All your examples are meaningless. An insane award by a jury has NOTHING AT ALL to do with the DMCA. I do agree with you about this kind of award being a bad thing for consumers in the long run, but DMCA was not created because of these lawsuits.
The DMCA has ALL to do with big business bribing government into writting any legislation they want. The fact that most people are sheep, and are totally disinterested in ANYTHING going on outside their own pathetic little lives has Everything to do with the fact that these corrupt congressmen are in office.
Are you kidding? It's SOOO much easier to abuse a forigner than a US citizen... After all, most US citizens don't give a rats ass if a russian is imprisoned for speaking and thinking.
Jailing a prof would cause an outcry that would actually cause the law to be tossed out. We can't have that...
Those beta testers must only surf p0rn sites or something...
Try downloading staroffice from Sun, or browsing CNN, NYTimes, or any other major site. Crashola / bugcity. Mozilla suffers too. NS 4.7 still works much better.
We found a way to make these damn things somewhat secure...
Use the (cough) security features of 802.11 . This keeps out the casuals.
Don't put the base station right on your network, plug it into a port on your firewall.
Program the firewall to only allow VPN connections through that port.
This basically means that you HAVE to use VPN software to do anything on your network. Note that this does NOT stop anyone from browsing your open shares on your laptop, but anyone with that kind of insecure setup is asking for it anyway.
If the code is truly ugly, a competant person would question WHY the code is so ugly, and decide not to work for you.
The "tribunal" is a way to find how people react under certain types of stress, but tends to alienate good potential candidates. If their job is to be routinly in a tribunal like setting (sales engineer), it may be appropriate, but for a sysadmin? Please.
Not so fast. In the US, you can drive around with a crowbar, screwdriver and hammer and therefore be in possesion of "burlary tools" - and be arrested.
Happened to a friend of mine a number of years ago - cop had a bad attitude.
I'm not sure what world your from, but the one I live on is a big magnet. Now kids, what happens is that information on ALL magnetic media degrades over time due to "The Big Magnet" and particles of one orientation being next to particles of another. 20 years is about max.
Issue 2: the recording quality on analog magnetic tapes sucks compared to CD.
Issue 3: tapes play back by CONTACT with the playback head which means WEAR.
Issue 4: damge due to improper handling != bad product - CD's hold up when treated with care, tapes won't no matter what you do.
Ed: Your example is flawed. To match a spammer, it should add that the cars stopped at your house, broke down your door, and started screaming profanities at you and your family.
Bastards. People that break into my house and start screaming profanities at me and my kids should be taken out back and shot. Defending myself and family against these insane maniacs may not be perfect, but it's a start.
Really dude, If you are going to make an analogy, you could at least get close...
Sending of spam would NOT be protected: you are forcnig others to pay for your advertising. Kinda like if bulk snail mail came postage due and I HAD to pay for that bulk mail to get any mail at all.
Your right to free speech ends at my door. SPAM is forced down our throats by random people who disguise themselves as friends, pick the lock on the door, barge into my living room, and start yelling their ads at me, then steal money out of my wallet before leaving. Where the hell are MY rights????
Advertisers have all the rights they need to advertise on websites, billboards, magazines, radio, TV, etc. They DON'T have a right to steal others resources & my resources, lie about who they are, circumvent my filters, etc.
Spam is NOT about free speach - it's about theft and fraud.
So instead of using the expensive locked down burning software, use open source software instead. cdrecord for unix works with just about every drive made, and even has DVD-RAM/RW support. With the plethora of GUI interfaces to cdrecord (and companion utilities such as rippers, MP3 encoders), why use that commercial crap?
First, you failed to respond to the fact that we don't effectivly HAVE a hiearchy due to the fact that it is basically flat. How many.com's also have the.net and.org? A good chunk. For the ones that don't there is continual confusion by users on which one is the one they really want... Everyone is mishmashed in.net,.com, and.org. There is NO standards on who can register under which zone (their used to be, but NSI stopped enforcing them years ago as the.com space became overcrowded.) (Also note that I am deliberatly ignoring.us which is SO fscked up that its use is quite limited - usually schools and local governments.)
If the current taxonomy works, how come EVERYONE including ICANN is trying to change it? (Of course ICANN's version sucks, but that's beside the point.) I believe you are confusing the term taxonomy with hiearchy - they are different.
Basically you can improve the taxonomy and hiearchy at the same time. You do this by increasing the width of the structure in an organized manor.
Let me try plain english.
Let's say you have two libraries. One lumps all books into fiction or non-fiction, children or adult. No other organization is performed. This is much like the current ICANN taxonomy.
The other library is the traditional library, and also has fiction, non-fiction, children's and adult, but also sorts by author, topic, etc. based on the type of book. Fiction may be divided into romance, sci-fi, mystery, etc. But wait! There's more! Modern libraries now have tapes, videos, CD's etc. The old taxonomoy had to be modified and expanded to handle this. Same goes for the internet.
Adding.biz is basically like the first library adding a "Fiction part 2" category as their collection expands rather than breaking it down like the traditional library. This is why the current taxonomy is broken.
So if you re-read my last post, my ideas were in the hundreds or thousands of TLD's - not infinite. I would also like to see the registration system enhanced to handle a multi-level hiearchy as opposed to the two level current system (which is mostly the single level.com dump we have today.)
Your point misses the point, and is not in line with the facts. It does NOT cost $35 / year to keep the slashdot.org dns entry working. There are Massive economies of scale involved, and everything is automated. ICANN has given NSI the ability to rake in massive amounts of cash for delivering VERY little. The registrar business is VERY VERY profitable.
As for your lecture: how is the flat.com space hierarchical?
And.biz and.info will fix this how?
So the addition of.restaurant.music.games.news.personal will screwup the hierarchy and efficency in what way? What "technical" barrier in DNS limits TLD's to 200 instead of 20000? Why is it OK for 20,000,000 names in.com?????
BTW, I'm QUITE well versed in DNS, thank you. Are you? The taxonomy of the current DNS system is BRAINDEAD. It made sense when there were hundreds of sites on the net. When there are millions, it is TOTALLY BROKEN as it does NOT efficiently organize names. Even if ICANN added 20 new TLD's, it DOESN'T FIX THE PROBLEM OF HAVING A SHITTY TAXONOMY.
Listen to you new boss and learn. He obviously does "get it".
One.
If the developers don't perform, they don't get paid. I don't pay people to play games, watch movies, etc. I pay them to code. If they want to play games and watch movies, they can do so on their own time. I don't require my guys to work massive overtime - a regular 9-5 day (w/ flextime) is plenty. Tired programmers are useless. People need to be away from work to get useful downtime, be with their families / friends.
Two.
MIS's job is NOT to keep people "happy", its job is to provide technology and resources to business units. You try not to piss people off to much in the process, but by nature (enforcing policies / security,) you do.
Three.
Serious programmers don't need games, free soda, movies, etc. to "keep them happy." They need challenges, projects that are rewarding, a sense of ownership, the ability to expand their skills, recognition by peers. Wouldn't you rather have a great sense of pride in your product, with a bonus tied to that products success? Or do you get your kicks by acting like a school-yard child?
Bottom line:
A programmer playing games, surfing for p0rn, and watching movies is not doing very much programming is he?
"Do the math."
So I'm not saying that managers should be slave drivers, but they should NOT be baby sitters either. Managers should treat their people with respect, but also should expect that their employees actually produce what their being paid to produce.
This dot-com trend of treating your valuable assets like children (although, granted that some of them act like children) is goofy, and doesn't really help you recruit qualified experienced professionals. While there is no data to support it, you can't help but wonder how many companies wouldn't have failed if their people were more productive and they didn't spend massive amounts of money on toys, parties, overpriced computers (with 3D and DVD), etc. I think I would rather work hard and be paid a decent salery than play games and then get laid off... wouldn't you?
The internet started as a cooperation between the military and educational institutions. These are not "for profit" organizations. The fact that the internic turned into network solutions was an abomination.
Network Solutions turned an infinate resource, attached (enforced) arbitrary artificial limits on it, and started charging for this false scarcity. It's like saying that all names of cities must end in "y" or "p" - no other letters are acceptable. Further more, all cities must pay NSI $50 or their city won't be listed on any maps.
ICANN / Netsol should all be put in the pokey. This is extortion. Organized crime. Racketeering.
Not exactly. Pairgain is also the NAME of a company that makes DSL products. I believe they originally got their name from the fact that they could deliver a T1 (which normally uses 2 pair) over a single pair using SDSL technology, and do this without repeaters (as long as you are within the length restrictions.) The result is that a telco with facilities shortages can recover additional lines for other uses by replacing traditional T1 boxes (not likely in reality, although most telcos have gone to this route for new installs.)
Parigain was bought by ADC.
The traditional problem with fiber / copper, and some copper / copper systems is that the telco has a massive investment in DLC infrastructure. DLC's are basically muxes that traditionally split a T1 into 24 voice channels in a box on a pole (more lines with fiber.) These systems were put in place during the era when modems and home fax machines were really getting a foothold. Neighborhoods were wired for 30 lines for every 25 homes. When people started putting in 2, 3, and more lines, the telcos were scrambling to find ways to provision them. Hence, DLC's.
For more info, just search google for "DLC phone line".
Frankly, the amount of foot dragging going on in facility upgrades by ILEC's really pisses me off. There is NO reason that the telcos are not upgrading facilities to handle fiber / copper, extended distance DSL, etc. They are taking the easy way out and just doing normal DSL. The FCC / PUC's REALLY screwed up when they allowed the telcos to sell a product that only a few could get. They should have required that the telcos upgrade facilities for ALL customers within X years of first DSL deployment.
Time to bypass ICANN, the Department of Commerce, and any other organization that thinks they can artificially create scarcity where no such scarcity exists. There is NO technical reason why there can't be MILLIONS of TLD's.
How can this monopoly be bypassed?
Simple.
Bind needs to be configured to have a different set of name servers for the default root zone. All distributions of Linux, IBM, HP, Sun, SGI, Apple, Microsoft, etc. should use the new set of zone servers in thier DNS server software configs. ICANN will be effectivly ignored, and everyone will be happy (Well, except for Verisign (network solutions) and thier cronies.)
Why should the major OS vendors support this?
I think Microsoft would LOVE to have the.microsoft root zone. Ditto for all the other manufacturers.
I would like to see redhat.linux, debian.linux, etc.
It would be nice to have all the p0rn secured at.xxx,.adult,.sex too. then we don't have issues like whitehouse.com.
The new TLD group can enforce a REASONABLE set of policies including anti-squatting, require a minimum number of e-signatures for new TLD's (with some exceptions) etc.
While it's not reasonable to flush out a full plan in this post, it's doable. While it may not be perfect, it would be a HELL of a lot better than what we have now...
Slashdot Mirror
... where the "first post" brain damage comes from.
All your examples are meaningless. An insane award by a jury has NOTHING AT ALL to do with the DMCA. I do agree with you about this kind of award being a bad thing for consumers in the long run, but DMCA was not created because of these lawsuits.
The DMCA has ALL to do with big business bribing government into writting any legislation they want. The fact that most people are sheep, and are totally disinterested in ANYTHING going on outside their own pathetic little lives has Everything to do with the fact that these corrupt congressmen are in office.
Are you kidding? It's SOOO much easier to abuse a forigner than a US citizen... After all, most US citizens don't give a rats ass if a russian is imprisoned for speaking and thinking.
Jailing a prof would cause an outcry that would actually cause the law to be tossed out. We can't have that...
Those beta testers must only surf p0rn sites or something...
Try downloading staroffice from Sun, or browsing CNN, NYTimes, or any other major site. Crashola / bugcity. Mozilla suffers too. NS 4.7 still works much better.
- Use the (cough) security features of 802.11 . This keeps out the casuals.
- Don't put the base station right on your network, plug it into a port on your firewall.
- Program the firewall to only allow VPN connections through that port.
This basically means that you HAVE to use VPN software to do anything on your network. Note that this does NOT stop anyone from browsing your open shares on your laptop, but anyone with that kind of insecure setup is asking for it anyway.If the code is truly ugly, a competant person would question WHY the code is so ugly, and decide not to work for you. The "tribunal" is a way to find how people react under certain types of stress, but tends to alienate good potential candidates. If their job is to be routinly in a tribunal like setting (sales engineer), it may be appropriate, but for a sysadmin? Please.
Not so fast. In the US, you can drive around with a crowbar, screwdriver and hammer and therefore be in possesion of "burlary tools" - and be arrested.
Happened to a friend of mine a number of years ago - cop had a bad attitude.
When recordable DVD's come down in price and up in density, then VHS may eventually go away. Don't hold your breath.
So, why are you ignoring the "fair use" argument? Not all copies are for devious uses.
Think "Time Shift."
Nobody is "losing money" on time shift. Advertisers still pay for commercials, content providers still get the gazillios of $$$.
What is the problem?
I'm not sure what world your from, but the one I live on is a big magnet. Now kids, what happens is that information on ALL magnetic media degrades over time due to "The Big Magnet" and particles of one orientation being next to particles of another. 20 years is about max.
Issue 2: the recording quality on analog magnetic tapes sucks compared to CD.
Issue 3: tapes play back by CONTACT with the playback head which means WEAR.
Issue 4: damge due to improper handling != bad product - CD's hold up when treated with care, tapes won't no matter what you do.
ENEL (sp?) is implementing Echelon's power-line control network to link-up every household in Italy for remote power management / meter reading.
This technology is Proven. It works. It's available now.
www.echelon.com
See http://www.echelon.com whose open LonWorks protocol / spec works VERY well, and works with all worldwide power specs.
X-10 is the stone-wheel of powerline communications technology.
Have you ever heard of a proxy server?
Nuf said.
Bastards. People that break into my house and start screaming profanities at me and my kids should be taken out back and shot. Defending myself and family against these insane maniacs may not be perfect, but it's a start.
Really dude, If you are going to make an analogy, you could at least get close...
Hotmail is in california, sitting about 20 feet from my server.
Sending of spam would NOT be protected: you are forcnig others to pay for your advertising. Kinda like if bulk snail mail came postage due and I HAD to pay for that bulk mail to get any mail at all.
Your right to free speech ends at my door. SPAM is forced down our throats by random people who disguise themselves as friends, pick the lock on the door, barge into my living room, and start yelling their ads at me, then steal money out of my wallet before leaving. Where the hell are MY rights????
Advertisers have all the rights they need to advertise on websites, billboards, magazines, radio, TV, etc. They DON'T have a right to steal others resources & my resources, lie about who they are, circumvent my filters, etc.
Spam is NOT about free speach - it's about theft and fraud.
So instead of using the expensive locked down burning software, use open source software instead. cdrecord for unix works with just about every drive made, and even has DVD-RAM/RW support. With the plethora of GUI interfaces to cdrecord (and companion utilities such as rippers, MP3 encoders), why use that commercial crap?
- "Use the Source, Luke!"
First, you failed to respond to the fact that we don't effectivly HAVE a hiearchy due to the fact that it is basically flat. How many .com's also have the .net and .org? A good chunk. For the ones that don't there is continual confusion by users on which one is the one they really want... Everyone is mishmashed in .net, .com, and .org. There is NO standards on who can register under which zone (their used to be, but NSI stopped enforcing them years ago as the .com space became overcrowded.) (Also note that I am deliberatly ignoring .us which is SO fscked up that its use is quite limited - usually schools and local governments.)
.biz is basically like the first library adding a "Fiction part 2" category as their collection expands rather than breaking it down like the traditional library. This is why the current taxonomy is broken.
.com dump we have today.)
If the current taxonomy works, how come EVERYONE including ICANN is trying to change it? (Of course ICANN's version sucks, but that's beside the point.) I believe you are confusing the term taxonomy with hiearchy - they are different.
Basically you can improve the taxonomy and hiearchy at the same time. You do this by increasing the width of the structure in an organized manor.
Let me try plain english.
Let's say you have two libraries. One lumps all books into fiction or non-fiction, children or adult. No other organization is performed. This is much like the current ICANN taxonomy.
The other library is the traditional library, and also has fiction, non-fiction, children's and adult, but also sorts by author, topic, etc. based on the type of book. Fiction may be divided into romance, sci-fi, mystery, etc. But wait! There's more! Modern libraries now have tapes, videos, CD's etc. The old taxonomoy had to be modified and expanded to handle this. Same goes for the internet.
Adding
So if you re-read my last post, my ideas were in the hundreds or thousands of TLD's - not infinite. I would also like to see the registration system enhanced to handle a multi-level hiearchy as opposed to the two level current system (which is mostly the single level
Your point misses the point, and is not in line with the facts. It does NOT cost $35 / year to keep the slashdot.org dns entry working. There are Massive economies of scale involved, and everything is automated. ICANN has given NSI the ability to rake in massive amounts of cash for delivering VERY little. The registrar business is VERY VERY profitable.
.com space hierarchical?
.biz and .info will fix this how?
.restaurant .music .games .news .personal will screwup the hierarchy and efficency in what way? What "technical" barrier in DNS limits TLD's to 200 instead of 20000? Why is it OK for 20,000,000 names in .com?????
As for your lecture: how is the flat
And
So the addition of
BTW, I'm QUITE well versed in DNS, thank you. Are you? The taxonomy of the current DNS system is BRAINDEAD. It made sense when there were hundreds of sites on the net. When there are millions, it is TOTALLY BROKEN as it does NOT efficiently organize names. Even if ICANN added 20 new TLD's, it DOESN'T FIX THE PROBLEM OF HAVING A SHITTY TAXONOMY.
Listen to you new boss and learn. He obviously does "get it".
One.
If the developers don't perform, they don't get paid. I don't pay people to play games, watch movies, etc. I pay them to code. If they want to play games and watch movies, they can do so on their own time. I don't require my guys to work massive overtime - a regular 9-5 day (w/ flextime) is plenty. Tired programmers are useless. People need to be away from work to get useful downtime, be with their families / friends.
Two.
MIS's job is NOT to keep people "happy", its job is to provide technology and resources to business units. You try not to piss people off to much in the process, but by nature (enforcing policies / security,) you do.
Three.
Serious programmers don't need games, free soda, movies, etc. to "keep them happy." They need challenges, projects that are rewarding, a sense of ownership, the ability to expand their skills, recognition by peers. Wouldn't you rather have a great sense of pride in your product, with a bonus tied to that products success? Or do you get your kicks by acting like a school-yard child?
Bottom line:
A programmer playing games, surfing for p0rn, and watching movies is not doing very much programming is he?
"Do the math."
So I'm not saying that managers should be slave drivers, but they should NOT be baby sitters either. Managers should treat their people with respect, but also should expect that their employees actually produce what their being paid to produce.
This dot-com trend of treating your valuable assets like children (although, granted that some of them act like children) is goofy, and doesn't really help you recruit qualified experienced professionals. While there is no data to support it, you can't help but wonder how many companies wouldn't have failed if their people were more productive and they didn't spend massive amounts of money on toys, parties, overpriced computers (with 3D and DVD), etc. I think I would rather work hard and be paid a decent salery than play games and then get laid off... wouldn't you?
Where the hell did that info come from?????
The internet started as a cooperation between the military and educational institutions. These are not "for profit" organizations. The fact that the internic turned into network solutions was an abomination.
Network Solutions turned an infinate resource, attached (enforced) arbitrary artificial limits on it, and started charging for this false scarcity. It's like saying that all names of cities must end in "y" or "p" - no other letters are acceptable. Further more, all cities must pay NSI $50 or their city won't be listed on any maps.
ICANN / Netsol should all be put in the pokey. This is extortion. Organized crime. Racketeering.
Not exactly. Pairgain is also the NAME of a company that makes DSL products. I believe they originally got their name from the fact that they could deliver a T1 (which normally uses 2 pair) over a single pair using SDSL technology, and do this without repeaters (as long as you are within the length restrictions.) The result is that a telco with facilities shortages can recover additional lines for other uses by replacing traditional T1 boxes (not likely in reality, although most telcos have gone to this route for new installs.)
Parigain was bought by ADC.
The traditional problem with fiber / copper, and some copper / copper systems is that the telco has a massive investment in DLC infrastructure. DLC's are basically muxes that traditionally split a T1 into 24 voice channels in a box on a pole (more lines with fiber.) These systems were put in place during the era when modems and home fax machines were really getting a foothold. Neighborhoods were wired for 30 lines for every 25 homes. When people started putting in 2, 3, and more lines, the telcos were scrambling to find ways to provision them. Hence, DLC's.
For more info, just search google for "DLC phone line".
Frankly, the amount of foot dragging going on in facility upgrades by ILEC's really pisses me off. There is NO reason that the telcos are not upgrading facilities to handle fiber / copper, extended distance DSL, etc. They are taking the easy way out and just doing normal DSL. The FCC / PUC's REALLY screwed up when they allowed the telcos to sell a product that only a few could get. They should have required that the telcos upgrade facilities for ALL customers within X years of first DSL deployment.
Yup. Fully aware of alternic. Alternic failed because it did not have the support of OS vendors. This is what needs to change.
Time to bypass ICANN, the Department of Commerce, and any other organization that thinks they can artificially create scarcity where no such scarcity exists. There is NO technical reason why there can't be MILLIONS of TLD's.
.microsoft root zone. Ditto for all the other manufacturers.
.xxx, .adult, .sex too. then we don't have issues like whitehouse.com.
How can this monopoly be bypassed?
Simple.
Bind needs to be configured to have a different set of name servers for the default root zone. All distributions of Linux, IBM, HP, Sun, SGI, Apple, Microsoft, etc. should use the new set of zone servers in thier DNS server software configs. ICANN will be effectivly ignored, and everyone will be happy (Well, except for Verisign (network solutions) and thier cronies.)
Why should the major OS vendors support this?
I think Microsoft would LOVE to have the
I would like to see redhat.linux, debian.linux, etc.
It would be nice to have all the p0rn secured at
The new TLD group can enforce a REASONABLE set of policies including anti-squatting, require a minimum number of e-signatures for new TLD's (with some exceptions) etc.
While it's not reasonable to flush out a full plan in this post, it's doable. While it may not be perfect, it would be a HELL of a lot better than what we have now...