I can see the argument for anonymity of *CONVICTED* criminals being bad.
*ACCUSED* criminals? Consider the huge abuse potential. I think anonymity for people who are accused, but have not been convicted, may be a reasonable baseline.
Otherwise, it's not too hard for someone to cause you to be widely known as an "accused murderer" - and you know the papers will never give as much coverage to the "innocent" verdict.
So, we write the hosting company that hosts NetBenefit. We write them asking them to provide assurances that NetBenefit will not be making any offensive statements, or false accusations, about OutCast.
So, when NetBenefit's site is pulled, we laugh at them. Because it's their own policy, and they can hardly argue with it.
TOS are an attempt to push liability as far away as possible. It's just like the things you get that say "this supersedes all other warranties, express or implicit". Actually, it *DOESN'T*. If the law says you get a certain minimal guarantee, you always get it, no matter what anyone says, no matter what you signed.
Imagine that you hire a hit man, and he requires you to sign a document saying he disclaims all liability or responsibility, and acknowledging that his actions are solely your responsibility. Do you think this will get him off the hook?
You can't assume that, just because something was written, it's legally effective.
You miss the point: If my system is closed, there is no reason for ORBS to list it in such a way that everyone using ORBS will think it is an open relay and bounce messages from it.
Unless, of course, it's a power trip, and has nothing to do with stopping spam.
Should people with buggy MTA's upgrade? Probably. But ORBS shouldn't spite-list them, and shouldn't keep testing them; it should leave them alone.
Keep in mind, we're not talking about "any random SMTP". We're talking about servers that move thousands of messages an hour, and never, ever, crash *EXCEPT WHEN ORBS HITS THEM*.
You may prefer 17 messages to a spam run. I prefer no messages to 17 messages. I know enough to keep my servers secured, and test them actively whenever anything changes. ORBS does not believe I have a right to be left alone.
Harmless if you happen to run the exact mail server they want.
There are mail servers, *WHICH ARE NOT OPEN RELAYS*
* where any relay attempt will create a message in postmaster's inbox.
* where certain of the ORBS tests *CRASH THE MAIL SERVER*.
The latter is a bug. So? Why should you have to let this *ASSHOLE* crash your system every time he gets the idea, when you *CAN'T* be used as a relay? He won't stop, ever, and the best you can do is have him list you as if you were a spam hydrant, even if no spam, ever, has left your machine, and you're not an open relay.
I know people who have this problem.
Anyway, if seventeen messages isn't enough resources to worry about, why do you mind spam? I only very rarely get more than 17 spams in a day after filtering...
When did this happen? Which company? Which board member? Post a URL pointing to all the documentation showing what the email was.
Or, allow me to continue believing that the RBL is astoundingly well-managed.:)
(Note that everything like this I've heard dates back about to the point where they had maybe one employee, and really doesn't apply to the RBL as it exists today.)
Spam actually, really, from AOL accounts, or spam with "@aol.com" forged into the headers?
How much spam do you get per user? How does this compare to other ISP's?
I don't think AOL is all that bad *on a per-user basis*. The same thing that makes them so hard to block (they have an amazing number of users) pretty much guarantees that, even if they had many fewer spammers "per million users", they'd have an apparent "spam problem".
AOL isn't nearly as bad as Netcom and uu.net once were, and none of them are as bad now as what we used to take for granted as the cost of having an email address. I don't mind AOL all that much; they're not that much of my junk mail.
If you follow the naive instructions to turn on ORBS, it will bounce everything, and it will also bounce all of the "static listings" - hosts which are almost always *NOT* open relays, many of which have never emitted a single spam, ever, but just don't allow gratuitous testing.
You talk about ISP's "suing AOL for allowing so much spam..."
This has *NOTHING* to do with ORBS.
ORBS claims to list open relays. I haven't yet seen a convincing demonstration that AOL has an open relay.
ORBS, however, goes further. If they can't scan your/16, launching ten or more attacks on every system in it, at their convenience, you will *ALSO* get listed.
Neat, huh?
Of course, "ORBS doesn't scan". Of course not. Other sites do scans and submit results to ORBS. Or just submit whole netblocks. Or something.
ORBS has, for quite a long time, been a list of "open relays, sites that object to being port-scanned, systems whose admins irritate the ORBS admins, systems that block port scans", and the like.
Really, they're jerks, and you should *NOT* use them to filter mail, unless you particularly think that everyone in the world has a moral obligation to let some guy run relay-rape attempts on their servers any time he feels like it.
No one else has "rights" in the sense of copyright law. What other people have is *LICENSES*. The authors presumably continue to have sole copyright of the work in question. They are the owners. They can release it under other terms.
NO ONE ELSE IS ALLOWED TO RELEASE IT UNDER OTHER TERMS.
However, the terms it *WAS ALREADY* under allow for arbitrary copying.
"10% profit margin" might well have the boxes selling for $200 or $300, or more...
But yeah, I'd probably pay close to $400 for a box like this, with no real regrets.
I disapprove of their near bait-and-switch tactics, but not much more than I disapprove of all the people trying to find ways to shaft them. We know what their business model is, we know they're losing money on hardware sales, and we want them to like us, so the best thing we can do is screw them as hard as possible. Uh-huh.
It's an "improvement" from TSR's old position, but keep in mind that Dancey himself has repeatedly said that, while you can create D&D things, that he believes that WOTC has *OWNERSHIP* of those things you create.
Part of the gimmick here is that the "OGL" doesn't really give you any rights you didn't already have; what it tries to do is "give" you *FEWER* rights than copyright law would normally give you, and then provide a framework for suing or harassing you if you try to exercise the intrinsic rights the law gives you.
Sneaky. It's no coincidence that a man who believes that references to a rule set create a "derivative work" is in charge of this stuff when Hasbro is starting to file suits on stuff like "anything someone might think is like asteroids".
(Obviously, it's not a derived work, because copyright covers the text, not the rules. Rules can't be copyrighted.)
Well, I've been working for BSDI for years, and I've been at the central office for all of 3 days for orientation and getting to know a couple of coworkers. I don't think a single person in my department works at the central office.
Telecommuting is great. I love it. I probably work slightly longer hours than I would otherwise, but I feel productive, I get stuff done, and I haven't had to commute in something like three years.
(And, if you're curious, no, our jobs are not at risk with the merger. In fact, this is an excellent time to work at BSDI.)
The entire point of this is to mislead and misdirect. This is *HASBRO*. Remember, the people who are suing "clue.com" into the ground for existing? The people suing other companies because they claim to have a copyright on a "triangular ship with thrusters"?
The *SOLE* purpose of this is to try to crush all competing gaming systems, while preserving WOTC's rights.
Ryan Dancey is a scumbag. He also does not understand copyright law.
When asked about ownership of gaming materials created for use with the AD&D system (say, you run your own campaign, and you have a world), he said that WOTC owns them. He claims that anything that works with a gaming system is a derivative work of that system, and that *ALL* ownership and rights of derivative works goes to the "original" copyright holder.
He is a dangerous, slimy, man. Do not trust anything he says; he's probably wrong, and either way, his goal is to eliminate competition from his market by making his system the only viable one - while still holding all the trademarks and making sure everyone has to buy his products.
WOTC was bought by Hasbro; they are now expected to follow Hasbro's path of buying franchises and suing to eliminate competition.
But is it a trademark for cocaine, or for addiction resources? If not, no conflict exists; it is possible for the same name to be used by multiple entities without infringement.
There may be one kernel tree now, but at times they've been separate, at least briefly. Anyway, consider all the architectures that "linux runs on" that aren't in that tree. Psion handhelds?
I don't see a fork as a big deal, but it's silly to act like we haven't had one.;)
Debian, Redhat, LinuxPPC. I'd call that three "forks". Yes, they share code, and aggressively, but the fact is that, in any *practical* sense, Linux has been "forked" since Linux68k first showed up. That's what, close to a decade now?
Unix is too broad a family of systems to "die". It's not like AmigaDOS, or VMS, where there's just one Unix and it can "fall behind". Unix will be replaced, but it'll be replaced by more Unix.
As the owner of code, you can do whatever the hell you want with it. Period. You can give it to one person on the condition that he may only use it on nights of the full moon, and another under the GPL.
Of course, you can't *stop* the person who got it under GPL from giving a "less-restrictive" copy to the guy who got the full-moon license...
Anyway, this is silly. Users can continue to use the "existing" code under the license they got it under, developers can continue to use the old code under the old terms, and anyone who wants the new stuff can get it under whatever terms the author wants to give them.
Nothing tricky at all. You get something, it has terms, you're under those terms for that thing forever, other things (or even the same thing) may later become available under different terms.
So what if it must be "easily viewable"! It can be a total and utter pack of lies.
The TRUSTe seal tells you *NOTHING*, because by the time you find the seal, you're already looking at the "privacy policy".
Actually, it tells you one thing: It tells you that the company is unsure of their reputation, and would rather buy a seal than risk being judged on past behaviors.
Look at the really *good* privacy policies out there, and you'll note that most of them *don't* have TRUSTe seals. Who does? eBay and Real Networks.
You've made a crucial mistake: You've believed them.
Do you honestly think they'll take a seal away from a *PAYING* customer just because the customer plays fast and loose with the terms?
Remember, the customer is allowed to change the terms *AT ANY TIME WITH NO NOTIFICATION*. So, the people who said "opt-in only, we never share your address" can, every day at midnight, change the policy to "we will add all addresses we have to our master mailing list, and sell the result to a third party", ftp the list over, then change the policy back.
Tricky? Sure. But, as long as they "follow the posted policy" at any given time, TRUSTe will smile, nod, and keep taking their checks.
It's not that TRUSTe's model is flawed. TRUSTe's model is perfect.
How many people naively share information with sites that have TRUSTe logos? How many people file complaints with TRUSTe instead of the FTC, or their local Attorney General?
TRUSTe works fine. You just have to remember what they're there for: They exist to make consumers *FEEL* comfortable with privacy as it exists, and to keep people from complaining to their government.
It is not TRUSTe's policy to take action under any circumstances. These "loopholes" are not accidents; they are a *FEATURE* of the design of TRUSTe.
The purpose of TRUSTe is to waste your time so you don't complain to the FTC when a site violates its privacy.
And remember, TRUSTe has *NEVER* yanked a seal. Not once. Not even when company staff *FORMALLY AND OFFICIALLY STATED THAT VIOLATIONS OCCURRED*. Look at eBay; they changed their policy, they started spamming, they kept spamming, they failed to delete accounts when people quit, they kept spamming... And they have a shiny TRUSTe logo.
Slashdot Mirror
On the cover of the April issue of MacAddict:
:)
PLUS: MetaCreations ditches its entire product line!
I thought it was an April Fools' joke. It really looked like one.
How many people remember that Corel Draw 6 included "Corel Dream 3D", aka Ray Dream 3D?
I can see the argument for anonymity of *CONVICTED* criminals being bad.
*ACCUSED* criminals? Consider the huge abuse potential. I think anonymity for people who are accused, but have not been convicted, may be a reasonable baseline.
Otherwise, it's not too hard for someone to cause you to be widely known as an "accused murderer" - and you know the papers will never give as much coverage to the "innocent" verdict.
So, we write the hosting company that hosts NetBenefit. We write them asking them to provide assurances that NetBenefit will not be making any offensive statements, or false accusations, about OutCast.
So, when NetBenefit's site is pulled, we laugh at them. Because it's their own policy, and they can hardly argue with it.
Don't believe everything you read.
TOS are an attempt to push liability as far away as possible. It's just like the things you get that say "this supersedes all other warranties, express or implicit". Actually, it *DOESN'T*. If the law says you get a certain minimal guarantee, you always get it, no matter what anyone says, no matter what you signed.
Imagine that you hire a hit man, and he requires you to sign a document saying he disclaims all liability or responsibility, and acknowledging that his actions are solely your responsibility. Do you think this will get him off the hook?
You can't assume that, just because something was written, it's legally effective.
You miss the point: If my system is closed, there is no reason for ORBS to list it in such a way that everyone using ORBS will think it is an open relay and bounce messages from it.
Unless, of course, it's a power trip, and has nothing to do with stopping spam.
Should people with buggy MTA's upgrade? Probably. But ORBS shouldn't spite-list them, and shouldn't keep testing them; it should leave them alone.
Keep in mind, we're not talking about "any random SMTP". We're talking about servers that move thousands of messages an hour, and never, ever, crash *EXCEPT WHEN ORBS HITS THEM*.
You may prefer 17 messages to a spam run. I prefer no messages to 17 messages. I know enough
to keep my servers secured, and test them actively whenever anything changes. ORBS does not believe I have a right to be left alone.
Harmless if you happen to run the exact mail server they want.
There are mail servers, *WHICH ARE NOT OPEN RELAYS*
* where any relay attempt will create a message in postmaster's inbox.
* where certain of the ORBS tests *CRASH THE MAIL SERVER*.
The latter is a bug. So? Why should you have to let this *ASSHOLE* crash your system every time he gets the idea, when you *CAN'T* be used as a relay? He won't stop, ever, and the best you can do is have him list you as if you were a spam hydrant, even if no spam, ever, has left your machine, and you're not an open relay.
I know people who have this problem.
Anyway, if seventeen messages isn't enough resources to worry about, why do you mind spam? I only very rarely get more than 17 spams in a day after filtering...
You're spoiling our fun. (Hey, folks, moderate that guy up. He's the AOL guy who makes less spam.)
When did this happen? Which company? Which board member? Post a URL pointing to all the documentation showing what the email was.
:)
Or, allow me to continue believing that the RBL is astoundingly well-managed.
(Note that everything like this I've heard dates back about to the point where they had maybe one employee, and really doesn't apply to the RBL as it exists today.)
Spam actually, really, from AOL accounts, or spam with "@aol.com" forged into the headers?
How much spam do you get per user? How does this compare to other ISP's?
I don't think AOL is all that bad *on a per-user basis*. The same thing that makes them so hard to block (they have an amazing number of users) pretty much guarantees that, even if they had many fewer spammers "per million users", they'd have an apparent "spam problem".
AOL isn't nearly as bad as Netcom and uu.net once were, and none of them are as bad now as what we used to take for granted as the cost of having an email address. I don't mind AOL all that much; they're not that much of my junk mail.
Completely misleading.
If you follow the naive instructions to turn on ORBS, it will bounce everything, and it will also bounce all of the "static listings" - hosts which are almost always *NOT* open relays, many of which have never emitted a single spam, ever, but just don't allow gratuitous testing.
You talk about ISP's "suing AOL for allowing so much spam..."
/16, launching ten or more attacks on every system in it, at their convenience, you will *ALSO* get listed.
This has *NOTHING* to do with ORBS.
ORBS claims to list open relays. I haven't yet seen a convincing demonstration that AOL has an open relay.
ORBS, however, goes further. If they can't scan your
Neat, huh?
Of course, "ORBS doesn't scan". Of course not. Other sites do scans and submit results to ORBS. Or just submit whole netblocks. Or something.
ORBS has, for quite a long time, been a list of "open relays, sites that object to being port-scanned, systems whose admins irritate the ORBS admins, systems that block port scans", and the like.
Really, they're jerks, and you should *NOT* use them to filter mail, unless you particularly think that everyone in the world has a moral obligation to let some guy run relay-rape attempts on their servers any time he feels like it.
I like MAPS. I don't like ORBS.
No one else has "rights" in the sense of copyright law. What other people have is *LICENSES*. The authors presumably continue to have sole copyright of the work in question. They are the owners. They can release it under other terms.
NO ONE ELSE IS ALLOWED TO RELEASE IT UNDER OTHER TERMS.
However, the terms it *WAS ALREADY* under allow for arbitrary copying.
"10% profit margin" might well have the boxes selling for $200 or $300, or more...
But yeah, I'd probably pay close to $400 for a box like this, with no real regrets.
I disapprove of their near bait-and-switch tactics, but not much more than I disapprove of all the people trying to find ways to shaft them. We know what their business model is, we know they're losing money on hardware sales, and we want them to like us, so the best thing we can do is screw them as hard as possible. Uh-huh.
It's an "improvement" from TSR's old position, but keep in mind that Dancey himself has repeatedly said that, while you can create D&D things, that he believes that WOTC has *OWNERSHIP* of those things you create.
Part of the gimmick here is that the "OGL" doesn't really give you any rights you didn't already have; what it tries to do is "give" you *FEWER*
rights than copyright law would normally give you, and then provide a framework for suing or harassing you if you try to exercise the intrinsic rights the law gives you.
Sneaky. It's no coincidence that a man who believes that references to a rule set create a "derivative work" is in charge of this stuff when Hasbro is starting to file suits on stuff like "anything someone might think is like asteroids".
(Obviously, it's not a derived work, because copyright covers the text, not the rules. Rules can't be copyrighted.)
Well, I've been working for BSDI for years, and I've been at the central office for all of 3 days for orientation and getting to know a couple of coworkers. I don't think a single person in my department works at the central office.
Telecommuting is great. I love it. I probably work slightly longer hours than I would otherwise, but I feel productive, I get stuff done, and I haven't had to commute in something like three years.
(And, if you're curious, no, our jobs are not at risk with the merger. In fact, this is an excellent time to work at BSDI.)
The entire point of this is to mislead and misdirect. This is *HASBRO*. Remember, the people who are suing "clue.com" into the ground for existing? The people suing other companies because they claim to have a copyright on a "triangular ship with thrusters"?
The *SOLE* purpose of this is to try to crush all competing gaming systems, while preserving WOTC's rights.
Ryan Dancey is a scumbag. He also does not understand copyright law.
When asked about ownership of gaming materials created for use with the AD&D system (say, you run your own campaign, and you have a world), he said that WOTC owns them. He claims that anything that works with a gaming system is a derivative work of that system, and that *ALL* ownership and rights of derivative works goes to the "original" copyright holder.
He is a dangerous, slimy, man. Do not trust anything he says; he's probably wrong, and either way, his goal is to eliminate competition from his market by making his system the only viable one - while still holding all the trademarks and making sure everyone has to buy his products.
WOTC was bought by Hasbro; they are now expected to follow Hasbro's path of buying franchises and suing to eliminate competition.
But is it a trademark for cocaine, or for addiction resources? If not, no conflict exists; it is possible for the same name to be used by multiple entities without infringement.
There may be one kernel tree now, but at times they've been separate, at least briefly. Anyway, consider all the architectures that "linux runs on" that aren't in that tree. Psion handhelds?
;)
I don't see a fork as a big deal, but it's silly to act like we haven't had one.
Debian, Redhat, LinuxPPC. I'd call that three "forks". Yes, they share code, and aggressively, but the fact is that, in any *practical* sense, Linux has been "forked" since Linux68k first showed up. That's what, close to a decade now?
Unix is too broad a family of systems to "die". It's not like AmigaDOS, or VMS, where there's just one Unix and it can "fall behind". Unix will be replaced, but it'll be replaced by more Unix.
This is a FAQ, and a well-documented FAQ.
As the owner of code, you can do whatever the hell you want with it. Period. You can give it to one person on the condition that he may only use it on nights of the full moon, and another under the GPL.
Of course, you can't *stop* the person who got it under GPL from giving a "less-restrictive" copy to the guy who got the full-moon license...
Anyway, this is silly. Users can continue to use the "existing" code under the license they got it under, developers can continue to use the old code under the old terms, and anyone who wants the new stuff can get it under whatever terms the author wants to give them.
Nothing tricky at all. You get something, it has terms, you're under those terms for that thing forever, other things (or even the same thing) may later become available under different terms.
So what if it must be "easily viewable"! It can be a total and utter pack of lies.
The TRUSTe seal tells you *NOTHING*, because by the time you find the seal, you're already looking at the "privacy policy".
Actually, it tells you one thing: It tells you that the company is unsure of their reputation, and would rather buy a seal than risk being judged on past behaviors.
Look at the really *good* privacy policies out there, and you'll note that most of them *don't* have TRUSTe seals. Who does? eBay and Real Networks.
You've made a crucial mistake: You've believed them.
Do you honestly think they'll take a seal away from a *PAYING* customer just because the customer plays fast and loose with the terms?
Remember, the customer is allowed to change the terms *AT ANY TIME WITH NO NOTIFICATION*. So, the people who said "opt-in only, we never share your address" can, every day at midnight, change the policy to "we will add all addresses we have to our master mailing list, and sell the result to a third party", ftp the list over, then change the policy back.
Tricky? Sure. But, as long as they "follow the posted policy" at any given time, TRUSTe will smile, nod, and keep taking their checks.
It's not that TRUSTe's model is flawed. TRUSTe's model is perfect.
How many people naively share information with sites that have TRUSTe logos? How many people file complaints with TRUSTe instead of the FTC, or their local Attorney General?
TRUSTe works fine. You just have to remember what
they're there for: They exist to make consumers *FEEL* comfortable with privacy as it exists, and to keep people from complaining to their government.
It is not TRUSTe's policy to take action under any circumstances. These "loopholes" are not accidents; they are a *FEATURE* of the design of TRUSTe.
The purpose of TRUSTe is to waste your time so you don't complain to the FTC when a site violates its privacy.
And remember, TRUSTe has *NEVER* yanked a seal. Not once. Not even when company staff *FORMALLY AND OFFICIALLY STATED THAT VIOLATIONS OCCURRED*.
Look at eBay; they changed their policy, they started spamming, they kept spamming, they failed to delete accounts when people quit, they kept spamming... And they have a shiny TRUSTe logo.
Same goes for the BBBOnline.