The theory is that if you decide now to buy/sell a certain number of shares in six months time then you do not now have market sensitive confidential information which will still be confidential that far in the future.
The other risk is that you time announcements, already knowing when you are going to buy/sell shares. That is not insider dealing, but may be a fraud.
Of course SCO planned these things at least a year in advance. Too bad they could not have planed their product line so deftly instead.:P
While I agree with much of what you've said, I have to disagree that "there WAS advance notice".
If you shout your plans into a hole in the ground, that does not comprise advance notice. And since Verisign clearly can't tell assholes from holes in the ground, telling ICANN is... oh never mind.
I have been a DNS admin for well over a decade (I have a 3-character NIC handle) and they sure as hell didn't send me any advance notice!
What if your plans are on display at the planning office in the basement, in a locked filing cabinet located in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard'?
I don't know; it works pretty well inside MS Office, and copying from various apps and pasting to Office applications often works pretty well.
That's not what they were talking about, though. I copy and paste in X all the time and it works better than windows; it is far more intuitive and powerful. However they were talking about things like copying the icon for a sound file and pasting that sound file into a word document, and similar stuff like embedding excel spreadsheets in word documents...
Like some of those above, I have seen this work to some degree, and it is mildly amusing, but not truly useful, especially since it does actually caus problems and does not work reliably. I have seen objects embedded in a document or email become flat pictures and all sorts of other madness. And accessing the data was also far more resource intensive than launching the apps seperately, much less simply putting all the data into one damn document and having done. Embedding docs from various apps has always been a MS toy that just serves to frustrate people more than it ever provides any use.
I've gotten 4 viruses in the last month. I protect my Windows box with everything I can, yet I still get infected every once and a while.
Well the person above is either not running windows, or is one of those people who claims they run Windows 95 with no virus protection but never get viruses. How they think they can magically know they don't have viruses without ever scanning is beyond me...
... but, really, is it gimp with a soft g as in gin or a hard one as in git? Anyone?
Note: there seems to be no agreement here, but I'd assume the users' community (or better the project's developers) would have it right - I'm not trying to start a war.
I have always pronounced it with a hard G, both becase it is the G(uh)nu Image Manipulation Program and because the word gimp is pronounced that way. That said, it is yet another example of why the free software movement suffers from poor marketing. Gimp is a *very* politically incorrect term with derogatory connotations. I don't understand why they chose that acronym..
Where's Darl McBride on the top 50? I'd say he's pretty influential right now. Look at him, he has the UNIX world groveling before him!
According to legend, when Apple became a corporation and therefore employees had to be numbered, there wasa disagreement between Wozniak and Jobs over who to be number 1 which was settled by making Woz number 1 and Jobs number 0. Now it is Darl's turn to be 0.:) Fitting isn't it?
"If it wasn't for the presence of Lara Croft and Xena Warrior Princess, techies around the world would have posters of Torvalds on their walls."
But I DO have posters of Torvlads on my walls:(
Besides, they clearly displayed their cluelessness by not listing Carrie Ann Moss and Natalie Portman, who enjoy an almost exclusively geek following and great popularity therein....
Secret URLs do exist -- either URLs with session data in them (for people with cookies disabled), URLs with passwords, or secret locations. Many more of the URLs you visit can be used to identify you. You will likely be the person most frequently Googling for your own name, and your user name might at various sites might be part of a URL.
Googling for your own name? What an egotistical schmuck! If you do that, you deserve what you get!:P
The question was not whether every patent was valid. That is an absurd standard. The question is whether a patent mentioned on slashdot is actually vulnerable to the prior art claims that a bunch of slashdot posters come up with, apparently off the top of their head.
Patent examiners are expected to examine patents, not grant them. As for their failure to recognize prior art, I would be much more impressed if a licensed member of the patent bar described the invalidity of a patent rather than some Lotus engineer. The legal definition of "prior art" is not a subject of engineering, but a subject of law.
I certainly never claimed to have read the patent more carefully than anyone on slashdot. I never claimed to have read the patent at all. I was simply making a statement that almost all slashdot discussions on patents and "prior art" fail to reach the threshold of "worth considering."
Fair enough. But it seemed to me you were asserting that this patent in particular was certainly valid, and your point about a patent being about the claims seemed to advocate closer reading of the patent claims. It seems hypocritical to me that someone would call into question the fact that slashdot called into question this particular patent, state boldly that despite the many citations of prior art the litmus test has to do with specific claims in the patent which slashdotters clearly have not read, but not read the patent him/herself.
My point is that saying the patent is valid because the PTO said so is a terrible position. Clearly the USPTO is a human institution and therefore capable of making mistakes, especially since they are an overworked and underfunded institution. I get the feeling you have not read the patent claims yourself which is an odd thing for someone defending the patent to do...
Actually, I *do* have a reason to believe that the patent is not covered in prior art/obvious, etc. The PTO granted the damn patent, hence, they had to convince a patent examiner.
The burden of proof for prior art to invalidate a patent would require a detailed examination of the patent in question, and a detailed discussion of the "obvious" nature of the method given the prior art. But nobody provides that. They just say "oh, my copier was phoning the vendor in 1938, must be prior art. PTO is fucked up." No detail at all, no sign of having any clue about the patent other than the one sentence given in the article summary.
Now, I could just assume that the patent office is totally broken, patent examiners are moronic crack smokers, or whatever, so the majority of patents are actually invalid. Then, any patent that comes along will have a greater than 50% chance of being prior art, obvious, or whatever, and I could then start with the slashdot community's default assumption.
I'm guessing that most people on Slashdot *do* believe the patent system is broken, but only because they read enough purported examples on Slashdot to convince themselves. A bit of a circular argument, isn't it?
So your sole argument is that government agencies are infallible and slashdot is full of shit? I was hoping for something a bit more insightful than that, perhaps even directly pertaining to the patent in question, but then by your own admission expecting such things on slashdot is sheer madness.
Slashdot is not the only publication decrying the current state of the PTO. In fact years before slashdot was a gleam in commander taco's eye there was outrage over Compton's multimedia patent and even before this a number of stories about problems in the patent office had been written in the tech press. There is probably not a publication in the industry that has not weighed in on the side of reform.
The main problem is that the metrics patent examiners are given are soley based on how many patents they grant, and they are expected to grant a lot of them. There is very little budget, and almost no emphasis at all (certainly no incentive) for the search for prior art. Even then the search was mainly confined to looking through old patents using a paper filing system. Some computerization has occurred over the last decade, but not nearly enough, and again if the prior use of the technology was considered too obvious for a patent by its creators it likely won't get caught at all. So it's not all slahdot hysteria. There are real problems.
Did you miss the article in which the recent plugin patent was debunked at length by an engineer from lotus who went through the patent claim by claim in his report as he showed prior art in Notes? Clearly this at least was a situation slashdot was not wrong about, despite the fact this case has been before at least one judge already and Microsoft' attorneys trying to refute the patent in addition to the "due diligence" of the PTO.
Another problme which has been pointed to is that the patent examiners themselves are not knowlegable in the art of the patents they are examining. To be fair, I don't think anyone besides some kind of superhuman could be knowlegable enough to truly vet the kinds of patents put out today, and even then they would have to be awful charitable to put up with the niggardly salaries and constant abuse of the PTO, not to mention the constant downsizing.
But let's get back to the subject at hand. You made the claim that you had read the patent more carefully than anyone else on slashdot and understood the claims therefore. I asked you directly where you could point to claims in this patent which are not covered by the plethora of technologies described in this article, and you gave me your sorry excuse for an argument. PLease educate us here; don't hold back. If you know more than we do about this patent and know somehow that the claims are indeed novel please explain how and why you feel this way about it.
pretty much every major hollywood release is cheesy. especially when they release it simultaneously around the world to prevent spoilers of the completely predictable plot twists.
And here I thought it was to prevent Slashdotters from including a bittorent link to the movie in the anouncement of the movie's US release;)...
He just doesn't know any better. When you grow up in New Jersey/New York, you think that that is all of the world that there is. They haven't figured out that big hair died 15 years ago, and that culture is a word.
I for one welcome our new east coast big haired chick overlords.:)
That makes no sense. If you really wanted to go to that first show, you'd have to dress up like a poor version of Neo out of the salvation army. You'd also have to get a light saber and some hairy hobbit feet and show up at the theater 2 weeks in advance. Then, to show your dedication to the hollywood machine, you'd camp out there on the cold hard concrete in a pile of vomit and urine alongside all the homeless people. Entertainment would be staged Trinity vs. Obi wan kenobi duels refereed by Bilbo and heartfelt performances of fan fiction by overweight people wearing leather and have for some reason never discovered a razor. After leaving society for a fortnight and subsisting solely on the leftover popcorn that people have handed you in your sorry state, you'd get word through someone that you've been fired because you havent been to work for a while. What do you care, you're going to be the first to see "The One Star Matrix - Extra Super (tm)." Finally, the day has arrived and as you run into the theater cheering you feel complete. 3 hours later, you're on slashdot saying "The movie sucked" picking with biblical detail on all the minutae that really didnt matter at all to the gist of the movie.
Meanwhile, I've recently gotten promoted since for some reason I was the only one showing up to work. Then on release day I head to the theater about 15 hours after you leave it walk up, buy a ticket to watch an entertaining movie in the comfort that I am not lame.
That would be the funniest thing I have read in awhile on this subject if it weren't so sadly accurate. Of course, this is also why I rarely watch movies on release day. I in fact try to wait until the last week the movie is showing to avoid as many lamers as I can and watch with as few people as possible in order to get a decent seat. Of course I rarely watch movies in the theatre, as I prefer to watch movies at home on DVD. Unless the movie actually makes use of the wide screen in some way there is little point for me.
I think if I ever get round to building a decent home theatre system I may even watch less movies in the theatre than I do now, which isn't very much.
First off, Merril Lynch is basically telling Sun "Hire our consultants or you will get bought out" in this open letter. And who are they to advise anyone about how to run their business anymore after all the shenanighans they were up to in the 90's (and got caught)!
For some time now, I've wondered if it is feasible to make all open relays illegal within a jurisdiction. For example, can the US make all American open relays illegal?
I understand that it will not stop spam, but every bit helps, plus it makes it easier to filter out spam when it does come.
It the very least, this shoudl merit some kind of civil liability. Open relays are a result of a lack of due diligence, pure and simple.
"(they'll just send the spam from another country you idiots!)."
Why don't people get this? It seems pretty simple to me.
I think most anti-spam efforts cause more harm than good. The reason we get spam is because it is profitable. Antispam measures such as blackholing only raise the bar high enough to keep out the laziest of spammers thus making it more profitable for the most sleazy and organized spammers.
If it were SO EASY to send spam that anyone could do it, it would drive out the serious players and leave only amateurs, who are easily dealt with--Bayesian filters, etc.
All the blood, sweat, and tears that have gone into anti-spam efforts have had NO EFFECT. I still get dozens of spams every week. I just don't have to see them thanks to Bayesian Filtering.
The solution to the spam problem is not more rules and regulations by ISP's and governments. The solution is economic. If professional spamming is not profitable, then there will be no professional spammmers.
First off, according to the EU most spam comes from the US. This makes sense when you see Congress recent attempts at "anti spam" legisllation that actually legislate that I must receive spam. They are being paid off by US spammers.
My solution is the only way we are going to get rid of spam forever, and it is as dead simple as it is ruthless. First, the US should pass laws against spamming that include heavy fines and jailtime. The fines wouldhelp finance part two, and these laws should be propogated much as the uS has been propogating their bad laws.
Next, to counteract the obvious solution of spammers running elsewhere, etc. If any ISP allows spammers to nest in their place of business then they get blocked by the border routers of every ISP in the US. There would be a list of blocked IPs and it would be mandatory for every US ISP to use it. This means NO traffic from that ISP gets to servers in the US until they get rid of Mr. Spammer. The ISPs are the real culprit here because they allow spammers to buy accounts with them and refuse to get rid of them. Therefore we punish the ISP in the best way possible, monetarily.
This would rapidly lead to a situation where ISPs would not want to have spammers because their customers could not reach the US where all the money is. After all, most people in the world will want to access US websites, and most foreign businesses will want US citizens to be able to shop at their sites. Even the spammers know most of the money for them is in the US. This is why I think it woudl work, and if it did not work to get rid of spam completely, it would certainly eliminate the costs of spam in the US.
There are some programs that let you choose how to deal with spam and save you bandwidth. (like the one in my sig)
No program saves the bandwidth watsed on the internet by the spam itself. The closest we can come is by blackholing the spam networks right on the routers, dropping any packets from those sources. Even then there will be some impact from their spams.
To think that just those guilty of mass spam are to be the only victims of such law being applied is to think that innocent people don't go to jail. Naive and, frankly, stupid.
Whatever! We aren't talking about some random crime here. Spam is one of very few crimes in which it is dead simple to provide absolute proof of actual guilt. It is completely traceable and once you find the spammer him/herself the evidence is readily available in great detail. I honestly cannot see how you could even suggest innocent people could be caught spamming.
Open source is not free. The cost to your boss for running open source software is the time it takes for you to support it. He also needs you, or someone like you, to make sure that his systems keep running etc. This is why many companies shy away from open source solutions, the perceived lack of support.
Ah but that is such a complete canard anyway. The price of Microsoft products is hundreds of dollars per desktop (more if you include the extra hardware needed) plus the cost of the time it takes for the employee to support it. I mean really are you trying to tell me that Windows requires no maintenance, no patching, no setup, no installation, no support? Magic software it is!
Then there is the cost of regular BSA audits and/or contracts in excess of the number of machines you own despite the fact you have OEM licensing by force for every mahcine anyway. They never count that in those TCO equations, do they?:P
I don't know who coined the ridiculous phrase "free as in beer" 'cause it just isn't true!
Maybe for you because no one likes you. Seriously free beer is pretty damn common, especially at parties. It is not free for the host, this is true, but it is free (gratis).
There are also all kinds of events where you can get free beer because free beer is a good way to attract people. Aso there are tours of breweries which are often free and come with many "samples."
I really don't get people's obsession with beer either. It tastes awful -- when I hear someone say one beer tastes better than another, it reminds me of our political system where you get to choose the less evil of the two scum sucking bureaucrats. All beer tastes like piss, just some are slightly more tolerable than others (and yet this topic sparks endless, pointless debates).
I used to think this, but then I tried non-American beers. For some reason US breweries seem to think that beer is supposed to taste the same before and after it is run through the body. Wih the rise of microbreweries, this has been changing. But the big breweries still make piss-beer.
Then again, probably much like piss, you can accquire a taste even for the bad beer if you really, really try. Free beer is often the piss tasting variety because people generally do not give away much of the expensive kind.
Slashdot Mirror
The theory is that if you decide now to buy/sell a certain number of shares in six months time then you do not now have market sensitive confidential information which will still be confidential that far in the future.
The other risk is that you time announcements, already knowing when you are going to buy/sell shares. That is not insider dealing, but may be a fraud.
Of course SCO planned these things at least a year in advance. Too bad they could not have planed their product line so deftly instead. :P
"--Bacon"
I wouldn't listen to what Bacon has to say.
Is that because his former roomate's aunt's poolboy dumped your sister?
While I agree with much of what you've said, I have to disagree that "there WAS advance notice".
If you shout your plans into a hole in the ground, that does not comprise advance notice. And since Verisign clearly can't tell assholes from holes in the ground, telling ICANN is... oh never mind.
I have been a DNS admin for well over a decade (I have a 3-character NIC handle) and they sure as hell didn't send me any advance notice!
What if your plans are on display at the planning office in the basement, in a locked filing cabinet located in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard'?
SecurityFocus fires Scott Granneman for his anti Microsoft comments after disavowing all connection with his statements. :)
I don't know; it works pretty well inside MS Office, and copying from various apps and pasting to Office applications often works pretty well.
That's not what they were talking about, though. I copy and paste in X all the time and it works better than windows; it is far more intuitive and powerful. However they were talking about things like copying the icon for a sound file and pasting that sound file into a word document, and similar stuff like embedding excel spreadsheets in word documents...
Like some of those above, I have seen this work to some degree, and it is mildly amusing, but not truly useful, especially since it does actually caus problems and does not work reliably. I have seen objects embedded in a document or email become flat pictures and all sorts of other madness. And accessing the data was also far more resource intensive than launching the apps seperately, much less simply putting all the data into one damn document and having done. Embedding docs from various apps has always been a MS toy that just serves to frustrate people more than it ever provides any use.
Really?
I've gotten 4 viruses in the last month. I protect my Windows box with everything I can, yet I still get infected every once and a while.
Well the person above is either not running windows, or is one of those people who claims they run Windows 95 with no virus protection but never get viruses. How they think they can magically know they don't have viruses without ever scanning is beyond me...
Anyone?
Note: there seems to be no agreement here, but I'd assume the users' community (or better the project's developers) would have it right - I'm not trying to start a war.
I have always pronounced it with a hard G, both becase it is the G(uh)nu Image Manipulation Program and because the word gimp is pronounced that way. That said, it is yet another example of why the free software movement suffers from poor marketing. Gimp is a *very* politically incorrect term with derogatory connotations. I don't understand why they chose that acronym..
As an interesting aside, the writer of the Sobig virus even makes it in at Number 42..."
So the answer to life the universe and everything is a Windows worm? Somehow it is all very clear to me now... :)
Where's Darl McBride on the top 50? I'd say he's pretty influential right now. Look at him, he has the UNIX world groveling before him!
According to legend, when Apple became a corporation and therefore employees had to be numbered, there wasa disagreement between Wozniak and Jobs over who to be number 1 which was settled by making Woz number 1 and Jobs number 0. Now it is Darl's turn to be 0. :) Fitting isn't it?
"If it wasn't for the presence of Lara Croft and Xena Warrior Princess, techies around the world would have posters of Torvalds on their walls."
But I DO have posters of Torvlads on my walls :(
Besides, they clearly displayed their cluelessness by not listing Carrie Ann Moss and Natalie Portman, who enjoy an almost exclusively geek following and great popularity therein....
Secret URLs do exist -- either URLs with session data in them (for people with cookies disabled), URLs with passwords, or secret locations. Many more of the URLs you visit can be used to identify you. You will likely be the person most frequently Googling for your own name, and your user name might at various sites might be part of a URL.
Googling for your own name? What an egotistical schmuck! If you do that, you deserve what you get! :P
The question was not whether every patent was valid. That is an absurd standard. The question is whether a patent mentioned on slashdot is actually vulnerable to the prior art claims that a bunch of slashdot posters come up with, apparently off the top of their head.
Patent examiners are expected to examine patents, not grant them. As for their failure to recognize prior art, I would be much more impressed if a licensed member of the patent bar described the invalidity of a patent rather than some Lotus engineer. The legal definition of "prior art" is not a subject of engineering, but a subject of law.
I certainly never claimed to have read the patent more carefully than anyone on slashdot. I never claimed to have read the patent at all. I was simply making a statement that almost all slashdot discussions on patents and "prior art" fail to reach the threshold of "worth considering."
Fair enough. But it seemed to me you were asserting that this patent in particular was certainly valid, and your point about a patent being about the claims seemed to advocate closer reading of the patent claims. It seems hypocritical to me that someone would call into question the fact that slashdot called into question this particular patent, state boldly that despite the many citations of prior art the litmus test has to do with specific claims in the patent which slashdotters clearly have not read, but not read the patent him/herself.
My point is that saying the patent is valid because the PTO said so is a terrible position. Clearly the USPTO is a human institution and therefore capable of making mistakes, especially since they are an overworked and underfunded institution. I get the feeling you have not read the patent claims yourself which is an odd thing for someone defending the patent to do...
Actually, I *do* have a reason to believe that the patent is not covered in prior art/obvious, etc. The PTO granted the damn patent, hence, they had to convince a patent examiner.
The burden of proof for prior art to invalidate a patent would require a detailed examination of the patent in question, and a detailed discussion of the "obvious" nature of the method given the prior art. But nobody provides that. They just say "oh, my copier was phoning the vendor in 1938, must be prior art. PTO is fucked up." No detail at all, no sign of having any clue about the patent other than the one sentence given in the article summary.
Now, I could just assume that the patent office is totally broken, patent examiners are moronic crack smokers, or whatever, so the majority of patents are actually invalid. Then, any patent that comes along will have a greater than 50% chance of being prior art, obvious, or whatever, and I could then start with the slashdot community's default assumption.
I'm guessing that most people on Slashdot *do* believe the patent system is broken, but only because they read enough purported examples on Slashdot to convince themselves. A bit of a circular argument, isn't it?
So your sole argument is that government agencies are infallible and slashdot is full of shit? I was hoping for something a bit more insightful than that, perhaps even directly pertaining to the patent in question, but then by your own admission expecting such things on slashdot is sheer madness.
Slashdot is not the only publication decrying the current state of the PTO. In fact years before slashdot was a gleam in commander taco's eye there was outrage over Compton's multimedia patent and even before this a number of stories about problems in the patent office had been written in the tech press. There is probably not a publication in the industry that has not weighed in on the side of reform.
The main problem is that the metrics patent examiners are given are soley based on how many patents they grant, and they are expected to grant a lot of them. There is very little budget, and almost no emphasis at all (certainly no incentive) for the search for prior art. Even then the search was mainly confined to looking through old patents using a paper filing system. Some computerization has occurred over the last decade, but not nearly enough, and again if the prior use of the technology was considered too obvious for a patent by its creators it likely won't get caught at all. So it's not all slahdot hysteria. There are real problems.
Did you miss the article in which the recent plugin patent was debunked at length by an engineer from lotus who went through the patent claim by claim in his report as he showed prior art in Notes? Clearly this at least was a situation slashdot was not wrong about, despite the fact this case has been before at least one judge already and Microsoft' attorneys trying to refute the patent in addition to the "due diligence" of the PTO.
Another problme which has been pointed to is that the patent examiners themselves are not knowlegable in the art of the patents they are examining. To be fair, I don't think anyone besides some kind of superhuman could be knowlegable enough to truly vet the kinds of patents put out today, and even then they would have to be awful charitable to put up with the niggardly salaries and constant abuse of the PTO, not to mention the constant downsizing.
But let's get back to the subject at hand. You made the claim that you had read the patent more carefully than anyone else on slashdot and understood the claims therefore. I asked you directly where you could point to claims in this patent which are not covered by the plethora of technologies described in this article, and you gave me your sorry excuse for an argument. PLease educate us here; don't hold back. If you know more than we do about this patent and know somehow that the claims are indeed novel please explain how and why you feel this way about it.
pretty much every major hollywood release is cheesy. especially when they release it simultaneously around the world to prevent spoilers of the completely predictable plot twists.
And here I thought it was to prevent Slashdotters from including a bittorent link to the movie in the anouncement of the movie's US release ;)...
He just doesn't know any better. When you grow up in New Jersey/New York, you think that that is all of the world that there is. They haven't figured out that big hair died 15 years ago, and that culture is a word.
I for one welcome our new east coast big haired chick overlords. :)
That makes no sense. If you really wanted to go to that first show, you'd have to dress up like a poor version of Neo out of the salvation army. You'd also have to get a light saber and some hairy hobbit feet and show up at the theater 2 weeks in advance. Then, to show your dedication to the hollywood machine, you'd camp out there on the cold hard concrete in a pile of vomit and urine alongside all the homeless people. Entertainment would be staged Trinity vs. Obi wan kenobi duels refereed by Bilbo and heartfelt performances of fan fiction by overweight people wearing leather and have for some reason never discovered a razor. After leaving society for a fortnight and subsisting solely on the leftover popcorn that people have handed you in your sorry state, you'd get word through someone that you've been fired because you havent been to work for a while. What do you care, you're going to be the first to see "The One Star Matrix - Extra Super (tm)." Finally, the day has arrived and as you run into the theater cheering you feel complete. 3 hours later, you're on slashdot saying "The movie sucked" picking with biblical detail on all the minutae that really didnt matter at all to the gist of the movie.
Meanwhile, I've recently gotten promoted since for some reason I was the only one showing up to work. Then on release day I head to the theater about 15 hours after you leave it walk up, buy a ticket to watch an entertaining movie in the comfort that I am not lame.
That would be the funniest thing I have read in awhile on this subject if it weren't so sadly accurate. Of course, this is also why I rarely watch movies on release day. I in fact try to wait until the last week the movie is showing to avoid as many lamers as I can and watch with as few people as possible in order to get a decent seat.
Of course I rarely watch movies in the theatre, as I prefer to watch movies at home on DVD. Unless the movie actually makes use of the wide screen in some way there is little point for me.
I think if I ever get round to building a decent home theatre system I may even watch less movies in the theatre than I do now, which isn't very much.
First off, Merril Lynch is basically telling Sun "Hire our consultants or you will get bought out" in this open letter. And who are they to advise anyone about how to run their business anymore after all the shenanighans they were up to in the 90's (and got caught)!
For some time now, I've wondered if it is feasible to make all open relays illegal within a jurisdiction. For example, can the US make all American open relays illegal?
I understand that it will not stop spam, but every bit helps, plus it makes it easier to filter out spam when it does come.
It the very least, this shoudl merit some kind of civil liability. Open relays are a result of a lack of due diligence, pure and simple.
"Jails cost a fortune. I have no desire to see one penny of my tax dollars spent jailing a spammer."
I agree. We should just kill them instead. As cheaply as possible. Stoning? Drowning?
Electrocution with their own power supply. Right on the 'nads too! yeah! :)
"(they'll just send the spam from another country you idiots!)."
Why don't people get this? It seems pretty simple to me.
I think most anti-spam efforts cause more harm than good. The reason we get spam is because it is profitable. Antispam measures such as blackholing only raise the bar high enough to keep out the laziest of spammers thus making it more profitable for the most sleazy and organized spammers.
If it were SO EASY to send spam that anyone could do it, it would drive out the serious players and leave only amateurs, who are easily dealt with--Bayesian filters, etc.
All the blood, sweat, and tears that have gone into anti-spam efforts have had NO EFFECT. I still get dozens of spams every week. I just don't have to see them thanks to Bayesian Filtering.
The solution to the spam problem is not more rules and regulations by ISP's and governments. The solution is economic. If professional spamming is not profitable, then there will be no professional spammmers.
First off, according to the EU most spam comes from the US. This makes sense when you see Congress recent attempts at "anti spam" legisllation that actually legislate that I must receive spam. They are being paid off by US spammers.
My solution is the only way we are going to get rid of spam forever, and it is as dead simple as it is ruthless. First, the US should pass laws against spamming that include heavy fines and jailtime. The fines wouldhelp finance part two, and these laws should be propogated much as the uS has been propogating their bad laws.
Next, to counteract the obvious solution of spammers running elsewhere, etc. If any ISP allows spammers to nest in their place of business then they get blocked by the border routers of every ISP in the US. There would be a list of blocked IPs and it would be mandatory for every US ISP to use it. This means NO traffic from that ISP gets to servers in the US until they get rid of Mr. Spammer. The ISPs are the real culprit here because they allow spammers to buy accounts with them and refuse to get rid of them. Therefore we punish the ISP in the best way possible, monetarily.
This would rapidly lead to a situation where ISPs would not want to have spammers because their customers could not reach the US where all the money is. After all, most people in the world will want to access US websites, and most foreign businesses will want US citizens to be able to shop at their sites. Even the spammers know most of the money for them is in the US. This is why I think it woudl work, and if it did not work to get rid of spam completely, it would certainly eliminate the costs of spam in the US.
There are some programs that let you choose how to deal with spam and save you bandwidth. (like the one in my sig)
No program saves the bandwidth watsed on the internet by the spam itself. The closest we can come is by blackholing the spam networks right on the routers, dropping any packets from those sources. Even then there will be some impact from their spams.
To think that just those guilty of mass spam are to be the only victims of such law being applied is to think that innocent people don't go to jail. Naive and, frankly, stupid.
Whatever! We aren't talking about some random crime here. Spam is one of very few crimes in which it is dead simple to provide absolute proof of actual guilt. It is completely traceable and once you find the spammer him/herself the evidence is readily available in great detail. I honestly cannot see how you could even suggest innocent people could be caught spamming.
Open source is not free. The cost to your boss for running open source software is the time it takes for you to support it. He also needs you, or someone like you, to make sure that his systems keep running etc. This is why many companies shy away from open source solutions, the perceived lack of support.
Ah but that is such a complete canard anyway. The price of Microsoft products is hundreds of dollars per desktop (more if you include the extra hardware needed) plus the cost of the time it takes for the employee to support it. I mean really are you trying to tell me that Windows requires no maintenance, no patching, no setup, no installation, no support? Magic software it is!
Then there is the cost of regular BSA audits and/or contracts in excess of the number of machines you own despite the fact you have OEM licensing by force for every mahcine anyway. They never count that in those TCO equations, do they? :P
Except that beer generally isn't free.
I don't know who coined the ridiculous phrase "free as in beer" 'cause it just isn't true!
Maybe for you because no one likes you. Seriously free beer is pretty damn common, especially at parties. It is not free for the host, this is true, but it is free (gratis).
There are also all kinds of events where you can get free beer because free beer is a good way to attract people. Aso there are tours of breweries which are often free and come with many "samples."
I really don't get people's obsession with beer either. It tastes awful -- when I hear someone say one beer tastes better than another, it reminds me of our political system where you get to choose the less evil of the two scum sucking bureaucrats. All beer tastes like piss, just some are slightly more tolerable than others (and yet this topic sparks endless, pointless debates).
I used to think this, but then I tried non-American beers. For some reason US breweries seem to think that beer is supposed to taste the same before and after it is run through the body. Wih the rise of microbreweries, this has been changing. But the big breweries still make piss-beer.
Then again, probably much like piss, you can accquire a taste even for the bad beer if you really, really try. Free beer is often the piss tasting variety because people generally do not give away much of the expensive kind.