Frankly, they were counting on enforcing the no reverse engineering clause in the EULAs. The whole scheme sounds like one cooked up by lawyers and not engineers.
Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
Ahhh, but my mini-notebook only has a (tiny) 640x480 screen. I won't be able to fit an 80x25 xterm in that at 22 points. Anyway, I *like* the console fonts. Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
I'm not sure if this is what Trolltech is talking about, but I want a display server that doesn't take over the whole screen. I want full screen text mode consoles to use with mutt. I don't want an Xterm that uses a hard to read font and useless crap on the screen to click on with a mouse that takes my hands off the keyboard. And I want to be able to launch a graphical browser from an email using the framebuffer without all the overhead of X and either Gnome or KDE. It's just way too much stuff. Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
It's an argument that demonstrates that the intent of the authors of DeCSS was not piracy, but rather something else (i.e. playing DVDs on Linux). Since the DCMA speaks to intent, this argument is on point for the currently pending cases.
Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
CSS is considered to be a trade secret by the DVDCCA (by whatever name they are using now) and the MPAA. The CCA licenses the CSS "trade secrets" to various licencees that make various DVD-related components and content who (1) pay for the priviledge of being licensees and (2) contractually agree to several conditions in return for the license. For example, respecting the region-encoding and macrovision on output is technically a requirement of the license, but several players have been found to have secret menus or remote control sequences that disable one or both of these "features".
Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
Yes and no. If you are a foreign national and have no assets in the United States and never intend to visit the United States, US Courts cannot touch you. Foriegn courts will not enforce the judgements of US courts.
But as Iran found out after the Shah was overthrown, businesses were nationalized and the hostages were taken, if you have assets in the US, the courts can and will strip you of those assets to pay claims by US nationals. Like it or not, as industries become increasingly international, more companies fall under the reach of US courts.
Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
Yes, the MPAA is a cartel, but they don't go in for the boycotts themselves.
Many of the same people that own theatres also own film studios and distributors. Sony Theatres follows Sony Pictures' company line when it comes to MPAA ratings. I don't think that you'll see either unrated or NC-17 films at a Sony Theatre.
It's the small film producer who can't find someone to distribute his film that gets the short stick. He's got to submit his film to the MPAA rating board (and pay for the priviledge) and then implement their recomendations to get his R rating or accep the NC-17. Without an R, the opportunities for his film to be seen are greatly reduced just because some chains won't run NC-17 films. These chains don't want controvercial films that will draw protestors even though protest often sells more tickets. It's the system that punishes independants, not the MPAA though they are part of the system.
It's very similar to how the RIAA hurts independant artists and labels.
Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
It's like how the MPAA (which is regulated) labeling a movie 'NC-17' automatically means it won't be shown in most theaters (theaters' city zoning requirements limit them to 'R' or less unless they're licensed as an 'adult business' or in an area zoned for adult-oriented businesses.) This is why movies get cuts, so they can get down to an 'R' level. And this issue is not confined to the porno industry, etc. e.g., Robocop was NC-17 until cuts were made.
Huh? The MPAA is *not* regulated. It is a voluntary industry group that issues advisory movie ratings. No film maker is required to even submit their film for rating. Theatres enforce the MPAA ratings not because of zoning, but because of corporate policy. Many theatres will not show NC-17 films, but some will.
Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
ISPs in the US are under the jurisdiction of the US courts. When presented with a court order, they either comply or face sanctions. That could mean large fines or confiscation of the equipment used to serve the disputed pages. Ignoring a court order of this kind is a very quick way to get spanked hard by a Federal judge.
Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
I read the order. Realistically, the court can't enforce an order against a foreign entity that has no assets in the US. But, if the defendants choose not to cooperate and/or fail to appear and defend themselves, an judgement would be entered in default and *that* order could be enforced against any websites operated out of the US or operated by persons with assets in the US.
Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
I haven't seen the Preliminary Injunction that came out late on Friday mentioned on/. yet. This New York Times story (bla bla bla free registration required) from Saturday indicates that Mattel thinks that the ruling extends to mirrors. That's not clear to me just from the story.
Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
Compiling and running paranoia.c I reproduce the single FLAW and DEFECT.
Checking rounding on multiply, divide and add/subtract. * is neither chopped nor correctly rounded. / is neither chopped nor correctly rounded. Addition/Subtraction neither rounds nor chops. Sticky bit used incorrectly or not at all. FLAW: lack(s) of guard digits or failure(s) to correctly round or chop (noted above) count as one flaw in the final tally below.
and
Testing X^((X + 1) / (X - 1)) vs. exp(2) = 7.38905609893065218e+00 as X -> 1. DEFECT: Calculated 7.38905609548934539e+00 for (1 + (-1.11022302462515654e-16) ^ (-1.80143985094819840e+16); differs from correct value by -3.44130679508225512e-09 . This much error may spoil financial calculations involving tiny interest rates.
I can't tell if this is a defect and flaw of my Pentium chip, the x86 FPU in general or of libm.
Was your test on Solaris 7 running on Intel or SPARC?
Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
The modern English language is the result of a head-on collision between two other languages: Anglo-Saxon (with Germanic roots), and Norman French (Latin roots).
Sorry, thank you for playing. Jesse Sheidlower, author of the book _The F-Word_ says in his Word of the Day site (back when the WotD site was *his* and not "the Mavens'", but that's a rant for another day.)
Words related to the English f*ck are found in a number of Germanic languages, including Norwegian, Swedish, Dutch, and (probably) German. These words all have sexual meanings as well as meanings like 'to strike' or 'to thrust'. There have been various attempts made to connect these words to words in other, more distantly related languages, but none of these attempts have been convincing, due to complicated linguistic factors beyond the scope of our discussion.
The first example of any of these words is actually in English itself, in the late fifteenth century (thus well past the Anglo-Saxon period), when f*ck appears, encyphered, in a brief English passage in a Latin satirical poem. The cypher suggests that the word was already considered taboo.
Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
Would some kind soul please explain to us poor ignorant non-native english speakers why this word is so bad? For some reason americans tend to go ballistic when this word is used. Yes, it is a 'naughty' one, but this is the real world, remember? If I used something similar in danish when communicating, people would at most consider me immature and probably just ignore me.
Because Americans are fundamentally prudes (pun intended). I censored the word because this reply is going to be sent over a company network.
Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
Is it illegal to decrypt the code (in the US)? I think not. The terms of the license agreement that restrict reverse-engineering are, IMHO, unenforceable because they attempt to restrict rights granted by Federal Copyright law by a contract of adhesion.
Is it illegal to distribute a tool that decrypts the list? I don't think that the DCMA applies because I don't think that there is a copyrightable interest in the list of sites. It is purely informative and functional and not creative despite the effort ("sweat of the brow" in copyright parlance) that has gone into creating it.
Is it unethical to decrypt the code? You are not bound by a coerced promise. I think that the ethics of the decryption depends on the intent of your decryption. I think that someone who purchases the software has a right to know what they have purchased. I don't think that it is ethical to do so with the intent of creating a competing product. Can this information be distributed? I think that there are public policy issues which need to be informed of how this software does its job. I think it behooves us that the information be distributed so that the public decisions that need to be made can be made in an informaed manner.
Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
Not a good idea. If a court expresses interest in a piece of information you have and you destroy it before the court decides whether you have to hand it over, you could be found guilty of destroying evidence, obstructing justice or contempt of court. It is better not to have the information stored in the first place.
Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
The facts of the case is that the guy listed at the administrative contact said that it wasn't his domain and he had nothing to do with it. That by itself should have been sufficient to reassign the domain to the complainant. However, one the wheels had been set in motion, they were forced to consider a lot of pointless information and consider it poorly.
1.: "The domain name is identical to the service mark registered and used by complainant, MUSICWEB"
No, musicweb.com is not identical to MUSICWEB.
2.: The decision goes to great lengths to establish "bad faith use" eventually settling on the claim that the domain was offered for sale on a website.
Gee, if I want to take over a website, all I have to do is produce a printout of a "webpage" that lists the disputed domainname as one for sale. I can make one up in a few minutes.
This decision does not give me any confidence in the arbitration procedures. I have been running a mailing list for several years. I have recently registered a.org to host the list. I don't want someone with commercial interests sometime down the line to suggest that my domain name infringes on their trademark or servicemark which they may or may not have been using longer than I. I don't see any basis for me to protect my legitimate interests with this decision especially if the complainant wishes to claim that the domain has been offered for sale.
Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
Most of them have figured out, at least in the IT department, that MS products are useless for mission critical applications. Traditionally, the next step would be commercial Unix, but Linux is actually starting to be placed in the first round of options.
Except that SAS has been available on Unix for many years. After being a SAS user for about 10 years, in 1995 I switched over to being a Unix network manager in a Solaris shop that used SAS.
I also note that the method described in the "windowing" patent for Y2K fixes was available in SAS over 10 years ago.
Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
Probably commercial software, shareware and freeware.
(In my HS days I got asked to "Write any sort routine you want." I wrote recursive bubble sort. Teacher marked it wrong because he didn't understand my code.:))
Obviously not enough comments.
Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
and IBM invented it. IBM had a printer device in the 1950's that was rated for a certain number of lines per minute and leased (no, you're not allowed to buy computers) for a certain amount per month. This model was "field upgradable" to another model which printed twoce as fast, but leased for twice as much. To do a "field upgrade" a tech would go to the site and replace two parts. One was the label with the model number and the other was a pulley half the diameter of the one it replaced. (My source? Some huge book about IBM and the Watsons.)
Lexmark (the descendant of the IBM printer division) pulled the same stunt later on when it had two models of laser printer that differed only in the value in a certain location in the ROM.
Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
A month or two before the January annuncement, the Transmeta page switched to the Crusoe image with the real message about the January announcement in the HTML source.
Prior to that the page was the minimal one that the post above refers to. It too had HTML comments that said, in effect, there aren't any secrets in the comments either.
Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
Slashdot Mirror
Frankly, they were counting on enforcing the no reverse engineering clause in the EULAs. The whole scheme sounds like one cooked up by lawyers and not engineers.
Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
Ahhh, but my mini-notebook only has a (tiny) 640x480 screen. I won't be able to fit an 80x25 xterm in that at 22 points. Anyway, I *like* the console fonts.
Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
I'm not sure if this is what Trolltech is talking about, but I want a display server that doesn't take over the whole screen. I want full screen text mode consoles to use with mutt. I don't want an Xterm that uses a hard to read font and useless crap on the screen to click on with a mouse that takes my hands off the keyboard. And I want to be able to launch a graphical browser from an email using the framebuffer without all the overhead of X and either Gnome or KDE. It's just way too much stuff.
Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
That last argument is not, IMHO, a good argument.
It's an argument that demonstrates that the intent of the authors of DeCSS was not piracy, but rather something else (i.e. playing DVDs on Linux). Since the DCMA speaks to intent, this argument is on point for the currently pending cases.
Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
CSS is considered to be a trade secret by the DVDCCA (by whatever name they are using now) and the MPAA. The CCA licenses the CSS "trade secrets" to various licencees that make various DVD-related components and content who (1) pay for the priviledge of being licensees and (2) contractually agree to several conditions in return for the license. For example, respecting the region-encoding and macrovision on output is technically a requirement of the license, but several players have been found to have secret menus or remote control sequences that disable one or both of these "features".
Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
40 bits of encryption. i.e. export-grade encryption before the encryption controls were lifted.
Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
Yes and no. If you are a foreign national and have no assets in the United States and never intend to visit the United States, US Courts cannot touch you. Foriegn courts will not enforce the judgements of US courts.
But as Iran found out after the Shah was overthrown, businesses were nationalized and the hostages were taken, if you have assets in the US, the courts can and will strip you of those assets to pay claims by US nationals. Like it or not, as industries become increasingly international, more companies fall under the reach of US courts.
Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
Yes, the MPAA is a cartel, but they don't go in for the boycotts themselves.
Many of the same people that own theatres also own film studios and distributors. Sony Theatres follows Sony Pictures' company line when it comes to MPAA ratings. I don't think that you'll see either unrated or NC-17 films at a Sony Theatre.
It's the small film producer who can't find someone to distribute his film that gets the short stick. He's got to submit his film to the MPAA rating board (and pay for the priviledge) and then implement their recomendations to get his R rating or accep the NC-17. Without an R, the opportunities for his film to be seen are greatly reduced just because some chains won't run NC-17 films. These chains don't want controvercial films that will draw protestors even though protest often sells more tickets. It's the system that punishes independants, not the MPAA though they are part of the system.
It's very similar to how the RIAA hurts independant artists and labels.
Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
It's like how the MPAA (which is regulated) labeling a movie 'NC-17' automatically means it won't be shown in most theaters (theaters' city zoning requirements limit them to 'R' or less unless they're licensed as an 'adult business' or in an area zoned for adult-oriented businesses.) This is why movies get cuts, so they can get down to an 'R' level. And this issue is not confined to the porno industry, etc. e.g., Robocop was NC-17 until cuts were made.
Huh? The MPAA is *not* regulated. It is a voluntary industry group that issues advisory movie ratings. No film maker is required to even submit their film for rating. Theatres enforce the MPAA ratings not because of zoning, but because of corporate policy. Many theatres will not show NC-17 films, but some will.
Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
ISPs in the US are under the jurisdiction of the US courts. When presented with a court order, they either comply or face sanctions. That could mean large fines or confiscation of the equipment used to serve the disputed pages. Ignoring a court order of this kind is a very quick way to get spanked hard by a Federal judge.
Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
I read the order. Realistically, the court can't enforce an order against a foreign entity that has no assets in the US. But, if the defendants choose not to cooperate and/or fail to appear and defend themselves, an judgement would be entered in default and *that* order could be enforced against any websites operated out of the US or operated by persons with assets in the US.
Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
I haven't seen the Preliminary Injunction that came out late on Friday mentioned on /. yet. This New York Times story (bla bla bla free registration required) from Saturday indicates that Mattel thinks that the ruling extends to mirrors. That's not clear to me just from the story.
Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
No, it's just confirmation of his cluelessness.
Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
Compiling and running paranoia.c I reproduce the single FLAW and DEFECT.
Checking rounding on multiply, divide and add/subtract.
* is neither chopped nor correctly rounded.
/ is neither chopped nor correctly rounded.
Addition/Subtraction neither rounds nor chops.
Sticky bit used incorrectly or not at all.
FLAW: lack(s) of guard digits or failure(s) to correctly round or chop
(noted above) count as one flaw in the final tally below.
and
Testing X^((X + 1) / (X - 1)) vs. exp(2) = 7.38905609893065218e+00 as X -> 1.
DEFECT: Calculated 7.38905609548934539e+00 for
(1 + (-1.11022302462515654e-16) ^ (-1.80143985094819840e+16);
differs from correct value by -3.44130679508225512e-09 .
This much error may spoil financial
calculations involving tiny interest rates.
I can't tell if this is a defect and flaw of my Pentium chip, the x86 FPU in general or of libm.
Was your test on Solaris 7 running on Intel or SPARC?
Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
Sorry, thank you for playing. Jesse Sheidlower, author of the book _The F-Word_ says in his Word of the Day site (back when the WotD site was *his* and not "the Mavens'", but that's a rant for another day.)
Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
And now to something completely different: F***!
Would some kind soul please explain to us poor ignorant non-native english speakers why this word is so bad? For some reason americans tend to go ballistic when this word is used. Yes, it is a 'naughty' one, but this is the real world, remember? If I used something similar in danish when communicating, people would at most consider me immature and probably just ignore me.
Because Americans are fundamentally prudes (pun intended). I censored the word because this reply is going to be sent over a company network.
Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
Let's discuss illegal and unethical seperately.
Is it illegal to decrypt the code (in the US)? I think not. The terms of the license agreement that restrict reverse-engineering are, IMHO, unenforceable because they attempt to restrict rights granted by Federal Copyright law by a contract of adhesion.
Is it illegal to distribute a tool that decrypts the list? I don't think that the DCMA applies because I don't think that there is a copyrightable interest in the list of sites. It is purely informative and functional and not creative despite the effort ("sweat of the brow" in copyright parlance) that has gone into creating it.
Is it unethical to decrypt the code? You are not bound by a coerced promise. I think that the ethics of the decryption depends on the intent of your decryption. I think that someone who purchases the software has a right to know what they have purchased. I don't think that it is ethical to do so with the intent of creating a competing product. Can this information be distributed? I think that there are public policy issues which need to be informed of how this software does its job. I think it behooves us that the information be distributed so that the public decisions that need to be made can be made in an informaed manner.
Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
Not a good idea. If a court expresses interest in a piece of information you have and you destroy it before the court decides whether you have to hand it over, you could be found guilty of destroying evidence, obstructing justice or contempt of court. It is better not to have the information stored in the first place.
Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
The facts of the case is that the guy listed at the administrative contact said that it wasn't his domain and he had nothing to do with it. That by itself should have been sufficient to reassign the domain to the complainant. However, one the wheels had been set in motion, they were forced to consider a lot of pointless information and consider it poorly.
.org to host the list. I don't want someone with commercial interests sometime down the line to suggest that my domain
1.: "The domain name is identical to the service mark registered and used by complainant, MUSICWEB"
No, musicweb.com is not identical to MUSICWEB.
2.: The decision goes to great lengths to establish "bad faith use" eventually settling on the claim that the domain was offered for sale on a website.
Gee, if I want to take over a website, all I have to do is produce a printout of a "webpage" that lists the disputed domainname as one for sale. I can make one up in a few minutes.
This decision does not give me any confidence in the arbitration procedures. I have been running a mailing list for several years. I have recently registered a
name infringes on their trademark or servicemark which they may or may not have been using longer than I. I don't see any basis for me to protect my legitimate interests with this decision especially if the complainant wishes to claim that the domain has been offered for sale.
Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
Most of them have figured out, at least in the IT department, that MS products are useless for mission critical applications. Traditionally, the next step would be commercial Unix, but Linux is actually starting to be placed in the first round of options.
Except that SAS has been available on Unix for many years. After being a SAS user for about 10 years, in 1995 I switched over to being a Unix network manager in a Solaris shop that used SAS.
I also note that the method described in the "windowing" patent for Y2K fixes was available in SAS over 10 years ago.
Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
exactly what answer was she expecting?
:))
Probably commercial software, shareware and freeware.
(In my HS days I got asked to "Write any sort routine you want." I wrote recursive bubble sort. Teacher marked it wrong because he didn't understand my code.
Obviously not enough comments.
Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
and IBM invented it. IBM had a printer device in the 1950's that was rated for a certain number of lines per minute and leased (no, you're not allowed to buy computers) for a certain amount per month. This model was "field upgradable" to another model which printed twoce as fast, but leased for twice as much. To do a "field upgrade" a tech would go to the site and replace two parts. One was the label with the model number and the other was a pulley half the diameter of the one it replaced. (My source? Some huge book about IBM and the Watsons.)
Lexmark (the descendant of the IBM printer division) pulled the same stunt later on when it had two models of laser printer that differed only in the value in a certain location in the ROM.
Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
A month or two before the January annuncement, the Transmeta page switched to the Crusoe image with the real message about the January announcement in the HTML source.
Prior to that the page was the minimal one that the post above refers to. It too had HTML comments that said, in effect, there aren't any secrets in the comments either.
Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
Vierto arenas calientes abajo de mis pantalones!
Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
emphasis added.
Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected