But they have a bigger financial interest in not colluding. Since Visa rejected Wikileaks first, if I were the CEO of Mastercard, I would just put up a banner on the homepage: "Donating to Wikileaks, free; supporting freedom of speech, priceless". Everyone who boycotts Visa will consider switching to Mastercard.
Not to mention all the transaction charges that can collected from the donations.
Article 101 and 102 of the EU treaty only applies to monopolies, so Visa and Mastercard do not qualify. Wikileaks would have to prove in court that the two companies conspired together and effectively acted as the same entity.
Except that Visa and Mastercard aren't monopolies, since they each hold less than 50% of the market. Wikileaks would have to prove in court that Visa and Mastercard conspired together to ban Wikileaks and thus effectively acted as a single entity. This will be extremely difficult since the two companies are bitter rivals and have no financial interest in colluding with each other.
Oh? The posting of classified government information isn't illegal in the EU?
The posting of classified American government information isn't illegal in the EU, since USA is out of their jurisdiction. EU isn't qualified, nor do they incline to, classify whether a particular document counts as "classified government information" of a foreign state.
That being said, even in the US there has been no charges pressed against Wikileaks, so as far as the American government is concerned Wikileaks has not, and is not being accused of, committing an illegal act. An American soldier is being prosecuted for leaking classified intelligence, but not Wikileaks.
According to his blog, this exact statement would appear on the main page to everyone (not just the scripts): "Email sent to an alternate domain goes to Mailinator too! Here is one such alternate domain: gmail.com". I personally don't think that's suggesting an alternative email service. I think that's claiming his service also covers the domain gmail.com, which is false.
I said "everyone" because he posted two hypothetical questions from his legitimate users, so he's fully aware of the confusions he will cause.
I understand the iframe trick perfectly, thank you. I also understand it won't stand up in the court of law. If this defense actually worked then authors of libel and hate speech can just put each of their words in a separate iframe and claim they hosted a dictionary.
Next question - who would prosecute?:-)
Scraping websites is prosecutable now? I wonder how Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft are staying above the law then.
I have no problem with him presenting false information. That's still constitutionally protected free speech.
I have a problem with him impersonating other business for fraudulent reasons. How would you feel if you ran a mail service and his little stunt got your legitimate users banned around the web? Would you be ok with him claiming that your domain is an alternate address for mailinator.com?
Why would the scraper writer ( or people buying the scraper's results) email him?
Why would he reply to the scraper writer?
Remember, these people want to ban his service. It doesn't make any sense for them to be emailing him or for him to email them back. So it follows that "Fred" must be a legitimate user confused about gmail.com appearing on his page for a few hours and then never appearing again.
He predicted that some of his real users will notice the error when viewing the home page:
Your alternate domain list displayed 'gmail.com'! Hi Fred, no it doesn't. Just reloaded the homepage 10 times, nothing like that. all the best.
or I bet another would be like:
Yahoo.com? What is this some kind of joke? Sorry, did you mean to email this to Carol Bartz? Not sure what you're talking about.
Reason 2 is that scraper writers aren't stupid. They won't just load the second page knowing it's an obvious trap. They will load the main page like a regular user, and then parse the small iframe.
Email sent to an alternate domain goes to Mailinator too! Here is one such alternate domain: gmail.com
Isn't this hypothetical situation just fraud? That's basically claiming you own the gmail.com domain and can offer mail services at that domain for free.Both claims are false and intentionally deceptive.
Even if it's not fraud Google can still sue you for damages.
Phone lines aren't public. They're owned by the ISP. So using alligator clips on phone wires would constitute both b&e as well as destruction of property.
If you are a ham you should know that a simple magnetic loop will pick up enough signal to decode conversations without physically connecting to the bundle. The phone sends something like 0 dBm on the wire into 600 Ohm, that's plenty of current. Does it make it legal to wiretap?
No, because privacy laws protect phone lines.
Someone using magnetic loops to intercept landlines would be guilty of the wiretapping laws.
Someone using alligator clips to intercept landlines would be guilty of breaking and destroying the phone company's property, as well as violating the wiretapping laws.
There are currently no laws against receiving public broadcasts.
Cell phones broadcast unidirectionally on account of their antennae design.
You are in danger of losing your geek card (if not the FCC license.) Cell phones' antennas are omnidirectional in the horizontal plane.
Sorry, that was a typo.
You can receive cell phone signals with a $100 scanner from radio shack.
The CDMA signal is DSSS, well below the noise floor of the receiver, You need to synchronize to the PRN code to pull it out. No $100 scanner from Radio Shack can do that.
DSSS is part of the encryption scheme. The PRN code is one of the secret keys. I specifically said decryption of the signals will be very difficult. But a cheap scanner will still be able to receive the signal. Just like how in this case google just received and recorded the plaintext messages.
I totally agree on the EM leakage part. Using highly sensitive equipment to sniff EM leaks should be a crime.
But open WAP isn't leakage. You're intentionally broadcasting it to the public.
The difference is that one requires thousands of dollars worth of specialized equipment, and the other one the equipment comes standard with every laptop on the self. If you criminalize the latter, then you will also criminalize everyone that has kismet or wireshark installed on their laptop.
Lets say a guy was using a telescope to spy on you through your window to watch the email you're typing. You could say the user is stupid to not pull the shades on his window, but I would say the guy is being extraordinarily creepy even if what he's doing is legal.
That's actually illegal.
Photographing other people's houses is legal because it's not an invasive act. Peeping inside with a telephoto lens is illegal because that's inherently and intentionally invasive.
Actually in the US the entire radio spectrum is owned by the public.
FCC leases some spectrum out through the public auction of licenses. So while cell providers has the right to use these frequencies through their licenses, ownership of those frequencies still belongs to the people.
I just like point out a small error: hooking up TNC to FRS radio is illegal under the FCC rules. FRS cannot be used to transmit data except using FCC certified transmitters.
IMO, it would be illegal if you use a high gain microphone and uncommon, expensive equipment. A packet sniffer, for most people, comes straight from spy stories, and it's not much different to placing alligator clips on phone wires. After all, we "broadcast" our phone conversations on public wires that aren't much protected.
Phone lines aren't public. They're owned by the ISP. So using alligator clips on phone wires would constitute both b&e as well as destruction of property. Landlines aren't "broadcasted" in any sense of the word. Landline signal only travel in private spaces, therefore there is a reasonable expectation of privacy, unlike open WiFi which is broadcasted to the public space.
The reason is that we deal in perception of privacy. There are no absolutes. However when two persons talk in the street, they believe to have privacy if there is nobody around close enough to overhear their conversation. It's common sense.
When two people shout loudly to each other in the streets, they should have no reasonable expectation of privacy. That's exactly what open WiFi is.
Talking on the street the equivalent of encrypted WiFi, which doesn't apply to this case.
However cell phones don't broadcast - we say that they establish communication channels, point to point (from the handset to the base station.) Clearly intercepting that communication (however difficult today) would be wiretapping.
This is false. Cell phones broadcast unidirectionally on account of their antennae design. You can receive cell phone signals with a $100 scanner from radio shack. I'd hardly call that "uncommon, expensive equipment".
Decrypting those signals on the other hand, is much more difficult.
But what's the difference between the cell phone that carries your protected oral speech and the email that carries your protected written speech? The encryption can't define that, otherwise it would be legal to break into unlocked homes.
The difference is the encryption. Breaking into homes is illegal because there are laws against it. Whether the home is locked or not is irrelevant. There's nothing illegal about receiving public broadcasts, otherwise I would be be jail for all those years of participating in ham radio.
Slashdot Mirror
My apologies. I stand corrected.
I did not realize a US court already ruled that Visa and Mastercard is considered a duopoly in the US.
But they have a bigger financial interest in not colluding. Since Visa rejected Wikileaks first, if I were the CEO of Mastercard, I would just put up a banner on the homepage: "Donating to Wikileaks, free; supporting freedom of speech, priceless". Everyone who boycotts Visa will consider switching to Mastercard.
Not to mention all the transaction charges that can collected from the donations.
Visa does not control the market. If they did then Mastercard wouldn't exist.
Article 101 and 102 of the EU treaty only applies to monopolies, so Visa and Mastercard do not qualify. Wikileaks would have to prove in court that the two companies conspired together and effectively acted as the same entity.
Except that Visa and Mastercard aren't monopolies, since they each hold less than 50% of the market. Wikileaks would have to prove in court that Visa and Mastercard conspired together to ban Wikileaks and thus effectively acted as a single entity. This will be extremely difficult since the two companies are bitter rivals and have no financial interest in colluding with each other.
Oh? The posting of classified government information isn't illegal in the EU?
The posting of classified American government information isn't illegal in the EU, since USA is out of their jurisdiction. EU isn't qualified, nor do they incline to, classify whether a particular document counts as "classified government information" of a foreign state.
That being said, even in the US there has been no charges pressed against Wikileaks, so as far as the American government is concerned Wikileaks has not, and is not being accused of, committing an illegal act. An American soldier is being prosecuted for leaking classified intelligence, but not Wikileaks.
it's not their place to decide where one can and can't buy things and it's not their place to make moral decisions on behalf of their clients
And it's not your place to decide who Visa and Mastercard choose to do business with.
Companies can freely choose who they conduct business with*, just as you and I can freely choose who to associate (and not associate) with.
*as long as they are not discriminating against a particular group of people
According to his blog, this exact statement would appear on the main page to everyone (not just the scripts): "Email sent to an alternate domain goes to Mailinator too! Here is one such alternate domain: gmail.com". I personally don't think that's suggesting an alternative email service. I think that's claiming his service also covers the domain gmail.com, which is false.
I said "everyone" because he posted two hypothetical questions from his legitimate users, so he's fully aware of the confusions he will cause.
What's Magneto's back story again?
I understand the iframe trick perfectly, thank you. I also understand it won't stand up in the court of law. If this defense actually worked then authors of libel and hate speech can just put each of their words in a separate iframe and claim they hosted a dictionary.
Next question - who would prosecute? :-)
Scraping websites is prosecutable now? I wonder how Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft are staying above the law then.
I have no problem with him presenting false information. That's still constitutionally protected free speech.
I have a problem with him impersonating other business for fraudulent reasons. How would you feel if you ran a mail service and his little stunt got your legitimate users banned around the web? Would you be ok with him claiming that your domain is an alternate address for mailinator.com?
Why would the scraper runner email him? Why would he even both replying to these people who want to ban his service?
It only makes sense for him to answer a confused legitimate user.
Also there was no garbage data. This is all a hypothetical situation. So we have no evidence of scrapers actually falling for this silly trap.
Why would the scraper writer ( or people buying the scraper's results) email him?
Why would he reply to the scraper writer?
Remember, these people want to ban his service. It doesn't make any sense for them to be emailing him or for him to email them back. So it follows that "Fred" must be a legitimate user confused about gmail.com appearing on his page for a few hours and then never appearing again.
Queue the puns
Puns don't need to be in FIFO order.
Your claim 3 is wrong because of 2 reasons:
He predicted that some of his real users will notice the error when viewing the home page:
Your alternate domain list displayed 'gmail.com'!
Hi Fred, no it doesn't. Just reloaded the homepage 10 times, nothing like that. all the best.
or I bet another would be like:
Yahoo.com? What is this some kind of joke?
Sorry, did you mean to email this to Carol Bartz? Not sure what you're talking about.
Reason 2 is that scraper writers aren't stupid. They won't just load the second page knowing it's an obvious trap. They will load the main page like a regular user, and then parse the small iframe.
Your alternate domain list displayed 'gmail.com'!
Hi Fred, no it doesn't. Just reloaded the homepage 10 times, nothing like that. all the best.
or I bet another would be like:
Yahoo.com? What is this some kind of joke?
Sorry, did you mean to email this to Carol Bartz? Not sure what you're talking about.
The article says some of his genuine users will notice the erroneous on the main page.
No scraper is stupid enough to just load http://mailinator.com/randomdomain.jsp
They'll load http://mailinator.com/ discard the main iframe, and then parse the randomdomain.jsp iframe.
I read the whole article, and it still doesn't answer my question above.
Email sent to an alternate domain goes to Mailinator too! Here is one such alternate domain: gmail.com
Isn't this hypothetical situation just fraud? That's basically claiming you own the gmail.com domain and can offer mail services at that domain for free.Both claims are false and intentionally deceptive.
Even if it's not fraud Google can still sue you for damages.
Phone lines aren't public. They're owned by the ISP. So using alligator clips on phone wires would constitute both b&e as well as destruction of property.
If you are a ham you should know that a simple magnetic loop will pick up enough signal to decode conversations without physically connecting to the bundle. The phone sends something like 0 dBm on the wire into 600 Ohm, that's plenty of current. Does it make it legal to wiretap?
No, because privacy laws protect phone lines.
Someone using magnetic loops to intercept landlines would be guilty of the wiretapping laws.
Someone using alligator clips to intercept landlines would be guilty of breaking and destroying the phone company's property, as well as violating the wiretapping laws.
There are currently no laws against receiving public broadcasts.
Cell phones broadcast unidirectionally on account of their antennae design.
You are in danger of losing your geek card (if not the FCC license.) Cell phones' antennas are omnidirectional in the horizontal plane.
Sorry, that was a typo.
You can receive cell phone signals with a $100 scanner from radio shack.
The CDMA signal is DSSS, well below the noise floor of the receiver, You need to synchronize to the PRN code to pull it out. No $100 scanner from Radio Shack can do that.
DSSS is part of the encryption scheme. The PRN code is one of the secret keys. I specifically said decryption of the signals will be very difficult. But a cheap scanner will still be able to receive the signal. Just like how in this case google just received and recorded the plaintext messages.
I totally agree on the EM leakage part. Using highly sensitive equipment to sniff EM leaks should be a crime.
But open WAP isn't leakage. You're intentionally broadcasting it to the public.
The difference is that one requires thousands of dollars worth of specialized equipment, and the other one the equipment comes standard with every laptop on the self. If you criminalize the latter, then you will also criminalize everyone that has kismet or wireshark installed on their laptop.
I would love to be the expert witness who types in "apt-get install kismet", answer a few questions, and then receive a paycheck.
Lets say a guy was using a telescope to spy on you through your window to watch the email you're typing. You could say the user is stupid to not pull the shades on his window, but I would say the guy is being extraordinarily creepy even if what he's doing is legal.
That's actually illegal.
Photographing other people's houses is legal because it's not an invasive act. Peeping inside with a telephoto lens is illegal because that's inherently and intentionally invasive.
Actually in the US the entire radio spectrum is owned by the public.
FCC leases some spectrum out through the public auction of licenses. So while cell providers has the right to use these frequencies through their licenses, ownership of those frequencies still belongs to the people.
Corporations cannot own our airwaves.
Well, not yet at least.
Well said.
I just like point out a small error: hooking up TNC to FRS radio is illegal under the FCC rules. FRS cannot be used to transmit data except using FCC certified transmitters.
Big corporation and the government is the same entity. Film at 11.
IMO, it would be illegal if you use a high gain microphone and uncommon, expensive equipment. A packet sniffer, for most people, comes straight from spy stories, and it's not much different to placing alligator clips on phone wires. After all, we "broadcast" our phone conversations on public wires that aren't much protected.
Phone lines aren't public. They're owned by the ISP. So using alligator clips on phone wires would constitute both b&e as well as destruction of property. Landlines aren't "broadcasted" in any sense of the word. Landline signal only travel in private spaces, therefore there is a reasonable expectation of privacy, unlike open WiFi which is broadcasted to the public space.
The reason is that we deal in perception of privacy. There are no absolutes. However when two persons talk in the street, they believe to have privacy if there is nobody around close enough to overhear their conversation. It's common sense.
When two people shout loudly to each other in the streets, they should have no reasonable expectation of privacy. That's exactly what open WiFi is.
Talking on the street the equivalent of encrypted WiFi, which doesn't apply to this case.
However cell phones don't broadcast - we say that they establish communication channels, point to point (from the handset to the base station.) Clearly intercepting that communication (however difficult today) would be wiretapping.
This is false. Cell phones broadcast unidirectionally on account of their antennae design. You can receive cell phone signals with a $100 scanner from radio shack. I'd hardly call that "uncommon, expensive equipment".
Decrypting those signals on the other hand, is much more difficult.
But what's the difference between the cell phone that carries your protected oral speech and the email that carries your protected written speech? The encryption can't define that, otherwise it would be legal to break into unlocked homes.
The difference is the encryption. Breaking into homes is illegal because there are laws against it. Whether the home is locked or not is irrelevant. There's nothing illegal about receiving public broadcasts, otherwise I would be be jail for all those years of participating in ham radio.