>However, this particular spam made the phones make sounds (similar to the battery-dying chirp), which I could imagine/would/ drain the batteries
Yes, this would only nominally drain the battery. Nothing compared to the current that needs to be drawn for actual voice com. Battery tech these days in handheld phones is pretty advanced. Day-long standby is the norm now. Plus, you can set the sms alert to silent if it bothers you.
Someone made a comment at lunch that was pretty interesting, though. If you get a phone from your employer so they can get hold of you in an emergency and you rely on the sms alert to let you know that something is going on, getting a constant barrage of spam messages really interferes with that. If you get lax in responding to sms chirps because 90% of the time it is just junk, that would really defeat the purpose of low-latency wireless communication. You just end up ignoring it and when all hell really does break loose, you don't jump out of your skin and check your message right away because you are so sick of 'false alarms'.
I think my point was that Microsoft couldn't continue to strong-arm OEM's into bundling Microsoft Apps on to pre-built machines as a condition of OS license price. You do raise an interesting point though. If linux "distributions" contain valuable and highly sought-after application software, does that put Microsoft at a disadvantage if they are restricted from bundling applications with the OS.
In today's world, you don't get very many 'applications' bundled in a Windows 'distribution', do you? Sure, you get a browser, notepad, calc, paint and a few other nifty utils, but any real applicatons like word processor, encylopedia, web content development, spreadsheet, real image creation software, etc is installed by the OEM as a pre-installation bundle on a new computer or you go out and buy it and install it yourself. Ok, maybe they charge you for ala-carte selections, but most of the time there is a specific set of software installed on your machine that is part of the list price of the box.
Should Microsoft be able to create a 'distribution' of windows that has office or whatever else in the box? I don't see why not. Should OEM's be able to sell machines that have Windows installed with other Microsoft applications? Sure. Should Microsoft be able to coerce Dell into installing Office on 80% of their units sold otherwise the per-unit cost of the OS license goes from $29 to $229. Fsck no!
The point is that the OEM (and thus the consumer) should be able to choose what they want on their system and only have to play for what they actually choose. To put it on a par with Linux, Microsoft(s) might have to allow arrangements with 3rd parties to bundle an OS product with a set of applications, which are then sold as a 'distribution'. So the Microsoft Business OS company can't bundle a version of Office into Windows 2000, but someone else does. You get a Win2000/Office distribution that you buy from like Corel or somebody, and then Gateway offers to pre-install that for you. Yeah, it could be complicated. Maybe you'd have to hunt around for an OEM that sells the hardware you want with the OS options you want. At least you'd have a choice instead of 'You want a PC? Ok, here's Windows ME with IE7 and Office 2002. What? You want to be able to buy a machine with only Windows on it? Too bad, we don't have that option.
Not really. sms is not metered (at least for my provider, on imcoming messages). it doesn't really consume any battery power (only nominally more than leaving it on). this is not using voice channels of the phone which eat up a lot more power than the digital control channels. short messages are delivered to a PCS handset much in the same way a text pager works. The only argument I could see is that your sms data buffer might fill up with spam and your business-critical messages might not get delivered until you clear out the junk. this isn't really any different from filling your voice answering machine up with pre-recorded adverts (but I think that *is* illegal, isn't it?)
Unfortunately, I don't think so since it is a text message and not a voice call. This technically isn't telephone service, but short messaging delivered to a PCS handset. It doesn't use the voice channels, it uses the data signalling channel to deliver text messages. If the TCPA covered text pagers (which I didn't think it did) then you might have a case, tho.
The service provider in question, AT&T Wireless PCS, doesn't charge a per-use fee for incoming sms. Yah, if you were charged per use, it would be ugly. This is more annoying than expensive, tho.
>Twenty years ago, AT&T was broken up into Baby Bells, now we're back to "medium sized" AT&T's (Bell South, Bell Atlantic, Pacific Bell.. etc..)
Not sure I agree with your analogy or your conclusion.
Yes, the "Bell System" was broken into seven regional "Bell Operating Companies" by Judge Greene's MFJ, but more importantly, the judgement delineated the services that could legally be provided by the BOC's (local service only) and by the Interexchange Carriers (Longdistance by AT&T, Sprint, MCI and anyone else who wanted to play).
So the analogy of breaking Microsoft up into identical Baby Bills and how it compared to the breakup of AT&T might be a little off.
The telecom act of 1996 set the stage for Local Exchange Carriers to offer in-state long distance (the exclusive business of the IXC) and for IXC's to get into local service.
So far we have seen Southwest Bell gobble up PacBell and Ameritech, and Bell Atlantic has merged with NyNex. The original 7 are now down to 4. So far, the FCC hasn't let them into the LD business and the IXC's aren't exactly pouring into the residential local service business.
So the "Baby Bells" are indeed merging and becoming larger, but they are not becoming "Medium-sized AT&T's".
(er, what was my point? I had a point when I started this ramble.. oh yeah.)
So saying we have a re-assembly of AT&T's isn't entirely accurate. They (the Baby Bell's) are getting bigger than they were, but the "compettitive landscape" is far different than it was 20 years ago and the companies that have merged look very little like AT&T did 20 years ago.
I think it would be even more different for Microsoft. Breaking Microsoft up into smaller companies that all look the same is not as attractive to me as splitting them up along functions. Consumer OS, Business OS and Server, Handheld OS, Business office apps and e-commerce apps, consumer applications, etc would make more sense to me. Make the OS companies fully document the API's and force them to offer shrink-wrapped SDK packages at a reasonable price to all comers with no strings attached. Forbid these spin-off companies from forming bundled license agreements where OEMs have to include certain software with th OS in order to get a price-per-unit discount. Restrict Microsoft's licensing altogether. Give them very little lattitude to make deals on anything other than volume discounts.
Seems like something along these lines attacks the root of the problem, which I think is that Microsoft holds all the keys to making a product work on their 95% monopoly OS, and they abuse this position by withholding information needed to make products work on windows when it suits their goals. They hold the treat of raising their price on OS licenses unless an OEM bundles other software. Take these two weapons away from Microsoft, and I think you've fixed a lot of what they we able to use as unfair tactics.
Funny thing is that once you change your.sig, any comments that you've made in the past get displayed with the new.sig and so the sig nazi's troll makes even less sense!
Please go climb back under whatever bridge you emerged from this morning, Mr. "experianced IT consultant". dmg pulls off the clueless idiot posts pretty billiantly, we don't need a spin-off "Dumb IT Consultant" guy.
Isn't wild weasel the airforce name for air defense supression mission profile? I thought I remembered seeing this on discovery channel or something where they sweep in ahead of the bombers with drones that simulate a radar signature of a bomber with the F-4's trailing a bit behind. Then when the SAM site starts to paing the drone, the F-4's pop-up and launch HARM's or Shrikes which home in on the SAM's radar and knock it out in advance of the bomber strike.
Is that what you mean when you call it a wild weasel box? You put that out there as a decoy to lure crackers into tipping their hand then you ruin their day before they have a chance to do any damage any of your real hardware?
>Without deep linking, Slashdot wouldn't exist, now would it?:)
I must really mis-understand this issue then. What slash does is publish hyperlinks to stories and articles all over the web. What I thought the ticketmaster thing was about was someone else linking to their content out of ticketmaster's site and having it render in a single browser window with their own content so as to appear to be coming from their own site and not ticketmaster.
Seems like an important issue is how the law distinguishes the difference between the two. I agree with the common-sense arguments that once you publish something on the web, it's out there for the public to use and you should just deal with it. If you have a web page that is accessible through a hyperlink, you are way off if you claim that no one should link to your page but you.
But if you have a web site, and someone uses individual elements such as graphics by simply referencing them on your server from their own site, I see that differently.
When it's an evil company who is using the web as their storefront and some other company comes along and "borrows" some of their content by referring to it on their page in a way that makes it look like it is all their own page, the evil company cries foul and we have little pity. "Too bad, that's the way the internet works, get used to it!"
What would be/. reaction if the NY Times were to find a really interesting comment by Signal 11 and render a page that hauls the text out of slash's database and presents it with NYT frames and banners and hides any hint that it came from another site?:-)
If it is a hyperlink on a NYT page, its fine. If it's a fully rendered page that looks like NYT with/. content?
If he was using it to attempt to catch and prosecute, yeah. He is using it to learn. His approach is to make the system nodescript, watch what goes on, take notes and pull the plug before the cracker realizes what is going on.
I would think setting out bait and then attempting to bust the cracker would be a rather bad idea. He's says he's trying to improve his knowledge and better protect his network by setting up a box apart from the rest of his network and then just keeping a close eye on what goes on.
>unless we had multible ground based recieveing/transmitting stations.
so your server is in orbit to avoid gov interference, huh? problem is with the earth stations then, yah? Pacific Islands, hmh? Why not just put the server there?:-)
"Aamzingly," this comment is moderated up to the top of the comments (yeah, I know - I logged out to see why this post gets past my +1 threshold, sue me) and is rated as +3, Informative.
I'm sorry, but I don't see how this is anything but a troll. Yeah, Linus and all the others are getting ready to promote a development tree to 'stable' that doesn't even compile, give me a break. Yeah, there are glitches that need to be worked out - that's why there is a development tree.
Moderators picked the wrong day to start/stop sniffin' glue.
In late May a small number of Demon users posted articles which contained a URL for an article stored in the US-based Deja News archive of Usenet articles. A few posted the URL directly, others managed to do so by quoting a previous article. The referenced article on Deja News quoted the text which is at the centre of the court action mounted against Demon by Dr Godfrey.
Slashdot Mirror
>However, this particular spam made the phones make sounds (similar to the battery-dying chirp), which I could imagine /would/ drain the batteries
Yes, this would only nominally drain the battery. Nothing compared to the current that needs to be drawn for actual voice com. Battery tech these days in handheld phones is pretty advanced. Day-long standby is the norm now. Plus, you can set the sms alert to silent if it bothers you.
Someone made a comment at lunch that was pretty interesting, though. If you get a phone from your employer so they can get hold of you in an emergency and you rely on the sms alert to let you know that something is going on, getting a constant barrage of spam messages really interferes with that. If you get lax in responding to sms chirps because 90% of the time it is just junk, that would really defeat the purpose of low-latency wireless communication. You just end up ignoring it and when all hell really does break loose, you don't jump out of your skin and check your message right away because you are so sick of 'false alarms'.
I think my point was that Microsoft couldn't continue to strong-arm OEM's into bundling Microsoft Apps on to pre-built machines as a condition of OS license price. You do raise an interesting point though. If linux "distributions" contain valuable and highly sought-after application software, does that put Microsoft at a disadvantage if they are restricted from bundling applications with the OS.
In today's world, you don't get very many 'applications' bundled in a Windows 'distribution', do you? Sure, you get a browser, notepad, calc, paint and a few other nifty utils, but any real applicatons like word processor, encylopedia, web content development, spreadsheet, real image creation software, etc is installed by the OEM as a pre-installation bundle on a new computer or you go out and buy it and install it yourself. Ok, maybe they charge you for ala-carte selections, but most of the time there is a specific set of software installed on your machine that is part of the list price of the box.
Should Microsoft be able to create a 'distribution' of windows that has office or whatever else in the box? I don't see why not. Should OEM's be able to sell machines that have Windows installed with other Microsoft applications? Sure. Should Microsoft be able to coerce Dell into installing Office on 80% of their units sold otherwise the per-unit cost of the OS license goes from $29 to $229. Fsck no!
The point is that the OEM (and thus the consumer) should be able to choose what they want on their system and only have to play for what they actually choose. To put it on a par with Linux, Microsoft(s) might have to allow arrangements with 3rd parties to bundle an OS product with a set of applications, which are then sold as a 'distribution'. So the Microsoft Business OS company can't bundle a version of Office into Windows 2000, but someone else does. You get a Win2000/Office distribution that you buy from like Corel or somebody, and then Gateway offers to pre-install that for you. Yeah, it could be complicated. Maybe you'd have to hunt around for an OEM that sells the hardware you want with the OS options you want. At least you'd have a choice instead of 'You want a PC? Ok, here's Windows ME with IE7 and Office 2002. What? You want to be able to buy a machine with only Windows on it? Too bad, we don't have that option.
>This is supposed to be a happy occasion. Let's not bicker and argue about who killed who
and let's not forget...
"she's got HUGE.... tracts of land!"
Not really. sms is not metered (at least for my provider, on imcoming messages). it doesn't really consume any battery power (only nominally more than leaving it on). this is not using voice channels of the phone which eat up a lot more power than the digital control channels. short messages are delivered to a PCS handset much in the same way a text pager works. The only argument I could see is that your sms data buffer might fill up with spam and your business-critical messages might not get delivered until you clear out the junk. this isn't really any different from filling your voice answering machine up with pre-recorded adverts (but I think that *is* illegal, isn't it?)
Unfortunately, I don't think so since it is a text message and not a voice call. This technically isn't telephone service, but short messaging delivered to a PCS handset. It doesn't use the voice channels, it uses the data signalling channel to deliver text messages. If the TCPA covered text pagers (which I didn't think it did) then you might have a case, tho.
The service provider in question, AT&T Wireless PCS, doesn't charge a per-use fee for incoming sms. Yah, if you were charged per use, it would be ugly. This is more annoying than expensive, tho.
sig nazis suck
>Twenty years ago, AT&T was broken up into Baby Bells, now we're back to "medium sized" AT&T's
(Bell South, Bell Atlantic, Pacific Bell.. etc..)
Not sure I agree with your analogy or your conclusion.
Yes, the "Bell System" was broken into seven regional "Bell Operating Companies" by Judge Greene's MFJ, but more importantly, the judgement delineated the services that could legally be provided by the BOC's (local service only) and by the Interexchange Carriers (Longdistance by AT&T, Sprint, MCI and anyone else who wanted to play).
So the analogy of breaking Microsoft up into identical Baby Bills and how it compared to the breakup of AT&T might be a little off.
The telecom act of 1996 set the stage for Local Exchange Carriers to offer in-state long distance (the exclusive business of the IXC) and for IXC's to get into local service.
So far we have seen Southwest Bell gobble up PacBell and Ameritech, and Bell Atlantic has merged with NyNex. The original 7 are now down to 4. So far, the FCC hasn't let them into the LD business and the IXC's aren't exactly pouring into the residential local service business.
So the "Baby Bells" are indeed merging and becoming larger, but they are not becoming "Medium-sized AT&T's".
(er, what was my point? I had a point when I started this ramble.. oh yeah.)
So saying we have a re-assembly of AT&T's isn't entirely accurate. They (the Baby Bell's) are getting bigger than they were, but the "compettitive landscape" is far different than it was 20 years ago and the companies that have merged look very little like AT&T did 20 years ago.
I think it would be even more different for Microsoft. Breaking Microsoft up into smaller companies that all look the same is not as attractive to me as splitting them up along functions. Consumer OS, Business OS and Server, Handheld OS, Business office apps and e-commerce apps, consumer applications, etc would make more sense to me. Make the OS companies fully document the API's and force them to offer shrink-wrapped SDK packages at a reasonable price to all comers with no strings attached. Forbid these spin-off companies from forming bundled license agreements where OEMs have to include certain software with th OS in order to get a price-per-unit discount. Restrict Microsoft's licensing altogether. Give them very little lattitude to make deals on anything other than volume discounts.
Seems like something along these lines attacks the root of the problem, which I think is that Microsoft holds all the keys to making a product work on their 95% monopoly OS, and they abuse this position by withholding information needed to make products work on windows when it suits their goals. They hold the treat of raising their price on OS licenses unless an OEM bundles other software. Take these two weapons away from Microsoft, and I think you've fixed a lot of what they we able to use as unfair tactics.
your sig is excellent, don't let anyone goof on you. (see someone did read your comment, and I agree with you, people suck)
God you are a pathetic waste of protoplasm!
Funny thing is that once you change your .sig, any comments that you've made in the past get displayed with the new .sig and so the sig nazi's troll makes even less sense!
Please go climb back under whatever bridge you emerged from this morning, Mr. "experianced IT consultant". dmg pulls off the clueless idiot posts pretty billiantly, we don't need a spin-off "Dumb IT Consultant" guy.
thankyou
Isn't wild weasel the airforce name for air defense supression mission profile? I thought I remembered seeing this on discovery channel or something where they sweep in ahead of the bombers with drones that simulate a radar signature of a bomber with the F-4's trailing a bit behind. Then when the SAM site starts to paing the drone, the F-4's pop-up and launch HARM's or Shrikes which home in on the SAM's radar and knock it out in advance of the bomber strike.
Is that what you mean when you call it a wild weasel box? You put that out there as a decoy to lure crackers into tipping their hand then you ruin their day before they have a chance to do any damage any of your real hardware?
I must really mis-understand this issue then. What slash does is publish hyperlinks to stories and articles all over the web. What I thought the ticketmaster thing was about was someone else linking to their content out of ticketmaster's site and having it render in a single browser window with their own content so as to appear to be coming from their own site and not ticketmaster.
Seems like an important issue is how the law distinguishes the difference between the two. I agree with the common-sense arguments that once you publish something on the web, it's out there for the public to use and you should just deal with it. If you have a web page that is accessible through a hyperlink, you are way off if you claim that no one should link to your page but you.
But if you have a web site, and someone uses individual elements such as graphics by simply referencing them on your server from their own site, I see that differently.
When it's an evil company who is using the web as their storefront and some other company comes along and "borrows" some of their content by referring to it on their page in a way that makes it look like it is all their own page, the evil company cries foul and we have little pity. "Too bad, that's the way the internet works, get used to it!"
What would be /. reaction if the NY Times were to find a really interesting comment by Signal 11 and render a page that hauls the text out of slash's database and presents it with NYT frames and banners and hides any hint that it came from another site? :-)
If it is a hyperlink on a NYT page, its fine. If it's a fully rendered page that looks like NYT with /. content?
>Thank you for leading me onto that thought-path. :)
:|
Er, you're welcome. I guess.
>but you probably won't catch any fishes.
The point of the article seems to learn what the crackers do to probe and compromise your system, rather than to bust anyone.
>2. Isn't a honeypot considered entrapment?
If he was using it to attempt to catch and prosecute, yeah. He is using it to learn. His approach is to make the system nodescript, watch what goes on, take notes and pull the plug before the cracker realizes what is going on.
I would think setting out bait and then attempting to bust the cracker would be a rather bad idea. He's says he's trying to improve his knowledge and better protect his network by setting up a box apart from the rest of his network and then just keeping a close eye on what goes on.
you know, I thought that too for a moment. Then shook my head and weant "naaaahhhh!"
It could happen.
good idea, until...
:-)
>unless we had multible ground based recieveing/transmitting stations.
so your server is in orbit to avoid gov interference, huh? problem is with the earth stations then, yah? Pacific Islands, hmh? Why not just put the server there?
"Aamzingly," this comment is moderated up to the top of the comments (yeah, I know - I logged out to see why this post gets past my +1 threshold, sue me) and is rated as +3, Informative.
I'm sorry, but I don't see how this is anything but a troll. Yeah, Linus and all the others are getting ready to promote a development tree to 'stable' that doesn't even compile, give me a break. Yeah, there are glitches that need to be worked out - that's why there is a development tree.
Moderators picked the wrong day to start/stop sniffin' glue.
no sense of humor? stick to CNN today, then. We like it.
Well, I gotta gloom, it's almost ready to evolve, how 'bout I throw in a beel sprout to sweeten the deal?
Geez, don't give him any ideas!
That is a finny site, tho... thanks
Well, but the chain is only as strong as it weakest link, and _boy_ are these strong links!
lots and lots of redundancy built into these babies
In late May a small number of Demon users posted articles which contained a URL for an article stored in the US-based Deja News archive of Usenet articles. A few posted the URL directly, others managed to do so by quoting a previous article. The referenced article on Deja News quoted the text which is at the centre of the court action mounted against Demon by Dr Godfrey.