It may be different in various areas, but here 334Kbit DSL is about the same prices as 3Mbit cable. Roughly 10 times the data rate for roughly the same price isn't really equivalent...
as you say, we can always choose another provider
I keep arguing against this idea, since it is, in my experience, patently untrue. DSL is not widespread, and won't be, considering the cost per bit is about 10 times the cost per bit of cable modem. The reliablility of DSL is better, but that doesn't help if you can't get it, or can't afford it....
The cable markets are captive markets for all intents and purposes. There is no real competition, which has led also to the deplorable situation with digital cable t.v. that you didn't want to get started on (Time Warner/Road Runner actually sold me cable broadband without requiring me to buy television programming at one location I set up; I'll be interested to see how the fuhklehedded twits at comcast react when I suggest to them that they should do the same).
You are right in substance, though. The frog analogy is a good one, here.
please don't thump on the conspiracy theories without even explaining the technical side,
This is completely disingenuous, and to call the users' concerns "conspiracy theories" is just dumb. The "technical side" has nothing to do with the problems at Comcast. Technically, their entire user agreement is bullshit. Do you honestly believe it takes a Pentium III with 128M of RAM to connect to the internet via a cable modem? Comcast does. Furthermore they will cut you off if they find out you've managed to connect with, say, a 120Mhz Pentium that has only 24M of RAM, or if you managed to connect using some method other than their spyware CD distribution. Either of those would violate the user agreement. You have to agree to their arbitrary requirement, or you can't use the service. If you don't have a problem with that (being required to install and run spyware in order to use a service you have paid for), I think you and I have very little common groun for discussion, and I have even less respect for your position.
Apply their twizted logic to the problem of "will the fuk with my network if they can" and you have a very obvious and abusive answer. Of course they will. You will agree to let them when you submit to the user agreement, or you won't get the service.
Again, this is not a technical issue.
My job is IT, I can take the technical details if you can conjure them
Sorry, I'm not impressed. The ignorant twit I talked to at Comcast "tech support" was an "IT Professional", too. Technical details are not at issue here. The fact is that Comcast has a history of abusing and lying to their customers and potential customers. That is not a technical issue, nor is it "FUD", or a "conspiracy theory" that's both a fact of life, and a business, legal, and political issue.
Trying to attack the credibility of persons who have very legitimate complaints is just small-minded, and school-yard challenges to technical pissing contests are beneath anyone who understands the real problems here. In a word: Unprofessional.
When the parent sez that what's behind his router is non of Comcast's business, he is morally and ethically correct, but 5 will get you 10 that Comcast and their user agreements will say it is their business, if not their outright property. That's the kind of company they are, and that fact won't change, regardless of the technology or lack thereof involved.
if abuse occurs, a lot of folks will be signing up for DSL or Satellite service (where DSL is not also available).
That sounds good in theory but Comcast is already involved in intrusive user monitoring and arbitrary discrimination against a significant base of potential users who have no access at all for lack of cost-effective alternative. Furthermore, Comcast has a lock on sufficient market share in enough areas that they don't have to fear anything short of competition from another cable broadband provider. DSL costs 3 times as much for anything even approaching cable bandwidth if you can get it, and satellite service is expensive, slow, and unreliable. It is cable broadband or nothing for a lot of people.
The idea that Comcast will, if they are allowed the capability, commit widespread abuses againt their users is hardly FUD, it is a demonstrated fact, and lawsuits notwithdtanding, it continues apace. They are become a monster, and must be stopped. I will be leading an effort against them starting with the state Public Service Commission and State Attorney General myself. We'll see how far it gets, but it far past time this industry experienced some regulation. Minimally, they must be required to provide the services their victims have paid for, and prohibited from stealing data from their users. Their propensity to do both these things is already manifest, and not simply FUD.
follow the money
Indeed. The $1 Billion M$ invested in Comcast that allowed them to purchase ATT cable networks speaks volumes all by itself. Combine that with their obvious intent to follow AOL's "never delete a user account if you have a valid account number for it, cause you can bill that account til hell freezes over and then prosecute the user" subscription model, and I think if there were an alternative to Comcast for any of their victims, those victims would be customers of that alternative already.
It is the money trail that proves the allegations are not FUD at all.
> I suppose the built-in WiFi would block your own WiFi's signal, but that > doesn't point to a conspiracy.
like HELL it doesn't you comcast totalitarianism apologist you! Just wait to you're on the USER side of their fukking B'n'D approach to customer abuse. The bitch went OUT OF HER WAY to let me know she had a GUN -- more than one, in fact.
She left her mic open and pretended she was talking to someone else while I was supposed to think it was just an oversite -- open mic while I was on hold.
And that's not all not only does she have GUNS, the stoopid twit tried to tell me the NIC was bad in my laptop!
Comcast's policies are clearly so fascist, they have had to dredge the bottom of the sledge-pile to find individuals STOOPID and RUDE and MORONIC enough to impose their policies on unwitting customers without walking off the job in disgust. No actual thinking human being would impose those kinds of atrocities on fellow human beings! This is a perfect example of why certain jobs SHOULD be outsourced. The AMERIKAN who took my call a) refused to cooperate with me at all to get me online, b) was too stoopid to live, let alone have a job, and c) didn't understand english well enough to allow me to tell her how to do her job.
I've had FAR better "tech support" experiences dealing with foreign nationals who, while they may have an accent, at least are not entirely STOOpid (I think some of them can even read, and may have graduated high school, neither of which this twit could possibly have accomplished), and in many cases actually TRY to solve the problems with which they are presented. Comcast showed no desire at all to help. The attitude (leaving aside for the moment the rudeness and blatant attempts at intimidation and extortion of additional monies) was simply "It's not our fault you were stoopid enough to give us money."
Their pet BLONDE (and I don't mean that in a nice way; let me be clear about that) tried to convince me that the reason the Comcast server refused to provide routing for the circuit after providing the IP address to the NIC was because was because the cable modem was "full of junk mail or something".
She then tried to tell me that the NIC on the comp was bad, and hung up while I was trying to explain to her what it meant that a PING against her stoopid PROXY IP timed out...
She should use her fukking capgun on herself; unfortunately for her and the IDIOTS WHO PAY HER SALARY, I remain strangely unintimidated...
So. The moral of the story is: Just because their DHCP server sends your network configuration, this does not mean they will actually let yuor packets onto their wires afterward. Not even if you call them and ask them nicely.
even simpler solution: buy one of the many many many available router/wifi AP combos out there and don't pay the extra charges that comcast wants you to pony up...
As an recent victim of the Comcast scam, I feel that I should point out that it is a virtual certainty that Comcast will attempt to cook up some scheme to prohibit use of their network using any equipment that is not "approved" by their MBA-wielding, $1-billion-from-Micro$oft-funded, shit-for-brains, corporate thugz.
Apparently Comcast has issues with allowing their victims (you know, the ones they pretend are "customers") to actually use the service.
Heads up, Comcast management: the next time one of your high-school-dropout, red-neck-trailer-trash, gun-fetish, drooling "tech support" MORONS tells me "You can't do that" I may just go fukking POSTAL. You should make your employees aware of this, since they will no doubt rate some hazard pay in their capacity as human shields protecting YOU from.... well, somebody less disgruntled than, ME, since I would never even consider trying to PROTECT MY RIGHTS AS A CONSUMER, especially against huge, honking, big dick corporate like yours, oh mighty Gatekeepers of Broadband Access -- no matter how fukking STUPID, CLASSIST, PREJUDICED, and IGNORANT YOU ARE -- right? eh? So. We understand each other? You a) provision the cable modem I paid you for, and b) you provide the bandwidth I pay you for, and you c) leave me the fuk alone about what devices I can hook to that connection, and I don't have to come all the way over there to straighten it out with you in person.... k?
I can't stand it! Typos! Well, this bears repeating anyway...
There is no way in hell I can work cheaply or efficiently enough to compete while I am located in corporate cube-farm, while my competition is an individual who can do a similar task while connected via cable modem/web cam/voice link from a mud hut in a third world country.
In my experience, the cost of remaining onsite (which is usually in another state from where I live) is a very large percentage of my rate. If I were allowed to work from my own, broadband-connected location, I could make myself much more affordable to the corps who seem to want whatever-the-hell it is that seems to make me so valuable that they are willing to dump all that cash on me just to get me to a chair in a dingy cube in a noisy building a thousand miles from home, which is where I seem to spend most of my time.
[Also, if I were working from home, I wouldn't get caught having to hastily click the "Submit" button without previewing when The Boss walks into the cube unexpectedly]
I think the original title was "Outsourceable" -- that's meaningful, since just because something is "outsourceable" doesn't mean that job will disapear from the US economy.
In fact, I'm amazed not to have seen here the most obvious argument I can think of with regard to telecommuting and outsourcing, which is:
It is telecommuting that will let workers within the US compete with all those outsourcing companies outside the US. This could be elaborated, but I think the principle should be obvious.
There is no way in hell I can cheaply or efficiently enough while I am located in corporate cube-farm to compete with an individual who can do a similar task while connected via cable modem/web cam/voice link from a mud hut in a third world country.
OTOH, If I am in my own tar-paper shack, wearing my rags i dug out of the landfill, I might still be able to make enough telecommuting to pay for the ferrari, since I no longer have to maintain an pretense of "corporate image". In my experience, the cost of remaining onsite (which is usually in another state from where I live) is a very large percentage of my rate. If I were allowed to work from my own, broadband connected location, I could make myself much more affordable to the corps who seem to want whatever the hell it is that makes me so valuable they are will to dump all that cash on me just to have me warm a chair in a dingy cuby a thousand miles from home.... which is where I seem to spend most of my time.
I'd be willing to bet I could feed a 3rd world family of 8 for a week or two on what the companies spends to have me onsite for one over-night. You could create 2 outsourced jobs in India or Mexio out of what the corp would save by letting me work offsite/at home/whatever...
The thing I don't understand is why the corps I have to deal with seem far more interested in spending the money to jerk me around all over the country, than in saving that money to line their own greedy little corporate coffers....
Bah. I've been trying to get or create a "telecommute" position for almost 10 years now, and all it's gotten me is tighter OTJ restrictions and no broadband at home. I no longer believe there will be any significant move to telecommuting in the US. The corps will continue to spend until their broke, then all the jobs will go overseas. Apparently that's what they teach in MBA school; most engineers are not short-sighted to implement that kind the idiocyu the infests corporate Amerika in the 21st Century...
... which side the librarians will come down on when Micro$oft sics their SCO biatches on the public libraries with demands that SCO be compensated for the libraries use of a Linux-derived OS...
I do keep some heavy-duty tinfoil in my desk for use as headgear, but I fail to see the relationship between covert IP channels developed by Sony and Spyware that may be used with the new Sony music service.
Are you saying that Sony is only going to support IPv6 for their new service? And if so, even assuming that they have embedded infomation in the protocol itself, how does that matter in the broader scheme of things?
I mean, if I were to use their service, I would have to assume that their proprietary software is doing nasty anti-privacy things, anyway, since it is proprietary (and that's before we even start talking about the fact that their proprietary nastiness won't even run on my dual-booting Linux/FreeBSD PowerPC system), so what does real difference does it make how they hide the information they are collecting at their site? If they are using IPv6, it will work only with their site, anway... or maybe theirs and their "partners"...
And finally: What do you imagine a packet sniffer is that anyone might try to use it as "protection from spyware"? My packet sniffer tells me whats going on, but doesn't do aught to stop it....
Altogether, I've got to say your post borders on the incoherent or hysterical; it doesn't make much sense. In fact, it qualifies as "FUD" for someone who perhaps isn't familiar with you abuse of jargon.
Comcast, get your damned eyeballs off my broadband connection, it's none of your friking business.
Comcast has been watch you since its inception. The were popped for monitoring all user traffic as far back as 2002. Apparently the trend continues.
From a statement issued by Comcast Cable Communications President Stephen B. Burke, Feb 13, 2002 (as reported on politechbot.com).
Since we launched our own Internet network six weeks ago in the wake
of Excite@Home's bankruptcy, IP and URL information has been stored
temporarily. This information has never been connected to individual
subscribers and has been purged automatically to protect subscriber
privacy. Beginning immediately, we will stop storing this individual
customer information in order to completely reassure our customers
that the privacy of their information is secure.
Makes me glad that Comcast failed (*refused*) to set up my connection last week. I can now terminate their service with prejudice.
Yes, I understand. I wasn't trying to argue any particular point, simply checking my assumptions. I do understand the utility of the persistent model providing quicker, easier diagnosis of connectivity problems, yes. Not trying to put words in your keyboard...
Okay, sorry, I guess I was a little harsh lumping you wholesale with Microsoft and their minions (M$ was one of the primary voices in the "you don't need this Internet thing" chorus back in the day -- the remark "we will never ship TCP/IP with windows" springs to mind;)....
but is adequate for what most people use the Internet for
While arguably "true", this is somewhat deceptive. It requires definitions of "adequate" and "most", which leads to things which are completely beside the point. Also, it is a generalization which tends toward the lowest common denominator.
I think my point is addressed more toward infrastructure, and my belief that when discussing infrastructure, we should be looking to the future -- more at what is possible and desirable -- than at the current state of affairs.
I firmly believe that broadband is not more pervasive simply due to a) lack of availability and b) cost.
In many cases, the cost factor is aggravated by the "providers" themselves, as I have found to be the case in western Michigan, where Comcast, funded by a $1 billion investment from Microsoft corporation, is denying broadband service to anyone who does not have 128 meg RAM and Windows 98, 2k, XP, or a Mac. That is a specific requirement. Regardless of the fact that, from a technical standpoint, pretty much any ethernet capable device could provide access, Comcast is prohibitting access by individuals who are running e.g. Win98 in 64M RAM, etc etc.
All OS religious issues aside, they are deny broadband services to a potentially huge number of low and middle income users who could benefit economically from (high-speed) access to the networks, but who -- even if they can afford the monthly access fee, do not have the means to rush out an buy a new PC fitting Comcasts arbitrary "minimum system requirements".
And before I get massively flamed for sketching this as a case for regulation of the industry:
I am very aware of the customer service problems required to support "all" platforms. It is not my assertion that Comcast can or should provide universal support, only that they should exclude persons who may not be able to meet their current, demonstrably arbitrary, requirements
I am aware that I could connect to their network by "reverse engineering" their install software package and/or doing some "social engineering" of their customer service people. A workaround is not sufficient, imo, since a) under their user agreements, it would be grounds for them to terminate my service, and b) not everyone has the requisite skillz to do that.
In short, my point is that the idea that dial-up is adequate hels to perpetuate an economically disadvantageous situation for many, many people who remain voiceless in this and other discussions concerning the matter.
Okay, thanks. That just goes to show how out-of-date my knowledge of these things is, I guess. I presume that when you say "private" you mean not over the public networks, which is re-assuring from the standpoint of being someone who makes a credit card transaction occassionally, too...
This is more directed at always up type connections, such as Telnet, SSH (as the article points out), credit card traffic, etc.
... Which brings up something I was wondering about when the/. article was posted the other day: Why is BPG a persistent connection? From an architectural perspective? That seems like a weak design decision, to me, but perhaps I just don't know enough about BGP....
Also, it was my understanding the credit card transaction processing was "aperiodic", intentionally not holding open a connection? It was my understanding that this, too, was for security reasons. Certainly either always up or periodic operation of a connection would seem to weaken the design from a security standpoint. It was my understanding of basic security procedures (both offline and online) that unpredictible behaviour of the potential target was considered a Good Thing(tm).
Are you, perchance, a musician or a producer of commercial softwares?
If you were, you'd know just how flawed the substance behind your implications really is.
Your remarks represent the kind of naivety I would expect from the average college sophomore circa 1977...
My apologies if you are sincere in your belief, you have my sympathy.
If you check your assumptions, you will find that the "evil corporations" are the ones getting paid for "somebody's work" - that is, the artists do not typically profit from the efforts of the RIAA, personally. There are probably excceptions, but those exceptions do no consitute an excuse for the current state of the industry.
The software biz is somewhat different, but the argument still holds that the typical software developer does not profit from her own efforts. It is the corporations that insist on the proprietary nature of things, and it is the corporations that profit therefrom.
For both these situations, there are workable alternative business models which benefit indivuals more greatly than corporate entities. That's the reason the issues are so frequently lumped together, and is also the reason there are similiar laws concerning both. That is: the corporations are driving the legal machinations, and the individuals - those of whose efforts you speak, have no voice, and have resorted to "civil disobedience" in the finest and oldest senses of the term.
In view of that, the term "piracy" - with its imagery of peg-legs, eye patches, out-of-control beards, kidnapping, murder, gold, parrots, etc - is more apt to descibe e.g. Arista, or Enron, than any indiviual who is made the subject of an RIAA subpeona. In this context (this discussion), the term "priracy" is just FUD.
to suggest that GPL advocates would be upset over a GPL violation and not a proprietary software violation is just silly.
Very true, and yet, as the postters who keep crying "piracy" so aptly illustrate, the effort by the RIAA, MPAA, and their minions is to make exactly that suggestion. I personally feel that the/. community has done an admirable job of making the opposing case in sane and rational terms, despite the virulently hysterical FUD that the propronents of proprietary software and corporate-owned entertainment continue to spew at increasingly ear-splitting levels...
I stand by my earlier statements: The Law needs be changed to reflect changes in society. Attempts to change Society to reflect the codification of the profiteering practiced by a small group is un-acceptable, and ultimately doomed. The Rights of the Few have to be protected, but there is no "Right of the Few to Fleece the Population" -- regardless of how happy it may make the thugs of the RIAA/MPAA etc to do so.
"Your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins."
Let's give some thought to how to prosecute and convict the real criminals -- The RIAA are MPAA simply other names for "Organized Crime" and can be prosecuted under RICO statutes at a Federal level, and probably numerous state and local laws dependent on jurisdiction. The DMCA is no more legal than the Patriot Act, and similar measures could be adopted to address it.
You may find it easy to suspend disbelief when the presentation flies in the face of science. I don't. It is one thing to postulate the unknown, but to mis-represent the known under the guise of "entertainment" only works in comedy, imo.
"Attorney General John Ashcroft announced today..." - that's as far as I got.
As Mr Asscroft and the other fascists currently in control of the US govt procede, they should keep in mind that eventually their intended victims will begin to shoot back. There's that small matter of "...to protect themselves from... [people like Mr Asscroft and his goons]..." (w/ apologies to the framers of the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America for the paraphasing)
Sounds are just Hollywood's way of presenting these phenomena in a way we can interpret.
I'm sorry, do you really believe that last bit? That is just sad.
.... or are you just pointing out that Hollywood believe the audiences are all dumb as shit, and will accept any pathetic, lameass excuse they come up with to cover up the fact that they felt a need exaggerate reallity a bit in order to make sure the sound effects team didn't file a greivance over lack of interesting things to do while they visuals guys were having a "blast" (pun intended)?
It is my opinion that the explosion sound effects used by the alleged story-tellers of Hollywood are just an effort to cover their own lack of imagination with audio-visual shock tactics. If they add a sonic assault on the audience to their ill-thought-out plots, it helps keep the viewer off-balance long enough for these paparazzi to perpetrate their misguided attempts at casting, character development, and story line long enough to vacuum out the victims' wallets. (it's no longer an "audience" at this point, any more than a person being mugged is an "audience" to for the mugger -- and I don't mean to just pick on the movie industry alone here; this is just one example of the kind of bullshit that exists through-out the so-called "entertainment" industry... )
True enough. Star Trek was never particularly good. It had to stay close enough to the themes estabilished by the other shows of the day to be socially acceptable to the non-space-going public. There were few, if any, actually new ideas presented in Star Trek in any of its incarnations, which is how the franchise managed to remain profitable.
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It may be different in various areas, but here 334Kbit DSL is about the same prices as 3Mbit cable. Roughly 10 times the data rate for roughly the same price isn't really equivalent...
I keep arguing against this idea, since it is, in my experience, patently untrue. DSL is not widespread, and won't be, considering the cost per bit is about 10 times the cost per bit of cable modem. The reliablility of DSL is better, but that doesn't help if you can't get it, or can't afford it. ...
The cable markets are captive markets for all intents and purposes. There is no real competition, which has led also to the deplorable situation with digital cable t.v. that you didn't want to get started on (Time Warner/Road Runner actually sold me cable broadband without requiring me to buy television programming at one location I set up; I'll be interested to see how the fuhklehedded twits at comcast react when I suggest to them that they should do the same).
You are right in substance, though. The frog analogy is a good one, here.
Believe it. I've had both. I would take my Qwest DSL back over Comcast's bullshite any time were I given the option.
Try this:
And that's the part they admit too.... They haven't repented, believe me. In fact, they're worse than ever.
This is completely disingenuous, and to call the users' concerns "conspiracy theories" is just dumb. The "technical side" has nothing to do with the problems at Comcast. Technically, their entire user agreement is bullshit. Do you honestly believe it takes a Pentium III with 128M of RAM to connect to the internet via a cable modem? Comcast does. Furthermore they will cut you off if they find out you've managed to connect with, say, a 120Mhz Pentium that has only 24M of RAM, or if you managed to connect using some method other than their spyware CD distribution. Either of those would violate the user agreement. You have to agree to their arbitrary requirement, or you can't use the service. If you don't have a problem with that (being required to install and run spyware in order to use a service you have paid for), I think you and I have very little common groun for discussion, and I have even less respect for your position.
Apply their twizted logic to the problem of "will the fuk with my network if they can" and you have a very obvious and abusive answer. Of course they will. You will agree to let them when you submit to the user agreement, or you won't get the service.
Again, this is not a technical issue.
Sorry, I'm not impressed. The ignorant twit I talked to at Comcast "tech support" was an "IT Professional", too. Technical details are not at issue here. The fact is that Comcast has a history of abusing and lying to their customers and potential customers. That is not a technical issue, nor is it "FUD", or a "conspiracy theory" that's both a fact of life, and a business, legal, and political issue.
Trying to attack the credibility of persons who have very legitimate complaints is just small-minded, and school-yard challenges to technical pissing contests are beneath anyone who understands the real problems here. In a word: Unprofessional.
When the parent sez that what's behind his router is non of Comcast's business, he is morally and ethically correct, but 5 will get you 10 that Comcast and their user agreements will say it is their business, if not their outright property. That's the kind of company they are, and that fact won't change, regardless of the technology or lack thereof involved.
That sounds good in theory but Comcast is already involved in intrusive user monitoring and arbitrary discrimination against a significant base of potential users who have no access at all for lack of cost-effective alternative. Furthermore, Comcast has a lock on sufficient market share in enough areas that they don't have to fear anything short of competition from another cable broadband provider. DSL costs 3 times as much for anything even approaching cable bandwidth if you can get it, and satellite service is expensive, slow, and unreliable. It is cable broadband or nothing for a lot of people.
The idea that Comcast will, if they are allowed the capability, commit widespread abuses againt their users is hardly FUD, it is a demonstrated fact, and lawsuits notwithdtanding, it continues apace. They are become a monster, and must be stopped. I will be leading an effort against them starting with the state Public Service Commission and State Attorney General myself. We'll see how far it gets, but it far past time this industry experienced some regulation. Minimally, they must be required to provide the services their victims have paid for, and prohibited from stealing data from their users. Their propensity to do both these things is already manifest, and not simply FUD.
Indeed. The $1 Billion M$ invested in Comcast that allowed them to purchase ATT cable networks speaks volumes all by itself. Combine that with their obvious intent to follow AOL's "never delete a user account if you have a valid account number for it, cause you can bill that account til hell freezes over and then prosecute the user" subscription model, and I think if there were an alternative to Comcast for any of their victims, those victims would be customers of that alternative already.
It is the money trail that proves the allegations are not FUD at all.
> I suppose the built-in WiFi would block your own WiFi's signal, but that
> doesn't point to a conspiracy.
like HELL it doesn't you comcast totalitarianism apologist you! Just wait to you're on the USER side of their fukking B'n'D approach to customer abuse. The bitch went OUT OF HER WAY to let me know she had a GUN -- more than one, in fact.
She left her mic open and pretended she was talking to someone else while I was supposed to think it was just an oversite -- open mic while I was on hold.
And that's not all not only does she have GUNS, the stoopid twit tried to tell me the NIC was bad in my laptop!
Comcast's policies are clearly so fascist, they have had to dredge the bottom of the sledge-pile to find individuals STOOPID and RUDE and MORONIC enough to impose their policies on unwitting customers without walking off the job in disgust. No actual thinking human being would impose those kinds of atrocities on fellow human beings! This is a perfect example of why certain jobs SHOULD be outsourced. The AMERIKAN who took my call a) refused to cooperate with me at all to get me online, b) was too stoopid to live, let alone have a job, and c) didn't understand english well enough to allow me to tell her how to do her job.
I've had FAR better "tech support" experiences dealing with foreign nationals who, while they may have an accent, at least are not entirely STOOpid (I think some of them can even read, and may have graduated high school, neither of which this twit could possibly have accomplished), and in many cases actually TRY to solve the problems with which they are presented. Comcast showed no desire at all to help. The attitude (leaving aside for the moment the rudeness and blatant attempts at intimidation and extortion of additional monies) was simply "It's not our fault you were stoopid enough to give us money."
Their pet BLONDE (and I don't mean that in a nice way; let me be clear about that) tried to convince me that the reason the Comcast server refused to provide routing for the circuit after providing the IP address to the NIC was because was because the cable modem was "full of junk mail or something".
She then tried to tell me that the NIC on the comp was bad, and hung up while I was trying to explain to her what it meant that a PING against her stoopid PROXY IP timed out...
She should use her fukking capgun on herself; unfortunately for her and the IDIOTS WHO PAY HER SALARY, I remain strangely unintimidated...
So. The moral of the story is: Just because their DHCP server sends your network configuration, this does not mean they will actually let yuor packets onto their wires afterward. Not even if you call them and ask them nicely.
As an recent victim of the Comcast scam, I feel that I should point out that it is a virtual certainty that Comcast will attempt to cook up some scheme to prohibit use of their network using any equipment that is not "approved" by their MBA-wielding, $1-billion-from-Micro$oft-funded, shit-for-brains, corporate thugz.
Apparently Comcast has issues with allowing their victims (you know, the ones they pretend are "customers") to actually use the service.
Heads up, Comcast management: the next time one of your high-school-dropout, red-neck-trailer-trash, gun-fetish, drooling "tech support" MORONS tells me "You can't do that" I may just go fukking POSTAL. You should make your employees aware of this, since they will no doubt rate some hazard pay in their capacity as human shields protecting YOU from .... well, somebody less disgruntled than, ME, since I would never even consider trying to PROTECT MY RIGHTS AS A CONSUMER, especially against huge, honking, big dick corporate like yours, oh mighty Gatekeepers of Broadband Access -- no matter how fukking STUPID, CLASSIST, PREJUDICED, and IGNORANT YOU ARE -- right? eh? So. We understand each other? You a) provision the cable modem I paid you for, and b) you provide the bandwidth I pay you for, and you c) leave me the fuk alone about what devices I can hook to that connection, and I don't have to come all the way over there to straighten it out with you in person .... k?
I really wish .... oh nevermind.
I can't stand it! Typos! Well, this bears repeating anyway...
There is no way in hell I can work cheaply or efficiently enough to compete while I am located in corporate cube-farm, while my competition is an individual who can do a similar task while connected via cable modem/web cam/voice link from a mud hut in a third world country.
In my experience, the cost of remaining onsite (which is usually in another state from where I live) is a very large percentage of my rate. If I were allowed to work from my own, broadband-connected location, I could make myself much more affordable to the corps who seem to want whatever-the-hell it is that seems to make me so valuable that they are willing to dump all that cash on me just to get me to a chair in a dingy cube in a noisy building a thousand miles from home, which is where I seem to spend most of my time.
[Also, if I were working from home, I wouldn't get caught having to hastily click the "Submit" button without previewing when The Boss walks into the cube unexpectedly]
I think the original title was "Outsourceable" -- that's meaningful, since just because something is "outsourceable" doesn't mean that job will disapear from the US economy.
In fact, I'm amazed not to have seen here the most obvious argument I can think of with regard to telecommuting and outsourcing, which is:
It is telecommuting that will let workers within the US compete with all those outsourcing companies outside the US. This could be elaborated, but I think the principle should be obvious.
There is no way in hell I can cheaply or efficiently enough while I am located in corporate cube-farm to compete with an individual who can do a similar task while connected via cable modem/web cam/voice link from a mud hut in a third world country.
OTOH, If I am in my own tar-paper shack, wearing my rags i dug out of the landfill, I might still be able to make enough telecommuting to pay for the ferrari, since I no longer have to maintain an pretense of "corporate image". In my experience, the cost of remaining onsite (which is usually in another state from where I live) is a very large percentage of my rate. If I were allowed to work from my own, broadband connected location, I could make myself much more affordable to the corps who seem to want whatever the hell it is that makes me so valuable they are will to dump all that cash on me just to have me warm a chair in a dingy cuby a thousand miles from home. ... which is where I seem to spend most of my time.
I'd be willing to bet I could feed a 3rd world family of 8 for a week or two on what the companies spends to have me onsite for one over-night. You could create 2 outsourced jobs in India or Mexio out of what the corp would save by letting me work offsite/at home/whatever...
The thing I don't understand is why the corps I have to deal with seem far more interested in spending the money to jerk me around all over the country, than in saving that money to line their own greedy little corporate coffers. ...
Bah. I've been trying to get or create a "telecommute" position for almost 10 years now, and all it's gotten me is tighter OTJ restrictions and no broadband at home. I no longer believe there will be any significant move to telecommuting in the US. The corps will continue to spend until their broke, then all the jobs will go overseas. Apparently that's what they teach in MBA school; most engineers are not short-sighted to implement that kind the idiocyu the infests corporate Amerika in the 21st Century...
In all fairness, we don't know that.
... which side the librarians will come down on when Micro$oft sics their SCO biatches on the public libraries with demands that SCO be compensated for the libraries use of a Linux-derived OS...
Okay, I'll bite...
I do keep some heavy-duty tinfoil in my desk for use as headgear, but I fail to see the relationship between covert IP channels developed by Sony and Spyware that may be used with the new Sony music service.
Are you saying that Sony is only going to support IPv6 for their new service? And if so, even assuming that they have embedded infomation in the protocol itself, how does that matter in the broader scheme of things?
I mean, if I were to use their service, I would have to assume that their proprietary software is doing nasty anti-privacy things, anyway, since it is proprietary (and that's before we even start talking about the fact that their proprietary nastiness won't even run on my dual-booting Linux/FreeBSD PowerPC system), so what does real difference does it make how they hide the information they are collecting at their site? If they are using IPv6, it will work only with their site, anway... or maybe theirs and their "partners"...
And finally: What do you imagine a packet sniffer is that anyone might try to use it as "protection from spyware"? My packet sniffer tells me whats going on, but doesn't do aught to stop it....
Altogether, I've got to say your post borders on the incoherent or hysterical; it doesn't make much sense. In fact, it qualifies as "FUD" for someone who perhaps isn't familiar with you abuse of jargon.
Comcast has been watch you since its inception. The were popped for monitoring all user traffic as far back as 2002. Apparently the trend continues.
From a statement issued by Comcast Cable Communications President Stephen B. Burke, Feb 13, 2002 (as reported on politechbot.com).
Makes me glad that Comcast failed (*refused*) to set up my connection last week. I can now terminate their service with prejudice.
Yes, I understand. I wasn't trying to argue any particular point, simply checking my assumptions. I do understand the utility of the persistent model providing quicker, easier diagnosis of connectivity problems, yes. Not trying to put words in your keyboard...
Okay, sorry, I guess I was a little harsh lumping you wholesale with Microsoft and their minions (M$ was one of the primary voices in the "you don't need this Internet thing" chorus back in the day -- the remark "we will never ship TCP/IP with windows" springs to mind ;) ....
While arguably "true", this is somewhat deceptive. It requires definitions of "adequate" and "most", which leads to things which are completely beside the point. Also, it is a generalization which tends toward the lowest common denominator.
I think my point is addressed more toward infrastructure, and my belief that when discussing infrastructure, we should be looking to the future -- more at what is possible and desirable -- than at the current state of affairs.
I firmly believe that broadband is not more pervasive simply due to a) lack of availability and b) cost.
In many cases, the cost factor is aggravated by the "providers" themselves, as I have found to be the case in western Michigan, where Comcast, funded by a $1 billion investment from Microsoft corporation, is denying broadband service to anyone who does not have 128 meg RAM and Windows 98, 2k, XP, or a Mac. That is a specific requirement. Regardless of the fact that, from a technical standpoint, pretty much any ethernet capable device could provide access, Comcast is prohibitting access by individuals who are running e.g. Win98 in 64M RAM, etc etc.
All OS religious issues aside, they are deny broadband services to a potentially huge number of low and middle income users who could benefit economically from (high-speed) access to the networks, but who -- even if they can afford the monthly access fee, do not have the means to rush out an buy a new PC fitting Comcasts arbitrary "minimum system requirements".
And before I get massively flamed for sketching this as a case for regulation of the industry:
In short, my point is that the idea that dial-up is adequate hels to perpetuate an economically disadvantageous situation for many, many people who remain voiceless in this and other discussions concerning the matter.
Would a persistent or periodic VPN connection be more vulnerable than one that connects e.g. on-demand at unpreditcable intervals?
Okay, thanks. That just goes to show how out-of-date my knowledge of these things is, I guess. I presume that when you say "private" you mean not over the public networks, which is re-assuring from the standpoint of being someone who makes a credit card transaction occassionally, too...
... Which brings up something I was wondering about when the /. article was posted the other day: Why is BPG a persistent connection? From an architectural perspective? That seems like a weak design decision, to me, but perhaps I just don't know enough about BGP....
Also, it was my understanding the credit card transaction processing was "aperiodic", intentionally not holding open a connection? It was my understanding that this, too, was for security reasons. Certainly either always up or periodic operation of a connection would seem to weaken the design from a security standpoint. It was my understanding of basic security procedures (both offline and online) that unpredictible behaviour of the potential target was considered a Good Thing(tm).
No.
Are you, perchance, a musician or a producer of commercial softwares?
If you were, you'd know just how flawed the substance behind your implications really is.
Your remarks represent the kind of naivety I would expect from the average college sophomore circa 1977...
My apologies if you are sincere in your belief, you have my sympathy.
If you check your assumptions, you will find that the "evil corporations" are the ones getting paid for "somebody's work" - that is, the artists do not typically profit from the efforts of the RIAA, personally. There are probably excceptions, but those exceptions do no consitute an excuse for the current state of the industry.
The software biz is somewhat different, but the argument still holds that the typical software developer does not profit from her own efforts. It is the corporations that insist on the proprietary nature of things, and it is the corporations that profit therefrom.
For both these situations, there are workable alternative business models which benefit indivuals more greatly than corporate entities. That's the reason the issues are so frequently lumped together, and is also the reason there are similiar laws concerning both. That is: the corporations are driving the legal machinations, and the individuals - those of whose efforts you speak, have no voice, and have resorted to "civil disobedience" in the finest and oldest senses of the term.
In view of that, the term "piracy" - with its imagery of peg-legs, eye patches, out-of-control beards, kidnapping, murder, gold, parrots, etc - is more apt to descibe e.g. Arista, or Enron, than any indiviual who is made the subject of an RIAA subpeona. In this context (this discussion), the term "priracy" is just FUD.
Very true, and yet, as the postters who keep crying "piracy" so aptly illustrate, the effort by the RIAA, MPAA, and their minions is to make exactly that suggestion. I personally feel that the /. community has done an admirable job of making the opposing case in sane and rational terms, despite the virulently hysterical FUD that the propronents of proprietary software and corporate-owned entertainment continue to spew at increasingly ear-splitting levels ...
I stand by my earlier statements: The Law needs be changed to reflect changes in society. Attempts to change Society to reflect the codification of the profiteering practiced by a small group is un-acceptable, and ultimately doomed. The Rights of the Few have to be protected, but there is no "Right of the Few to Fleece the Population" -- regardless of how happy it may make the thugs of the RIAA/MPAA etc to do so.
"Your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins."
Let's give some thought to how to prosecute and convict the real criminals -- The RIAA are MPAA simply other names for "Organized Crime" and can be prosecuted under RICO statutes at a Federal level, and probably numerous state and local laws dependent on jurisdiction. The DMCA is no more legal than the Patriot Act, and similar measures could be adopted to address it.
Two words: Willfull Suspension of Disbelief.
You may find it easy to suspend disbelief when the presentation flies in the face of science. I don't. It is one thing to postulate the unknown, but to mis-represent the known under the guise of "entertainment" only works in comedy, imo.
Dubya, Asscroft, Cheney ...
How about
(0) The use of the term "piracy" the the alleged entertainment industry to descibe the free distribution the items they sell is spurious bullshit.
Anything can be made a crime if you pay some group to pass a law to make it one [see also: marijuana laws];
Grow up you punk-ass media whore.
"Stamp out crime; change the Law."
"Attorney General John Ashcroft announced today..." - that's as far as I got.
As Mr Asscroft and the other fascists currently in control of the US govt procede, they should keep in mind that eventually their intended victims will begin to shoot back. There's that small matter of "...to protect themselves from ... [people like Mr Asscroft and his goons] ..." (w/ apologies to the framers of the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America for the paraphasing)
I'm sorry, do you really believe that last bit? That is just sad.
.... or are you just pointing out that Hollywood believe the audiences are all dumb as shit, and will accept any pathetic, lameass excuse they come up with to cover up the fact that they felt a need exaggerate reallity a bit in order to make sure the sound effects team didn't file a greivance over lack of interesting things to do while they visuals guys were having a "blast" (pun intended)?
It is my opinion that the explosion sound effects used by the alleged story-tellers of Hollywood are just an effort to cover their own lack of imagination with audio-visual shock tactics. If they add a sonic assault on the audience to their ill-thought-out plots, it helps keep the viewer off-balance long enough for these paparazzi to perpetrate their misguided attempts at casting, character development, and story line long enough to vacuum out the victims' wallets. (it's no longer an "audience" at this point, any more than a person being mugged is an "audience" to for the mugger -- and I don't mean to just pick on the movie industry alone here; this is just one example of the kind of bullshit that exists through-out the so-called "entertainment" industry... )
True enough. Star Trek was never particularly good. It had to stay close enough to the themes estabilished by the other shows of the day to be socially acceptable to the non-space-going public. There were few, if any, actually new ideas presented in Star Trek in any of its incarnations, which is how the franchise managed to remain profitable.