But if next July's anticipated Supreme Court ruling in the MPAA/RIAA vs Grokster/Streamcast goes in favour of the movie and music industries, the heat is going to be on any technology, no matter how benign the intentions of its developer, that nevertheless makes piracy possible.
I doubt this will happen. There's plenty of precedent in U.S. case law for this. If the technology has significant legal uses, for which it was designed, then it's safe. BitTorrent does indeed have significant legal uses (distributing free ISOs comes to mind) and was designed for that sort of thing, so it's extremely doubtful Bram Cohen or BitTorrent will be in any legal trouble.
Indeed, don't take this lying down. Has anyone considered the possibility that the software in question only had 44 security holes to be found between them? (Or, at least, 44 that we could reasonably know about right now.) It would be impossible for anyone to pass this assignment in those circumstances.
It sounds like the assignment was utterly unfair. I don't think I could find 10 security holes in the project I code for at this point; it's been fairly well audited both by us and by others. A few days ago I just patched what I think is the last one; of course, I should know better by now...
So, personally, I was thinking more of using this when I'm visiting family and friends.
When I'm out and about, my laptop's Linux install speaks for itself. I've converted more people to Linux by sitting them down in front of it for ten minutes than by all evangelizing.
Before you read on, if you have had trouble accessing this page then please accept my apologies. The previous bandwidth issues should be solved now that I have a new server.
That is, until/. arrived....5:30am and the site's already running slow. How much longer you think it will hold up?
if you aren't impressed that it has taken 7 years to get where they are, why don't you help out and do some coding?
Mainly because I'm too busy contributing to otherprojects and trying to occasionally get out of the house once in a while and chase down that elusive thing I once heard about called women.
They may as well mod it back down; the Globe and Mail disabled the login within minutes. Probably after they figured out I used a VISA gift card with $0.00 left on it to register with.
The passage of time makes it a moving target. It's moving further and further into the software tarpits of the past, as more and more new software simply doesn't work on NT 4.0.
ReactOS is intended to be a clean, open source reimplementation of Microsoft Windows NT 4.0.
I'd never heard of ReactOS before this posting, and so I checked it out. I'm impressed by what they've done so far, but not the seven years it took them to do it. It's still VERY early pre-alpha software. Maybe now that all the basic pieces are in place it will pick up speed, but I suspect it will have the same trouble WINE runs into: it's chasing a moving target, and it's way behind. WINE, at least, decided to implement newer APIs found in Windows 2000 and XP. ReactOS has not. So even when they hit a 1.0 or stable release, they're going to be so far behind that not that much Windows software will run on it.
If you drive away the beautiful woman's friends, or your friends do, you aren't getting laid either. So it's in your best interest for each of you to take each one.
This buzz is all well and good, but the word is getting out that people have choices, even on Windows. Look at Firefox surpassing 10,000,000 downloads. And Firefox throws a specially branded Google search page at you.
Microsoft's market share is slowly but surely eroding, and as people begin to see the high quality of open source software, it won't be long before a completely open source system becomes available to, and usable by, Joe Sixpack.
I wish that there were something that would stop the government from increasing its power over us, other than the fact that it might piss people off. Its a rather scary trend and I don't see it stopping any time soon, while people keep getting more comfortable with it.
In the U.S. that's supposed to be We the People, all our votes and all our guns. Most people, however, have been snowed by U.S. government propaganda aimed at its own citizens. "This will protect you from terrorists." Bullshit. But most people eat it up.
approach to fighting spam. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work. (One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may have other flaws which vary from state to state.)
( ) Spammers can easily use it to harvest email addresses (x) Mailing lists and other legitimate email uses would be affected ( ) No one will be able to find the guy or collect the money ( ) It is defenseless against brute force attacks ( ) It will stop spam for two weeks and then we'll be stuck with it ( ) Users of email will not put up with it ( ) Microsoft will not put up with it ( ) The police will not put up with it ( ) Requires too much cooperation from spammers ( ) Requires cooperation from too many of your friends and is counterintuitive ( ) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once ( ) Many email users cannot afford to lose business or alienate potential employers ( ) Spammers don't care about invalid addresses in their lists (x) Anyone could anonymously destroy anyone else's career or business ( ) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever worked ( ) Other:
Specifically, your plan fails to account for
( ) Laws expressly prohibiting it ( ) Lack of centrally controlling authority for email (x) Open relays in foreign countries ( ) Ease of searching tiny alphanumeric address space of all email addresses ( ) Asshats ( ) Jurisdictional problems ( ) Unpopularity of weird new taxes ( ) Public reluctance to accept weird new forms of money ( ) Huge existing software investment in SMTP ( ) Susceptibility of protocols other than SMTP to attack ( ) Willingness of users to install OS patches received by email (x) Armies of worm riddled broadband-connected Windows boxes (x) Eternal arms race involved in all filtering approaches (x) Extreme profitability of spam ( ) Joe jobs and/or identity theft ( ) Technically illiterate politicians (x) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with spammers ( ) Dishonesty on the part of spammers themselves ( ) Bandwidth costs that are unaffected by client filtering ( ) Outlook ( ) Other:
and the following philosophical objections may also apply:
( ) Any scheme based on opt-out is unacceptable ( ) SMTP headers should not be the subject of legislation (x) Blacklists suck ( ) Whitelists suck ( ) We should be able to talk about Viagra without being censored ( ) Countermeasures cannot involve wire fraud or credit card fraud ( ) Countermeasures cannot involve sabotage of public networks ( ) Sending email should be free ( ) Why should we have to trust you and your servers? ( ) Incompatiblity with open source or open source licenses (x) Feel-good measures do nothing to solve the problem ( ) Temporary/one-time email addresses are cumbersome ( ) I don't want the government reading my email (x) Killing them that way is not slow and painful enough ( ) Other:
Furthermore, this is what I think about you:
(x) Nice try, dude, but I don't think it will work. ( ) This is a stupid idea, and you're a stupid person for suggesting it. ( ) Nice try, assh0le! I'm going to find out where you live and burn your house down!
>As long as people are willing to pay for herbal Viagra, cheap mortgages, etc. based on spam, so too will spam annoy the rest of us.
not quite. spam will exist as long there are advertisers who believe there are people who are willing to pay for junk stuff based on spam. advertizing - all it takes is the belief that it's doing something, at least until the money runs dry.
The reason advertisers continue to believe that spam brings in customers is simply that it does. People do read spam, and people do buy from spammers. Until you stop that, you can't stop the spammers from believing that spam is worth their time, because from their perspective, it works!
Maybe for 2005 you can upgrade to Apache 2.0, where the hard limit is 20000. It is pretty snappy at the moment, interestingly enough, for a site that has thousands of/.ers looking at it. Most people's server-in-the-basement -on-DSL wouldn't stand a chance.
Slashdot Mirror
Ruining jokes is my sole reason for posting to /.
I just run ppc from a terminal, and hit Ctrl-Z to pause the execution at any time.
Have you never heard of PearPC which emulates a PowerPC Macintosh under Linux, Windows and a few other assorted platforms?
Oh no, this is going to take forever for PearPC to install.
I doubt this will happen. There's plenty of precedent in U.S. case law for this. If the technology has significant legal uses, for which it was designed, then it's safe. BitTorrent does indeed have significant legal uses (distributing free ISOs comes to mind) and was designed for that sort of thing, so it's extremely doubtful Bram Cohen or BitTorrent will be in any legal trouble.
It sounds like the assignment was utterly unfair. I don't think I could find 10 security holes in the project I code for at this point; it's been fairly well audited both by us and by others. A few days ago I just patched what I think is the last one; of course, I should know better by now...
When I'm out and about, my laptop's Linux install speaks for itself. I've converted more people to Linux by sitting them down in front of it for ten minutes than by all evangelizing.
That is, until /. arrived....5:30am and the site's already running slow. How much longer you think it will hold up?
Mainly because I'm too busy contributing to other projects and trying to occasionally get out of the house once in a while and chase down that elusive thing I once heard about called women.
Besides, I want Windows to die a horrible death.
They may as well mod it back down; the Globe and Mail disabled the login within minutes. Probably after they figured out I used a VISA gift card with $0.00 left on it to register with.
The passage of time makes it a moving target. It's moving further and further into the software tarpits of the past, as more and more new software simply doesn't work on NT 4.0.
I'd never heard of ReactOS before this posting, and so I checked it out. I'm impressed by what they've done so far, but not the seven years it took them to do it. It's still VERY early pre-alpha software. Maybe now that all the basic pieces are in place it will pick up speed, but I suspect it will have the same trouble WINE runs into: it's chasing a moving target, and it's way behind. WINE, at least, decided to implement newer APIs found in Windows 2000 and XP. ReactOS has not. So even when they hit a 1.0 or stable release, they're going to be so far behind that not that much Windows software will run on it.
Being forced to use AOL is punishment in and of itself!
Hmph, well, it was working. Some AC posted the article text in the meantime, though.
Login: CowboyNeal
Password: CowboyNeal
If you drive away the beautiful woman's friends, or your friends do, you aren't getting laid either. So it's in your best interest for each of you to take each one.
Microsoft's market share is slowly but surely eroding, and as people begin to see the high quality of open source software, it won't be long before a completely open source system becomes available to, and usable by, Joe Sixpack.
May conflict with other pop-up blockers and cause you to not be able to click on anything at all.
The toolbar has to be on-screen for pop-up blocking to work.
Needs administrator privileges to install.
Includes a plugin to search PDF files.
Includes desktop search.
Currently supports U.S. English only. Don't try to install it on a non-U.S. English version of Windows.
I looked at your project 3dfb a while back, and I decided I didn't like it because it reminded me too much of the movie Hackers. :)
In the U.S. that's supposed to be We the People, all our votes and all our guns. Most people, however, have been snowed by U.S. government propaganda aimed at its own citizens. "This will protect you from terrorists." Bullshit. But most people eat it up.
The tree of liberty is withering...
Your post advocates a
(x) technical ( ) legislative ( ) market-based (x) vigilante
approach to fighting spam. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work. (One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may have other flaws which vary from state to state.)
( ) Spammers can easily use it to harvest email addresses
(x) Mailing lists and other legitimate email uses would be affected
( ) No one will be able to find the guy or collect the money
( ) It is defenseless against brute force attacks
( ) It will stop spam for two weeks and then we'll be stuck with it
( ) Users of email will not put up with it
( ) Microsoft will not put up with it
( ) The police will not put up with it
( ) Requires too much cooperation from spammers
( ) Requires cooperation from too many of your friends and is counterintuitive
( ) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once
( ) Many email users cannot afford to lose business or alienate potential employers
( ) Spammers don't care about invalid addresses in their lists
(x) Anyone could anonymously destroy anyone else's career or business
( ) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever worked
( ) Other:
Specifically, your plan fails to account for
( ) Laws expressly prohibiting it
( ) Lack of centrally controlling authority for email
(x) Open relays in foreign countries
( ) Ease of searching tiny alphanumeric address space of all email addresses
( ) Asshats
( ) Jurisdictional problems
( ) Unpopularity of weird new taxes
( ) Public reluctance to accept weird new forms of money
( ) Huge existing software investment in SMTP
( ) Susceptibility of protocols other than SMTP to attack
( ) Willingness of users to install OS patches received by email
(x) Armies of worm riddled broadband-connected Windows boxes
(x) Eternal arms race involved in all filtering approaches
(x) Extreme profitability of spam
( ) Joe jobs and/or identity theft
( ) Technically illiterate politicians
(x) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with spammers
( ) Dishonesty on the part of spammers themselves
( ) Bandwidth costs that are unaffected by client filtering
( ) Outlook
( ) Other:
and the following philosophical objections may also apply:
( ) Any scheme based on opt-out is unacceptable
( ) SMTP headers should not be the subject of legislation
(x) Blacklists suck
( ) Whitelists suck
( ) We should be able to talk about Viagra without being censored
( ) Countermeasures cannot involve wire fraud or credit card fraud
( ) Countermeasures cannot involve sabotage of public networks
( ) Sending email should be free
( ) Why should we have to trust you and your servers?
( ) Incompatiblity with open source or open source licenses
(x) Feel-good measures do nothing to solve the problem
( ) Temporary/one-time email addresses are cumbersome
( ) I don't want the government reading my email
(x) Killing them that way is not slow and painful enough
( ) Other:
Furthermore, this is what I think about you:
(x) Nice try, dude, but I don't think it will work.
( ) This is a stupid idea, and you're a stupid person for suggesting it.
( ) Nice try, assh0le! I'm going to find out where you live and burn your house down!
The reason advertisers continue to believe that spam brings in customers is simply that it does. People do read spam, and people do buy from spammers. Until you stop that, you can't stop the spammers from believing that spam is worth their time, because from their perspective, it works!
TCO isn't all that matters. Sometimes the prejudices and biases of the executives making the decisions matter a whole lot more.
Maybe for 2005 you can upgrade to Apache 2.0, where the hard limit is 20000. It is pretty snappy at the moment, interestingly enough, for a site that has thousands of /.ers looking at it. Most people's server-in-the-basement -on-DSL wouldn't stand a chance.
The server's responding FAST now, like as if nobody was even hitting it. Got any updated realtime usage stats for us, Alek?