Even with all that mass eavesdropping by the US Gov this guy still manages to get up to _fifteen_?
Phone calls, access to online security cams and bank transactions all leave a much easier trail to follow than some guy in a black leather + full face motorcycle helmet robbing your shop (taking cash only) and then zooming off who knows where on a stolen fast bike.
"Pay-per-use cellular phones would be difficult to trace"
Well they should know which cell you're calling from, and if the culprit is stupid enough to leave the phone on (usually), the tech is there to catch the culprit, get one of those "radar vans" head to area where phone is, then "ping" the phone.
But of course the FBI etc are too busy chasing down terrorists.
Someone could indeed understand theory well enough to solve actual problems without "truly understanding it". This is true for many nonacademic problems. Example: you could realize that an algorithm is N^N and thus it sucks, you don't need to prove it rigorously.
You can intuitively understand how a particular line in a shape is perpendicular to another line, and "it just is so" AND solve problems using that understanding even though you can't prove it mathematically. Same for a lot of other problems.
Lots of mathematicians guess that something is true first and then try to prove it, sometimes they are wrong, but there is a "simulation in their mind of the world", and the good ones have a better "simulations", and make better guesses.
I heard getting into IIT in India is also quite hard.
I found the UK A Levels rather easy IMO, in comparison to my country's O Levels.
That said, I judge an education system not on how well it helps the the brilliant ones, but on how well it helps the stupid ones.
For the brilliant ones, all the education system has to do is provide stuff (resources) and get out of the way. Nowadays with the Internet etc, the "provide the stuff" becomes even less important, the "getting out of the way" become more important- thus you still need good teachers to handle the smart ones, because good teachers know when they are _wrong_ AND can handle it, rather than punish the student for being _right_ (and thus "getting in the way"). Plus good teachers can also help domesticate the smart ones - whether humans are smart or stupid they all need to be domesticated in order to live or even thrive in normal societies.
Since most people are stupid and democracy is considered the least bad way to pick a government, educating the stupid ones is very important for the well being of a country. Otherwise they'd just be lambs being led to the slaughter.
For example in the US you have GW Bush pretending to be stupid (aw shucks) and winning 2 terms. So who's stupid?
It was obvious that Tony Blair had a harder time in the UK. But more education "initiatives" like these will help make things easier for the "leaders" in the future.
"A method for automatically interpreting an electronic message, including the steps of (a) receiving the electronic message from a source; (b) interpreting the electronic message using a rule base and case base knowledge engine; and (c) classifying the electronic message as at least one of (i) being able to be responded to automatically; and (ii) requiring assistance from a human operator. The method for automatically interpreting an electronic message may also include the step of retrieving one or more predetermined responses corresponding to the interpretation of the electronic message from a repository for automatic delivery to the source."
a) definitely. b) examples: sendmail.conf and aliases c) Bounce with appropriate message or deliver to human operator...
So how innovative is that patent?
What's innovation is the stuff in Douglas Engelbart's Demo in 1968.
The thing about real innovation (where it is non-obvious to someone in the field) is that it can take > 20 years before people realize what it's useful for and that they want it;).
Smart people can think of innovative ideas all the time, the trouble is if you're too far ahead, nobody else "gets it", or the rest of the stuff hasn't been built yet. Think of a caveman coming up with a bicycle when roads weren't built yet. It'll just be a toy or mild curiosity in most places (the aztecs or whoever come to mind - the wheel's not so useful when it's just one more thing you have to carry up the mountain;) ).
So the trouble with patents is immediately useful inventions tend to be fairly obvious, because at least nowadays when the "world is ready", either you or hundreds of others will come up with the idea, because either it's obvious or required. All the experts in the field are "thinking in the same context".
If you're thinking out of the box and beyond all those experts, then the odds your stuff get built/implemented are very low.
I don't see the point of rewarding people for inventing something that's practically inevitable, maybe if they "_dragged_ everyone to something that was good" (which people just didn't realize was good), or in hindsight tried to (oh that was a good idea of yours after all, sorry bout ignoring you;) ) then they could be rewarded.
Doom 3 graphics were scary but that was about it, the scares were cheap shots mostly. Hit trigger point and whoopee monsters teleport behind you or whatever. After the first or second time round it gets old and *yawn*. Maybe there were a few scary bits, but I can't remember any of them.
It's like those crappy movies where they just make a sudden LOUD sound in order to "scare" you. But you're not really scared in those cases just _startled_, because after the movie you laugh and that's it.
A friend sneaking up behind you and going "Boo!", could make you jump, but doesn't really scare you.
A scary movie/game is where _after_ watching/playing, you don't really even want to look at a mirror just in case you see something unexpected behind you;).
Still, I'm not the horror movie type. Just looking at the direction the world is heading scares me enough already.
It's funny they put a levy on stuff that the kids hardly ever use nowadays for music;).
Out of the hundreds of CDs I've burnt, only 2 or so contained "label" music, and those were backups of CDs that were paid for (that I figured were worth backing up:p ).
China already makes those drives, so they already have the tech.
As for "data encryption" maybe they're afraid that China will no longer put US backdoors in Seagate crypto (and perhaps put their own backdoors);).
Because if you do it right, the US Gov should be holding the private keys and not Seagate. A partial/full copy of the symmetric key(s) used to encrypt the data would be encrypted to the public key and stored so that whoever has private key can get them. Lookup Lotus Notes for such an example.
Anyway, what do the US leaders actually care about? It's obviously not the security of the USA, otherwise they'd be catching whoever it is who did 9/11 instead of wasting lives and resources in Iraq. They scare their citizens about the evil terrorists/China, make laws and take actions that undermine what makes the USA the USA.
China might be more concerned about your national security than your leaders are;). Seriously look at what the US leaders do to "take care" of the USA.
In China they've executed top ministry officials who screw up big time, maybe that's too harsh but they're under greater constraints - poorer, 1 billion people, less arable land, the "legacy" of Mao.
Anyway, while it's a strange game - US buying Chinese goods, China buying US bonds, US using that "money" to buy more stuff, but so far the players have been playing it longer than the previous games. Still throwing pots of the "money" into Iraq isn't likely to make that game last longer.
What would be good is a Windows XP + DX9/DX10 compatible OS (or even a proliferation of such OSes). Then companies that find their apps breaking on Vista, or find Vista unacceptable can just switch to one of the alternatives.
It'll be good to relegate Windows to something like a BIOS.
And do to Microsoft what AMD did to Intel when Intel tried to get everyone on the Itanic.
The real reason GNU/Lunux is technically superior to Windows is because Windows is crap. It started out crap, and has to be compatible with crap. And now Vista has the added requirement of being compatible with DRM stuff.
And IMO Linux isn't really that much better either, after all it's still "Unix"-like.
Microsoft Office on the other hand is technically superior to Open Office.
Would be interesting to have a speaker where the position of the diaphragm is set by rapidly comparing an optical read of its position (in gray code) with the digital input, and getting a powerful amp to move the diaphragm to the desired spot.
Been waiting for that since the 80s, but I suppose it'll never happen.
> > If such copying really was stealing you would be able to use the usual laws for theft against it. > You do realize that we can, right?
Link/Evidence please?
Well, I admit I haven't been up to date with the US laws, so could be the **AA etc have won and copying has been redefined as theft in the USA. In which case sure, the laws of "New Theft" would apply. Then sure you're right and you "win", double plus ungood for the USA then.
> Funny how you don't even know your own country's laws, yet you're willing to lecture other people (wrongly) about theirs, isn't it?
I do know the Malaysian Copyright Act 1987 even after the amendments in 1997 still allows me to copy for private and domestic use, the amendments however prevent distribution/sharing over networks.
Once the "private and domestic" exception is gone (it still isn't AFAIK) then the situation becomes a _lot_ worse than the USA. While it's still there, it's ok.
Meanwhile, my country is racing yours to the bottom:).
I was hoping (against the odds, I know) for a world where human brains could be enhanced without fear of DRM and Copyright laws strangling stuff till it becomes "a penny or more for your thoughts" uh make that "a penny or more to recall Sony's IP". Where it won't be illegal to have artificial photographic/videographic memory without a license (or doctor's certification).
So much for that and virtual telepathy (where you recall something and send it to a friend). The technology is almost there already - the kids are already doing a "low tech" version of it with their camera phones.
If I suspect something is wrong with my home machines and I didn't care to figure out what happened, I'd just revert the relevant virtual machine to a clean snapshot, disconnect the network connections and patch, restore data etc.
If I did care, I could either suspend the virtual machine or make a snapshot of it.
Virtual machines are cool:). Once x86 hardware gets more efficient at running VMs (including IO), I think I'll run everything virtualized. You can't get away with doing that red pill, blue pill thing to my system if I do it first:).
If you don't run machines in a VM, I believe the proper way to do forensics is to pull the plug (not sure if attackers would tamper with fsync) then make a copy of the drive using hardware that is certified to block writes to the drive - there are few vendors about selling such hardware and software to go with it. Google should show up a few.
If you do it any other way, any evidence gathered could be considered suspect or tampered with by the defense, or you could accidentally destroy your evidence, or you could be allowing the attacker to destroy the evidence.
Doing what the chap did in the article is definitely not "forensics", anymore than stomping all over a murder scene while touching everything is forensics or a proper investigation.
I thought if someone installed a rootkit into your system they risk going to jail?
Does that "click through" permission thing really count?
If it does, maybe some popular software author should provide an EULA where users are to follow all legal orders from him/her, and at least once a quarter howl at the full moon while hopping on one foot (if able to hop and howl).
There's reasonable contract and unreasonable contract. I don't think it's reasonable to install a game and have it undermine my computer system.
"The popular myth that copyright infringement is not theft is deeply flawed"
If such copying really was stealing you would be able to use the usual laws for theft against it.
How about you try doing that the next time someone copies your software/stuff instead of using copyright law.
In my country (Malaysia) the law says I can copy stuff for private or domestic use (I can't sell it etc). But I can't steal stuff even if it's for private or domestic use.
Maybe in the US most people think copying is the same as theft because *AA and the media keep brainwashing you folks.
And maybe the powers in the USA will eventually have their way and copyright infringement becomes the same as theft, and not just in the USA but worldwide.
Well the cops in various countries have been nabbing people using open APs. I definitely agree with you that it sure isn't a good situation. And just because people plead guilty doesn't necessarily even mean they are doing something wrong, could mean they have crappy lawyers or just want to get it over and done with ASAP ("no contest" would be a better plea I guess).
IMO given the unfortunate state of things an open unencrypted AP in _practice_ is "undefined" esp if it says "LINKSYS" or some other default SSID;). Seems the courts/prosecutors are starting to define it as "private" by default though.
Anyway, I still wish it was easy for it to be open AND encrypted+secure, and I KNOW it is technically possible. You can do something similar on top of PEAP-MSCHAPV2 but you need to standardize on a "public" username and password, and the OS people have to come up with a UI to make it easy, preinstall a few certs AND important to prevent MITM attacks, certs should be tied to an SSID or something that will be made visible to the user, that an attacker can't get a reputable CA to sign. (like https - the site says "www.bank.com" but the cert is for "www.bank.foo.org").
'Whats wrong with the conventional "localnet"?'
I'm not really picky[1] but is it a standard? Could you link me to the relevant RFC or STD please? A search for localnet domain and localnet rfc sure doesn't look promising.
The idea is for it to be a standard - like the RFC1918 addresses. Otherwise it's just like people using random non-RFC1918 addresses for "private IP ranges".
It's a big difference. You can't build much on unsteady or uncertain ground.
I mean, you use localnet and it isn't reserved, one day ICANN could decide to give it to someone and poof. IIRC the ICANN did that to.biz.
[1] Something short, easy to remember and type would be good.
If your machine ever gets to connect via the internet to microsoft or a microsoft controlled machine, the IP it is using to connect will be known.
Assuming a default install of windows, if you ever browse a microsoft controlled webpage (better block ads too;) ) they could install any code of their choice - it's all signed by Microsoft's certs, which are conveniently installed in Windows.
You're going to have to figure out a different way to patch your windows systems too.
It's not stealing. It's called copyright infringement.
Copyright is a granted limited monopoly by the Government of a country on copying.
AFAIK the _international_ "you respect my country's copyrights and I respect yours" deal somehow became part of the WTO thingy which the US Gov agreed to.
So the way I see it if the US _allegedly_ doesn't hold up it's part of the WTO deal, Antigua is well within its rights to request the WTO to "redo the deal" accordingly, which in this case could mean Antiguans get to copy stuff.
People in the USA still won't be allowed to infringe on the US copyrights.
Anyway I doubt you'd have to worry, I'm sure the USA could get the WTO to change its mind even if the US decides to still persist...
After all the US keeps subsidising its farmers and steelmakers with tariffs and subsidies. Maybe if you're lucky (or form a lobby) you might get a subsidy from your Government;).
"Whereas people _do_ intentionally leave access points open and there is no way for the general public to know if an AP was left open intentionally or not."
You could rename the SSID to OPEN2PUBLIC, BUT even then most people would wish to have some terms and conditions, or provide some info.
And that's where a "local-only" TLD[1] comes in useful. You could do http://here/ and possibly get information about the network you are using.
Forcibly redirecting people to show them some webpage first has many disadvantages.
But, I didn't have a spare USD100k to throw at ICANN to apply to get the TLD and then give it to the world for free. I did ask them to reserve it (even wrote to Esther Dyson, etc and got one or two replies), but they obviously thought stuff like.museum,.name,.biz and.info were more useful.
I think something like a.here tld would be more useful to the world (much like the RFC1918 IP addresses) but I'm biased...
Uh you won't have to rely on local artists to see art or listen to their music. You could get it from the artist's website/blog directly.
You might even buy stuff. Not much but hey not like most musicians get much money from labels anyway (I hear typically they get a big _advance_ and recording fees, promotion etc get deducted from it, so depending on how they're screwed they might even end up owing the label).
The reason why there's lots of mass-market tripe is because the media industry long ago figured out that what makes something popular isn't mainly quality. Sure it usually has to be of at least a certain level of quality, but after that it's exposure (you won't know something is good if nobody knows of it). And you'd listen to/watch stuff your friends listen to/watch. A bit like a weak network effect. Or stronger network effect if you're talking about the teen market. Only prob is a different sort of network effect appeared aka P2P;).
Slashdot Mirror
Even with all that mass eavesdropping by the US Gov this guy still manages to get up to _fifteen_?
Phone calls, access to online security cams and bank transactions all leave a much easier trail to follow than some guy in a black leather + full face motorcycle helmet robbing your shop (taking cash only) and then zooming off who knows where on a stolen fast bike.
"Pay-per-use cellular phones would be difficult to trace"
Well they should know which cell you're calling from, and if the culprit is stupid enough to leave the phone on (usually), the tech is there to catch the culprit, get one of those "radar vans" head to area where phone is, then "ping" the phone.
But of course the FBI etc are too busy chasing down terrorists.
Can't they follow the money trail from there?
Strange.
Someone could indeed understand theory well enough to solve actual problems without "truly understanding it". This is true for many nonacademic problems. Example: you could realize that an algorithm is N^N and thus it sucks, you don't need to prove it rigorously.
You can intuitively understand how a particular line in a shape is perpendicular to another line, and "it just is so" AND solve problems using that understanding even though you can't prove it mathematically. Same for a lot of other problems.
Lots of mathematicians guess that something is true first and then try to prove it, sometimes they are wrong, but there is a "simulation in their mind of the world", and the good ones have a better "simulations", and make better guesses.
The exams are indeed getting easier in some countries, but in some countries they are still hard.
3 01.stm#chinese
China for example:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/6589
I heard getting into IIT in India is also quite hard.
I found the UK A Levels rather easy IMO, in comparison to my country's O Levels.
That said, I judge an education system not on how well it helps the the brilliant ones, but on how well it helps the stupid ones.
For the brilliant ones, all the education system has to do is provide stuff (resources) and get out of the way. Nowadays with the Internet etc, the "provide the stuff" becomes even less important, the "getting out of the way" become more important- thus you still need good teachers to handle the smart ones, because good teachers know when they are _wrong_ AND can handle it, rather than punish the student for being _right_ (and thus "getting in the way"). Plus good teachers can also help domesticate the smart ones - whether humans are smart or stupid they all need to be domesticated in order to live or even thrive in normal societies.
Since most people are stupid and democracy is considered the least bad way to pick a government, educating the stupid ones is very important for the well being of a country. Otherwise they'd just be lambs being led to the slaughter.
For example in the US you have GW Bush pretending to be stupid (aw shucks) and winning 2 terms. So who's stupid?
It was obvious that Tony Blair had a harder time in the UK. But more education "initiatives" like these will help make things easier for the "leaders" in the future.
If they leave the air and water polluted and don't strongly discourage smoking, many of them might not reach old age. Problem solved then ;).
Most old mail servers already did the following:
;).
;) ).
;) ) then they could be rewarded.
"A method for automatically interpreting an electronic message, including the steps of (a) receiving the electronic message from a source; (b) interpreting the electronic message using a rule base and case base knowledge engine; and (c) classifying the electronic message as at least one of (i) being able to be responded to automatically; and (ii) requiring assistance from a human operator. The method for automatically interpreting an electronic message may also include the step of retrieving one or more predetermined responses corresponding to the interpretation of the electronic message from a repository for automatic delivery to the source."
a) definitely.
b) examples: sendmail.conf and aliases
c) Bounce with appropriate message or deliver to human operator...
So how innovative is that patent?
What's innovation is the stuff in Douglas Engelbart's Demo in 1968.
The thing about real innovation (where it is non-obvious to someone in the field) is that it can take > 20 years before people realize what it's useful for and that they want it
Smart people can think of innovative ideas all the time, the trouble is if you're too far ahead, nobody else "gets it", or the rest of the stuff hasn't been built yet. Think of a caveman coming up with a bicycle when roads weren't built yet. It'll just be a toy or mild curiosity in most places (the aztecs or whoever come to mind - the wheel's not so useful when it's just one more thing you have to carry up the mountain
So the trouble with patents is immediately useful inventions tend to be fairly obvious, because at least nowadays when the "world is ready", either you or hundreds of others will come up with the idea, because either it's obvious or required. All the experts in the field are "thinking in the same context".
If you're thinking out of the box and beyond all those experts, then the odds your stuff get built/implemented are very low.
I don't see the point of rewarding people for inventing something that's practically inevitable, maybe if they "_dragged_ everyone to something that was good" (which people just didn't realize was good), or in hindsight tried to (oh that was a good idea of yours after all, sorry bout ignoring you
I never could beat the computer at chess in "high levels" either.
:).
Nuff said
Doom 3 graphics were scary but that was about it, the scares were cheap shots mostly. Hit trigger point and whoopee monsters teleport behind you or whatever. After the first or second time round it gets old and *yawn*. Maybe there were a few scary bits, but I can't remember any of them.
;).
It's like those crappy movies where they just make a sudden LOUD sound in order to "scare" you. But you're not really scared in those cases just _startled_, because after the movie you laugh and that's it.
A friend sneaking up behind you and going "Boo!", could make you jump, but doesn't really scare you.
A scary movie/game is where _after_ watching/playing, you don't really even want to look at a mirror just in case you see something unexpected behind you
Still, I'm not the horror movie type. Just looking at the direction the world is heading scares me enough already.
It's funny they put a levy on stuff that the kids hardly ever use nowadays for music ;).
:p ).
Out of the hundreds of CDs I've burnt, only 2 or so contained "label" music, and those were backups of CDs that were paid for (that I figured were worth backing up
China already makes those drives, so they already have the tech.
;).
As for "data encryption" maybe they're afraid that China will no longer put US backdoors in Seagate crypto (and perhaps put their own backdoors)
Because if you do it right, the US Gov should be holding the private keys and not Seagate. A partial/full copy of the symmetric key(s) used to encrypt the data would be encrypted to the public key and stored so that whoever has private key can get them. Lookup Lotus Notes for such an example.
Anyway, what do the US leaders actually care about? It's obviously not the security of the USA, otherwise they'd be catching whoever it is who did 9/11 instead of wasting lives and resources in Iraq. They scare their citizens about the evil terrorists/China, make laws and take actions that undermine what makes the USA the USA.
They're the ones destroying/endangering the USA.
China might be more concerned about your national security than your leaders are ;). Seriously look at what the US leaders do to "take care" of the USA.
In China they've executed top ministry officials who screw up big time, maybe that's too harsh but they're under greater constraints - poorer, 1 billion people, less arable land, the "legacy" of Mao.
Anyway, while it's a strange game - US buying Chinese goods, China buying US bonds, US using that "money" to buy more stuff, but so far the players have been playing it longer than the previous games. Still throwing pots of the "money" into Iraq isn't likely to make that game last longer.
What would be good is a Windows XP + DX9/DX10 compatible OS (or even a proliferation of such OSes). Then companies that find their apps breaking on Vista, or find Vista unacceptable can just switch to one of the alternatives.
It'll be good to relegate Windows to something like a BIOS.
And do to Microsoft what AMD did to Intel when Intel tried to get everyone on the Itanic.
The real reason GNU/Lunux is technically superior to Windows is because Windows is crap. It started out crap, and has to be compatible with crap. And now Vista has the added requirement of being compatible with DRM stuff.
And IMO Linux isn't really that much better either, after all it's still "Unix"-like.
Microsoft Office on the other hand is technically superior to Open Office.
Would be interesting to have a speaker where the position of the diaphragm is set by rapidly comparing an optical read of its position (in gray code) with the digital input, and getting a powerful amp to move the diaphragm to the desired spot.
Been waiting for that since the 80s, but I suppose it'll never happen.
> > If such copying really was stealing you would be able to use the usual laws for theft against it.
:).
> You do realize that we can, right?
Link/Evidence please?
Well, I admit I haven't been up to date with the US laws, so could be the **AA etc have won and copying has been redefined as theft in the USA. In which case sure, the laws of "New Theft" would apply. Then sure you're right and you "win", double plus ungood for the USA then.
> Funny how you don't even know your own country's laws, yet you're willing to lecture other people (wrongly) about theirs, isn't it?
I do know the Malaysian Copyright Act 1987 even after the amendments in 1997 still allows me to copy for private and domestic use, the amendments however prevent distribution/sharing over networks.
Once the "private and domestic" exception is gone (it still isn't AFAIK) then the situation becomes a _lot_ worse than the USA. While it's still there, it's ok.
Meanwhile, my country is racing yours to the bottom
I was hoping (against the odds, I know) for a world where human brains could be enhanced without fear of DRM and Copyright laws strangling stuff till it becomes "a penny or more for your thoughts" uh make that "a penny or more to recall Sony's IP". Where it won't be illegal to have artificial photographic/videographic memory without a license (or doctor's certification).
So much for that and virtual telepathy (where you recall something and send it to a friend). The technology is almost there already - the kids are already doing a "low tech" version of it with their camera phones.
Oh well. Meanwhile, have a nice day!
If I suspect something is wrong with my home machines and I didn't care to figure out what happened, I'd just revert the relevant virtual machine to a clean snapshot, disconnect the network connections and patch, restore data etc.
:). Once x86 hardware gets more efficient at running VMs (including IO), I think I'll run everything virtualized. You can't get away with doing that red pill, blue pill thing to my system if I do it first :).
If I did care, I could either suspend the virtual machine or make a snapshot of it.
Virtual machines are cool
If you don't run machines in a VM, I believe the proper way to do forensics is to pull the plug (not sure if attackers would tamper with fsync) then make a copy of the drive using hardware that is certified to block writes to the drive - there are few vendors about selling such hardware and software to go with it. Google should show up a few.
If you do it any other way, any evidence gathered could be considered suspect or tampered with by the defense, or you could accidentally destroy your evidence, or you could be allowing the attacker to destroy the evidence.
Doing what the chap did in the article is definitely not "forensics", anymore than stomping all over a murder scene while touching everything is forensics or a proper investigation.
Is there a magazine where CEOs/CxOs get all those weird ideas/buzzwords from?
I thought if someone installed a rootkit into your system they risk going to jail?
Does that "click through" permission thing really count?
If it does, maybe some popular software author should provide an EULA where users are to follow all legal orders from him/her, and at least once a quarter howl at the full moon while hopping on one foot (if able to hop and howl).
There's reasonable contract and unreasonable contract. I don't think it's reasonable to install a game and have it undermine my computer system.
"The popular myth that copyright infringement is not theft is deeply flawed"
:)
If such copying really was stealing you would be able to use the usual laws for theft against it.
How about you try doing that the next time someone copies your software/stuff instead of using copyright law.
In my country (Malaysia) the law says I can copy stuff for private or domestic use (I can't sell it etc). But I can't steal stuff even if it's for private or domestic use.
Maybe in the US most people think copying is the same as theft because *AA and the media keep brainwashing you folks.
And maybe the powers in the USA will eventually have their way and copyright infringement becomes the same as theft, and not just in the USA but worldwide.
But meanwhile, have a nice day!
Well the cops in various countries have been nabbing people using open APs. I definitely agree with you that it sure isn't a good situation. And just because people plead guilty doesn't necessarily even mean they are doing something wrong, could mean they have crappy lawyers or just want to get it over and done with ASAP ("no contest" would be a better plea I guess).
;). Seems the courts/prosecutors are starting to define it as "private" by default though.
.biz.
IMO given the unfortunate state of things an open unencrypted AP in _practice_ is "undefined" esp if it says "LINKSYS" or some other default SSID
Anyway, I still wish it was easy for it to be open AND encrypted+secure, and I KNOW it is technically possible. You can do something similar on top of PEAP-MSCHAPV2 but you need to standardize on a "public" username and password, and the OS people have to come up with a UI to make it easy, preinstall a few certs AND important to prevent MITM attacks, certs should be tied to an SSID or something that will be made visible to the user, that an attacker can't get a reputable CA to sign. (like https - the site says "www.bank.com" but the cert is for "www.bank.foo.org").
'Whats wrong with the conventional "localnet"?'
I'm not really picky[1] but is it a standard? Could you link me to the relevant RFC or STD please? A search for localnet domain and localnet rfc sure doesn't look promising.
The idea is for it to be a standard - like the RFC1918 addresses. Otherwise it's just like people using random non-RFC1918 addresses for "private IP ranges".
It's a big difference. You can't build much on unsteady or uncertain ground.
I mean, you use localnet and it isn't reserved, one day ICANN could decide to give it to someone and poof. IIRC the ICANN did that to
[1] Something short, easy to remember and type would be good.
If your machine ever gets to connect via the internet to microsoft or a microsoft controlled machine, the IP it is using to connect will be known.
;) ) they could install any code of their choice - it's all signed by Microsoft's certs, which are conveniently installed in Windows.
Assuming a default install of windows, if you ever browse a microsoft controlled webpage (better block ads too
You're going to have to figure out a different way to patch your windows systems too.
It's not stealing. It's called copyright infringement.
;).
Copyright is a granted limited monopoly by the Government of a country on copying.
AFAIK the _international_ "you respect my country's copyrights and I respect yours" deal somehow became part of the WTO thingy which the US Gov agreed to.
So the way I see it if the US _allegedly_ doesn't hold up it's part of the WTO deal, Antigua is well within its rights to request the WTO to "redo the deal" accordingly, which in this case could mean Antiguans get to copy stuff.
People in the USA still won't be allowed to infringe on the US copyrights.
Anyway I doubt you'd have to worry, I'm sure the USA could get the WTO to change its mind even if the US decides to still persist...
After all the US keeps subsidising its farmers and steelmakers with tariffs and subsidies. Maybe if you're lucky (or form a lobby) you might get a subsidy from your Government
"Whereas people _do_ intentionally leave access points open and there is no way for the general public to know if an AP was left open intentionally or not."
.museum, .name, .biz and .info were more useful.
.here tld would be more useful to the world (much like the RFC1918 IP addresses) but I'm biased...
o r_addressing_by_physical_context/e re/
You could rename the SSID to OPEN2PUBLIC, BUT even then most people would wish to have some terms and conditions, or provide some info.
And that's where a "local-only" TLD[1] comes in useful. You could do http://here/ and possibly get information about the network you are using.
Forcibly redirecting people to show them some webpage first has many disadvantages.
But, I didn't have a spare USD100k to throw at ICANN to apply to get the TLD and then give it to the world for free. I did ask them to reserve it (even wrote to Esther Dyson, etc and got one or two replies), but they obviously thought stuff like
I think something like a
Oh well.
[1] http://www.circleid.com/posts/top_level_domains_f
http://www.potaroo.net/ietf/idref/draft-yeoh-tldh
Uh you won't have to rely on local artists to see art or listen to their music. You could get it from the artist's website/blog directly.
;).
You might even buy stuff. Not much but hey not like most musicians get much money from labels anyway (I hear typically they get a big _advance_ and recording fees, promotion etc get deducted from it, so depending on how they're screwed they might even end up owing the label).
The reason why there's lots of mass-market tripe is because the media industry long ago figured out that what makes something popular isn't mainly quality. Sure it usually has to be of at least a certain level of quality, but after that it's exposure (you won't know something is good if nobody knows of it). And you'd listen to/watch stuff your friends listen to/watch. A bit like a weak network effect. Or stronger network effect if you're talking about the teen market. Only prob is a different sort of network effect appeared aka P2P