That by itself is not too implausible, but the unspoken claim, which many of the people posting here seem to be buying into is that if these judges are willing to stand up for their own privacy, then surely they will stand up for ours when it comes before the bench. I'm not sure I believe that at all.
Agreed. Many judges have been more than content to allow everyone else's privacy to slip away, whether it be to an employer, another person, or a new kind of wiretap. They're not writing the law, they're just interpreting it, right? Now that their own privacy's on the line, let's see how creative their interpretations get. They didn't think this was an important issue until it bit them in the ass, and as soon as it stops biting them, they'll go back to their old ways. Keep the hurt on until we all have our privacy.
Jim Clark should thank God and George W. Bush (I'm not putting them on the same level) that he lives in a nation where he can choose who and what gets his money instead of having it chosen for him.
Funny that you should bring God into this, since one of the items you don't have the option of withholding money from is faith based charities. If Bush really thinks we can rely on the private sector, why is he looking for more ways to spend money? It's time to admit that both parties are interested in taxing us highly (my $300 rebate pales in comparison to what I'm paying), and they just have different ways of throwing it away.
At least Clark has realized who controls the huge amounts of money, and is campaigning to change its flow. Private donations are small potatoes compared to what the government tosses around.
If you're at LinuxWorld or just in or near SF, it's tomorrow night. Stallman and Lessig are speaking, free beer, music, representatives from the EFF an FSF, and plenty of opportunities to donate, join the EFF, etc.. See you there.
What worries me, actually, is what they're going to do about it. If it just alerts them and they keep a closer eye on the guy, that's one thing-- he might not feel entirely welcome, but he can still come in and buy books. On the other hand, if they just kick him out, that's pretty terrible.
Re:Informative - More like criminal action actuall
on
Hotmail Hacked
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
"(pretty disclaimers aside you are legally responsible for the content here - its just that no one has decided to pursue it yet)"
This suit is the closest I've managed to dig up so far, but between Communications Privacy Decency Act (or somesuch) and DMCA, along with a prevailing broad interpretation of "service provider", most message boards such as AOL, etc., have been found to have no liability for what goes on. If that weren't the case, ezboards would've been toast a long time ago, and AOL would be fighting dozens of lawsuits a month. Do you have any examples of case law to back up your statement?
It also seems that they're basically assuming it'll be cracked (good assumption). Yes, it's highly possible they'll sic some feds on whoever does the cracking, but this quotation from the president of Sony Pictures Digital Entertainment, Yair Landau, blew me away:
"I think the majority of consumers believe that copyright has value and that if they have a pay vehicle to watch movies on the Internet, they will pay for it," said Yair Landau, president of Sony (news/quote) Pictures Digital Entertainment. "We want to give honest people an honest alternative."
I copied and pasted it just because I didn't believe my eyes the first time I read it. Could someone put this guy (girl?) in touch with the music folks? Personally, I've never pirated something I could buy off e-music.
Actually, this installed on my parents' box without them knowing about it. Sure, there was probably a checkbox somewhere during the install process, that vaguely explained something about a fabulous product that would do something. I'm pretty sure most users don't intentionally install this-- rather, it sneaks on board and tries to remain inconspicuous while it does its dirty work, much like Kazaa. The people who develop these programs are disgusting.
Actually, it doesn't just depend on prior art, if that prior art was developed during JEDEC. It's clear they were intentionally deceitful; whether that went far enough to be legally classified as fraud is apparently still up in the air.
Your solutions should not affect the state of the infected machines. Even if you could "fix" their machine. Even telling them that their machine is infected is over the line, if you're using their machine to do it.
By this logic, sending them an e-mail notifying them that their machine is infected is unethical. After all, I am causing a change in the state of their machine. "Oh, but they have an e-mail client running, they want e-mail." But they do not want spam; is spam unethical? They also have an http server running; which responses are ethical, which are not?
And before you attack my analogies, let's look at this awful one: If you're going to call it a virus, think of the influenza virus. A medicine is widely available on the market. It is up to the infected party to take the medicine, and it would be unethical to sieze the unwitting victim and force the medicine into their bodies.
Were people not quarantined for plague? If you have a contagious, deadly virus, they can force you into quarantine. Does that mean it's ethical for me to send something back that shuts off IIS, or turns off their computer? Not to mention, you can be forcibly treated for certain conditions if you pose an immediate threat to yourself and/or others; this is often invoked to treat mental illness. These boxes are certainly a threat to themselves and others-- what if someone decides to exploit this and do a DDoS? To you?
The third one, the practical aspect, is completely false. If you only propogate and install the worm to systems that probe you, you are reducing bandwidth by preventing those systems from sending a gazillion requests.
The first one, the morality aspect, is debatable. Many people would argue that cleansing their system of the virus is entirely ethical.
The legal one is the only one that seems cut and dried. Even if default.ida was a program, and you're just responding to their request, it seems your intent is fairly obvious, and the courts would recognize that. So yeah, you'd probably get hauled off to jail.
How the fuck does this increase bandwidth use? I've seen several comments like this modded up; what am I missing?
Good virus resides on your computer. Computer gets scanned; good virus cleans up offending computer, installs itself. Now, rather than sending out 300 requests at a time, the offending computer is sending out nothing, unless it is scanned as well.
Unfortunately, to enforce these unwieldy business models (which essentially boil down to "please don't make a copy of the book, pretty please"), they impose a series of restrictions on our rights. If this was someplace I could go to rent a book for 10 hours for a buck, like a pay-per-use library, this would hardly be news. Cybercafes aren't evil because they kick you off the box after your time runs out.
Given that to support this sort of value-removed business model, laws such as the DMCA have been passed that prohibit us from doing a number of perfectly useful, valuable, and educational things we were able to do a few years back, it makes quite a bit of sense to oppose the businesses that spring from it. The more money that's tied up in these models, the bigger a fight there will be to reverse bad laws like the DMCA. Solution? Friends don't let friends rent books.
Even Starcraft had auto-patching, and the battle.net stuff for that was in beta in '97. Not the "preferred embodiment", but that doesn't limit patent scope. The other poster provided several web-based refutations. Obviously the courts will decide if there's enough prior art, but this is as much of a no-brainer as one click-- in that only people with no brains think it's a novel idea.
"Oh, shit! You make it automatically download and execute, rather than have them double-click on it? Genius! I've gotta write home about this! Oh, wait-- shiny thing...."
Bah, what a waste. Screw that, here are some other things you should do along with your white hat program:
1. Distribute Elcomsoft's e-book reader to all compromised boxes; search for any Adobe e-books and write out a plaintext copy.
2. Append the code to DeCSS to all Word documents on the box.
3. Modify the code to only patch the box when Dmitry is finally released from jail.
4. Install Linux; reboot.
5. Install BSD; reboot.
6. Configure box to DoS MS's IIS patch servers; condemn MS for making patches inaccessible.
7. Script all boxes to respond to/. stories with one of two comments: "dammit, this is a duplicate! Here is the original at goatse.cx", or "Katz iz 4 t00l!!!1@".
8. Install SETI; add the box to your team; brag about your high score.
Note: these are jokes. Please, please, do not do these things. Especially because if you do, the feds will come knocking on my door.:)
Wait. So you're saying there's a/. headline about this being closed source and Windows only, and it's actually going to be GPL'd and released for Linux? I just don't believe you. The day/. starts getting its headlines wrong is the day I get a job at a Microsoft shop!
This law will never go anywhere. Most politicians aren't as stupid as the guy who wrote this bill, and you'll find that out in a hurry-- it won't even get any floor time. Have you seen what it translates to? Here goes:
"Whoever knowingly causes the transmission of a program, information, code, or command, and as a result of such conduct, intentionally affects or impairs without authorization a computer of an elementary school or secondary school or institution of higher education; [shall be punished by] ) a fine under this title or imprisonment for not more
than..."
It goes on for a bit, title 18 section 1030 is available at http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/1030.text.ht ml. Basically, this law means that if you send an unauthorized e-mail that passes through a school system, you could get 1-10 years (5 years for spammers-- hmm, that's actually kind of neat!). The author of this bill could get 1 year just for writing to thank a school for supporting his bill.
It's pretty obvious that this bill wouldn't stand up to the simplest constitutional challenge. It's also pretty obvious that it'll never see the light of day-- even the worst bills that get passed make more sense than this. What's possible is that this will get amended to not be so mind-numbingly stupid, and will say something like "threatens or harasses", although a lot of that is already in 1030.
So, can we learn anything useful from this debacle? Only one thing: Bob Toricelli is duller than a bag of hammers.
Why is it they haven't prosecuted these bastards? Is it perfectly okay to do nasty, illegal, trojan things to computers as long as you're registered as a corporation?
Maybe if enough people file complaints about this trojan piece of shit, we can toss their CEO in jail. "Hey! I didn't do it! I just work for the corporation! And I'm from Russ-- er, check that."
Slashdot Mirror
"Monkey Island 2, 3 and 4 are all great games...."
And you learn an important skill for real life-- Monkey Kombat! Oop ack chi!
"Life is too short to complain about things which are over in a few hours."
/. story?
You mean things like a joke in a
That by itself is not too implausible, but the unspoken claim, which many of the people posting here seem to be buying into is that if these judges are willing to stand up for their own privacy, then surely they will stand up for ours when it comes before the bench. I'm not sure I believe that at all.
Agreed. Many judges have been more than content to allow everyone else's privacy to slip away, whether it be to an employer, another person, or a new kind of wiretap. They're not writing the law, they're just interpreting it, right? Now that their own privacy's on the line, let's see how creative their interpretations get. They didn't think this was an important issue until it bit them in the ass, and as soon as it stops biting them, they'll go back to their old ways. Keep the hurt on until we all have our privacy.
Jim Clark should thank God and George W. Bush (I'm not putting them on the same level) that he lives in a nation where he can choose who and what gets his money instead of having it chosen for him.
Funny that you should bring God into this, since one of the items you don't have the option of withholding money from is faith based charities. If Bush really thinks we can rely on the private sector, why is he looking for more ways to spend money? It's time to admit that both parties are interested in taxing us highly (my $300 rebate pales in comparison to what I'm paying), and they just have different ways of throwing it away.
At least Clark has realized who controls the huge amounts of money, and is campaigning to change its flow. Private donations are small potatoes compared to what the government tosses around.
If you're at LinuxWorld or just in or near SF, it's tomorrow night. Stallman and Lessig are speaking, free beer, music, representatives from the EFF an FSF, and plenty of opportunities to donate, join the EFF, etc.. See you there.
Here's the web page.
What worries me, actually, is what they're going to do about it. If it just alerts them and they keep a closer eye on the guy, that's one thing-- he might not feel entirely welcome, but he can still come in and buy books. On the other hand, if they just kick him out, that's pretty terrible.
"(pretty disclaimers aside you are legally responsible for the content here - its just that no one has decided to pursue it yet)"
This suit is the closest I've managed to dig up so far, but between Communications Privacy Decency Act (or somesuch) and DMCA, along with a prevailing broad interpretation of "service provider", most message boards such as AOL, etc., have been found to have no liability for what goes on. If that weren't the case, ezboards would've been toast a long time ago, and AOL would be fighting dozens of lawsuits a month. Do you have any examples of case law to back up your statement?
It also seems that they're basically assuming it'll be cracked (good assumption). Yes, it's highly possible they'll sic some feds on whoever does the cracking, but this quotation from the president of Sony Pictures Digital Entertainment, Yair Landau, blew me away:
"I think the majority of consumers believe that copyright has value and that if they have a pay vehicle to watch movies on the Internet, they will pay for it," said Yair Landau, president of Sony (news/quote) Pictures Digital Entertainment. "We want to give honest people an honest alternative."
I copied and pasted it just because I didn't believe my eyes the first time I read it. Could someone put this guy (girl?) in touch with the music folks? Personally, I've never pirated something I could buy off e-music.
Actually, this installed on my parents' box without them knowing about it. Sure, there was probably a checkbox somewhere during the install process, that vaguely explained something about a fabulous product that would do something. I'm pretty sure most users don't intentionally install this-- rather, it sneaks on board and tries to remain inconspicuous while it does its dirty work, much like Kazaa. The people who develop these programs are disgusting.
How pissed off do you think they'll be when they find out they paid millions for 127.0.0.1?
Actually, it doesn't just depend on prior art, if that prior art was developed during JEDEC. It's clear they were intentionally deceitful; whether that went far enough to be legally classified as fraud is apparently still up in the air.
a) How does grep on your server log consume bandwidth?
b) They would only try to disinfect "over and over" if they got probed by the host "over and over". Meaning it hadn't been disinfected.
Wonderful. He discusses right and wrong, and you attempt to refute with the law. The two are strikingly different.
Hmm, actually, about a year ago my neighbor accidentally left her door open. I closed and locked it for her. She thanked me later.
Analogies are often stupider than computers.
Heh, thanks. :) I just made it up on the spot, but I'm sure there's prior art.
Your solutions should not affect the state of the infected machines. Even if you could "fix" their machine. Even telling them that their machine is infected is over the line, if you're using their machine to do it.
By this logic, sending them an e-mail notifying them that their machine is infected is unethical. After all, I am causing a change in the state of their machine. "Oh, but they have an e-mail client running, they want e-mail." But they do not want spam; is spam unethical? They also have an http server running; which responses are ethical, which are not?
And before you attack my analogies, let's look at this awful one:
If you're going to call it a virus, think of the influenza virus. A medicine is widely available on the market. It is up to the infected party to take the medicine, and it would be unethical to sieze the unwitting victim and force the medicine into their bodies.
Were people not quarantined for plague? If you have a contagious, deadly virus, they can force you into quarantine. Does that mean it's ethical for me to send something back that shuts off IIS, or turns off their computer? Not to mention, you can be forcibly treated for certain conditions if you pose an immediate threat to yourself and/or others; this is often invoked to treat mental illness. These boxes are certainly a threat to themselves and others-- what if someone decides to exploit this and do a DDoS? To you?
The third one, the practical aspect, is completely false. If you only propogate and install the worm to systems that probe you, you are reducing bandwidth by preventing those systems from sending a gazillion requests.
The first one, the morality aspect, is debatable. Many people would argue that cleansing their system of the virus is entirely ethical.
The legal one is the only one that seems cut and dried. Even if default.ida was a program, and you're just responding to their request, it seems your intent is fairly obvious, and the courts would recognize that. So yeah, you'd probably get hauled off to jail.
How the fuck does this increase bandwidth use? I've seen several comments like this modded up; what am I missing?
Good virus resides on your computer. Computer gets scanned; good virus cleans up offending computer, installs itself. Now, rather than sending out 300 requests at a time, the offending computer is sending out nothing, unless it is scanned as well.
2 things.
1. Where's the script?
2. Shouldn't it be modified to install itself? Otherwise, it'll get drastically outpaced.
Note: yeah, yeah, ethics and so on. Disclaimer, and another one.
Unfortunately, to enforce these unwieldy business models (which essentially boil down to "please don't make a copy of the book, pretty please"), they impose a series of restrictions on our rights. If this was someplace I could go to rent a book for 10 hours for a buck, like a pay-per-use library, this would hardly be news. Cybercafes aren't evil because they kick you off the box after your time runs out.
Given that to support this sort of value-removed business model, laws such as the DMCA have been passed that prohibit us from doing a number of perfectly useful, valuable, and educational things we were able to do a few years back, it makes quite a bit of sense to oppose the businesses that spring from it. The more money that's tied up in these models, the bigger a fight there will be to reverse bad laws like the DMCA. Solution? Friends don't let friends rent books.
Even Starcraft had auto-patching, and the battle.net stuff for that was in beta in '97. Not the "preferred embodiment", but that doesn't limit patent scope. The other poster provided several web-based refutations. Obviously the courts will decide if there's enough prior art, but this is as much of a no-brainer as one click-- in that only people with no brains think it's a novel idea.
"Oh, shit! You make it automatically download and execute, rather than have them double-click on it? Genius! I've gotta write home about this! Oh, wait-- shiny thing...."
Bah, what a waste. Screw that, here are some other things you should do along with your white hat program:
/. stories with one of two comments: "dammit, this is a duplicate! Here is the original at goatse.cx", or "Katz iz 4 t00l!!!1@".
:)
1. Distribute Elcomsoft's e-book reader to all compromised boxes; search for any Adobe e-books and write out a plaintext copy.
2. Append the code to DeCSS to all Word documents on the box.
3. Modify the code to only patch the box when Dmitry is finally released from jail.
4. Install Linux; reboot.
5. Install BSD; reboot.
6. Configure box to DoS MS's IIS patch servers; condemn MS for making patches inaccessible.
7. Script all boxes to respond to
8. Install SETI; add the box to your team; brag about your high score.
Note: these are jokes. Please, please, do not do these things. Especially because if you do, the feds will come knocking on my door.
Wait. So you're saying there's a /. headline about this being closed source and Windows only, and it's actually going to be GPL'd and released for Linux? I just don't believe you. The day /. starts getting its headlines wrong is the day I get a job at a Microsoft shop!
Oh, shit.
This law will never go anywhere. Most politicians aren't as stupid as the guy who wrote this bill, and you'll find that out in a hurry-- it won't even get any floor time. Have you seen what it translates to? Here goes:
t ml. Basically, this law means that if you send an unauthorized e-mail that passes through a school system, you could get 1-10 years (5 years for spammers-- hmm, that's actually kind of neat!). The author of this bill could get 1 year just for writing to thank a school for supporting his bill.
"Whoever knowingly causes the transmission of a program, information, code, or command, and as a result of such conduct, intentionally affects or impairs without authorization a computer of an elementary school or secondary school or institution of higher education; [shall be punished by] ) a fine under this title or imprisonment for not more than..."
It goes on for a bit, title 18 section 1030 is available at http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/1030.text.h
It's pretty obvious that this bill wouldn't stand up to the simplest constitutional challenge. It's also pretty obvious that it'll never see the light of day-- even the worst bills that get passed make more sense than this. What's possible is that this will get amended to not be so mind-numbingly stupid, and will say something like "threatens or harasses", although a lot of that is already in 1030.
So, can we learn anything useful from this debacle? Only one thing: Bob Toricelli is duller than a bag of hammers.
Why is it they haven't prosecuted these bastards? Is it perfectly okay to do nasty, illegal, trojan things to computers as long as you're registered as a corporation?
Maybe if enough people file complaints about this trojan piece of shit, we can toss their CEO in jail. "Hey! I didn't do it! I just work for the corporation! And I'm from Russ-- er, check that."