Hmm..somehow you didn't refute my claim that email spam is no different than junk mail. Spam costs ISPs money Junkmail generates postal income.
Spam is free to the spammer junkmail costs the mailler.
Laws exist regulating junkmail and postal fraud.
Spam is mostly fraud... often violating existing laws.
You have the USPS postal carriers who have to make more pickups because of junk mail
You have a mistaken idea of how junk mail works.
Junk mail is sent out in bulk (all at once) to get a bulk rate.
The bulk mailler has to bring the mail to the post office himself. He brings it into the back and sorts it into the delivery bins.
I don't know how much assistence he gets but from my understanding it's minimal.
On the pick up... the postal office drives out to pick up and deliver mail no matter what. A lack of mail to pick up dosn't save them. Nither dose a lack of mail to deliver.
So if they deliver you nothing in the shipping busness it's called "shipping air" it still costs reguardless of the fact that nothing gets delivered.
So the more the post office has to deliver the better off it is. A lack of traffic costs the post office.
With e-mail exactly the reverse is true.
E-mail never "ships air" if there is no e-mail there is no traffic. When there is traffic resources are used. E-mail generates no income so the delivered e-mail is all loss...
If it's too much to hit the delete in your mail reader, it's time for you to find a mail reader that's easier to use.
I don't get much spam today...
But there was a time when I got a huge amount of it.
If I got as much postal junk as I got spam in those days the post office couldn't deliver my lagit postal mail.
One spammer desided it was cute to send me e-mail once an hour until I responded. I deleated the e-mail for about a week so he switched to once ever half hour.
Also junkmail pritty much funds the post office.
Spam however is a freebe to the spammers. If you charg spammers even so much as a postal rate they'll stop.
Personally though, I think you're a bunch of whiney bastards. Just deal with it. If you get too much spam, stop frequenting porn sites, and signing up for stupid crap. How about not using AOL?
Or not posting on Usenet. Running a website. Responding to e-mail.
Oh, wait, that isn't how this "Free" country works. Our real freedom is that we're free to give up our freedom in the most mindless fashion possible.
If I beat you up I'm just practacing my freedom.
If I call you at the middle of the night and call you names.. every night... for a year... I'm free to right?
If I throw a brick through your window.. burn a message in your lawn.. It's my freedom to do so man.
It's not? Of course it's not...
Becouse my freedom ends at the tip of your nose.
When my actions impact you... then you have a say.
If you say no... then I gotta go...
Lets see.. you used eblaster by the Spammy Hammy men... (Spam programmers have a ego too and insert adverts for the products used in the headers.. that stuff makes being a procmail ninja so easy)
A quick check of his machine shows he never used eblaster.
The ISP server logs conferm no such e-mail was ever sent.
Victoms:
Anyone who pays for bandwith... cell phone users for example.
Anyone who has limited e-mail storage... PDA users for example.
[if you get 10 to 50 spam a day and your PDA holds only 5 letters... your screwed]
Known people... PPL like Taco get something like 100 lagit e-mails a day... that represents only 10% of the e-mail they get... that means something like 900 spam a day...
If your not a procmail ninja and your famous on the net your screwed.
The first amendment protects words not method.
If your allowed to burn an ethegy of someone you can burn the american flag.
If you ban burnning anything you'll have a problem with smokers.
You can ban a method you may never ban a message.
Given that opt in is still ok the message can be communicated just as long as you use the correct techniques...
There are a number of laws restricting what a telemarketer can and can not do.
Two obveous ones...
A telemarketer must use a list obatined from a legal source (you may not use a phone book).
Generally this means buying someones costummer records.
Spammers gather e-mail addresses with web spiders and usenet e-mail scoopers.
Telemarketers must remove you from the list if you ask them to not call back.
Asking a spammer to remove you from the spam list will just get you more spam.
Telemarketing is usually lagit. A few frauds have inspired some laws restricting what telemarketers can do.
Spam is mostly fraud. It lacks any sereous redeaming quality.
By spam I'm refering to opt out spam where the spammer basicly pulls your e-mail address at random and has no idea who you are.
Opt in spam is compleatly diffrent...
You ASK for opt in spam. Usually in trade for something.
Say you ask for a list of free deals. You get an e-mail each month with a list and attached is an advertisment.
Spammers are usually selling something...
100% of those who sell something must provide some sort of contact information.
Thats your trace.
There is a sereous consern however of fraud spam. This isn't new.
Just give false contact information. This is used to frame an innocent as a spammer.
Spammers like to do this to known spam hunters.
Late 80s?
Pentops were allready on the market in the mid 80s.
Originally used by larg busnesses they were around for a number of years before they entered the mass market.
Late 80s early 90s... sounds like NCRs entry into the market is a late entry repeating the mistakes allready made many times over.
If EFront had a Slashdot like forum and was posting an artical about Andover they'd use the open source icon...
eFront catters to the game community as Andover catters to the Open source community
Depends on how your set up and what you need.
I'm operating at $25 a month.. I was paying $40...
I know I'm functionning with an arm tied behind my back doing it this way. It's slowing me down keeping my website from growing the way I want.
However yes you can do it cheaply.. I'm not saying thats a simple job.. It's doable. Thats all..
Anyone else notice the ever so small invasion of privacy issue?
Ok I have noticed some strangeness at EFront... The whole banner ads deal has hit Keen[Spot/Space] Yahoo and so it seems EFront (Thank you VA Linux for buying out Andover..)
EFront has overloaded the websites with ads lately in what appears to be an attempt to make money.
They recently dumpped the non-proffitable "Hang and Catch Fire" on-line comic and didn't tell the artists. (one writer two cartoonists)
So clearly something is up at EFront.
How are we to know this isn't spoken by pure frantic. Yeah people say some pritty ranchy things when they are frightend and EFront has reason to be fearful.
Yeah employees are gona get pissed on occasion. Hotheads exist. I'm talking about myself in part here I know what it is to lose my head with reguards to an employer. However the worst I have ever done was quit.
On the other hand......
Hay wouldn't it be funny if Andover bought out EFront....
I think we might want to not use the ICQ logs becouse of the privacy issue. Keep this to the more public stuff such as the public insults and visable efforts to bring in proffits.
This is a down turn for websites funded by banner ads.
I suspect there are three issues behind this...
1. People are buying less on-line due to the economy. So some are not inclined to throw money into Internet advertsing conserned that clicks no-longer turn into cash.
2. The TV industry has been pushing Internet companys to advertise on TV. Internet companys traditionally advertise on-line where the target market is.
3. Internet is still newish and many don't know what to make of them where as people know what to make of traditional advertising.
During an economic downturn banner ads are seen as risky.
On my end... banner ad prices are allready cheap.. Maybe some discounts exist... Time to go shopping.....
Andover seems to be taking this in stride and premoting internally. Good market move.
Andover builds up and EFront falls appart...
Andover will be in a better position for it...
The only real diffrence between Andover and EFront seems to be Andover buys open source websites and EFront buys out gaming websites.
However.. that makes a world of diffrence...
Even on the overlap...
Open source gaming websites are still in Andovers roof..
In context you can generally turn anything into an insult...
"That is a TOASTER" pointing to a computer running an operating system the speaker is discusted with.
To slandard a minnority group by using them as an insult is very immature...
On the inverse one could say Eckel's is not gay... not at all.. he is compleatly without happyness
Isn't it also normal for Microsoft to bash someone who produces a better product?
Hmm I'd sure like to see some anti-Microsoft FUD from Microsoft:)
Or at least some Windows NT bashing from the Windows 2K sales department....
Ahhh if Microsoft were like IBM... Then Microsofts departments would be launching FUD against other departments.... [IBM departments are all companys within themselfs... they don't work together...]
>And considering how much trouble it is to produce, promote and distribute a game I wouldn't say $50's unfair for a good product.
I would... I'd also say the price of a Rolex watch is insain.
I don't buy the watch... I don't get the watch... I don't buy the game.. I don't play the game.. It's that simple....
It's imposable to know if a software pirate would buy software if they had to. I don't think even the pirate him/her-self really knows.
Maybe they would... if they considered it worth the price... maybe they wpuldn't....
But they don't have to.... and thats a fact...
Just becouse someone pirated the game dosn't mean they would buy it.
It's nieve to assume anyone who pirates would use the software if they had to pay for it.
On the flip side.. not everyone who priates wouldn't pay for it. It's nieve to assume everyone who pirates has a problem with the pricing structure.
People want the software. Some can not afford the stupidly outragous pricetags. Some wouldn't pay the price to use the software.. it's to expensive. Some would if thats what they had to do but sence they don't they won't.
and some try out the game "peeew" and erase.. or try out the game "kick ass" and buy it....
There are problems all the way around...
Microsoft is really the only software company to make larg sums of money like they do. They do all this monopolistic BS so they can be sure everyone who uses the software pays for it. The only way they know to do that is just make sure everyone pays for it.. want or no.... Thats how they make money. It's the only way they know...
On the other hand... software is to expensive. The Commodore 64 equal to Microsoft Office might cost $50 but for the PC it costs $200 and up...
Why? To make up for lost sales due to software piracy. That only drives up the piracy.
The solution is free software, open source, and public domain. Apple makes software but they make money on HARDWARE. Sun makes software but they make money on hardware. IBM makes money on hardware and uses Linux... they add code back to Linux... and why not... They are only helpping themselfs.
The short story is the money isn't in software. It probably never was.
Laws to prop up software sales aren't going to help matters.
>Exactly. The key difference is that your typical *nix user isn't naive enough to try AnnaKournikova.jpg.pl when they see it. It's like saying that the Toyota Camry is the car most frequently stolen in the US based on raw numbers. Of course it is. Camry is the best selling car in the US.
An intresting side note is the last time I saw the stats on the most frerquently stolen car it wasn't the best selling car. It just had bad locks.
There is also the point that with Unix you have to download it.. save it to disk.. chmod +x... edit the first line so it'll run on your system.. and run it by hand....
Extention asside.. if Windows users were to look at AnnaKornikova.jpg.vbs they'd just feed it into Microsoft Media or some graphics viewer and get "not an image file" error...
Simply removing the single feature of feeding the file to the app (and Windows knowing what app to feed it to.. user not knowing) solves the problem...
Also alternitively... I do have kmail and it will feed files... but AnnaKornikova.jpg.pl will NOT be processed.. Becouse it is not a known multimedia format...
Anyway it's not that dumb of users... I think "dumb programmers" when I realise Windows is basicly feeding code sent by e-mail.. It shouldn't do that... Ok first time.. learn... FIX IT... No no we enchance.. now it runs code AUTOMATICLY... The user isn't being dumb to expect the software to know better... There is a huge diffrence on the software side between image files and executable files.
Kinda....
In the 1980s Unix had exactly the same problem. A defect allowed a worm to spred.
The problem was fixed soon after (not years later).
Forgive the first attack... You have to find out some way and an infection is probably the most likely first alert you are going to get.
However Microsoft has never removed the "feature" or modifyed it so it won't run code.
The damage itself is obveously not Microsofts fault. The fact that it continues to this day is.
My own "proof" is more simplistic...
If you want to be a commertal success you MUST write a Windows version of your software... You can ignore anyone else....
I'm aware some people have purpousfully misread my Sig and said "You cann't ignore AMD" or "VA Linux and RedHat ignore Microsoft"....
You can ignore AMD... in fact you should... AMD chips run Intel code just fine there is no reason to even acnoladge the Athon or Duron exists when writing code.
VA Linux is a hardware company and they sell Windows... failing both the "Software company" and "ignoring Windows" part....
As for RedHat "And survive" was also a provision... RedHat hardly qualifys as "surviving" at least not as a software company... They may survive but only after transforming into a service company of some sort.
Slashdot readers can lissen to Matallica all day long if they like...
They can use Windows if they choise...
They could liccens one click shopping if it sutes them...
I can think of many things worse....
The collaps of the economy...
The power crunch [currently experenced in California..]
Software piracy
The colaps and fold of major chip makers...
[Let's see Microsoft sell Windows when nobody can make PCs]
The end of copyright law (for a piriod of time Microsoft had to live without copyrights)
I think Bill Gates has a far better imagination than this guy.......
I know there are worst threats to the software industry than free software....
Like... the weather....
Free software is purely a busness reality you work with. It allways has been...
Slashdot Mirror
Hmm..somehow you didn't refute my claim that email spam is no different than junk mail.
Spam costs ISPs money Junkmail generates postal income.
Spam is free to the spammer junkmail costs the mailler.
Laws exist regulating junkmail and postal fraud.
Spam is mostly fraud... often violating existing laws.
You have the USPS postal carriers who have to make more pickups because of junk mail
You have a mistaken idea of how junk mail works.
Junk mail is sent out in bulk (all at once) to get a bulk rate.
The bulk mailler has to bring the mail to the post office himself. He brings it into the back and sorts it into the delivery bins.
I don't know how much assistence he gets but from my understanding it's minimal.
On the pick up... the postal office drives out to pick up and deliver mail no matter what. A lack of mail to pick up dosn't save them. Nither dose a lack of mail to deliver.
So if they deliver you nothing in the shipping busness it's called "shipping air" it still costs reguardless of the fact that nothing gets delivered.
So the more the post office has to deliver the better off it is. A lack of traffic costs the post office.
With e-mail exactly the reverse is true.
E-mail never "ships air" if there is no e-mail there is no traffic. When there is traffic resources are used. E-mail generates no income so the delivered e-mail is all loss...
If it's too much to hit the delete in your mail reader, it's time for you to find a mail reader that's easier to use.
I don't get much spam today...
But there was a time when I got a huge amount of it.
If I got as much postal junk as I got spam in those days the post office couldn't deliver my lagit postal mail.
One spammer desided it was cute to send me e-mail once an hour until I responded. I deleated the e-mail for about a week so he switched to once ever half hour.
Also junkmail pritty much funds the post office.
Spam however is a freebe to the spammers. If you charg spammers even so much as a postal rate they'll stop.
Personally though, I think you're a bunch of whiney bastards. Just deal with it. If you get too much spam, stop frequenting porn sites, and signing up for stupid crap. How about not using AOL?
Or not posting on Usenet. Running a website. Responding to e-mail.
Oh, wait, that isn't how this "Free" country works. Our real freedom is that we're free to give up our freedom in the most mindless fashion possible.
If I beat you up I'm just practacing my freedom.
If I call you at the middle of the night and call you names.. every night... for a year... I'm free to right?
If I throw a brick through your window.. burn a message in your lawn.. It's my freedom to do so man.
It's not? Of course it's not...
Becouse my freedom ends at the tip of your nose.
When my actions impact you... then you have a say.
If you say no... then I gotta go...
Lets see.. you used eblaster by the Spammy Hammy men... (Spam programmers have a ego too and insert adverts for the products used in the headers.. that stuff makes being a procmail ninja so easy)
A quick check of his machine shows he never used eblaster.
The ISP server logs conferm no such e-mail was ever sent.
Victoms:
Anyone who pays for bandwith... cell phone users for example.
Anyone who has limited e-mail storage... PDA users for example.
[if you get 10 to 50 spam a day and your PDA holds only 5 letters... your screwed]
Known people... PPL like Taco get something like 100 lagit e-mails a day... that represents only 10% of the e-mail they get... that means something like 900 spam a day...
If your not a procmail ninja and your famous on the net your screwed.
The first amendment protects words not method.
If your allowed to burn an ethegy of someone you can burn the american flag.
If you ban burnning anything you'll have a problem with smokers.
You can ban a method you may never ban a message.
Given that opt in is still ok the message can be communicated just as long as you use the correct techniques...
There are a number of laws restricting what a telemarketer can and can not do.
Two obveous ones...
A telemarketer must use a list obatined from a legal source (you may not use a phone book).
Generally this means buying someones costummer records.
Spammers gather e-mail addresses with web spiders and usenet e-mail scoopers.
Telemarketers must remove you from the list if you ask them to not call back.
Asking a spammer to remove you from the spam list will just get you more spam.
Telemarketing is usually lagit. A few frauds have inspired some laws restricting what telemarketers can do.
Spam is mostly fraud. It lacks any sereous redeaming quality.
By spam I'm refering to opt out spam where the spammer basicly pulls your e-mail address at random and has no idea who you are.
Opt in spam is compleatly diffrent...
You ASK for opt in spam. Usually in trade for something.
Say you ask for a list of free deals. You get an e-mail each month with a list and attached is an advertisment.
Spammers are usually selling something...
100% of those who sell something must provide some sort of contact information.
Thats your trace.
There is a sereous consern however of fraud spam. This isn't new.
Just give false contact information. This is used to frame an innocent as a spammer.
Spammers like to do this to known spam hunters.
I doput any of them even knew such patents existed.
At one time everyone and his brother was making a pentop. Nobody got sued.
Late 80s?
Pentops were allready on the market in the mid 80s.
Originally used by larg busnesses they were around for a number of years before they entered the mass market.
Late 80s early 90s... sounds like NCRs entry into the market is a late entry repeating the mistakes allready made many times over.
As inovative as any copycat....
If EFront had a Slashdot like forum and was posting an artical about Andover they'd use the open source icon...
eFront catters to the game community as Andover catters to the Open source community
Depends on how your set up and what you need.
I'm operating at $25 a month.. I was paying $40...
I know I'm functionning with an arm tied behind my back doing it this way. It's slowing me down keeping my website from growing the way I want.
However yes you can do it cheaply.. I'm not saying thats a simple job.. It's doable. Thats all..
Anyone else notice the ever so small invasion of privacy issue?
Ok I have noticed some strangeness at EFront... The whole banner ads deal has hit Keen[Spot/Space] Yahoo and so it seems EFront (Thank you VA Linux for buying out Andover..)
EFront has overloaded the websites with ads lately in what appears to be an attempt to make money.
They recently dumpped the non-proffitable "Hang and Catch Fire" on-line comic and didn't tell the artists. (one writer two cartoonists)
So clearly something is up at EFront.
How are we to know this isn't spoken by pure frantic. Yeah people say some pritty ranchy things when they are frightend and EFront has reason to be fearful.
Yeah employees are gona get pissed on occasion. Hotheads exist. I'm talking about myself in part here I know what it is to lose my head with reguards to an employer. However the worst I have ever done was quit.
On the other hand......
Hay wouldn't it be funny if Andover bought out EFront....
I think we might want to not use the ICQ logs becouse of the privacy issue. Keep this to the more public stuff such as the public insults and visable efforts to bring in proffits.
This is a down turn for websites funded by banner ads.
I suspect there are three issues behind this...
1. People are buying less on-line due to the economy. So some are not inclined to throw money into Internet advertsing conserned that clicks no-longer turn into cash.
2. The TV industry has been pushing Internet companys to advertise on TV. Internet companys traditionally advertise on-line where the target market is.
3. Internet is still newish and many don't know what to make of them where as people know what to make of traditional advertising.
During an economic downturn banner ads are seen as risky.
On my end... banner ad prices are allready cheap.. Maybe some discounts exist... Time to go shopping.....
Andover seems to be taking this in stride and premoting internally. Good market move.
Andover builds up and EFront falls appart...
Andover will be in a better position for it...
The only real diffrence between Andover and EFront seems to be Andover buys open source websites and EFront buys out gaming websites.
However.. that makes a world of diffrence...
Even on the overlap...
Open source gaming websites are still in Andovers roof..
In context you can generally turn anything into an insult...
"That is a TOASTER" pointing to a computer running an operating system the speaker is discusted with.
To slandard a minnority group by using them as an insult is very immature...
On the inverse one could say Eckel's is not gay... not at all.. he is compleatly without happyness
IE wasn't a better product before IE 4...
Netscape 3 sucking hard didn't help Netscape one bit...
Microsoft would probably have won the browser wars...
This way Netscape gets sympathy points it spends on staying alive.....
Isn't it also normal for Microsoft to bash someone who produces a better product?
:)
Hmm I'd sure like to see some anti-Microsoft FUD from Microsoft
Or at least some Windows NT bashing from the Windows 2K sales department....
Ahhh if Microsoft were like IBM... Then Microsofts departments would be launching FUD against other departments.... [IBM departments are all companys within themselfs... they don't work together...]
What to do with obsolete PS2s....
Modify them... improve them.. even... oh wait... thats illegal now isn't it....
>And considering how much trouble it is to produce, promote and distribute a game I wouldn't say $50's unfair for a good product.
I would... I'd also say the price of a Rolex watch is insain.
I don't buy the watch... I don't get the watch... I don't buy the game.. I don't play the game.. It's that simple....
It's imposable to know if a software pirate would buy software if they had to. I don't think even the pirate him/her-self really knows.
Maybe they would... if they considered it worth the price... maybe they wpuldn't....
But they don't have to.... and thats a fact...
Just becouse someone pirated the game dosn't mean they would buy it.
It's nieve to assume anyone who pirates would use the software if they had to pay for it.
On the flip side.. not everyone who priates wouldn't pay for it. It's nieve to assume everyone who pirates has a problem with the pricing structure.
People want the software. Some can not afford the stupidly outragous pricetags. Some wouldn't pay the price to use the software.. it's to expensive. Some would if thats what they had to do but sence they don't they won't.
and some try out the game "peeew" and erase.. or try out the game "kick ass" and buy it....
There are problems all the way around...
Microsoft is really the only software company to make larg sums of money like they do. They do all this monopolistic BS so they can be sure everyone who uses the software pays for it. The only way they know to do that is just make sure everyone pays for it.. want or no.... Thats how they make money. It's the only way they know...
On the other hand... software is to expensive. The Commodore 64 equal to Microsoft Office might cost $50 but for the PC it costs $200 and up...
Why? To make up for lost sales due to software piracy. That only drives up the piracy.
The solution is free software, open source, and public domain. Apple makes software but they make money on HARDWARE. Sun makes software but they make money on hardware. IBM makes money on hardware and uses Linux... they add code back to Linux... and why not... They are only helpping themselfs.
The short story is the money isn't in software. It probably never was.
Laws to prop up software sales aren't going to help matters.
>Exactly. The key difference is that your typical *nix user isn't naive enough to try AnnaKournikova.jpg.pl when they see it. It's like saying that the Toyota Camry is the car most frequently stolen in the US based on raw numbers. Of course it is. Camry is the best selling car in the US.
An intresting side note is the last time I saw the stats on the most frerquently stolen car it wasn't the best selling car. It just had bad locks.
There is also the point that with Unix you have to download it.. save it to disk.. chmod +x ... edit the first line so it'll run on your system.. and run it by hand....
Extention asside.. if Windows users were to look at AnnaKornikova.jpg.vbs they'd just feed it into Microsoft Media or some graphics viewer and get "not an image file" error...
Simply removing the single feature of feeding the file to the app (and Windows knowing what app to feed it to.. user not knowing) solves the problem...
Also alternitively... I do have kmail and it will feed files... but AnnaKornikova.jpg.pl will NOT be processed.. Becouse it is not a known multimedia format...
Anyway it's not that dumb of users... I think "dumb programmers" when I realise Windows is basicly feeding code sent by e-mail.. It shouldn't do that... Ok first time.. learn... FIX IT... No no we enchance.. now it runs code AUTOMATICLY... The user isn't being dumb to expect the software to know better... There is a huge diffrence on the software side between image files and executable files.
Kinda....
In the 1980s Unix had exactly the same problem. A defect allowed a worm to spred.
The problem was fixed soon after (not years later).
Forgive the first attack... You have to find out some way and an infection is probably the most likely first alert you are going to get.
However Microsoft has never removed the "feature" or modifyed it so it won't run code.
The damage itself is obveously not Microsofts fault. The fact that it continues to this day is.
My own "proof" is more simplistic...
If you want to be a commertal success you MUST write a Windows version of your software... You can ignore anyone else....
I'm aware some people have purpousfully misread my Sig and said "You cann't ignore AMD" or "VA Linux and RedHat ignore Microsoft"....
You can ignore AMD... in fact you should... AMD chips run Intel code just fine there is no reason to even acnoladge the Athon or Duron exists when writing code.
VA Linux is a hardware company and they sell Windows... failing both the "Software company" and "ignoring Windows" part....
As for RedHat "And survive" was also a provision... RedHat hardly qualifys as "surviving" at least not as a software company... They may survive but only after transforming into a service company of some sort.
This makes it harder to steal software. When users can't get commertal software for free they'll turn to free software...
Slashdot readers can lissen to Matallica all day long if they like...
They can use Windows if they choise...
They could liccens one click shopping if it sutes them...
Slashdotters don't move in lock step...
I can think of many things worse....
The collaps of the economy...
The power crunch [currently experenced in California..]
Software piracy
The colaps and fold of major chip makers...
[Let's see Microsoft sell Windows when nobody can make PCs]
The end of copyright law (for a piriod of time Microsoft had to live without copyrights)
I think Bill Gates has a far better imagination than this guy.......
I know there are worst threats to the software industry than free software....
Like... the weather....
Free software is purely a busness reality you work with. It allways has been...