Re:4. Is Alan Cox still not going to US convention
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Adobe Backs Down
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· Score: 3
Sir, you are absolutely correct that the post I made was callous. It doesn't change what happened, though.
As for missing the point about this being a human issue, I do not. I asked if anyone was helping his wife. She and his family are largely ignored in most of these posts. I have not seen any place where I could send them kind words or money or any other form of support.
I pointed out that a company who had a vested interest in having this man imprisoned did just that, and are now safely out of the limelight. Responsibility for what occurred can be best applied by the company that had him kidnapped. However, Adobe has safely insulated themselves from having to do that now. The EFF can't touch them anymore. And before anyone might decide to apply the idea of callousness to the activities of a business enterprise, please remember that the ONLY responsiblity a company has is to it's stockholders. Human considerations in that equation are secondary.
As for Sklyarov, the federal government may hold him indefinitely, without charging him. My point wasn't about whether EFF made the "right choice" or not. The EFF blinked, and every other corporation looking to screw people like Sklyarov were watching. Callousness? Think of every person like Sklyarov out there who might get detained now, and think about how those other corporations will use Adobe's bait-n-switch tactic in the future...
As for my own lack of illusions about Adobe or the FBI, I never look at the activities of others except through a lense of their own self-interest. Where I cannot do that, I look at history. My apologies if that outlook seems calloused, but my callouses come through hard work and experience. As for Sklyarov, I think his boss, who has FBI ties, will do more for Sklyarov's release than the EFF.
mrgoat
4. Is Alan Cox still not going to US conventions?
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Adobe Backs Down
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· Score: 5
And in regards to #1, Adobe still succeeded, probably more adroitly than the EFF expected:
1. While they look like the "nice guys", the person that Adobe wanted punished is still being punished, and Adobe can wash its hands, say "what nice people we are", and walk off almost untouched by all of this.
2. Adobe proved that EFF has no teeth and can be made to back down at the drop of a hat. note to EFF organizing staff: when involved in hostage negotiations, NEVER grant concessions. The Sklyarov incident is a hostage negotiation- he is a foreign national kidnapped at the behest of Adobe by the US Govt., under the guise of enforcing a bad law. Now that Adobe let themselves off the hook and has walked scott-free from the negotiating table, who are you going to target now? Strategically, by "calling off the protest", EFF showed that:
a. They have no real control over the protests. Protestors still showed up, and would have shown up, and by "calling off the protest" the EFF only weakened its position. And Skylarov's.
b. Put themselves in a bad negotiating position- either Adobe could have said- you, EFF, are liars, there are still protestors outside; or they could have said- obviously, you aren't representing the protestors, why should we speak with you.
c. Adobe demonstrated their strength by getting EFF to capitulate, and then Adobe walked away from the entire matter. Efforts to organize effective protests both present and in the future was quashed (or damaged by Adobe), and since EFF has been shown not to be holding the right cards, and Adobe has proven to other corporations just exactly how to stand behind the DMCA while covering their own asses to the public.
3. The EFF's position with the feds may be compromised at this point. By declaring themselves to have control over protests, they have made themselves targets for federal investigation, possibly via the RICO Act (but, IANAL, and I hope to god something on that order of damage doesn't happen to EFF...they have my contribution money). However, EFF will have to watch its back even more so from now on...all it takes is one agent provocateur.
4. I didn't misread about Skylarov being in jail still? What the fuck is everyone celebrating for? Is anyone asking his wife if she needs a place to stay, or any money while her husband is in jail? Just kind of curious...I don't see anyone who is actually affected by this incident winning anything here...except maybe Adobe.
Partly, I would guess that it is to protect himself against being arrested and tried by a foreign power at the behest of private corporate entities. Foreign nationals have few, if any, actual rights in the United States. They can be detained for years without bail or trial or even charges.
The other reason is my own personal thought, which is that by refusing to participate in conventions in the US, he (and others of a like mind) will be responsible for either:
A loss of mindshare at these conventions.
A shift from US-centric conventioning, causing a further loss of mindshare.
Think about it, if most of these programmers do not come into the United States for any reason, but are willing to go to Canada or Amsterdam for conventions, the focus will eventually shift from the US to other countries. Names like Alan Cox are what draws lots of people to these conventions, it is a reason for businesses to think they will get return on investment for either sending people or for paying to exhibit there. This can only punish the US in the long run.
Last time I tried compiling Broadcast 2k on my system, I found that it was built specifically for Pentium chipsets (wouldn't work under AMD w/o some work), and specifically for RedHat. I could be wrong about it now, but I would be interested in seeing someone's opinion on the software who could get it working on a Pentium system.
Oh, think of the humor...Actually, Hughes could take a lesson from Heinlein's "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" and comply fully with any court ordered asset seizures, simultaneously proving that the "property" in question is actually movable (and therefore not property). It would make a great plot for a satire:
By landing the sattellites on
225 North Hill Street
First Floor
Los Angeles, CA 90012
Think of the look on their faces when they come to work the next morning:
M Saladwino: Bob...why is that hole there?
Bob Crony: Sir? What hole? I didn't do it, it was Jenkins...
M Saladwino: No, Bob, get your nose out of my ass for a minute and look around for a bit!
Bob Crony: Oh, that hole...wasn't that where your office is supposed to be, sir?
M Saladwino: What, you think little green men up and took it away?! You're an idiot, Bob!
Bob Crony: Yes sir!
Hughes Board of Directors Rep: Well, now that you mention it...
M Saladwino: You! Who are you! Don't stand near me, I'm important- I'm the LA County Tax Collector!
Hughes Rep: Sorry. Was just making sure you took delivery...sign here, please.
M Saladwino: Sign that, Bob!
Bob scribbles "For M Saladwino".
Hughes Rep: That'll do, I suppose. Want a beer?
M Saladwino: ARE you trying to BRIBE me TOO?! You are one of the unwashed, stand away, cretin!
Hughes Rep takes a step back: Ok, no problem. I was just going to be here for the next couple of days though...
M Saladwino: Why?
Bob Crony: *Mmph*? --sound of a crony echoing "why" while nose up someone's ass.
Hughes Rep tosses back a beer: Well, I gotta make sure you take delivery for all those other sattellites...that was just the first one, ya know.
Hehehe...I said no "wacky" use policies, that's all.
Shit, everybody has an AUP/TOS out there...its just that @home tends to change theirs more than most.
As far as my own provider, they leave me alone, and let me do what I want...but then again, I am not sitting on the wire trying to run nmap scans to hell and back, or anything like that:)
Yeah, you are right, a largely SOHO oriented provider shouldn't be doing bgp, but that doesn't stop @home from selling T-1's to businesses and connecting them to their network, and then offering BGP services as a transit AS.
They call this @Work, and guess what? You get the same wonderful service, from essentially the same wonderful pool of Techspt folks.
Man, I suppose it will depend upon where you live. The community I live in has actually put together and passed a bond for our public utility to run fiber all over the island and provide service (phone and data) to anyone who wants it. Should be done in about 5 years or so.
Unless you live in a place that is actually that "together", I guess you and others will have to live with corporate control over what amounts to public speech. If you want to change that, you might want to research initiatives in Alameda or Palo Alto, CA. Alameda is where they are running their own fiber...Palo Alto has an agreement with Stanford where folks get access to their net (not city-wide, but still prevalent). Then go out, lobby, and pass a similar measure in your own community. Better be REAL sure that your community can handle a project like that, though. Or they will sell it to someone like Comcast to manage, and then you are back to square 0.
Having had to suffer through the management at my last job insisting on the cheapest provider...I would have to say @Home/@Work couldn't network themselves out of the proverbial "brown paper bag". Example: They have ONE person there who can intelligently support BGP- what I mean by that is that they have one person who can update BGP routing info without using a fucking template.
Same goes for most of the rest of the company. I say most of the rest of the company, because anyone who shows that they have an IQ rating above room temp on the data center floor is either fired or delegated so much work that they have a heart attack and die. However, if you are one of the chimps, life is great and you get to go home on time and never answer any calls after hours.
*shudders*
I pity the people who are going to be stuck with comcast as their only provider. It may even make life easier on the users, whenever TechSupport at @home figures out that ATT and Comcast are the same company. Well, see above, maybe not;)
Glad I have DSL (no lame ass proxy, no wacky use policies, nuthin' but net), and can handle my own networking issues (RFC 1918 allocation, FW issues, etc) at my own residence.
While I can't find anything yet on the website for the State of Georgia AUP or TOS, I do know that most govt agencies have you sign a form wherein you acknowledge that they can put you in the pen. and fine you oodles of dollars for theft and such. Well, unless the poster had WRITTEN and SIGNED approval to install RC5, he is probably in for a world of hurt.
Text of subject's post from Anandtech is pasted below:
This is David McOwen, dmcowen674@aol.com. I need everyone's help that possibly can. I worked at a school system 2 years ago that is part of the State of Georgia and was the configurator of the computers. They are now prosecuting me for Felony conviction with up to 15 yrs in prison and wanting $ 415,000. They are saying the Dnet client costs 59 cents per second for the Internet transmissions! If you or you know anyone that can help please contact my lawyer Mr. David Joyner at cdjoyner66@aol.com , phone number of the Law Firm 770-564-1600 . Beside my life and my family, the future of all that use the Internet and computers is at stake. Don't let them turn the good of computers into something so terrible. If it was so terrible it should be taken away from the world and not prosecuting one individual. People were panicking about rumors of the Govt tacking on a 5 cent surchange to supplement the Postal service because E-mail is taking away from their business and now the State of Georgia is saying E-mail costs 59 cents per second and this is not a rumor!
Also we need to know if anyone in the United States or the world has been prosecuted for this. We need to know for sure that they are setting this dangerous precedent, making me an example and everyone is next. They did not give me an opportunity to just turn the client off, they also said that there was no harm done after they turned it off. How can they call it a felony then and looking for nearly half a million dollars! Please help in any way that you can, whether by E-mails or any other support.
I think it is really funny how so many folks on this board characterize others concerned about the abuses (not uses, abuses) of nuclear energy technology universally as lobotomized hippies.
My sincerest apologies to any lobotomized hippies out there offended by this statement.
Anyways. I lived in a community situated near an active nuclear facility for several years. In that time, we learned A LOT about the people who run the plants and deal with the waste (and the waste IS dangerous folks). None of us were what you would call "environmentalists" "elitists" or "granola eating tree huggers". It was a farming community, and that is about as conservative as it gets. And, before you get your knickers in a bunch over how farmers aren't engineers, please understand that you actually need more than half a brain to be a successful farmer or rancher, and I have met plenty of engineers who could be called half-wits (and so have you, probably).
My apologies to any wholly-witted engineers out there. You know who you are, and wouldn't be offended by what I said. You know the guy in the cube next to you is a moron anyways.
First thing we learned is that the waste gets everywhere, at least in small doses. We found that the frogs near the plant were mutated after about 5 years of operation. Most of them ended up looking like giant tadpoles when fully grown. This is the same water that some of the local ranchers used on occasion for watering their herds, and the same water that was used for a recreational boating area. yech.
Second thing is, we found out that the people who run these operations LIE. They lie all the time. Never had an "incident" they said, never once had an accident. An independent investigation (independent of the NRC, too) found that there was at least one occasion where the reactor pools had cracked and leaked into the water table, as well as other incidents of spillage outside of that event. See frogs above. However, this was never classified as an "incident".
The third thing is that the numbers for the profit of producing power never matched up to the anticipated output. Yeah, if it runs at full burn for a year, it could pay itself off we were told. Riiight. Any farmer can tell you about supply and demand. Supply too much power, it becomes too cheap to sell. So our community had subsidized this leaking boondoggle that only ran something like 2 weeks out of the year. The rest of the time, we were buying expensive power from elsewhere, and still paying out taxes on the bonds that never got paid off from "all that cheapo power".
So lets review here, folks. One, dangerous waste. Two, an industry run by lying snakes (apologies to all honest snakes, snake dealers, and snake oil salespeople out there). Three, under less than perfect or ideal situations, a power source that is more expensive and destructive to maintain than to run under real world situations (ok, real world- most folks are average...they want to go home at 5pm, and bounce their kids around, and have a beer. They are concerned about having a good track record and paying their mortgage more than something amorphous as concern for their community or their fellow man- er, humans. This affects quality of labor and output of goods and services. Nothing ideal works well under those situations, and mistakes and problems always occur.).
Don't know about most of the folks here, but after first hand experience of having lived near one of those damned silos, the community in general decided we were better off shutting it down. It is not that it COULD work, because we knew it could, given the right care and effort. It is that the people who are the ones that need to care and put out effort aren't the ones running it. They rarely will be - that is just the nature of people, most of whom rarely if ever try to succeed beyond the average of the norm.
So while many folks here will sit back and quote neatly packaged facts and figures, please remember that it is a messy and disorganized world out there...and that maybe sometimes there are good reasons why people oppose "logical and rational" choices, such as the widespread use of nuclear power.
You know, I have faced this exact issue in a startup (now bought up) that I was working for. Having to try and find affordable apps and platforms that the business folks will accept is damned difficult. The business crowd is very picky about what they will work with. It doesn't matter if it crashes or malforms table data or whatever- if it doesn't look the same way as the last thing they worked with, the office flaks just WILL NOT touch it. Consequently, they stop producing anything.
This isn't any different with most IT/IS staff either. I did testing of OpenBSD/IPF vs. PIX vs. Nokia/Checkpoint...guess which one the senior management would authorize on a PO for an enterprise, 7x24x365 fw? PIX. Even though it finished last for stability and security and only a bare 2nd in cost. Same thing goes with other products as well.
Unless the business and the founders START with open-source systems, they will likely default to MS for most things and other proprietary boxes to fill the gap. Just facts of life. Firms like KPMG will ding you on their audits if you don't run something that is "well-known" in the business world, and has a support contract from that specific business...this is how a lot of vendors keep their stranglehold on the market with clearly inferior products.
Now, on the other hand, I know of a lot of artists and freelancers who are moving over to Open Source and BSD licensed products for their work. They don't have to answer to anyone in terms of how they produce, they just need to produce. This is the group of people also most likely NOT to buy into MS's wacky licensing models.
If there is any place where Linux/BSD is going to find some inroads in the user market, it will probably be in the K-12 and 2 year college systems. These folks don't have the resources to keep up with an ongoing licensing issue that.NET represents to them, and they don't have to please corporate auditors. And, after having tried the latest KDE, etc, I have found that the features not to be too dissimilar, stability is about the same, and there is MUCH less product bloat in the Open Source apps.
Having supported both MS and Unix products, I would have to say that once the admin is trained, it is MUCH easier to manage multiple workstations, servers, and applications over Unix. Cheaper too. Lets hope some more schools figure this one out.
Check off "Disable window.open()". Hit apply, done.
Its easy, my mom could do it. You can also filter your site preferences by host & domain, or enable java or javascript globally. It also has a filterlist for cookies, which is a great way of filtering out adservers in the first place.
This could revolutionize the chastity belt business! Just think, I am away from home, and the girlfriend has that spankin' new Nano-nookie chastity belt with the Cock-blocker(tm) microchip ID system on it. No other guy can even think of trying to get into her holy of holies now!
Better yet, the ID system can be easily used and never lost- all you have to do is embed the chip(s) in one of several convenient body piercings- like a Dydoe, a Prince Albert, or a Frenum! Proximity to the Nano-nookie opens the gates to heaven, and next thing you know, you are knocking on heaven's door!
Bummer. Considering how the compliance requirements in the demand letter were worded:
sign the cease and desist letter
destroy the kIllustrator-package
name every KIllustrator user
disclose the profit they made from it
While the author of Killus and the university could fulfill the first requirement (and thus admit actionable culpability), the next three requirements can't be met and are just fodder for an infringement suit that has the potential to seriously harm open source development efforts in Germany.
This means that the carpetbagge^H^H^H, er, lawyers who submitted this cease and desist are really shooting for the $400k US, while trying to make a false but convincing show of due diligence in mediating this trademark infringement.
Its situations like this that make me wonder if classes in contract and business law should be made a requirement for future software developers.
The problems I have with GM (genetically modified) crops and other goodies is that it is impossible to put the genie back in the bottle once it is out. Market and managerial pressures to get a product to consumers do not take into account that nobody really knows what kind of long term effect these modications will have.
My girlfriend has been working as a biotechnician since she graduated last year. She follows this kind of stuff with a great deal of interest, because it is a new field, and changes in regulation can play havoc with the job market. Both at her own job, and in the field of biotech in general, she has been stunned at times by the lack of foresight and sense that have gone into some projects. GM corn that was supposed to be in controlled outdoor testing has already found its way into other farmers' fields and into the general grain crop for consumption. On a more serious note, there is also a doctor in NY who has altered the DNA of human eggs to "correct a fertility problem inherited from the mothers". Yeah, and he did this in a way that those 12 children will pass those "corrected markers" onto any children they have as well - too bad we don't understand what else those markers may do, or if they were engineered correctly. (both of these from New Scientist).
For those IT geeks out there who need some perspective on this, think of all those shops you have been in where people have come up with spaghetti code, kludged barely working packages together, built and implemented poorly conceived of network designs, all at the behest of management who wants their damned bonus at all costs, that big push Push PUSH to get something (anything) into production. Think of the folks you have worked with who graduated from 4, 6 or 8 years of training, only to do the minimum to get by at their desk. Most of the folks doing GM work are absolutely no different in this regard. Difference is, there will be no "version 2.1b" in the wilds out there. You let it out, the chance for any kind of revision is small.
So, great, GM corn and babies...think of them as first generation products that you can NEVER upgrade. Even better, realize that some of those "easter eggs" that people innocently put into code today might end up very deadly later on.
Sculpture, paintings, and the like all have one thing in common: they are each completely unique. When you buy a work of those arts, you know you have something that is one-of-a-kind. It was created at one time by the artist's hand, and no copy or duplicate will ever be just like it.
I know of a couple of major curators who would probably disagree with that statement, as well as some art historians. Prints by Durer are considered art, as well as works by Rodin which were reproduced by the artist in several different media.
Also, lets not forget the late great Andy Warhol, who bought a cheap-ass snow shovel, stuck it in a corner, and called it art (an item which most folks in temperate climates have in their garage, and you can buy them at Ace too!). He also reproduced multiple images and sold them as originals, multiple copies thereof, which were sold as fine art.
There is also the artist whose installation was a toilet manufactured by American Standard- but the title the artist gave the toilet, which intimated the ABSENCE of what he suggested, made it art according to the critics.
Note that I refer to critics, curators and art historians as those who define what art is, and don't mention artists aside from the examples of what artists produce. That is because most artists couldn't give a fuck about whether someone defines their work as art or not. Artists work on actually producing something and leave "definitions of art" and other such fripperies to the art history majors who make their living on creating and marketing such concepts. Ok, the last statement was a bit overbroad...suffice it to say the artists I mean are those that I either know personally, have met who are currently making a living, those whose lives I have studied or have discussed with art historians and curators, etc, ad nauseum.
Historically, artists cared (and still care) about using a medium that is cheap, an affordable medium which allows for something of a budget to make more work (and maybe, possibly enough money to also eat). This is how lithography came about in Italy, and how a number of media and techniques were developed. This also may tend to influence the desire of artists to step beyond the envelope of "art" defined by critics and find quality materials that are not overpriced. Necessity may be the mother of invention, but she is most often the bed partner of artists. Artists also know that they and their heirs will never likely see a damn cent from their sales, unless they are one of the lucky few who are able to market themselves into super-stardom either through prestigious patronage or a good publicity agency.
So, while pixels on a monitor may not qualify as art to those non-artists who CURRENTLY discuss the meaning of the term "art", artists will go on using whatever is cheap and easy to get their ideas across the boundaries of their souls. If the kid wants to call his work art, well, it probably is art. Is it saleable art? No, and so it won't command any kind of definition of "art" by those who depend upon art's scarcity to make a living.
Yeah, now if they could just figure out how to use the pump power of the shoes to run water reclamation through a special suit, one could walk across the Sahara!
Here is a link to Daemon News with a little more clarification from Darren Reed on his view of things. It tends to back up some of the opinions of the AC's previous post.
Now, as a complete aside to the above post:
Sigh...I am getting tired of this "who is less of a dick" debate. Folks, have a look at the email traffic on the public boards. Darren Reed was the one who originally brought the whole discussion public. No, I am not going to bother with a link, since it is in the previous/. story. What I am going to suggest that most of the people here have a look at the email traffic on both the IPF and OpenBSD boards going back for over a year. It might clarify some things for you.
Distributing IPF as part of a ports tree doesn't break any licensing requirements for any of the BSD's, is my understanding. As for the discussions about whether Free/Net BSD's will use this, it is not the same issue as it is with Open BSD, since Open was distributing IPF as part of its INTEGRATED base install. Theo and crew didn't have much of a choice on pulling it out, based on their own licensing requirements.
Actually, there are some names from old norse myths. Oin, Gloin, and Gandalf (as a character in LOTR, bore an astonishing resemblence to Odin and had the moniker "the Grey Wanderer") were names of characters associated with Freyja, a Vanir hearth goddess. Check out "The Norse Myths" translated and retold by Kevin Crossley-Holland to get a gist of what I mean.
The story that Tolkein's writing tells is unique and epic in it's own right, but there are elements of several different belief systems present, and not just christianity. But there is no allegory there, that is for sure.
Um, yeah, I read the article too. Sounds like a rehashed press release that caught some staffer's attention.
If you really think about it, this is not going to benefit most companies one iota for protecting their corporate traffic. Think about it...most big corps run their own dark fiber now, have their own networks and routing policies trans/internationally. So what if you modulate your IP space out in the big bad world? Smaller corps use VPN's and such in addition to smaller pipes. The paranoid ones encrypt everything. I don't see how modulating IP's, which must fit into predictable ranges anyways, is going to really help things along much.
However, there is one area of use by big corps that can afford this toy. That is snooping on their competition. Most IDS systems don't come with the kind of configuration that can handle fingerprinting this toy's kind of traffic. You have to script it in or find a vendor(with really good consulting staff) that knows their stuff. This toy gives folks with deep pockets a substantial advantage over someone who won't or can't buy it or the protection they need.
As for the infallibility of this toy, it would be interesting to see some pros tear it apart and see what ticks. I am betting there are some holes there.
mrgoat
Re:Why I never upgraded my Palm III
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Palm In Trouble?
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· Score: 1
Much the same goes for me. I have never upgraded my Palm III. My girlfriend will probably hold onto her Palm V for the next several years.
I just recently got a wireless Palm in the mail (took a class that sent it out as an unsolicited thankyou). I probably would never have bought one, especially after trying it on for size. There were only two improvements over the original, and that was getting a map online and email. Not that I consider that much of an improvement, especially for the increase in bulkiness.
I think most of their problem was with their business model. They were expecting too much from their customers.
The apps that came with the Palm were just not flexible enough. The Palm corp suffers from a serious lack of vision and customer awareness in some areas. All of the apps that I use, aside from the organizer, are 3rd party. I have done some wonderful things with the palm, but not because I bought (or will buy, most likely) any software from them. I've already used my palm for stuff like doing equipment inventories (bar code reader software), controlling my IR enabled peripherals, and other stuff.
What will really get me to buy a new palm would be hardware hooks into the latest technology that I could use with 3rd party software. There should be an earbud/stereo jack. There should be the ability to make some software changes and be able to dial a call over the net, or access a cell network through a provider partnership.
These aren't complaints, just things they could improve. A complaint would be something about their lame expense program that doesn't export CSV/TSV files on its own- nooooo, you have to use Excel exclusively for this function. Lame.
Slashdot Mirror
Sir, you are absolutely correct that the post I made was callous. It doesn't change what happened, though.
As for missing the point about this being a human issue, I do not. I asked if anyone was helping his wife. She and his family are largely ignored in most of these posts. I have not seen any place where I could send them kind words or money or any other form of support.
I pointed out that a company who had a vested interest in having this man imprisoned did just that, and are now safely out of the limelight. Responsibility for what occurred can be best applied by the company that had him kidnapped. However, Adobe has safely insulated themselves from having to do that now. The EFF can't touch them anymore. And before anyone might decide to apply the idea of callousness to the activities of a business enterprise, please remember that the ONLY responsiblity a company has is to it's stockholders. Human considerations in that equation are secondary.
As for Sklyarov, the federal government may hold him indefinitely, without charging him. My point wasn't about whether EFF made the "right choice" or not. The EFF blinked, and every other corporation looking to screw people like Sklyarov were watching. Callousness? Think of every person like Sklyarov out there who might get detained now, and think about how those other corporations will use Adobe's bait-n-switch tactic in the future...
As for my own lack of illusions about Adobe or the FBI, I never look at the activities of others except through a lense of their own self-interest. Where I cannot do that, I look at history. My apologies if that outlook seems calloused, but my callouses come through hard work and experience. As for Sklyarov, I think his boss, who has FBI ties, will do more for Sklyarov's release than the EFF.
mrgoat
And in regards to #1, Adobe still succeeded, probably more adroitly than the EFF expected:
1. While they look like the "nice guys", the person that Adobe wanted punished is still being punished, and Adobe can wash its hands, say "what nice people we are", and walk off almost untouched by all of this.
2. Adobe proved that EFF has no teeth and can be made to back down at the drop of a hat. note to EFF organizing staff: when involved in hostage negotiations, NEVER grant concessions. The Sklyarov incident is a hostage negotiation- he is a foreign national kidnapped at the behest of Adobe by the US Govt., under the guise of enforcing a bad law. Now that Adobe let themselves off the hook and has walked scott-free from the negotiating table, who are you going to target now? Strategically, by "calling off the protest", EFF showed that:
a. They have no real control over the protests. Protestors still showed up, and would have shown up, and by "calling off the protest" the EFF only weakened its position. And Skylarov's.
b. Put themselves in a bad negotiating position- either Adobe could have said- you, EFF, are liars, there are still protestors outside; or they could have said- obviously, you aren't representing the protestors, why should we speak with you.
c. Adobe demonstrated their strength by getting EFF to capitulate, and then Adobe walked away from the entire matter. Efforts to organize effective protests both present and in the future was quashed (or damaged by Adobe), and since EFF has been shown not to be holding the right cards, and Adobe has proven to other corporations just exactly how to stand behind the DMCA while covering their own asses to the public.
3. The EFF's position with the feds may be compromised at this point. By declaring themselves to have control over protests, they have made themselves targets for federal investigation, possibly via the RICO Act (but, IANAL, and I hope to god something on that order of damage doesn't happen to EFF...they have my contribution money). However, EFF will have to watch its back even more so from now on...all it takes is one agent provocateur.
4. I didn't misread about Skylarov being in jail still? What the fuck is everyone celebrating for? Is anyone asking his wife if she needs a place to stay, or any money while her husband is in jail? Just kind of curious...I don't see anyone who is actually affected by this incident winning anything here...except maybe Adobe.
mrgoat
Partly, I would guess that it is to protect himself against being arrested and tried by a foreign power at the behest of private corporate entities. Foreign nationals have few, if any, actual rights in the United States. They can be detained for years without bail or trial or even charges.
The other reason is my own personal thought, which is that by refusing to participate in conventions in the US, he (and others of a like mind) will be responsible for either:
A loss of mindshare at these conventions.
A shift from US-centric conventioning, causing a further loss of mindshare.
Think about it, if most of these programmers do not come into the United States for any reason, but are willing to go to Canada or Amsterdam for conventions, the focus will eventually shift from the US to other countries. Names like Alan Cox are what draws lots of people to these conventions, it is a reason for businesses to think they will get return on investment for either sending people or for paying to exhibit there. This can only punish the US in the long run.
mrgoat
Last time I tried compiling Broadcast 2k on my system, I found that it was built specifically for Pentium chipsets (wouldn't work under AMD w/o some work), and specifically for RedHat. I could be wrong about it now, but I would be interested in seeing someone's opinion on the software who could get it working on a Pentium system.
mrgoat
Oh, think of the humor...Actually, Hughes could take a lesson from Heinlein's "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" and comply fully with any court ordered asset seizures, simultaneously proving that the "property" in question is actually movable (and therefore not property). It would make a great plot for a satire:
By landing the sattellites on
225 North Hill Street
First Floor
Los Angeles, CA 90012
Think of the look on their faces when they come to work the next morning:
M Saladwino: Bob...why is that hole there?
Bob Crony: Sir? What hole? I didn't do it, it was Jenkins...
M Saladwino: No, Bob, get your nose out of my ass for a minute and look around for a bit!
Bob Crony: Oh, that hole...wasn't that where your office is supposed to be, sir?
M Saladwino: What, you think little green men up and took it away?! You're an idiot, Bob!
Bob Crony: Yes sir!
Hughes Board of Directors Rep: Well, now that you mention it...
M Saladwino: You! Who are you! Don't stand near me, I'm important- I'm the LA County Tax Collector!
Hughes Rep: Sorry. Was just making sure you took delivery...sign here, please.
M Saladwino: Sign that, Bob!
Bob scribbles "For M Saladwino".
Hughes Rep: That'll do, I suppose. Want a beer?
M Saladwino: ARE you trying to BRIBE me TOO?! You are one of the unwashed, stand away, cretin!
Hughes Rep takes a step back: Ok, no problem. I was just going to be here for the next couple of days though...
M Saladwino: Why?
Bob Crony: *Mmph*? --sound of a crony echoing "why" while nose up someone's ass.
Hughes Rep tosses back a beer: Well, I gotta make sure you take delivery for all those other sattellites...that was just the first one, ya know.
mrgoat
Hehehe...I said no "wacky" use policies, that's all.
:)
Shit, everybody has an AUP/TOS out there...its just that @home tends to change theirs more than most.
As far as my own provider, they leave me alone, and let me do what I want...but then again, I am not sitting on the wire trying to run nmap scans to hell and back, or anything like that
mrgoat
No, sorry, they are. :)
Yeah, you are right, a largely SOHO oriented provider shouldn't be doing bgp, but that doesn't stop @home from selling T-1's to businesses and connecting them to their network, and then offering BGP services as a transit AS.
They call this @Work, and guess what? You get the same wonderful service, from essentially the same wonderful pool of Techspt folks.
mrgoat
Man, I suppose it will depend upon where you live. The community I live in has actually put together and passed a bond for our public utility to run fiber all over the island and provide service (phone and data) to anyone who wants it. Should be done in about 5 years or so.
Unless you live in a place that is actually that "together", I guess you and others will have to live with corporate control over what amounts to public speech. If you want to change that, you might want to research initiatives in Alameda or Palo Alto, CA. Alameda is where they are running their own fiber...Palo Alto has an agreement with Stanford where folks get access to their net (not city-wide, but still prevalent). Then go out, lobby, and pass a similar measure in your own community. Better be REAL sure that your community can handle a project like that, though. Or they will sell it to someone like Comcast to manage, and then you are back to square 0.
mrgoat
Having had to suffer through the management at my last job insisting on the cheapest provider...I would have to say @Home/@Work couldn't network themselves out of the proverbial "brown paper bag". Example: They have ONE person there who can intelligently support BGP- what I mean by that is that they have one person who can update BGP routing info without using a fucking template.
;)
Same goes for most of the rest of the company. I say most of the rest of the company, because anyone who shows that they have an IQ rating above room temp on the data center floor is either fired or delegated so much work that they have a heart attack and die. However, if you are one of the chimps, life is great and you get to go home on time and never answer any calls after hours.
*shudders*
I pity the people who are going to be stuck with comcast as their only provider. It may even make life easier on the users, whenever TechSupport at @home figures out that ATT and Comcast are the same company. Well, see above, maybe not
Glad I have DSL (no lame ass proxy, no wacky use policies, nuthin' but net), and can handle my own networking issues (RFC 1918 allocation, FW issues, etc) at my own residence.
mrgoat
While I can't find anything yet on the website for the State of Georgia AUP or TOS, I do know that most govt agencies have you sign a form wherein you acknowledge that they can put you in the pen. and fine you oodles of dollars for theft and such. Well, unless the poster had WRITTEN and SIGNED approval to install RC5, he is probably in for a world of hurt.
Text of subject's post from Anandtech is pasted below:
This is David McOwen, dmcowen674@aol.com. I need everyone's help that possibly can. I worked at a school system 2 years ago that is part of the State of Georgia and was the configurator of the computers. They are now prosecuting me for Felony conviction with up to 15 yrs in prison and wanting $ 415,000. They are saying the Dnet client costs 59 cents per second for the Internet transmissions! If you or you know anyone that can help please contact my lawyer Mr. David Joyner at cdjoyner66@aol.com , phone number of the Law Firm 770-564-1600 . Beside my life and my family, the future of all that use the Internet and computers is at stake. Don't let them turn the good of computers into something so terrible. If it was so terrible it should be taken away from the world and not prosecuting one individual. People were panicking about rumors of the Govt tacking on a 5 cent surchange to supplement the Postal service because E-mail is taking away from their business and now the State of Georgia is saying E-mail costs 59 cents per second and this is not a rumor!
Also we need to know if anyone in the United States or the world has been prosecuted for this. We need to know for sure that they are setting this dangerous precedent, making me an example and everyone is next. They did not give me an opportunity to just turn the client off, they also said that there was no harm done after they turned it off. How can they call it a felony then and looking for nearly half a million dollars! Please help in any way that you can, whether by E-mails or any other support.
Thank you
mrgoat
Nice post.
I think it is really funny how so many folks on this board characterize others concerned about the abuses (not uses, abuses) of nuclear energy technology universally as lobotomized hippies.
My sincerest apologies to any lobotomized hippies out there offended by this statement.
Anyways. I lived in a community situated near an active nuclear facility for several years. In that time, we learned A LOT about the people who run the plants and deal with the waste (and the waste IS dangerous folks). None of us were what you would call "environmentalists" "elitists" or "granola eating tree huggers". It was a farming community, and that is about as conservative as it gets. And, before you get your knickers in a bunch over how farmers aren't engineers, please understand that you actually need more than half a brain to be a successful farmer or rancher, and I have met plenty of engineers who could be called half-wits (and so have you, probably).
My apologies to any wholly-witted engineers out there. You know who you are, and wouldn't be offended by what I said. You know the guy in the cube next to you is a moron anyways.
First thing we learned is that the waste gets everywhere, at least in small doses. We found that the frogs near the plant were mutated after about 5 years of operation. Most of them ended up looking like giant tadpoles when fully grown. This is the same water that some of the local ranchers used on occasion for watering their herds, and the same water that was used for a recreational boating area. yech.
Second thing is, we found out that the people who run these operations LIE. They lie all the time. Never had an "incident" they said, never once had an accident. An independent investigation (independent of the NRC, too) found that there was at least one occasion where the reactor pools had cracked and leaked into the water table, as well as other incidents of spillage outside of that event. See frogs above. However, this was never classified as an "incident".
The third thing is that the numbers for the profit of producing power never matched up to the anticipated output. Yeah, if it runs at full burn for a year, it could pay itself off we were told. Riiight. Any farmer can tell you about supply and demand. Supply too much power, it becomes too cheap to sell. So our community had subsidized this leaking boondoggle that only ran something like 2 weeks out of the year. The rest of the time, we were buying expensive power from elsewhere, and still paying out taxes on the bonds that never got paid off from "all that cheapo power".
So lets review here, folks. One, dangerous waste. Two, an industry run by lying snakes (apologies to all honest snakes, snake dealers, and snake oil salespeople out there). Three, under less than perfect or ideal situations, a power source that is more expensive and destructive to maintain than to run under real world situations (ok, real world- most folks are average...they want to go home at 5pm, and bounce their kids around, and have a beer. They are concerned about having a good track record and paying their mortgage more than something amorphous as concern for their community or their fellow man- er, humans. This affects quality of labor and output of goods and services. Nothing ideal works well under those situations, and mistakes and problems always occur.).
Don't know about most of the folks here, but after first hand experience of having lived near one of those damned silos, the community in general decided we were better off shutting it down. It is not that it COULD work, because we knew it could, given the right care and effort. It is that the people who are the ones that need to care and put out effort aren't the ones running it. They rarely will be - that is just the nature of people, most of whom rarely if ever try to succeed beyond the average of the norm.
So while many folks here will sit back and quote neatly packaged facts and figures, please remember that it is a messy and disorganized world out there...and that maybe sometimes there are good reasons why people oppose "logical and rational" choices, such as the widespread use of nuclear power.
mrgoat
You know, I have faced this exact issue in a startup (now bought up) that I was working for. Having to try and find affordable apps and platforms that the business folks will accept is damned difficult. The business crowd is very picky about what they will work with. It doesn't matter if it crashes or malforms table data or whatever- if it doesn't look the same way as the last thing they worked with, the office flaks just WILL NOT touch it. Consequently, they stop producing anything.
.NET represents to them, and they don't have to please corporate auditors. And, after having tried the latest KDE, etc, I have found that the features not to be too dissimilar, stability is about the same, and there is MUCH less product bloat in the Open Source apps.
This isn't any different with most IT/IS staff either. I did testing of OpenBSD/IPF vs. PIX vs. Nokia/Checkpoint...guess which one the senior management would authorize on a PO for an enterprise, 7x24x365 fw? PIX. Even though it finished last for stability and security and only a bare 2nd in cost. Same thing goes with other products as well.
Unless the business and the founders START with open-source systems, they will likely default to MS for most things and other proprietary boxes to fill the gap. Just facts of life. Firms like KPMG will ding you on their audits if you don't run something that is "well-known" in the business world, and has a support contract from that specific business...this is how a lot of vendors keep their stranglehold on the market with clearly inferior products.
Now, on the other hand, I know of a lot of artists and freelancers who are moving over to Open Source and BSD licensed products for their work. They don't have to answer to anyone in terms of how they produce, they just need to produce. This is the group of people also most likely NOT to buy into MS's wacky licensing models.
If there is any place where Linux/BSD is going to find some inroads in the user market, it will probably be in the K-12 and 2 year college systems. These folks don't have the resources to keep up with an ongoing licensing issue that
Having supported both MS and Unix products, I would have to say that once the admin is trained, it is MUCH easier to manage multiple workstations, servers, and applications over Unix. Cheaper too. Lets hope some more schools figure this one out.
mrgoat
In Konqueror browser, from the Menu Bar:
Settings > Configure Konqueror
Opens config window:
Select "Konqueror Browser", then Javascript tab.
Check off "Disable window.open()". Hit apply, done.
Its easy, my mom could do it. You can also filter your site preferences by host & domain, or enable java or javascript globally. It also has a filterlist for cookies, which is a great way of filtering out adservers in the first place.
mrgoat
This could revolutionize the chastity belt business! Just think, I am away from home, and the girlfriend has that spankin' new Nano-nookie chastity belt with the Cock-blocker(tm) microchip ID system on it. No other guy can even think of trying to get into her holy of holies now!
Better yet, the ID system can be easily used and never lost- all you have to do is embed the chip(s) in one of several convenient body piercings- like a Dydoe, a Prince Albert, or a Frenum! Proximity to the Nano-nookie opens the gates to heaven, and next thing you know, you are knocking on heaven's door!
mrgoat
Bummer. Considering how the compliance requirements in the demand letter were worded:
sign the cease and desist letter
destroy the kIllustrator-package
name every KIllustrator user
disclose the profit they made from it
While the author of Killus and the university could fulfill the first requirement (and thus admit actionable culpability), the next three requirements can't be met and are just fodder for an infringement suit that has the potential to seriously harm open source development efforts in Germany.
This means that the carpetbagge^H^H^H, er, lawyers who submitted this cease and desist are really shooting for the $400k US, while trying to make a false but convincing show of due diligence in mediating this trademark infringement.
Its situations like this that make me wonder if classes in contract and business law should be made a requirement for future software developers.
mrgoat
The problems I have with GM (genetically modified) crops and other goodies is that it is impossible to put the genie back in the bottle once it is out. Market and managerial pressures to get a product to consumers do not take into account that nobody really knows what kind of long term effect these modications will have.
My girlfriend has been working as a biotechnician since she graduated last year. She follows this kind of stuff with a great deal of interest, because it is a new field, and changes in regulation can play havoc with the job market. Both at her own job, and in the field of biotech in general, she has been stunned at times by the lack of foresight and sense that have gone into some projects. GM corn that was supposed to be in controlled outdoor testing has already found its way into other farmers' fields and into the general grain crop for consumption. On a more serious note, there is also a doctor in NY who has altered the DNA of human eggs to "correct a fertility problem inherited from the mothers". Yeah, and he did this in a way that those 12 children will pass those "corrected markers" onto any children they have as well - too bad we don't understand what else those markers may do, or if they were engineered correctly. (both of these from New Scientist).
For those IT geeks out there who need some perspective on this, think of all those shops you have been in where people have come up with spaghetti code, kludged barely working packages together, built and implemented poorly conceived of network designs, all at the behest of management who wants their damned bonus at all costs, that big push Push PUSH to get something (anything) into production. Think of the folks you have worked with who graduated from 4, 6 or 8 years of training, only to do the minimum to get by at their desk. Most of the folks doing GM work are absolutely no different in this regard. Difference is, there will be no "version 2.1b" in the wilds out there. You let it out, the chance for any kind of revision is small.
So, great, GM corn and babies...think of them as first generation products that you can NEVER upgrade. Even better, realize that some of those "easter eggs" that people innocently put into code today might end up very deadly later on.
mrgoat
I know of a couple of major curators who would probably disagree with that statement, as well as some art historians. Prints by Durer are considered art, as well as works by Rodin which were reproduced by the artist in several different media.
Also, lets not forget the late great Andy Warhol, who bought a cheap-ass snow shovel, stuck it in a corner, and called it art (an item which most folks in temperate climates have in their garage, and you can buy them at Ace too!). He also reproduced multiple images and sold them as originals, multiple copies thereof, which were sold as fine art.
There is also the artist whose installation was a toilet manufactured by American Standard- but the title the artist gave the toilet, which intimated the ABSENCE of what he suggested, made it art according to the critics.
Note that I refer to critics, curators and art historians as those who define what art is, and don't mention artists aside from the examples of what artists produce. That is because most artists couldn't give a fuck about whether someone defines their work as art or not. Artists work on actually producing something and leave "definitions of art" and other such fripperies to the art history majors who make their living on creating and marketing such concepts. Ok, the last statement was a bit overbroad...suffice it to say the artists I mean are those that I either know personally, have met who are currently making a living, those whose lives I have studied or have discussed with art historians and curators, etc, ad nauseum.
Historically, artists cared (and still care) about using a medium that is cheap, an affordable medium which allows for something of a budget to make more work (and maybe, possibly enough money to also eat). This is how lithography came about in Italy, and how a number of media and techniques were developed. This also may tend to influence the desire of artists to step beyond the envelope of "art" defined by critics and find quality materials that are not overpriced. Necessity may be the mother of invention, but she is most often the bed partner of artists. Artists also know that they and their heirs will never likely see a damn cent from their sales, unless they are one of the lucky few who are able to market themselves into super-stardom either through prestigious patronage or a good publicity agency.
So, while pixels on a monitor may not qualify as art to those non-artists who CURRENTLY discuss the meaning of the term "art", artists will go on using whatever is cheap and easy to get their ideas across the boundaries of their souls. If the kid wants to call his work art, well, it probably is art. Is it saleable art? No, and so it won't command any kind of definition of "art" by those who depend upon art's scarcity to make a living.
mrgoat
Yeah, now if they could just figure out how to use the pump power of the shoes to run water reclamation through a special suit, one could walk across the Sahara!
mrgoat
Now, as a complete aside to the above post:
Sigh...I am getting tired of this "who is less of a dick" debate. Folks, have a look at the email traffic on the public boards. Darren Reed was the one who originally brought the whole discussion public. No, I am not going to bother with a link, since it is in the previous /. story. What I am going to suggest that most of the people here have a look at the email traffic on both the IPF and OpenBSD boards going back for over a year. It might clarify some things for you.
Distributing IPF as part of a ports tree doesn't break any licensing requirements for any of the BSD's, is my understanding. As for the discussions about whether Free/Net BSD's will use this, it is not the same issue as it is with Open BSD, since Open was distributing IPF as part of its INTEGRATED base install. Theo and crew didn't have much of a choice on pulling it out, based on their own licensing requirements.
mrgoat
They probably make more money selling SPAM shirts anyways :)
mrgoat
Actually, there are some names from old norse myths. Oin, Gloin, and Gandalf (as a character in LOTR, bore an astonishing resemblence to Odin and had the moniker "the Grey Wanderer") were names of characters associated with Freyja, a Vanir hearth goddess. Check out "The Norse Myths" translated and retold by Kevin Crossley-Holland to get a gist of what I mean.
The story that Tolkein's writing tells is unique and epic in it's own right, but there are elements of several different belief systems present, and not just christianity. But there is no allegory there, that is for sure.
mrgoat
Um, yeah, I read the article too. Sounds like a rehashed press release that caught some staffer's attention.
If you really think about it, this is not going to benefit most companies one iota for protecting their corporate traffic. Think about it...most big corps run their own dark fiber now, have their own networks and routing policies trans/internationally. So what if you modulate your IP space out in the big bad world? Smaller corps use VPN's and such in addition to smaller pipes. The paranoid ones encrypt everything. I don't see how modulating IP's, which must fit into predictable ranges anyways, is going to really help things along much.
However, there is one area of use by big corps that can afford this toy. That is snooping on their competition. Most IDS systems don't come with the kind of configuration that can handle fingerprinting this toy's kind of traffic. You have to script it in or find a vendor(with really good consulting staff) that knows their stuff. This toy gives folks with deep pockets a substantial advantage over someone who won't or can't buy it or the protection they need.
As for the infallibility of this toy, it would be interesting to see some pros tear it apart and see what ticks. I am betting there are some holes there.
mrgoat
Much the same goes for me. I have never upgraded my Palm III. My girlfriend will probably hold onto her Palm V for the next several years.
I just recently got a wireless Palm in the mail (took a class that sent it out as an unsolicited thankyou). I probably would never have bought one, especially after trying it on for size. There were only two improvements over the original, and that was getting a map online and email. Not that I consider that much of an improvement, especially for the increase in bulkiness.
I think most of their problem was with their business model. They were expecting too much from their customers.
The apps that came with the Palm were just not flexible enough. The Palm corp suffers from a serious lack of vision and customer awareness in some areas. All of the apps that I use, aside from the organizer, are 3rd party. I have done some wonderful things with the palm, but not because I bought (or will buy, most likely) any software from them. I've already used my palm for stuff like doing equipment inventories (bar code reader software), controlling my IR enabled peripherals, and other stuff.
What will really get me to buy a new palm would be hardware hooks into the latest technology that I could use with 3rd party software. There should be an earbud/stereo jack. There should be the ability to make some software changes and be able to dial a call over the net, or access a cell network through a provider partnership.
These aren't complaints, just things they could improve. A complaint would be something about their lame expense program that doesn't export CSV/TSV files on its own- nooooo, you have to use Excel exclusively for this function. Lame.
mrgoat
Yeah, but you know that they will have Led Zeppelin on the muzak as you head up...
mrgoat
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