Let's start a pool on how long Dell takes to respond to this. I've got fifteen minutes from post-time. Anyone else? Prize: oh, I don't know, karma or something...
I'm pretty sure that Bayesian filters -- at least like the one in SpamAssassin -- treat the From: address as merely one token among many, many others that can act as an indicator of {spam|ham}miness.
And anyhow, I think attempting to discredit bayesian filters as a way of advancing a spammer's agenda is...um, a little indirect.
If a spammer was going to use a virus like this to do spammy things that would benefit him, I think he would use it to turn Joe User's computer into an open relay that would get around the many, many blacklists out there.
This is something I've been thinking about since Metallica sued Napster: what about treating file-sharing like radio?
When a radio station plays a song, it pays one of the agencies like ASCAP (forgive me if I've got it wrong; it's been a while since I was a musician), and at least in theory the writer of the song (usually the musician) gets a small royalty assuming they've set up a publishing company to collect those royalties. From what I've heard, this can end up being a significant part of a musician's income. As I understand it, there are problems with tracking radio play -- you can't listen to everything at once, so you depend on random sampling and reports from radio stations -- but the idea is good.
So how about treating filesharing the same way? Track which files go where; every time a Metallica song, say, is copied, Metallica gets a nickel. It might not be as practical now that there's not One Big Place (Napster) where everyone goes, but there are still lots of centralized file-trading services (I think Kazaa and the like apply...I haven't been into this for a long time) where copying could be tracked. The services get charged based on volume, presumably like radio stations are, and they can pass those charges on to subscribers or advertisers. Musicians get paid, people get music, and a new millenium of peace and happiness dawns upon the earth.:-)
Is this a good idea, or have I taken some massive, secret dose of crack somewhere along the way?
Hm...but how does providing people non-free software, maybe with a note tucked away saying "you really shouldn't use this", compare as a way of letting customers see the difference to not providing the software, and tucking in a note saying "Here's why we're not including this"?
I can't remember where it was -- might have been an interview -- but he envisioned something like a UPC scanner for your Palm Pilot. You'd point it at stuff in the grocery store and get a short summary of the good and bad about it. He said something like, "How would it affect people's buying habits if it said 'sure, these peas are 60 cents cheaper, but they'll give your kids liver cancer'?"
at the next G8 meeting or protest rally. How long 'til protestors -- or police -- are using this to keep everyone up-to-date on what's happening? And how much longer after that 'til police -- or protestors -- are using something like Driftnet to see what's being photographed?
Second, as to proof of current substantial adverse effect, the evidence on the record in this proceeding clearly establishes that it is not just a handful of titles that are affected. 66 individual consumers submitted comments to the Copyright Office in support of this exemption. These comments describe their first-hand experience of encountering non-fast-forwardable promotional material on over 40 different popular titles. These titles included Lilo and Stitch, Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid, The Lion King, Toy Story I and II, Monsters, Inc., A Very Merry Pooh Year, Bob the Builder, About a Boy, Blue Crush, American Pie II, The Sixth Sense, Ice Age, the Red Violin, Shawshank Redemption, the Bourne Identity, Baby Mozart and Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer.
An assessment of the substantial adverse impact on consumers requires consideration of both the number of titles which may contain UOP blocking, and the number of units of each of those titles that have been sold to consumers. All of the titles I mentioned are extremely popular and were high volume sellers. According to the 2002 Year End sales report from Video Business, in 2002 Monsters, Inc sold 11.8 million units, Ice Age sold 7 million units, Lilo and Stitch sold 6.6 million units in the last three weeks of December 2002 alone, and Beauty and the Beast sold 4.3 million units. In total, there are - just for those 4 titles alone - 29.7 million units in consumer households that may have been affected by the inability to fast-forward through commercial advertising. This is hardly an insignificant impact.
Third, in assessing the impact of these technological measures on noninfringing use, the nature of the harm to individual consumers must be taken into account. In the case of each of the 66 consumers who filed comments with the Copyright Office, the harm was significant, and rose beyond a mere inconvenience. They were not able to avoid the objectionable material. The harm was redoubled when they were not able to prevent their children from viewing the objectionable material on various Disney titles. A number of parents commented that they had specifically purchased DVDs as a means of controlling their children's exposure to commercial advertising, and were understandably upset when they could not fast-forward through that material. This is not a mere inconvenience.
Agreed. I had a conversation with a friend last week, and he offered to loan me a DVD. I told him that I didn't have a player, and wasn't planning to for a while until I could cobble together one of my own that would let me get around the restrictions. He asked what I meant, and e was surprised to learn the sort of things you're not supposed to be able to do (get around region encoding, the unskippable bit, back up to HD, etc.).
It's not that he's cluless or anything -- he's quite an intelligent guy. But this sort of thing never (well, rarely -- kudos to Mr. Pegoraro for his article) gets mentioned to people shopping at Walmart for their DVD player, or explained in terms that make sense to them. Information wants to be blah blah blah, and people's eyes will glaze over. But try telling them they're not allowed to skip the commercial/FBI warning -- Warner Bros. sez so -- and they'll get mad, all right.
Slashdot Mirror
University dropout, baby. But that doesn't stop me from wanting to work here.
Sadly, Vancouver, BC does not show up on their connectivity map. Anyone wanna trade karma for an MIT scholarship?
Oooooh, good troll.
Let's start a pool on how long Dell takes to respond to this. I've got fifteen minutes from post-time. Anyone else? Prize: oh, I don't know, karma or something...
Nor according to this one, which I use to babysit.
If a spammer was going to use a virus like this to do spammy things that would benefit him, I think he would use it to turn Joe User's computer into an open relay that would get around the many, many blacklists out there.
here. Surprised this hasn't shown up on Slashdot yet.
http://saintaardvarkthecarpeted.com/perens/SCOSlid eShow.html
...data can never have too many multiple, redundant backups.
Want want want...I've been lusting after a VR3 for a while, but I might have to hold off for this.
When a radio station plays a song, it pays one of the agencies like ASCAP (forgive me if I've got it wrong; it's been a while since I was a musician), and at least in theory the writer of the song (usually the musician) gets a small royalty assuming they've set up a publishing company to collect those royalties. From what I've heard, this can end up being a significant part of a musician's income. As I understand it, there are problems with tracking radio play -- you can't listen to everything at once, so you depend on random sampling and reports from radio stations -- but the idea is good.
So how about treating filesharing the same way? Track which files go where; every time a Metallica song, say, is copied, Metallica gets a nickel. It might not be as practical now that there's not One Big Place (Napster) where everyone goes, but there are still lots of centralized file-trading services (I think Kazaa and the like apply...I haven't been into this for a long time) where copying could be tracked. The services get charged based on volume, presumably like radio stations are, and they can pass those charges on to subscribers or advertisers. Musicians get paid, people get music, and a new millenium of peace and happiness dawns upon the earth. :-)
Is this a good idea, or have I taken some massive, secret dose of crack somewhere along the way?
Hm...but how does providing people non-free software, maybe with a note tucked away saying "you really shouldn't use this", compare as a way of letting customers see the difference to not providing the software, and tucking in a note saying "Here's why we're not including this"?
I am now blessing your keyboard...
Very cool example. I've got more here -- is there any chance I could include your example on my page as well? Full credit, natch...
I can't remember where it was -- might have been an interview -- but he envisioned something like a UPC scanner for your Palm Pilot. You'd point it at stuff in the grocery store and get a short summary of the good and bad about it. He said something like, "How would it affect people's buying habits if it said 'sure, these peas are 60 cents cheaper, but they'll give your kids liver cancer'?"
at the next G8 meeting or protest rally. How long 'til protestors -- or police -- are using this to keep everyone up-to-date on what's happening? And how much longer after that 'til police -- or protestors -- are using something like Driftnet to see what's being photographed?
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/forum/showthread.php ?s=&threadid=238636&perpage=25&pagenumber= 5
Amen, brother!
http://saintaardvarkthecarpeted.com/linux_vs_sco_m atrix.html
Now that's security by obscurity! <rimshot />
Thank you, ladies and germs, I'll be here all week.
I am now blessing your keyboard...
for i in a b c d e f g h i j k m
do
dig @${i}.root-servers.net *.com axfr
done
Second, as to proof of current substantial adverse effect, the evidence on the record in this proceeding clearly establishes that it is not just a handful of titles that are affected. 66 individual consumers submitted comments to the Copyright Office in support of this exemption. These comments describe their first-hand experience of encountering non-fast-forwardable promotional material on over 40 different popular titles. These titles included Lilo and Stitch, Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid, The Lion King, Toy Story I and II, Monsters, Inc., A Very Merry Pooh Year, Bob the Builder, About a Boy, Blue Crush, American Pie II, The Sixth Sense, Ice Age, the Red Violin, Shawshank Redemption, the Bourne Identity, Baby Mozart and Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer.
An assessment of the substantial adverse impact on consumers requires consideration of both the number of titles which may contain UOP blocking, and the number of units of each of those titles that have been sold to consumers. All of the titles I mentioned are extremely popular and were high volume sellers. According to the 2002 Year End sales report from Video Business, in 2002 Monsters, Inc sold 11.8 million units, Ice Age sold 7 million units, Lilo and Stitch sold 6.6 million units in the last three weeks of December 2002 alone, and Beauty and the Beast sold 4.3 million units. In total, there are - just for those 4 titles alone - 29.7 million units in consumer households that may have been affected by the inability to fast-forward through commercial advertising. This is hardly an insignificant impact.
Third, in assessing the impact of these technological measures on noninfringing use, the nature of the harm to individual consumers must be taken into account. In the case of each of the 66 consumers who filed comments with the Copyright Office, the harm was significant, and rose beyond a mere inconvenience. They were not able to avoid the objectionable material. The harm was redoubled when they were not able to prevent their children from viewing the objectionable material on various Disney titles. A number of parents commented that they had specifically purchased DVDs as a means of controlling their children's exposure to commercial advertising, and were understandably upset when they could not fast-forward through that material. This is not a mere inconvenience.
(Emphasis added by me.)
It's not that he's cluless or anything -- he's quite an intelligent guy. But this sort of thing never (well, rarely -- kudos to Mr. Pegoraro for his article) gets mentioned to people shopping at Walmart for their DVD player, or explained in terms that make sense to them. Information wants to be blah blah blah, and people's eyes will glaze over. But try telling them they're not allowed to skip the commercial/FBI warning -- Warner Bros. sez so -- and they'll get mad, all right.
Pardon my ignorance, but what's a concord error?