Without reliable information corporations aren't going to be as efficient, and in a free market economy such as ours, this harms us all in the long run, far more than the trivial loss of privacy that comes from a company knowing how often you read/.
But it must be the individual's choice to trade this privacy for the efficiency of such corporations. Neither the company, nor you, have any business making the unilateral choice for all individuals.
Many people are happy to trade off their personal information. That doesn't mean that everybody should be happy to do so, nor that everybody should be obliged to do so. We do not live in a society of clones, all alike where one approach fits all. The way we deal with this is choice - by giving the individual a clear and effective up front choice in these matters, we cater for all individuals, not just the ones who don't care.
the Supreme Court said that individuals cannot be brought up on criminal charges for recording a public broadcast
There's the way out, then - record the raw signal from the ether/cable/satellite/whatever, and play that back into the tuner. Copy protection defeated.
Thanks for playing "What dumbass copy protection scheme can I come up with next." Have a nice day.
Dignity and privacy are not being eroded by technology. They're being eroded by people. The technology is simply "how" they're doing it.
Actually, it's not being eroded by real people, but corporations. In any case, technology is making it continually easier for corporations to do this. Thirty years ago, the sort of mass corporate privacy invasion we see today was impossible.
The biggest risk to privacy today is corporates, not the government, however in our historic zeal to prevent privacy invasions by government, we have clipped its claws so it can't or won't fight a newer, bigger, and badder monster.
We used to have a system like this for some of our software - the customer would have to call us to get a code that would tie the software to a specific machine. We had to ditch it becase:
As we grew, some of our customers were so isolated they were not even able to make a telephone call - I am not kidding.
Sure. Who are we kidding here?
Technophiles are notoriously weak-willed when it comes to resisting the allure of the new, shiny, and automated
You may be weak-willed, but that doesn't give you the liberty to extrapolate that to everybody else. In fact, one of the strongest geek personality types, INTP, is known for being notoriously stubborn, to the point of cutting of their hand rather than do something or support something they don't agree with.
The fact of the matter is some people will discontinue dealing with ebay forever over this, even if you, personally, don't have the spine to do so.
First, I do think that Ebay has a right to change your user preferences when they feel like it, as long as you still have the option to change them back; it's their server. Yes, it's a stupid little thing only meant to increase their own ad revenue, but legally, they've done nothing wrong.
Firstly, it may be their server, but the rest of the network, the servers receiving the email and the email addresses are not theirs, and they have absolutely no right over those things. The boundary of their own network is the boundary of their "rights" (corporations don't have rights, but that's another story).
Secondly, this would be illegal under every single spam related bill ever introduced into Congress, even the DMA sponsored ones.
Do the people running the honey pots just sit back and watch what the script kiddies are doing, plug the holes, and forget about it? Or are they filing in court?
In Australia, the Attorney-General recently determined (and did not announce) that evidence from honeypot machines can't be used in prosecuting offenders unless there's a wiretap order (warrant) for that system. The reasoning was that creating a system that is "intended to be broken into" is sort of like giving permission to the intruder and likely to jeopardise a case.
As a biochemist I can hardly wait to see what alien life will look like at the molecular level.
Ganymede might not help us on this score any time soon though. If the figures they give are correct - that is, the oceans are 90 to 120km below the surface, it would be like tunnelling that deep into rock to get at it, and would require some new tech to do it. I'm guessing a nuclear powered head based ice borer.
Judgement proof means the spammer technically has no assets. There are many ways to do this, some of which are more effective at avoiding judgements than others,
Could you post those figures that show that monetary penalties are of limited effect? I'm curious because I wonder why they don't just increase the penalty with subsequent offences, instead of pushing people in jail.
No figures yet, just anecdotes. Take Sam Khuri, toner hawker extraordinaire, for instance - it's taken the direct threat of prison time, by a judge, to slow him down.
A lot of spammers are actually judgement proof, so while you can try to impose cash penalties as much as you like, they can rarely be made to pay.
The major notable case of a cash penalty stopping somebody is Sanford Wallace (Cyber Promotions), although he also came to see the error of his ways, so the degree to which the penalty had an effect is unknown.
He hasn't been sentenced yet - seven years is the maximum for the offence, and the judge has an awful lot of leeway between seven years and nothing at all.
We, as a community, do not advocate "white hat hacking" (since it seems you meant "cracking"). Breaking system security without authorisation is a crime in most reasonable jurisdictions, and rightfully so, in the same way that breaking and entry is a crime, even if you steal nothing.
According to the article, the charge pleaded to was second-degree forgery (for forging the return address to be ibm.net). Is there more information elsewhere that indicates the spammer also pleaded to charges relating to unauthorised relay?
There are much better, older tools for this
on
Spambot Poisoner
·
· Score: 5
The granddaddy of these was by Ron Guilmette (aka RFG). He probably still has it downloadable from www.monkeys.com.
His one actually generates addresses at subdomains of cooperating domains. These subdomains have special qualities - they typically have 30 MXs, and each MX host has 30 As. Every single one of the As will go to a host that doesn't exist, but is on a routable network. Given the timeout for opening TCP connections of 70 seconds, you can keep a spammer (or their third party relay) busy for 30 * 30 * 70 seconds, for a total of 63,000 seconds, or 17.5 hours.
I think Ron even has instructions on how to set one of these up.
Don't just pollute their database - make them (and the the queues at 3rd party relays who won't close up) spin their wheels for a day or so per address they scrape.
Not this year or next, but in 5 years you will see a big increase in the number of graduates in the high paying field. It's all their in the graduation rate statistics.
If they are getting in it for the money alone, I guarantee you they won't be good IT people.
The companies that are hiring people away with higher offers are the ones that are not seeing a shortage of competent IT workers... What there is a shortage of, is competent managers who know how to get good techies to come to work for them.
Yeah, that's right - if every company increases the money they pay, suddenly the Good IT workers will work for them and there won't be an IT skills shortage.
While where at it, here's how to MAKE MONEY FAST...
Increasing salaries industry-wide isn't going to increase the pool of talent or decrease the amount of work that needs to be done. Rapidly rising salaries are in fact a sign of a skills shortage, and salaries now are up to three times what they were 10 years ago, which comes to what, two to two and a half times adjusted for inflation?
Raising the salary bar is a solution that can help one company attract candidates over another company - it is not a solution to an industry-wide shortage. Basic mathematics tells you that.
The real problem is that the universities don't teach people the right things (or very few do anyway, and the ones that do don't teach people enough of it). They teach people languages and algorithms, when they should be teaching people research and problem solving skills so that people can learn new languages in no time and find the algorithms, or develop new algorithms.
It's also not so much a case of the smart person is the one who "can figure it out", although the smart person can always figure it out, but the smart person is the one who is motivated to figure it out, and treats it as their personal mission to do so - like any skill, figuring it out is something that improves with practice.
Or, in other words, thinking that you can't figure things out (that is, asking others all the time) is a self fulfilling prophecy, and dooms that person to incompetence.
Slashdot Mirror
But it must be the individual's choice to trade this privacy for the efficiency of such corporations. Neither the company, nor you, have any business making the unilateral choice for all individuals.
Many people are happy to trade off their personal information. That doesn't mean that everybody should be happy to do so, nor that everybody should be obliged to do so. We do not live in a society of clones, all alike where one approach fits all. The way we deal with this is choice - by giving the individual a clear and effective up front choice in these matters, we cater for all individuals, not just the ones who don't care.
There's the way out, then - record the raw signal from the ether/cable/satellite/whatever, and play that back into the tuner. Copy protection defeated.
Thanks for playing "What dumbass copy protection scheme can I come up with next." Have a nice day.
Actually, it's not being eroded by real people, but corporations. In any case, technology is making it continually easier for corporations to do this. Thirty years ago, the sort of mass corporate privacy invasion we see today was impossible.
The biggest risk to privacy today is corporates, not the government, however in our historic zeal to prevent privacy invasions by government, we have clipped its claws so it can't or won't fight a newer, bigger, and badder monster.
You may be weak-willed, but that doesn't give you the liberty to extrapolate that to everybody else. In fact, one of the strongest geek personality types, INTP, is known for being notoriously stubborn, to the point of cutting of their hand rather than do something or support something they don't agree with.
The fact of the matter is some people will discontinue dealing with ebay forever over this, even if you, personally, don't have the spine to do so.
It's worth noting that this would be illegal under every single spam related bill ever introduced into Congress, even the DMA sponsored ones.
Firstly, it may be their server, but the rest of the network, the servers receiving the email and the email addresses are not theirs, and they have absolutely no right over those things. The boundary of their own network is the boundary of their "rights" (corporations don't have rights, but that's another story).
Secondly, this would be illegal under every single spam related bill ever introduced into Congress, even the DMA sponsored ones.
Not me - I've personally pulled hundreds of thousands of dollars of revenue from companies that have spammed in less offensive ways than this.
In Australia, somebody has been jailed for sending spam through unauthorised 3rd party relays - is that close enough?
That's one small step for man, one giant leap for Snoopy and his Sopwith Camel.
In Australia, the Attorney-General recently determined (and did not announce) that evidence from honeypot machines can't be used in prosecuting offenders unless there's a wiretap order (warrant) for that system. The reasoning was that creating a system that is "intended to be broken into" is sort of like giving permission to the intruder and likely to jeopardise a case.
Ganymede might not help us on this score any time soon though. If the figures they give are correct - that is, the oceans are 90 to 120km below the surface, it would be like tunnelling that deep into rock to get at it, and would require some new tech to do it. I'm guessing a nuclear powered head based ice borer.
More-or-less. It will be with Admiral Ackbar, captaining a Mon Calamari cruiser.
Actually, the North Pole of Mars is water ice, and the south pole is CO2 ice.
Not a problem - in the depths of the oceans there are entire ecosystems that thrive without light - they get their energy from geothermal sources.
Judgement proof means the spammer technically has no assets. There are many ways to do this, some of which are more effective at avoiding judgements than others,
No figures yet, just anecdotes. Take Sam Khuri, toner hawker extraordinaire, for instance - it's taken the direct threat of prison time, by a judge, to slow him down.
A lot of spammers are actually judgement proof, so while you can try to impose cash penalties as much as you like, they can rarely be made to pay.
The major notable case of a cash penalty stopping somebody is Sanford Wallace (Cyber Promotions), although he also came to see the error of his ways, so the degree to which the penalty had an effect is unknown.
It's also abouot deterrents, and cash penalties have proven so far to be of limited effect against spammers.
He hasn't been sentenced yet - seven years is the maximum for the offence, and the judge has an awful lot of leeway between seven years and nothing at all.
We, as a community, do not advocate "white hat hacking" (since it seems you meant "cracking"). Breaking system security without authorisation is a crime in most reasonable jurisdictions, and rightfully so, in the same way that breaking and entry is a crime, even if you steal nothing.
According to the article, the charge pleaded to was second-degree forgery (for forging the return address to be ibm.net). Is there more information elsewhere that indicates the spammer also pleaded to charges relating to unauthorised relay?
His one actually generates addresses at subdomains of cooperating domains. These subdomains have special qualities - they typically have 30 MXs, and each MX host has 30 As. Every single one of the As will go to a host that doesn't exist, but is on a routable network. Given the timeout for opening TCP connections of 70 seconds, you can keep a spammer (or their third party relay) busy for 30 * 30 * 70 seconds, for a total of 63,000 seconds, or 17.5 hours.
I think Ron even has instructions on how to set one of these up.
Don't just pollute their database - make them (and the the queues at 3rd party relays who won't close up) spin their wheels for a day or so per address they scrape.
Wesley Snipes, Sylvester Stallone. Enough Said
If they are getting in it for the money alone, I guarantee you they won't be good IT people.
Yeah, that's right - if every company increases the money they pay, suddenly the Good IT workers will work for them and there won't be an IT skills shortage.
While where at it, here's how to MAKE MONEY FAST...
Increasing salaries industry-wide isn't going to increase the pool of talent or decrease the amount of work that needs to be done. Rapidly rising salaries are in fact a sign of a skills shortage, and salaries now are up to three times what they were 10 years ago, which comes to what, two to two and a half times adjusted for inflation?
Raising the salary bar is a solution that can help one company attract candidates over another company - it is not a solution to an industry-wide shortage. Basic mathematics tells you that.
The real problem is that the universities don't teach people the right things (or very few do anyway, and the ones that do don't teach people enough of it). They teach people languages and algorithms, when they should be teaching people research and problem solving skills so that people can learn new languages in no time and find the algorithms, or develop new algorithms.
It's also not so much a case of the smart person is the one who "can figure it out", although the smart person can always figure it out, but the smart person is the one who is motivated to figure it out, and treats it as their personal mission to do so - like any skill, figuring it out is something that improves with practice.
Or, in other words, thinking that you can't figure things out (that is, asking others all the time) is a self fulfilling prophecy, and dooms that person to incompetence.