virus protection might be sufficient to make the product "safe", from a merchantability perspective. Removing (or not providing) Internet functionality would also protect the manufacturer from Internet-related issues. Providing clear warning material on the dangers of connecting to the Internet might also be sufficient ass-cover.
Stuff to ponder. And note that I didn't rant about Microsoft Windows, despite opportunity and motive.
I'm from Australia. At the time, a DSL connection with permanent IP cost AU$0.15 per megabyte (AU$150 per gigabyte). A DDoS could get very pricey very quickly.
Rule zero of spam: spam is theft (of other people's time and facilities). The trend, as anti-spam techniques get smarter, is for spammers to engage in more theft to offset their increasing costs.
We've already seen viruses doing the rounds which act as open proxies for spammers and/or reverse proxies to hide the spammer's real websites. If these intermediate reverse proxies act as caching proxies, then the spammer is insulated from bandwidth costs by offloading them onto unwitting third parties. Steal enough bandwidth from enough innocent third parties, and you have your own private Akamai of sorts -- somewhat DDoS-proof. The spammer's URLs can change constantly thanks to the whack-a-mole dynamics of the reverse proxies, so the only workable approach will be to scan every incoming URL, thus leaving the system open to abuse as a DDoS tool. That is, unless this whole "whitelist" approach somehow manages to keep up with a white mark for every known-good site on the 'net. I don't see how that would work in practice.
The problems with spam-based DDoS are bad enough already. Many HTML mail readers honour IFRAME tags, so if you want to DDoS someone, then just combine a Joe Job (fake their identity, advertise their site) with an HTML mail that contains N IFRAMEs, each set to be one pixel high and refer to a large page on the victim's site. Anyone who reads the spam in an uncautious HTML-capable mail client (of which there are still way too many) will subsequently attempt to fetch the specified page N times, unless you're lucky with intermediate caching proxies or the user hitting the stop button.
Such an attack on Nutters.org forced me to stop doing my own hosting on a DSL line, since it got utterly swamped and cost way too much in bandwidth. Amusingly, it has forced me into using a much cheaper and higher bandwidth service -- one where such attacks are no longer my problem. The rules of the game have changed for me, though: I no longer consider it viable to host a website on a low-bandwidth leaf node like a single DSL, even where normal usage would make it seem acceptable, since it makes you a sitting duck for this kind of attack. I still can't imagine why anyone would want to target Nutters.org; being small and unworthy of attack doesn't seem to be a good defense anymore.
Turnabout is fair-play. I used to make a point of phoning one of the local well-known-spammers when feeling particularly irate about him (usually just after getting spammed about the same old same-old again). Haven't heard from him in a while, though. In any case, I want to emphasise that you should be careful when you retaliate. There is such a thing as a Joe-Job (named after joes.com) in which a malicious third party sends out a metric buttload of spam claiming to be from you, and advertising your website, just in an attempt to cause shit for you. This relies, in part, on third parties taking retaliatory action. My own website has been the subject of numerous Joe-Jobs this year, strangely enough. So make sure you aren't hitting back at an innocent bystander.
Oh, and in Soviet Russia, the punchline inserts you. Sorry, but it had to be said.
You'd be surprised at how big numbers can be and still have names. (For what it's worth, I prefer the American names over the British ones, and I'm Australian.)
By and large I agree with the sentiment expressed here, but it fails to take into account payment as a voluntary exercise, as opposed to a traditional purchase. Call it "digital tipping", or "street performer protocol". I'd love to toss small amounts of money at the online comics I read, on a per-comic basis, rather than purchasing yearly "subscriptions". Pay-pal is not micro enough for the size and frequency I'd like; a real micropayment system which allows me to throw around sub-dollar amounts easily would be the killer app.
But rather than waffle about it further, I'll provide a few links. Cringely spoke about micropayments some time ago ("Let's Get Small", "Paying the Piper"), and I wrote to him about the former, gaining a mention in the latter -- he thought that my observation about voluntary payments was particularly insightful. I document that correspondence in an article on my own website ("Fame and Money"), and I also wrote an essay critiquing a non-deterministic micropayment system by Ron Rivest ("Micropayments: Are Lotteries the Answer?") which ties in with the aforementioned bits.
The paper said that in addition to seeing more e-mail or junk mail, consumers who call companies on other business may now have to listen to sales pitches while negotiating voice mail messages.
Rough translation: "we will advertise at you by any and all legal means available, no matter how annoying we have to be." I do sometimes wonder if there isn't a viable place for, "just concentrate on giving the customer good service," in this world. Nobody seems to believe in that quaint old idea anymore.
And here was I, thinking that Hormel was pretty sensible about this whole "spam" thing. Not anymore, it seems. But by the time a dictionary recognises the term "spam" as having a meaning with regards to unsolicited email, it must surely be too late to start claiming exclusive rights on the word (except where it really would cause consumer confusion, which isn't the case here).
Sorry, dude, but I tend to check my spelling against the Macquarie Dictionary, since I'm Australian. No doubt "artifact" is the most common USA spelling; it's recognised as an alternative spelling here.
...why don't slashdot editors do some sort of background checking. What are they being paid for?
They get paid to select the stuff from the submissions bin that goes on the front page. No, wait -- that's done by a squadron of stealth monkeys. Um, maybe the editors feed the monkeys?
...he's found the most prized Biblical Artifacts already...
He's found the most famous Biblical Artefacts already (plus a Hindu artefact, for that matter), but not the most prized. The most prized must surely include the cross of the crucifixion itself, which, legend has it (if one wishes to give a Hollywood angle to it), heals all who touch it.
Note that I agree with you: the Christian Artefact angle has pretty much been done enough, and they'll probably try for something else like Atlantis, or something Egyptian, or maybe Incan? Round off the series (I presume this will be the last) with a throw-back to the opening scene of Raiders -- that would be cool. Even so, the Christian Artefact scene is hardly mined out if they think it will please the crowds.
Copyright, Patents and Trademarks do have enough in common to warrant the banner "Intellectual Property". They all involve a monopoly being granted on some idea, word, symbol, or process; which is to say, they grant an artificial monopoly on things which could only form a natural monopoly if they were kept as a closely guarded secret. Trade secrets are similar, but have the distinction that the information is supposed to remain secret, and there's no artificial protection against re-invention.
Now, it's true that SCO is being fuzzy with regards to Intellectual Property. They've been making noises about vigorously protecting their "Intellectual Property", as technologists-turned-litigators are wont to do, whereas in actual practice it seems they're taking the stance, "we have enough piles of legal crap here that we're sure we can sue someone for something fairly big".
Even so, I think Stallman's "thou shalt not use this language in this manner" decrees are not only futile and tedious, but wrong in an important respect. The perception that intangible abstractions like names, ideas, and images can be considered property is not because of widespread use of the term "Intellectual Property"; rather, I submit that the cause and effect are the other way around. After generations of ever-increasing patent, copyright and trademark restrictions, why wouldn't people start thinking in terms of "Intellectual Property"? It's a well-ingrained cultural norm by now! Copyright infringement isn't theft, but we've been treating ideas as property for so long that it's not a distinction that's clear in people's minds anymore. They'll forget it for a moment when they violate copyright for their own convenience ("it's not hurting anyone"), but people are, by and large, of the opinion that it's wrong to "steal ideas".
It's not immediately clear to me (in the space of one Slashdot posting) how we can reverse this trend. How do we remind people that "Intellectual Property" is actually "Intellectual Privilege"? These "rights" are supposed to exist in order to benefit the public, not to protect private interests. People aren't outraged by the perpetual extension of copyright terms because they've been born in an environment where people own ideas, and it seems reasonable that people shouldn't have their property taken from them. Simply insisting that "Intellectual Property" is wrong-thinking doesn't suffice, because when you look at the law as-is, "Intellectual Property" is exactly what you have.
The funniest thing about re-posting that comment is the "moderation war" which has ensued on it. Insightful! Redundant. Informative! Insightful! Overrated. I wonder how many mod points get burned on this kind of thing. I also wonder whether the moderation would have been any different if I'd not disclosed up front that it was a dupe.
I thought it was relevant. It's not like I need the karma.
Well, it got modded up to 5 last time, but it looks like it needs saying again. Here's the cut-and-paste of it.
Slightly off-topic, but I'm in the process of perusing the job ads again, and based on the proliferation of J2EE/EJB and other Java stuff I'm seeing, I think that Java is the new COBOL. Not that the languages bear any similarity whatsoever, but Java seems to have found a niche as the new lingua franca of business apps. It has competition, to be sure, but based on the history of COBOL, I would be so bold as to put my pundit hat on and say, "Java programming will be a safe bet for long-term employment in the computing industry." The jobs aren't necessarily all that interesting, but they look a whole lot more secure than the bleeding edge tech jobs which come and go in a flash.
The whole C# and.Net thing is a potential competitor in the same arena, but I don't think that Microsoft's inclusion (or not) of Java is going to matter much. I always figured that Java was intended to allow cross-platform desktop app programming, but the niche it seems to be filling is a back-end role. Personally, I had expected Perl to fill this role as the new COBOL, but demand for Perl seems to be way down, except as one of those "we also expect you to know Perl" type things, which never actually turns out to be important in the job.
Astounding. I thought that Tom Lehrer's idea of satire was pretty black, but those SCO anti-Linux posters are blacker than black. So black that they're just plain disturbing whether they are intended as parody or not. They almost make you laugh, but the stronger urge is to run away because you're pretty sure that they were designed by a dangerous psychotic who is probably closer than you think.
The obvious answer to this is to organise a pro-SCO demonstration, lauding all the worst aspects of that company. "Litigation is better than innovation," and so on. Just make it funny for goodness sake. That's the beauty of satire which the SCO posters miss.
I think the spirit of that RFC would require that all traffic being used to send spam would have the evil bit set already. Clearly there hasn't been enough uptake of this feature yet, or the spam problem would have solved itself by now.
Basically it's a matter of priorities, and this doesn't sound like a large enough hack...
Translation: law enforcement is available to the highest bidder (where bidding is measured in monetary damages to you, among other things).
Thus, it seems that if you are willing to engage in theft and fraud of a kind which no law enforcement agencies can be bothered to deal with, you can make a pretty good tax-free income.
It's true that most bad science is accompanied by some or all of the listed conditions, but I note that none of the conditions really say anything about "the scientific method", for any reasonable definition of that phrase. Consider.
Whilst it's true that a charlatan will probably prefer to take his chances with the gullible masses directly, pitching a theory to the media does not, in itself, impact the validity of the claim.
Claims that the work is being suppressed by a powerful establishment are a convenient excuse for the charlatan with nothing real to demonstrate, but there is a certain credibility to the idea that, say, the oil industry might engage in dirty tricks against someone who threatened their position. And again, claims of interference do not directly impact the validity of the theory itself.
Plenty of real scientific research happens at the limits of detection. As I recall, Einstein's relativity was an example of this at the time he proposed it. Quantum physics and the outer limits of astronomy are further examples.
Anecdotal evidence is dodgy, I agree, but no less dodgy than grand claims about evolutionary ancestry that are made on the basis of a single incomplete fossil find from time to time. A theory like the Big Bang Theory gets treated with respect in scientific circles, despite the fact that all the evidence is circumstantial, and the historical aspects of paleontology and geology are taken seriously despite the fact that the concept of a "randomized double-blind test" isn't even applicable to most of the work in those areas.
Antiquity does not essentialy validate or invalidate any claim; nor does novelty. Even so, ideas that endure for a long time may do so because they are at least partly true. It would be arrogant to suppose that science can't get a few good leads from folklore now and then.
The isolation of the discoverer does not directly impact the validity of the claim. Sometimes a radical new idea requires an outside thinker. Examples may be few, but they do happen. Einstein and relativity might be a fitting example, again.
Proposing new laws is a serious problem when said laws flatly contradict other well established laws. Energy-yielding perpetual motion systems would contradict what we know about conservation of energy, for example, which is a very well demonstrated principle. But sometimes new observations do happen which require us to amend or replace existing theories. A certain degree of tenacity is appropriate, but too much becomes "dogmatism".
I guess I was hoping for something a little more along the lines of a philosophy of science. Although I agree that bad science is usually accompanied by one or more (usually more) of these conditions, the conditions could just as readily be applied to certain particularly brilliant scientific breakthroughs. The conditions need fine-tuning to eliminate the false positives if we want to be sure to encourage the next Einstein, rather than mistakenly brand him a charlatan and run him out of town.
Slashdot Mirror
That would be a pretty freaky thing to discover about yourself. "Egad, I'm part female!" Gives a whole new meaning to, "getting in touch with your feminine side".
First, a distinction. I see there being two kinds of possible abuse here: info-crimes, and general abuse. Info-crimes are those instances where possession of or trafficking in data is the crime. This includes copyright infringements, kiddie-porn, and other kinds of information that can get you in hot water just for having them (classified military documents, anyone?). General abuse is everything else that can be done with a computer and counts as abuse, such as DoSing, h4x0ring, spamming, online fraud, and so on. Freenet can facilitate info-crimes, but not general abuse (unless there is an exploitable bug in it, but that's true of every program). Viruses of the kind which infected the computer in the news article can facilitate general abuse, as well as info-crimes.
So, what if Freenet becomes the next big thing for kiddie-porn creeps? Well, I have no idea what (if anything) ought to be done about it, since info-crimes aren't exactly a clear cut case of right or wrong, in my opinion. So let's assume, for the sake of argument, that The Government decides the good points of Freenet are no excuse for allowing kiddie-porn creeps safe haven, then consider the following.
In the case of the virus-infected computer, the defendant was let off the hook because of a lack of culpability. Participation in Freenet, however, is voluntary. The info-cops could issue a public warning to the Freenet providers: get rid of the kiddie-porn, or we start making arrests. The Freenet architecture probably does not allow such simple selective removal of information (that's its goal, as I understand), so the participants can abandon the Freenet or face arrest.
It seems to me that Freenet is already providing a perfectly viable trail of accountability. Thus, it does not fall into my category of "systems which facilitate abuse by evading accountability". It may or may not facilitate abuse (depending on whether you consider "info-crimes" to be abuse), but I don't see a problem with accountability. If you wanted to evade accountability, you'd have to h4x0r someone else's computer and set up a Freenet node on it without their knowledge. At that point, we're back to the original "virus" scenario, really.
(My knowledge of Freenet is patchy at best, and I may have been wrong about its ability to hide the activity of downloading. I suspect that the info-cops would only go after Freenet node operators if the system were actually effective in making it hard to identify the people who were accessing the contraband material. The courts, I understand, tend to take a dim view of the obstruction of justice.)
The question of culpability for the actions of a computer is going to become increasingly interesting. Spammers and other miscreants are getting more brazen about the use of third party computers by which to make mischief. I'm not saying that it's a new concept -- far from it -- only that the audacity factor is going up. Dealers in kiddie porn and other widely-considered-bad things may start to see third party computers as a safe medium for their wares; a good way to cover their tracks.
It seems unfair for a person with a virus-infected computer to be accountable (even in part) for the actions of a malicious third party who takes control of that computer without the owner's knowledge. On the other hand, it's risky to let them off the hook for it: genuinely culpable parties may install a virus on their own system as a legal defense measure! And if the owner of the computer were nailed for the actions of their computer, could they then sue some software or hardware vendor for enabling a malicious third party to use their computer without authorisation, thus exposing them to this risk? Presumably the end user doesn't haven't much of a case against the Internet Service Provider: I would expect the ISP to be offering a network service, leaving it up to you and your equipment as to what use is made of that service.
The real problem here, as I see it, is that we want to discourage systems which facilitate abuse by evading accountability. The real culprit -- the malicious third party who uses the computer as a zombie slave to get up to no good -- is safely hidden from accountability through anonymity. The owner of the equipment is deemed not culpable on the basis of inability to know or do anything about it. The owners of the network infrastructure are just providing the advertised service, and should be thought of as common carriers. The owner of the software which enables the virus, well, no software authors seem to want to be held accountable for their software either, and that's somewhat understandable.
But if we don't come up with some strategy for discouraging systems which facilitate abuse by third parties, the natural consequence will be an increase in unpolicable lawlessness. To complicate matters, insecure systems are already pervasive, so it's hard to know where to start. Who do we put the pressure on? I didn't RTFA, as I said (don't read NYT's website on principle), so I don't know what conclusions were drawn. It strikes me that perhaps we need to start holding the end user accountable for the mischief of their system if they don't take reasonable precautions to prevent it, such as using anti-virus software, or keeping modestly up to date with security patches. Maybe we can also hold commercial software/hardware sellers accountable to do their fair share in selling a merchantable product, with particular reference to reasonable standards of safety, and working as advertised. In the case of OEM-installed operating systems, it's probably the OEM that should foot the bill, as the seller of the product. Penalties should be relative to the cost of the product.
I'm not suggesting that these ideas ought to be implemented, but we ought to think about them. What seems fair and would have the desired impact? Most end users aren't aware how unsafe the Internet is, with regards to this kind of abuse, and they should be educated about it, or protected from it. Computer manufacturers are selling computers as internet-ready but by and large they are selling an unsafe product. Selling a machine bundled with anti-virus protection might be sufficient to make the product "safe", from a merchantability perspective. Removing (or not providing) Internet functionality would also protect the manufacturer from Internet-related issues. Providing clear warning material on the dangers of connecting to the Internet might also be sufficient ass-cover.
Stuff to ponder. And note that I didn't rant about Microsoft Windows, despite opportunity and motive.
I'm from Australia. At the time, a DSL connection with permanent IP cost AU$0.15 per megabyte (AU$150 per gigabyte). A DDoS could get very pricey very quickly.
We've already seen viruses doing the rounds which act as open proxies for spammers and/or reverse proxies to hide the spammer's real websites. If these intermediate reverse proxies act as caching proxies, then the spammer is insulated from bandwidth costs by offloading them onto unwitting third parties. Steal enough bandwidth from enough innocent third parties, and you have your own private Akamai of sorts -- somewhat DDoS-proof. The spammer's URLs can change constantly thanks to the whack-a-mole dynamics of the reverse proxies, so the only workable approach will be to scan every incoming URL, thus leaving the system open to abuse as a DDoS tool. That is, unless this whole "whitelist" approach somehow manages to keep up with a white mark for every known-good site on the 'net. I don't see how that would work in practice.
Such an attack on Nutters.org forced me to stop doing my own hosting on a DSL line, since it got utterly swamped and cost way too much in bandwidth. Amusingly, it has forced me into using a much cheaper and higher bandwidth service -- one where such attacks are no longer my problem. The rules of the game have changed for me, though: I no longer consider it viable to host a website on a low-bandwidth leaf node like a single DSL, even where normal usage would make it seem acceptable, since it makes you a sitting duck for this kind of attack. I still can't imagine why anyone would want to target Nutters.org; being small and unworthy of attack doesn't seem to be a good defense anymore.
That which does not kill you merely postpones the inevitable.
I don't know about you, but I don't consider the maintenance of homeostasis in my body to be a waste of glucose.
Making the chips illegal to sell strikes me as a pretty good method for making sure it stays that way.
Oh, and in Soviet Russia, the punchline inserts you. Sorry, but it had to be said.
You'd be surprised at how big numbers can be and still have names. (For what it's worth, I prefer the American names over the British ones, and I'm Australian.)
But rather than waffle about it further, I'll provide a few links. Cringely spoke about micropayments some time ago ("Let's Get Small", "Paying the Piper"), and I wrote to him about the former, gaining a mention in the latter -- he thought that my observation about voluntary payments was particularly insightful. I document that correspondence in an article on my own website ("Fame and Money"), and I also wrote an essay critiquing a non-deterministic micropayment system by Ron Rivest ("Micropayments: Are Lotteries the Answer?") which ties in with the aforementioned bits.
From the article:
Rough translation: "we will advertise at you by any and all legal means available, no matter how annoying we have to be." I do sometimes wonder if there isn't a viable place for, "just concentrate on giving the customer good service," in this world. Nobody seems to believe in that quaint old idea anymore.
And here was I, thinking that Hormel was pretty sensible about this whole "spam" thing. Not anymore, it seems. But by the time a dictionary recognises the term "spam" as having a meaning with regards to unsolicited email, it must surely be too late to start claiming exclusive rights on the word (except where it really would cause consumer confusion, which isn't the case here).
Sorry, dude, but I tend to check my spelling against the Macquarie Dictionary, since I'm Australian. No doubt "artifact" is the most common USA spelling; it's recognised as an alternative spelling here.
You said:
They get paid to select the stuff from the submissions bin that goes on the front page. No, wait -- that's done by a squadron of stealth monkeys. Um, maybe the editors feed the monkeys?
You say:
He's found the most famous Biblical Artefacts already (plus a Hindu artefact, for that matter), but not the most prized. The most prized must surely include the cross of the crucifixion itself, which, legend has it (if one wishes to give a Hollywood angle to it), heals all who touch it.
Note that I agree with you: the Christian Artefact angle has pretty much been done enough, and they'll probably try for something else like Atlantis, or something Egyptian, or maybe Incan? Round off the series (I presume this will be the last) with a throw-back to the opening scene of Raiders -- that would be cool. Even so, the Christian Artefact scene is hardly mined out if they think it will please the crowds.
Now, it's true that SCO is being fuzzy with regards to Intellectual Property. They've been making noises about vigorously protecting their "Intellectual Property", as technologists-turned-litigators are wont to do, whereas in actual practice it seems they're taking the stance, "we have enough piles of legal crap here that we're sure we can sue someone for something fairly big".
Even so, I think Stallman's "thou shalt not use this language in this manner" decrees are not only futile and tedious, but wrong in an important respect. The perception that intangible abstractions like names, ideas, and images can be considered property is not because of widespread use of the term "Intellectual Property"; rather, I submit that the cause and effect are the other way around. After generations of ever-increasing patent, copyright and trademark restrictions, why wouldn't people start thinking in terms of "Intellectual Property"? It's a well-ingrained cultural norm by now! Copyright infringement isn't theft, but we've been treating ideas as property for so long that it's not a distinction that's clear in people's minds anymore. They'll forget it for a moment when they violate copyright for their own convenience ("it's not hurting anyone"), but people are, by and large, of the opinion that it's wrong to "steal ideas".
It's not immediately clear to me (in the space of one Slashdot posting) how we can reverse this trend. How do we remind people that "Intellectual Property" is actually "Intellectual Privilege"? These "rights" are supposed to exist in order to benefit the public, not to protect private interests. People aren't outraged by the perpetual extension of copyright terms because they've been born in an environment where people own ideas, and it seems reasonable that people shouldn't have their property taken from them. Simply insisting that "Intellectual Property" is wrong-thinking doesn't suffice, because when you look at the law as-is, "Intellectual Property" is exactly what you have.
I thought it was relevant. It's not like I need the karma.
The obvious answer to this is to organise a pro-SCO demonstration, lauding all the worst aspects of that company. "Litigation is better than innovation," and so on. Just make it funny for goodness sake. That's the beauty of satire which the SCO posters miss.
I think the spirit of that RFC would require that all traffic being used to send spam would have the evil bit set already. Clearly there hasn't been enough uptake of this feature yet, or the spam problem would have solved itself by now.
Translation: law enforcement is available to the highest bidder (where bidding is measured in monetary damages to you, among other things).
Thus, it seems that if you are willing to engage in theft and fraud of a kind which no law enforcement agencies can be bothered to deal with, you can make a pretty good tax-free income.
Today's Dilbert seems apropos.
I guess I was hoping for something a little more along the lines of a philosophy of science. Although I agree that bad science is usually accompanied by one or more (usually more) of these conditions, the conditions could just as readily be applied to certain particularly brilliant scientific breakthroughs. The conditions need fine-tuning to eliminate the false positives if we want to be sure to encourage the next Einstein, rather than mistakenly brand him a charlatan and run him out of town.