I have net friends whom I've never physically seen
on
LonelyNet
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· Score: 2
I don't even know what they look like, and in some cases if they're even male or female. Does any of this mean that they're not real friends? For all I know, one of them could be an AI program that passes the Turing test.
Does it matter?
I enjoy talking to them and they with me. We have lots of fun together on the net. These are people I never would've met in person as they are scattered about the globe, while I hate the hassle of airports and rental cars and travel.
Let's turn the question around: Are internet-phobic people with only local friends "isolated" because all their friends are from the same area, think alike, live alike, work together, etc., and therefore don't bring up any new points of view or help expand one's mind by exposing one another to radically different cultures and ideas? Having only local friends thus limits your world view. Now who is really isolated? I wonder.
The entry talks about how rows of blinking lights/LEDs are a thing of the past because things happen too fast now for the lights to convey any meaning. I would counter that the lights have simply moved: to the modems and the racks of ethernet switches, hubs, and routers. There are still plenty of blinkenlights in the server rooms around the globe.
And how exactly do you do your home defense with a gun, without potentially maiming and killing?
Your mention of "potentially" is your own undoing right there. i.e., The mere sight of the gun may cause the Bad Guy to flee. And that's good enough for me if he does. You only shoot them when they threaten your life. As an example, how many times per year does the average police officer, in the line of duty, draw his gun from its holster and point it at someone? Now of those times, how many times is the drawn gun actually discharged? Drawing a gun != using a gun. The ratio of discharge/draws is very low (under 10%). Does that make actual injury the "primary" (your word) purpose of the weapon? Is a 10% use "primary"? I think not.
Perhaps you should consult a dictionary and look up the words primary and only. Those meanings aren't equivalent.
The primary purpose (of my handgun) remains defense. See above to understand the difference. (No dictionary required!)
That may be your purpose for a gun. For me, the main purpose of one of my guns is for home defense. The main purpose of some of my other guns is recreation at the shooting range. The main purpose of the model 94 Winchester (circa 1897) is as a decorative showpiece above the fireplace mantle. The main purpose of the rifle is for hunting.
What a narrow limited view you have, and further what arrogance you have to even suggest that your one view on the purpose of guns is the only purpose.
Users requesting to install Linux on their computer shall be subject to a mandatory five day waiting period, during which an extensive criminal background check and psychological profile will bae assessed of the prospective linux user. Upon passing these checks, the user will be issued a license which permits him to install linux on no more than two machines at his primary residence. The license must be renewed annually. The user will also be required, before installation, to turn over the root password (which he then must use upon install) to authorities and well as any cryptographic keys to be used within the system to be held in escrow and only to be used for law enforcement purposes or upon the order of a judge or magistrate or for routine scanning for illegal activities, all of which the users agrees to and further agrees that these may occur without his knowledge nor require his approval. Changing the root password or cryptographic keys without submitting a written request to and recieving written approval from authorities is a violation and can result in fines of up to $10,000,000 and 20 years in jail, per violation, as well as immediate search and siezure of all computers, disks, property, and financial assetts, and immediate imprisionment without the right to a speedy trial which the user agrees to waive his rights to by accepting the linux license. Also, failing to turn over passwords or keys, or claiming to have forgotten them shall be tantamount to guilt sufficient to mandate the maximum fine, again, per password failed to be turned over. Claiming to have simply forgotten the keys is not an excuse. And once again, the user agrees to all of this and waves any and all rights that would oppose these measures by accepting the license. These measures are therefore fully constitutional and are effective immediately and all existing linus users must come into full compliance within ten days, afterwhich these regulations shall be in full force.
The first post they list is attributed to "root@megami.com".
Actually, it's root@megami.ORG.
If it had been written by someone named in the case, it would be quite damning, but it wasn't. First off, www.megami.com is a page devoted to Japanese Animation.
See above, but the.org page serves the same purpose.
Besides that, anyone who posts to/. as root probably isn't the brightest bulb around.
I'm not sure what you mean by 'posting as root'. On/. root is just a nick like any other. How is this better or worse than someone who calls himself CmdrTaco? I fail how to see how this justifies decreeing me to be 'dim'.
At least 50% of all slashdotters have root access somewhere, and it doesn't impress anyone.
"Impress anyone?" Who said anything about that? My nick matches my email address, which gets routed automagically to my regular (non-superuser) account anyway. You're making a *lot* of assumptions here. Lighten up! It's just a nick!
I don't mean to flame root@megami.com, but presenting his/her sloshdot post as representative of the entire "hacker community" state of mind is insane.
The lawyer made that tie, not me.
I don't think there *is* anyone who represents the entire "hacker community". We're all going to differ on some issues. As far as my comment, I stand by it. Even if MoRE hadn't came up with DeCSS, someone, somewhere, and regardless of local law[*], would've reverse engineered or just plain extracted the css code from one of the software players and posted it to some public forum. Once that happens, its supression would be impossible. Had the secrets of DVD crypto stayed locked exclusively within hardware decoders, it would probably still be a secret today. Allowing software decoding at all, meant puting the code to do it on every software player sold. That is the true distribution and disemmination of the knowledge that led to DeCSS. MoRE just turned it into something a bit more readable.
[*] It is, of course, this "someone, somewhere" who possesses the "f*** the law" attitude I mentioned, and will rip the css code from some player and repackage it as a module, source, or incorporate it into something like DeCSS, and not an attitude fitting my own personal beliefs. Yes, I'm backpeddling a bit, but if I'm gonna be quoted in front of judges here, I wanted to clear that up. I still do support, and think that it is not too late to do, a proper "clean room" reverse engineering of the css code, just as Compaq did with the IBM BIOS code, that enabled them to produce the first PC clone. IBM sued, much as DVD lawyers are sueing now. They lost. Hmmmm. DVD clone players? Would there be any difference?
The shape of the glass causes the bubbles to look like they're going down when they're really going up. Really now, unless being CRAMMED by a mass of other bubbles, where is the energy going to come from to push bubbles down? Since the bubbles are spaced by several radii, they're not being pushed down, and convection currents are no where near that high or there'd be a noticable "dip" in the center of the liquid. This entire Slashdot article is URBAN LEGEND.
Somewhat reassuringly, they realise the potential impact of their work, and so are seeking the opinions of religious leaders before proceeding with the next stage of their research - actually attempting to create a living organism.
The problem with creating a new lifeform (and a tiny bacterium will probably be first since it's simplest) is that NO ONE can know for sure that the created life form won't be worse than than anthrax or E. Coli (sp?) and deadly to all life forms.... It matters not who they ask. Religious leaders don't have specialized access to Ultimate Truth. They're just people like you and me, as are the scientists. But someone, somewhere will try to create the life form sooner or later, so it would be better to do it now under rigorously controlled conditions than for some overzealous grad student at an ivy league school to kill off most of the east coast (though I suppose we could stand to do without New Jersey) for his thesis project. So I say, yes, do it, so we know how to deal with it if someone else does it too.
I wouldn't trust info from Slashdot if AC posting was eliminated. 31337 idiots or no, ACs are the Great Equalizer that keeps Slashdot legit. It lets people post the Truth without PH33R that their employers, etc. will find out about them ratting on their company's shady dealings. Of course, lies, flames, and non-sequitors will get posted too. At least the facts are in there too. Without ACs Slashodot would be about as trustworthy as Gallop polls or other news media.
-------------------------------------------------- -------------- I mean, if ACs are being censored, God knows what else they're censoring. -------------------------------------------------- --------------
Just like with DVDs we'll see region coded Pentium III CPUs. They will only work in motherboards with the matching region coding scheme. Software will be able to disable itself from running in certain regions. Executable code itself will soon be encrypted. Bye bye debuggers and disassemblers. We'll have CSS2 encrypted code streams, decrypted in real time inside the CPU at the last moment for execution. Copying code across regions won't work anymore. And breaking the code or hacking the region checks will be illegal under the new Digital Millennium Copyright Act that takes effect in 2000 (thank you Slick Willie). So even if you import a Euro CPU and motherboard, you won't be able to run your domestic software on it. Of course some guys in Norway will eventually crack CSS2 and post a small program that reads encrypted code streams from disk and writes them out unencrypted. The program will be spread widely and then the FBI/NSA/Intel/etc. will pressure sites to remove it. Code will then still be forever runable anywhere thanks to the crack (like with DVDs), but only within an underground world of users running region cracked CPUs, who will always live with the threat of someday being caught and prosecuted. Now maybe all this won't happen with PIIIs this year, but within 10 years or so...??? PH33R the future. I sure do.
Consumers need a new fair-use "bill of rights"
on
Copyright!
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· Score: 4
We need Congress to enact a law spelling out a list of things consumers may do with copyrighted materials they purchase (CDs, software, video games, movies, etc) that are explicitly guranteed to be legal and to bar lawsuits filed directly against the consumer for exercising these rights. These rights would also preempt and override anything vendors try to write into the license.
With this in mind, I hereby propose the following "Consumer Fair Use Bill of Rights" that among these rights shall include:
(1) The RIGHT to convert copyrighted media [*] to a different format. e.g., copy CDs to to Cassette for the car or to copy a DVD to VHS for viewing in the bedroom (where a 2nd DVD player is not present).
(2) The RIGHT to make compilations of copyrighted media [*] for their own use. e.g., combine tracks from several CDs onto one CD.
(3) The RIGHT to make a backup copy of copyrighted media [*] for archival purposes. e.g., backup that PSX game, as kids are often burtal to delicate CDs and one scratch can too easily ruin a $70USD game.
(4) The RIGHT to rent copyrighted materials [*] to others for a fee. This is allowed by well entrenched precedent for movies but needs to be explicitly allowed for all copyrighted media (video games, audio CDs, and software).
(5) The RIGHT to record unowned copyrighted broadcast material (including Satellite and cable as well as over the air) for time-shift-viewing purposes. e.g., legally record a movie from your subscribed HBO channel while you're at work for viewing later that night or on the weekend.
(6) The RIGHT to allow certain other 3rd parties to view copyrighted materials you acquired [*]. e.g., explicitly allow for all residents of the household to view the DVD Dad bought or use the software Dad bought, and explicit allowance for other relatives and friends to view/use the copyrighted material in a non-commercial manner. e.g., make it explicitly legal to invite a friend or SO over to watch your DVD.
(7) The RIGHT of consumers to modify their own equipment and for the necessary parts and optional installation service to be legally available in order to carry out the above 6 rights. Additionally, the sale of already modified devices shall be explicitly allowed. e.g., I legally bought import PSX games and import DVDs and need my playstation/DVD player to play them and grant me access to what I paid for legitimately.
Write your representative and senator and copy them this message! Raise this issue on any wide-reaching media (TV, radio) you have access to. Get people talking about it.
[*] of course this refers to copyrighted material legally acquired by the consumer.
1) Searching for a decision analysis tool on the Web, you find a review in which the reviewer raves about a particular product. You buy the product and discover it just doesn't work. You desire to prevent this person's ravings from harming anyone else--and you desire to prevent the product from disappointing anyone else.
First rule of the net. Never trust the word of any single unknown person. Do place some trust in the majority of several dozen opinions under the (usually correct) assumption that most people are not (a) loons or (b) marketroids for the product you're asking about.
2) A product you buy based on a rave review opens your email address book, grabs your entire list of friends, sends itself to them, and sends your password files to a mysterious IP address. It's too late now, but which features would you install before ever touching your computer again?
If you followed the answer to (1), you probably would not have been bitten. Also, never be the first to install any software (or version X.0 of anything). Plenty of others will happily volunteer themselves as guinea pigs and scream loudly if things run amok.
3) A product is advertised on the Web. It sounds good, but the offerer has no Web reputation. What arrangement would you consider adequate to go ahead and procure the product (Note: there are several possible answers; give 2 entirely separate solutions, and that is considered answering 2 questions).
It's the same question massaged over a bit. See (1) and (2) above.
4) You start receiving thousands of emails from organizations you don't know, all hawking their wares. You want it to stop, just stop!
Just have procmail route it to/dev/null or bounce it back to the sender. If you have no control over incoming mail, you're using the wrong ISP. Even better, set up your own domain on your own box on a DSL/cablemodem and stuff like this becomes ever so easy to deal with. Never tell spammers to stop spamming you. That just tells them your address is valid and read by a person which results in more spam.
5) You wish to play poker with your friends. They live in Tampa Florida, you live in Kingman. This is illegal in the nation where you happen to be a citizen. You want to do it anyway.
Look at the intent of the law. Gov't is worried about internet casinos and big $$$. Not you and a couple of buddies. You're not worth the effort, manpower, and $$$ to prosecute. Have a blast.
6) You hear a joke that someone, somewhere, would probably find offensive. You wish to tell your precocious 17-year-old daughter, who is a student at Yale. The Common Decency Act Version 2 has just passed; it is a $100,000 offense to send such material electronically to a minor. You want to send it anyway--it is a very funny joke.
Again, look at intent. CDA was built as a tool to stop the XXX hardcore pr0n sites and to catch the pedo-kiddie trollers on the 'net. Who's going to be upset and complain? Sender or recipient? Neither, right? Send the mail.
7) Someone claiming to be you starts roaming the Web making wild claims. You want to make sure people know it isn't really you.
This one is a bit harder to solve without some cooperation by others. (A) Complain to their abuse dept at the forger's site. Failing that (maybe he is his own domain), go one ISP level up. Repeat until solved or you get to the point where they say "we don't care". (B) Ignore him. He probably gets off upsetting you and laughs as you frantically chase his every newspost or whatever to discredit him. Ignore him and he'll get bored and move on to his next inane diversion. besides, who are you worrying about him confusing? Smart net people can easily recognize forgeries. They'll know it's not you.
8) You have brought out a remarkable new product. There is a competing product making claims you know are false. You want to make sure anyone going to their site finds out your product is better.
Others will solve your problem for you as in my answers to (1) and (2) above. Since you would be speaking from a position of self-bias, you cannot meaningfully join them in getting the truth out.
9) Your elderly aunt sees a drug advertised on the Web that promises relief from arthritis. She dies shortly after starting to take the drug. You think the drug, and the company that made it, is at fault. Meanwhile the company is sure they didn't have anything to do with it. You want justice.
Never buy version X.0 of software applies to drugs too. You should've made your aunt more suspicious of words from the net as in my answers to (1) and (2) above. Since it's now too late, you're stuck with your own doctor's autopsy findings and the legal system which may or may not help depending on where the 'net drug company is located. Good luck.
10) You are the CEO of Bloomberg News, one of the most prestigious (and expensive) stock information services in the world. An article circulates on the Web, based on a mock-up of the Bloomberg News information page, claiming that PairGain Corp. will be acquired by ECI Telecom. PairGain stock rises 32% in 8 hours. Investigators later find that the false report was created by a PairGain employee about to cash in his options. You want to ensure that your brand is never used like this again.
Put the facts up on your own home page right at the top. Reputable news media will check any circulating rumor with the source as will sane investors with their hard earned dollars. Loons buying based on rumor will weed themselves out of society soon enough.
11) You live in North Korea. Three days ago the soldiers came to your tiny patch of farmland and took the few scraps of food they hadn't taken the week before. You have just boiled the last of your shoes and fed the softened leather to your 3-year-old child. She coughs, a sickly sound that cannot last much longer. Overhead you hear the drone of massive engines. You look into the sky, and thousands of tiny packages float down. You pick one up. It is made of plastic; you cannot feed it to your daughter. But the device talks to you, is solar powered, and teaches you how to use it to link to the Web. You have all the knowledge of the world at your fingertips; you can talk to thousands of others who share your desperate fate. The time has come to solve your problem in the most fundamental sense, and save the life of your daughter.
This is not a question. But assuming you meant to ask, "What should you, as the North Korean person Do?", the answer is simple. Toss the gizmo aside and focus on what's important: taking care of your daughter. She comes first. Tell stories of your plight (this is what what the question implies the device should be used for, right?) only when there's time.
Since nothing can ever be 100% secure, it is important to ask the service provider what is the official written company policy regarding cracked accounts. Who is responsible and to what extent for what the cracker does? If there is no policy or the user bears all of the burden, you should probably look for a new provider or opt out of the online program.
Credit cards are an example of a good cracker policy. If my credit card number is stolen by a cracker who goes on a spending spree in Hong Kong, I'm out a maximum of 50 bucks.
Ask the bank what their policy is if a cracker hacks your on-line checking acct and xfers all your money to whereever. I doubt any bank's policy is comparable to that of credit card theft. Ask your HMO for their policy too. If they get tight lipped or start treating you like a would be cracker for deigning to even ask, be wary.
Record stores, both little and the big chain store, have sold import records and CDs for ages. Records and CDs have no encryption and no region coding. No one complains about this. Why is this all of a sudden a problem when it comes to movies? I PAID for the import DVD I bought, right? There will never be a local distributor for the imports I buy. Why shouldn't I be able to watch it? This has NOTHING TO DO WITH PIRACY (as the movie industry would like us to all think). Someone answer me that?
I PAID for the bleeping movie. Get the fscking lawyers out of my player! They're jamming up the mechanism!:)
$ ipchains -A output -d 204.71.154.0/24 -j DENY $ ipchains -A output -d 208.147.88.0/24 -j DENY $ ipchains -A output -d 208.147.89.0/24 -j DENY $ ipchains -A output -d 209.66.98.16/255.255.255.232 -j DENY
$ echo All is well.
This quietly blocks all packets bound for any of Real's IP subnets. Snooped info about you being fired off to Real's servers is quietly dropped on the floor. No error message. No explicit packet rejections to scare the Real Player. The software will assume simple internet problems are the cause. Although, I assume it wouldn't report an error to the user anyway. I mean, what's it gonna say? "Alert! Unable to spy on you. [RETRY NOW] [TRY AGAIN LATER]"? Yeah, right. If you want to see the snoop attempts show up in/var/log/messages, append a -l to the above commands. This also disables the annoying "you need to upgrade your player now!" messages since it can no longer check. This works for my linux box and for the Win98 machine (since it gateways through the linux box).
Really! Why risk (ALL surgery has risks) messing up your eyes when glasses or even contacts, if you're concerned about appearance, can clear things up just fine?
Besides, I think girls look sexier with glasses than without.:)
The problem with creating an appliance PC is that people will tend to treat it like one. They'll turn it on when they want to use it (and not want to wait 5 min for startup). And they'll turn it off when they're done. *click!* They neither know, care, nor want to know about why drives need to be cleanly unmounted any more than they want to know or care about how their car chooses air/fuel mix ratios.
Perhaps a Win3.1 system might be better. On modern hardware, 3.1 starts up fantastically fast, and the hard drive is far less likely to be hosed if you just power off (and 3.1 won't nag on the next restart). Netscape is still available for 3.1 as is software for all the other rudimentary stuff you want the machine to do.
Go with what works. That's always the best solution.
As a customer of Pacific Bell, a Californian telephone service, I have the option to either enroll in an unlimited local calling plan or a per-minute local calling plan. For anyone that uses the Internet, the extra cost of the flat-fee plan is obviously the way to go. For others, the per-minute charge might be appropriate.
You have been conditioned by the telco to think this way. Really, why should you have to "choose" a dialing plan at all? Why doesn't the telco just initially charge you by the minute on the low-monthly-fee plan, then if you go over x minutes, your plan automatically switches to the flat-rate plan for this month? Go over x minutes on LD and you're auto-switched over to the Whatever-LD-Nickel plan. The only reason to offer "plans" is to deliberately take advantage of and to cash in on people who choose the wrong plan for themselves. It's really quite evil when you think about it this way.
Vestiges of various ceremonies and holy days (marriage, Christmas) will persist but without their religious signifigance (look at the growing number of non-denominational marriages) or will mutate into strange celebrations and rituals (The Easter Bunny, Halloween, Santa Claus). There will be stubborn adherants, but fewer and fewer with each passing generation. The vatican (now mostly empty and wasting valuable land space) will be reabsorbed by Rome. The many buildings will probably be turned into museums and the whole place will become some sort of art exhibit district. Ordinary churches/synagogues/temples/etc. around the globe will turn into community centers, rec centers, or be retrofitted into apartments or condos. Thw wine business which many isolated monestaries run on the side will grow to become the main business at these sites. Religion will be covered in school history classes but seem so distant and ill understood by future generations as Scottish clan wars and everyday accepted instutionalized racism. The bad will be rembered more than the good. Inquisitions. Scandals. Money laundering. Jimmy Swaggart. Jim Jones. The positive accomplishments of religion not being considered to outweigh the evil done. In the not so distant future, all religions will fade into obscurity, practised only by the lunatic fringe, who will be viewed with suspicion as possible unstable persons who may "go postal" like militia groups, Ted Cazynski, David Koresh, the Montana Freemen, etc.
It's a primitive prosctise best abandoned for the good of society. People who think this way and aren't afraid to say it, in positions of power, like Jesse Ventura are JUST THE BEGINNING SIGNS of the next great era. The Great Shedding of Religion.
Now that we have modern precedent to get rid of controversial topics from the educational cirriculum, let's start taking care of business:
First up, Huckleberry Finn. "Nigger Jim"? While (*cough*cough*) "revised" (*cough*) versions of this classic piece of American literature exist (without any indication of their having been edited, mind you) I say just get rid of it all together.
The US Constitution? No way. Far too many controversial rights in those amendments. And Do we want to encourage kids to acquire firearms? Columbine anyone? Good God no. Nix it.
Next up, the (US) founding fathers. Washington? Jefferson? Hamilton? These men owned SLAVES for crying out loud! Praising these men sanctions their slave owning. Into the dustbin with them.
Christopher Columbus? Butcherer and enslaver of Native American peoples. Didn't discover crap. Banish the "holiday" too and rename it to "Native American People's day". Bye bye to this bastard!
Sir Issac Newton? Nasty, nasty man. Had people outright ruined if not killed to protect his own intrests (Leibniz anyone?). Also practised alchemy and tried to transmute base metals into gold (== withcery == devil worship). Forget teaching about this loon.
And of course all wars must be purged from the textbooks. We don't want to emotionally traumitize kids by teaching just how horrible war really is. Or to, in any way, imply that it's ok to resort to violence over such trivial issues as taxation, persoanl freedoms, and local soverignty.
Physics? This is outright DANGEROUS knowledge. Einstien and his ilk helped develop this tech into NUCLEAR WEAPONS that killed hundreds of thousands of Japanese in horrible ways (effects still exist to this day). No. This knowledge should be locked away to all but a priveleged few who passed many and continue to pass regular background checks and psylogical profiles. High school kids, college kids, and regelar people have NO NEED TO KNOW about stuff like this. Same for most of chemistry (which can us used to MAKE BOMBS and EXPLOSIVES)
Ebonics? Chicano Lingo? These language dialects are as valid an any other. Treating it as "uneducated speak" is racially offensive. These should be embraced.
Alan Turing? He was a HOMOSEXUAL! Thus his contributions to CS are tainted with controversey and are therfore not worth sudying.
And Thomas Edison? He was a shameless self promoter and rabid capitalist (== materialistic PIG). He used monopolistic practices to try and crush Nikola Tesla (another example of Croations being historically discriminated against). Edison is best forgotten.
There. That ought to sanitize the school cirriculum a bit. With these changes kids will FEEL BETTER in school. (We've already got rid of A,B,C,D,F grading most everywhere). And isn't that what education is all about? Making sure that every child FEELS as good about him or herself and FEELS as good and as smart as everyone else and FEELS no need to improve or strive for anything? We are all equals after all.
>Start cultivating interests in topics outside of comp sci.
While this is a nice idea in theory and may manage to get you a gf, you'll never be truly happy because you'll have to continue pretending to enjoy these "other activities" you pursued in order to keep your gf. Worse case, you'll eventually quit doing these "other interest" out of boredom and your gf will leave you because you "changed" and "lost interest" in her.
Besides, geeks ALREADY have interests outside of Comp Sci. They're just not often "mainstream" interests.
TAKE THE RISK and actually invite girls to do the GEEKY thinks you really like to do. You'd be surprised to find that the offer to try something they've never done before will encourage a few girls to actually try it. Invite a girl to come and watch some Japanese animation (avoid the overly sexist stuff, of course). Or invite her over to drink tea and go swimming in your pool (geeks are often well paid enough to have these choices) listening to '80s girl rock. Invite her to come and see those '80s video game systems and games you've been collecting and challenge her to a game of Atari 2600 combat. Dates don't have to be the stock "dinner and a movie".
If she thinks this stuff is lame, then oh well, but if she likes you for who you are and likes to do the same things you like to do, believe me, that's a far preferred situation than forever pretending to like some grudingly selected "other intrests" that you really think is boring as all heck. Granted, the former case may happen a lot. Be prepared. But also be patient. Shakespeare was wrong; A life alone, staying true to your ideals, is better than finding a girl by becoming someone you yourself aren't happy to be. - The LasVegas Geek
>Why not have a `Cyber Patrol` which is constantly vigilant, watching the World Wide Web?
Because the internet is not a US only entity, fool! I'm sure it's just totally shocking to imagine, but US laws are not applicable outside the US, and what's more is that the US concept of legal and illegal on certain issues may be totally the reverse in other soverign nations. An example:Son May Records. This is a company in Taiwan that sells CDs, DVDs, VCDs (MPEG1 movies on CD), etc. They sell 'The Matrix' and probably PM by now too. All of their merchandise is copied from elsewhere. No money is paid to the copyright holders. No 'rights' were obtained in any way. And... hold on to your enchiladas...THIS IS 100% LEGAL in Taiwan. Son May is not an underground company. They are locally licensed, pay taxes, and follow all local rules and regulations. They are following the law! IP law is simply non-existant in Taiwan. It's a different philosophy in the East. It's not "backward" or "wrong", it's just different and as equally valid as we hold out own perceptions of copyrights/patents to be (gasp!). Deal with it. The 'net, however, brings radically different cultures and ideas together in a way that's never been done before. There's no "right side" and "wrong side" here. Some people just happened to believe that knowledge or art can't be "owned". This just freaks some people out. Accept it. And cutting off chunks of the world that don't play ball your way won't work either. Isolationism ultimately hurts more than it helps. One must look at the big picture. Cutting off Taiwan for piracy would do far more economic harm to US businesses than the piracy it sought to stop. Recognizing and accepting each other's differences will lead to a better world and a more propserous society.And before anyone laughs saying I'm just taking advantage of Taiwan's "errant lawlessness" let's look at a quick counter example: PORNOGRAPHY is illegal in many nations (not just "backward and oppressive" ones). Many hardcore sex videos are illegal in the UK. This porn is LEGAL in the US and there are countless porn sites on the web up and running in the US. They are legal, the owners are taxed. They follow local laws and regulations. Should they be shut down by the UK because guys in London are downloading porn MPEGs? Should their laws apply here? Should the US shut down these legal businesses for violating forwign laws? How would Americans react if MI6 agents from the British Isles raided local porn web sites operating on US soil? We'd be outraged!Now tell me again that "pirates" worldwide must be stopped because it is "the right thing to do" or "the law". We may not agree with it. I don't agree with Taiwan's stance on IP law, but we must tolerate the world so long as we expect the world to tolerate us.
This is all quite silly. I can go to a library and do an infotrac search (equiv of web search). It returns a list of articles matching my search criteria. I then go to the newspaper archives, go to spool 9/1994, and zip to page 5A, column 3, paragraph 4 (equiv of deep link) and read my article. I do not see the advertising there either. How is this different from what web search engines do?
Slashdot Mirror
Does it matter?
I enjoy talking to them and they with me. We have lots of fun together on the net. These are people I never would've met in person as they are scattered about the globe, while I hate the hassle of airports and rental cars and travel.
Let's turn the question around: Are internet-phobic people with only local friends "isolated" because all their friends are from the same area, think alike, live alike, work together, etc., and therefore don't bring up any new points of view or help expand one's mind by exposing one another to radically different cultures and ideas? Having only local friends thus limits your world view. Now who is really isolated? I wonder.
Original poster here. Ack. Do I feel dumb. Scroll down a little further and there's pretty much what I said appended to the Blinkenlights entry. Oops.
The entry talks about how rows of blinking lights/LEDs are a thing of the past because things happen too fast now for the lights to convey any meaning. I would counter that the lights have simply moved: to the modems and the racks of ethernet switches, hubs, and routers. There are still plenty of blinkenlights in the server rooms around the globe.
Your mention of "potentially" is your own undoing right there. i.e., The mere sight of the gun may cause the Bad Guy to flee. And that's good enough for me if he does. You only shoot them when they threaten your life. As an example, how many times per year does the average police officer, in the line of duty, draw his gun from its holster and point it at someone? Now of those times, how many times is the drawn gun actually discharged? Drawing a gun != using a gun. The ratio of discharge/draws is very low (under 10%). Does that make actual injury the "primary" (your word) purpose of the weapon? Is a 10% use "primary"? I think not.
Perhaps you should consult a dictionary and look up the words primary and only. Those meanings aren't equivalent.
The primary purpose (of my handgun) remains defense. See above to understand the difference. (No dictionary required!)
That may be your purpose for a gun. For me, the main purpose of one of my guns is for home defense. The main purpose of some of my other guns is recreation at the shooting range. The main purpose of the model 94 Winchester (circa 1897) is as a decorative showpiece above the fireplace mantle. The main purpose of the rifle is for hunting.
What a narrow limited view you have, and further what arrogance you have to even suggest that your one view on the purpose of guns is the only purpose.
Users requesting to install Linux on their computer shall be subject to a mandatory five day waiting period, during which an extensive criminal background check and psychological profile will bae assessed of the prospective linux user. Upon passing these checks, the user will be issued a license which permits him to install linux on no more than two machines at his primary residence. The license must be renewed annually. The user will also be required, before installation, to turn over the root password (which he then must use upon install) to authorities and well as any cryptographic keys to be used within the system to be held in escrow and only to be used for law enforcement purposes or upon the order of a judge or magistrate or for routine scanning for illegal activities, all of which the users agrees to and further agrees that these may occur without his knowledge nor require his approval. Changing the root password or cryptographic keys without submitting a written request to and recieving written approval from authorities is a violation and can result in fines of up to $10,000,000 and 20 years in jail, per violation, as well as immediate search and siezure of all computers, disks, property, and financial assetts, and immediate imprisionment without the right to a speedy trial which the user agrees to waive his rights to by accepting the linux license. Also, failing to turn over passwords or keys, or claiming to have forgotten them shall be tantamount to guilt sufficient to mandate the maximum fine, again, per password failed to be turned over. Claiming to have simply forgotten the keys is not an excuse. And once again, the user agrees to all of this and waves any and all rights that would oppose these measures by accepting the license. These measures are therefore fully constitutional and are effective immediately and all existing linus users must come into full compliance within ten days, afterwhich these regulations shall be in full force.
To go along with yast.
Actually, it's root@megami.ORG.
If it had been written by someone named in the case, it would be quite damning, but it wasn't. First off, www.megami.com is a page devoted to Japanese Animation.
See above, but the .org page serves the same purpose.
Besides that, anyone who posts to /. as root probably isn't the brightest bulb around.
I'm not sure what you mean by 'posting as root'. On /. root is just a nick like any other. How is this better or worse than someone who calls himself CmdrTaco? I fail how to see how this justifies decreeing me to be 'dim'.
At least 50% of all slashdotters have root access somewhere, and it doesn't impress anyone.
"Impress anyone?" Who said anything about that? My nick matches my email address, which gets routed automagically to my regular (non-superuser) account anyway. You're making a *lot* of assumptions here. Lighten up! It's just a nick!
I don't mean to flame root@megami.com, but presenting his/her sloshdot post as representative of the entire "hacker community" state of mind is insane.
The lawyer made that tie, not me.
I don't think there *is* anyone who represents the entire "hacker community". We're all going to differ on some issues. As far as my comment, I stand by it. Even if MoRE hadn't came up with DeCSS, someone, somewhere, and regardless of local law[*], would've reverse engineered or just plain extracted the css code from one of the software players and posted it to some public forum. Once that happens, its supression would be impossible. Had the secrets of DVD crypto stayed locked exclusively within hardware decoders, it would probably still be a secret today. Allowing software decoding at all, meant puting the code to do it on every software player sold. That is the true distribution and disemmination of the knowledge that led to DeCSS. MoRE just turned it into something a bit more readable.
[*] It is, of course, this "someone, somewhere" who possesses the "f*** the law" attitude I mentioned, and will rip the css code from some player and repackage it as a module, source, or incorporate it into something like DeCSS, and not an attitude fitting my own personal beliefs. Yes, I'm backpeddling a bit, but if I'm gonna be quoted in front of judges here, I wanted to clear that up. I still do support, and think that it is not too late to do, a proper "clean room" reverse engineering of the css code, just as Compaq did with the IBM BIOS code, that enabled them to produce the first PC clone. IBM sued, much as DVD lawyers are sueing now. They lost. Hmmmm. DVD clone players? Would there be any difference?
The shape of the glass causes the bubbles to look like they're going down when they're really going up. Really now, unless being CRAMMED by a mass of other bubbles, where is the energy going to come from to push bubbles down? Since the bubbles are spaced by several radii, they're not being pushed down, and convection currents are no where near that high or there'd be a noticable "dip" in the center of the liquid. This entire Slashdot article is URBAN LEGEND.
The problem with creating a new lifeform (and a tiny bacterium will probably be first since it's simplest) is that NO ONE can know for sure that the created life form won't be worse than than anthrax or E. Coli (sp?) and deadly to all life forms.... It matters not who they ask. Religious leaders don't have specialized access to Ultimate Truth. They're just people like you and me, as are the scientists. But someone, somewhere will try to create the life form sooner or later, so it would be better to do it now under rigorously controlled conditions than for some overzealous grad student at an ivy league school to kill off most of the east coast (though I suppose we could stand to do without New Jersey) for his thesis project. So I say, yes, do it, so we know how to deal with it if someone else does it too.
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I mean, if ACs are being censored, God knows what else they're censoring.
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Long live ACs on Slashdot!
Just like with DVDs we'll see region coded Pentium III CPUs. They will only work in motherboards with the matching region coding scheme. Software will be able to disable itself from running in certain regions. Executable code itself will soon be encrypted. Bye bye debuggers and disassemblers. We'll have CSS2 encrypted code streams, decrypted in real time inside the CPU at the last moment for execution. Copying code across regions won't work anymore. And breaking the code or hacking the region checks will be illegal under the new Digital Millennium Copyright Act that takes effect in 2000 (thank you Slick Willie). So even if you import a Euro CPU and motherboard, you won't be able to run your domestic software on it. Of course some guys in Norway will eventually crack CSS2 and post a small program that reads encrypted code streams from disk and writes them out unencrypted. The program will be spread widely and then the FBI/NSA/Intel/etc. will pressure sites to remove it. Code will then still be forever runable anywhere thanks to the crack (like with DVDs), but only within an underground world of users running region cracked CPUs, who will always live with the threat of someday being caught and prosecuted. Now maybe all this won't happen with PIIIs this year, but within 10 years or so...??? PH33R the future. I sure do.
We need Congress to enact a law spelling out a list of things consumers may do with copyrighted materials they purchase (CDs, software, video games, movies, etc) that are explicitly guranteed to be legal and to bar lawsuits filed directly against the consumer for exercising these rights. These rights would also preempt and override anything vendors try to write into the license.
With this in mind, I hereby propose the following "Consumer Fair Use Bill of Rights" that among these rights shall include:
(1) The RIGHT to convert copyrighted media [*] to a different format. e.g., copy CDs to to Cassette for the car or to copy a DVD to VHS for viewing in the bedroom (where a 2nd DVD player is not present).
(2) The RIGHT to make compilations of copyrighted media [*] for their own use. e.g., combine tracks from several CDs onto one CD.
(3) The RIGHT to make a backup copy of copyrighted media [*] for archival purposes. e.g., backup that PSX game, as kids are often burtal to delicate CDs and one scratch can too easily ruin a $70USD game.
(4) The RIGHT to rent copyrighted materials [*] to others for a fee. This is allowed by well entrenched precedent for movies but needs to be explicitly allowed for all copyrighted media (video games, audio CDs, and software).
(5) The RIGHT to record unowned copyrighted broadcast material (including Satellite and cable as well as over the air) for time-shift-viewing purposes. e.g., legally record a movie from your subscribed HBO channel while you're at work for viewing later that night or on the weekend.
(6) The RIGHT to allow certain other 3rd parties to view copyrighted materials you acquired [*]. e.g., explicitly allow for all residents of the household to view the DVD Dad bought or use the software Dad bought, and explicit allowance for other relatives and friends to view/use the copyrighted material in a non-commercial manner. e.g., make it explicitly legal to invite a friend or SO over to watch your DVD.
(7) The RIGHT of consumers to modify their own equipment and for the necessary parts and optional installation service to be legally available in order to carry out the above 6 rights. Additionally, the sale of already modified devices shall be explicitly allowed. e.g., I legally bought import PSX games and import DVDs and need my playstation/DVD player to play them and grant me access to what I paid for legitimately.
Write your representative and senator and copy them this message! Raise this issue on any wide-reaching media (TV, radio) you have access to. Get people talking about it.
[*] of course this refers to copyrighted material legally acquired by the consumer.
First rule of the net. Never trust the word of any single unknown person. Do place some trust in the majority of several dozen opinions under the (usually correct) assumption that most people are not (a) loons or (b) marketroids for the product you're asking about.
2) A product you buy based on a rave review opens your email address book, grabs your entire list of friends, sends itself to them, and sends your password files to a mysterious IP address. It's too late now, but which features would you install before ever touching your computer again?
If you followed the answer to (1), you probably would not have been bitten. Also, never be the first to install any software (or version X.0 of anything). Plenty of others will happily volunteer themselves as guinea pigs and scream loudly if things run amok.
3) A product is advertised on the Web. It sounds good, but the offerer has no Web reputation. What arrangement would you consider adequate to go ahead and procure the product (Note: there are several possible answers; give 2 entirely separate solutions, and that is considered answering 2 questions).
It's the same question massaged over a bit. See (1) and (2) above.
4) You start receiving thousands of emails from organizations you don't know, all hawking their wares. You want it to stop, just stop!
Just have procmail route it to /dev/null or bounce it back to the sender. If you have no control over incoming mail, you're using the wrong ISP. Even better, set up your own domain on your own box on a DSL/cablemodem and stuff like this becomes ever so easy to deal with. Never tell spammers to stop spamming you. That just tells them your address is valid and read by a person which results in more spam.
5) You wish to play poker with your friends. They live in Tampa Florida, you live in Kingman. This is illegal in the nation where you happen to be a citizen. You want to do it anyway.
Look at the intent of the law. Gov't is worried about internet casinos and big $$$. Not you and a couple of buddies. You're not worth the effort, manpower, and $$$ to prosecute. Have a blast.
6) You hear a joke that someone, somewhere, would probably find offensive. You wish to tell your precocious 17-year-old daughter, who is a student at Yale. The Common Decency Act Version 2 has just passed; it is a $100,000 offense to send such material electronically to a minor. You want to send it anyway--it is a very funny joke.
Again, look at intent. CDA was built as a tool to stop the XXX hardcore pr0n sites and to catch the pedo-kiddie trollers on the 'net. Who's going to be upset and complain? Sender or recipient? Neither, right? Send the mail.
7) Someone claiming to be you starts roaming the Web making wild claims. You want to make sure people know it isn't really you.
This one is a bit harder to solve without some cooperation by others. (A) Complain to their abuse dept at the forger's site. Failing that (maybe he is his own domain), go one ISP level up. Repeat until solved or you get to the point where they say "we don't care". (B) Ignore him. He probably gets off upsetting you and laughs as you frantically chase his every newspost or whatever to discredit him. Ignore him and he'll get bored and move on to his next inane diversion. besides, who are you worrying about him confusing? Smart net people can easily recognize forgeries. They'll know it's not you.
8) You have brought out a remarkable new product. There is a competing product making claims you know are false. You want to make sure anyone going to their site finds out your product is better.
Others will solve your problem for you as in my answers to (1) and (2) above. Since you would be speaking from a position of self-bias, you cannot meaningfully join them in getting the truth out.
9) Your elderly aunt sees a drug advertised on the Web that promises relief from arthritis. She dies shortly after starting to take the drug. You think the drug, and the company that made it, is at fault. Meanwhile the company is sure they didn't have anything to do with it. You want justice.
Never buy version X.0 of software applies to drugs too. You should've made your aunt more suspicious of words from the net as in my answers to (1) and (2) above. Since it's now too late, you're stuck with your own doctor's autopsy findings and the legal system which may or may not help depending on where the 'net drug company is located. Good luck.
10) You are the CEO of Bloomberg News, one of the most prestigious (and expensive) stock information services in the world. An article circulates on the Web, based on a mock-up of the Bloomberg News information page, claiming that PairGain Corp. will be acquired by ECI Telecom. PairGain stock rises 32% in 8 hours. Investigators later find that the false report was created by a PairGain employee about to cash in his options. You want to ensure that your brand is never used like this again.
Put the facts up on your own home page right at the top. Reputable news media will check any circulating rumor with the source as will sane investors with their hard earned dollars. Loons buying based on rumor will weed themselves out of society soon enough.
11) You live in North Korea. Three days ago the soldiers came to your tiny patch of farmland and took the few scraps of food they hadn't taken the week before. You have just boiled the last of your shoes and fed the softened leather to your 3-year-old child. She coughs, a sickly sound that cannot last much longer. Overhead you hear the drone of massive engines. You look into the sky, and thousands of tiny packages float down. You pick one up. It is made of plastic; you cannot feed it to your daughter. But the device talks to you, is solar powered, and teaches you how to use it to link to the Web. You have all the knowledge of the world at your fingertips; you can talk to thousands of others who share your desperate fate. The time has come to solve your problem in the most fundamental sense, and save the life of your daughter.
This is not a question. But assuming you meant to ask, "What should you, as the North Korean person Do?", the answer is simple. Toss the gizmo aside and focus on what's important: taking care of your daughter. She comes first. Tell stories of your plight (this is what what the question implies the device should be used for, right?) only when there's time.
--
OK, maybe that wasn't so quick.
Credit cards are an example of a good cracker policy. If my credit card number is stolen by a cracker who goes on a spending spree in Hong Kong, I'm out a maximum of 50 bucks.
Ask the bank what their policy is if a cracker hacks your on-line checking acct and xfers all your money to whereever. I doubt any bank's policy is comparable to that of credit card theft. Ask your HMO for their policy too. If they get tight lipped or start treating you like a would be cracker for deigning to even ask, be wary.
I PAID for the bleeping movie. Get the fscking lawyers out of my player! They're jamming up the mechanism! :)
Registrant:
Progressive Networks, Inc (REAL7-DOM)
[...]
$ whois "progressive networks"@arin.net
PROGRESSIVE NETWORKS (NETBLK-CW-204-71-154) CW-204-71-154 204.71.154.0 - 204.71.154.255
PROGRESSIVE NETWORKS (NETBLK-CW-208-147-88) CW-208-147-88 208.147.88.0 - 208.147.88.255
PROGRESSIVE NETWORKS (NETBLK-CW-208-147-89) CW-208-147-89 208.147.89.0 - 208.147.95.255
Progressive Networks (ASN-PROGNET) PROGNET 5054 Progressive Networks, Inc (REAL7-DOM) (NETBLK-ABOVE-REAL) ABOVE-REAL 209.66.98.16 - 209.66.98.23
[...]
$ ipchains -A output -d 204.71.154.0/24 -j DENY
$ ipchains -A output -d 208.147.88.0/24 -j DENY
$ ipchains -A output -d 208.147.89.0/24 -j DENY
$ ipchains -A output -d 209.66.98.16/255.255.255.232 -j DENY
$ echo All is well.
This quietly blocks all packets bound for any of Real's IP subnets. Snooped info about you being fired off to Real's servers is quietly dropped on the floor. No error message. No explicit packet rejections to scare the Real Player. The software will assume simple internet problems are the cause. Although, I assume it wouldn't report an error to the user anyway. I mean, what's it gonna say? "Alert! Unable to spy on you. [RETRY NOW] [TRY AGAIN LATER]"? Yeah, right. If you want to see the snoop attempts show up in /var/log/messages, append a -l to the above commands. This also disables the annoying "you need to upgrade your player now!" messages since it can no longer check. This works for my linux box and for the Win98 machine (since it gateways through the linux box).
Besides, I think girls look sexier with glasses than without. :)
Perhaps a Win3.1 system might be better. On modern hardware, 3.1 starts up fantastically fast, and the hard drive is far less likely to be hosed if you just power off (and 3.1 won't nag on the next restart). Netscape is still available for 3.1 as is software for all the other rudimentary stuff you want the machine to do.
Go with what works. That's always the best solution.
You have been conditioned by the telco to think this way. Really, why should you have to "choose" a dialing plan at all? Why doesn't the telco just initially charge you by the minute on the low-monthly-fee plan, then if you go over x minutes, your plan automatically switches to the flat-rate plan for this month? Go over x minutes on LD and you're auto-switched over to the Whatever-LD-Nickel plan. The only reason to offer "plans" is to deliberately take advantage of and to cash in on people who choose the wrong plan for themselves. It's really quite evil when you think about it this way.
It's a primitive prosctise best abandoned for the good of society. People who think this way and aren't afraid to say it, in positions of power, like Jesse Ventura are JUST THE BEGINNING SIGNS of the next great era. The Great Shedding of Religion.
First up, Huckleberry Finn. "Nigger Jim"? While (*cough*cough*) "revised" (*cough*) versions of this classic piece of American literature exist (without any indication of their having been edited, mind you) I say just get rid of it all together.
The US Constitution? No way. Far too many controversial rights in those amendments. And Do we want to encourage kids to acquire firearms? Columbine anyone? Good God no. Nix it.
Next up, the (US) founding fathers. Washington? Jefferson? Hamilton? These men owned SLAVES for crying out loud! Praising these men sanctions their slave owning. Into the dustbin with them.
Christopher Columbus? Butcherer and enslaver of Native American peoples. Didn't discover crap. Banish the "holiday" too and rename it to "Native American People's day". Bye bye to this bastard!
Sir Issac Newton? Nasty, nasty man. Had people outright ruined if not killed to protect his own intrests (Leibniz anyone?). Also practised alchemy and tried to transmute base metals into gold (== withcery == devil worship). Forget teaching about this loon.
And of course all wars must be purged from the textbooks. We don't want to emotionally traumitize kids by teaching just how horrible war really is. Or to, in any way, imply that it's ok to resort to violence over such trivial issues as taxation, persoanl freedoms, and local soverignty.
Physics? This is outright DANGEROUS knowledge. Einstien and his ilk helped develop this tech into NUCLEAR WEAPONS that killed hundreds of thousands of Japanese in horrible ways (effects still exist to this day). No. This knowledge should be locked away to all but a priveleged few who passed many and continue to pass regular background checks and psylogical profiles. High school kids, college kids, and regelar people have NO NEED TO KNOW about stuff like this. Same for most of chemistry (which can us used to MAKE BOMBS and EXPLOSIVES)
Ebonics? Chicano Lingo? These language dialects are as valid an any other. Treating it as "uneducated speak" is racially offensive. These should be embraced.
Alan Turing? He was a HOMOSEXUAL! Thus his contributions to CS are tainted with controversey and are therfore not worth sudying.
And Thomas Edison? He was a shameless self promoter and rabid capitalist (== materialistic PIG). He used monopolistic practices to try and crush Nikola Tesla (another example of Croations being historically discriminated against). Edison is best forgotten.
There. That ought to sanitize the school cirriculum a bit. With these changes kids will FEEL BETTER in school. (We've already got rid of A,B,C,D,F grading most everywhere). And isn't that what education is all about? Making sure that every child FEELS as good about him or herself and FEELS as good and as smart as everyone else and FEELS no need to improve or strive for anything? We are all equals after all.
--
Stop the planet, I want off.
While this is a nice idea in theory and may manage to get you a gf, you'll never be truly happy because you'll have to continue pretending to enjoy these "other activities" you pursued in order to keep your gf. Worse case, you'll eventually quit doing these "other interest" out of boredom and your gf will leave you because you "changed" and "lost interest" in her.
Besides, geeks ALREADY have interests outside of Comp Sci. They're just not often "mainstream" interests.
TAKE THE RISK and actually invite girls to do the GEEKY thinks you really like to do. You'd be surprised to find that the offer to try something they've never done before will encourage a few girls to actually try it. Invite a girl to come and watch some Japanese animation (avoid the overly sexist stuff, of course). Or invite her over to drink tea and go swimming in your pool (geeks are often well paid enough to have these choices) listening to '80s girl rock. Invite her to come and see those '80s video game systems and games you've been collecting and challenge her to a game of Atari 2600 combat. Dates don't have to be the stock "dinner and a movie".
If she thinks this stuff is lame, then oh well, but if she likes you for who you are and likes to do the same things you like to do, believe me, that's a far preferred situation than forever pretending to like some grudingly selected "other intrests" that you really think is boring as all heck. Granted, the former case may happen a lot. Be prepared. But also be patient. Shakespeare was wrong; A life alone, staying true to your ideals, is better than finding a girl by becoming someone you yourself aren't happy to be. - The LasVegas Geek
>Why not have a `Cyber Patrol` which is constantly vigilant, watching the World Wide Web?
Because the internet is not a US only entity, fool! I'm sure it's just totally shocking to imagine, but US laws are not applicable outside the US, and what's more is that the US concept of legal and illegal on certain issues may be totally the reverse in other soverign nations. An example:Son May Records. This is a company in Taiwan that sells CDs, DVDs, VCDs (MPEG1 movies on CD), etc. They sell 'The Matrix' and probably PM by now too. All of their merchandise is copied from elsewhere. No money is paid to the copyright holders. No 'rights' were obtained in any way. And... hold on to your enchiladas...THIS IS 100% LEGAL in Taiwan. Son May is not an underground company. They are locally licensed, pay taxes, and follow all local rules and regulations. They are following the law! IP law is simply non-existant in Taiwan. It's a different philosophy in the East. It's not "backward" or "wrong", it's just different and as equally valid as we hold out own perceptions of copyrights/patents to be (gasp!). Deal with it. The 'net, however, brings radically different cultures and ideas together in a way that's never been done before. There's no "right side" and "wrong side" here. Some people just happened to believe that knowledge or art can't be "owned". This just freaks some people out. Accept it. And cutting off chunks of the world that don't play ball your way won't work either. Isolationism ultimately hurts more than it helps. One must look at the big picture. Cutting off Taiwan for piracy would do far more economic harm to US businesses than the piracy it sought to stop. Recognizing and accepting each other's differences will lead to a better world and a more propserous society.And before anyone laughs saying I'm just taking advantage of Taiwan's "errant lawlessness" let's look at a quick counter example: PORNOGRAPHY is illegal in many nations (not just "backward and oppressive" ones). Many hardcore sex videos are illegal in the UK. This porn is LEGAL in the US and there are countless porn sites on the web up and running in the US. They are legal, the owners are taxed. They follow local laws and regulations. Should they be shut down by the UK because guys in London are downloading porn MPEGs? Should their laws apply here? Should the US shut down these legal businesses for violating forwign laws? How would Americans react if MI6 agents from the British Isles raided local porn web sites operating on US soil? We'd be outraged!Now tell me again that "pirates" worldwide must be stopped because it is "the right thing to do" or "the law". We may not agree with it. I don't agree with Taiwan's stance on IP law, but we must tolerate the world so long as we expect the world to tolerate us.
This is all quite silly. I can go to a library and do an infotrac search (equiv of web search). It returns a list of articles matching my search criteria. I then go to the newspaper archives, go to spool 9/1994, and zip to page 5A, column 3, paragraph 4 (equiv of deep link) and read my article. I do not see the advertising there either. How is this different from what web search engines do?