Dear Sir or Madam: Do you hate someone? I mean deep-down, gut-churning, all-consuming, roast-in-the-fires-of-hell hatred? Then the all-new Revengenator® is for you! Now, with just the push of a button, you can spew tens of thousands of forged email messages to Colorado residents, all in your target's name! Imagine their surprise when they're hit with thousands of lawsuits for millions of dollars! Your dreams of that all-consuming, sword-of-justice, scorched-earth payback is here, for the low-low price of just $49.95! The Revengenator® : now, it's personal.
One thing that seems to be overlooked is: how is a spammer supposed to know that the email is going to someone in Colorado? If I were an attorney, I'd be arguing that my client couldn't be held responsible if it turns out that BartSimpson@eat-my-shorts.com happens to reside in a state that has passed one of these laws. And what about people who have, say, a Yahoo email account that they use POP to download their mail from? How can one possibly know where that goes? What if the Yahoo user lives in a state in which it's legal to send commercial email and then moves to Colorado? This law is going to cause more trouble than it solves, even assuming that it isn't declared unconstitutional. I despise spammers as much as anyone, but passing legislation that won't fix the problem, or worse, bogs down the courts, isn't the answer.
The point is that attempting to dictate unusable standards at some remove from those of us in the trenches resulted in us having to use our ingenuity to get around them in order to turn out maintainable products on time and within budget. When finally left to our own devices, we used standards (yes, we actually used some) that made sense. Contrary to what is commonly believed, the military (at least the U.S.) is surprisingly adaptive; when an approach is clearly not working, they'll generally recognize it and make changes. There are a few well-known counter-examples, but that's my experience.
What happens is that innovative new technologies are invented in the UK, fail miserably because the financiers couldn't tell a good idea if it was rammed up their arse sideways.
Given the degree of taxation and regulation in the U.K., it's surprising anything innovative ever gets funded at all. The prevailing attitude seems to be, all activity not explicitly permitted is prohibited. Ok, a slight exaggeration, but when I worked for a small company trying to sell some new airline-reservation datacomm equipment over there, all we ever heard was that changing things had to be approved by such-and-such a government agency. In the U.S., Australia, and New Zealand we never got that reaction.
The UK is dragged into the new technology kicking and screaming that the bloody Europeans are trying to take over the world.
I recall being in England one time and heard a radio report that "the Continent has been cut off from Great Britain by intense fog." That pretty much sums up the Brit attitude (which, don't get me wrong, I find greatly amusing. The EU must love negotiating with them.).
Amen to this. Having done a lot of work for the military, I can attest to what happens when somebody in the upper stratosphere of the ranks decides on some 'standard'. For the most part, we spent our time either subverting them by creative labeling of what we were doing (for example, if embedded systems are exempt, suddenly everything we produced was an embedded system), or applying for waivers. Not exactly a productive use of our time. Thankfully, even the brass figured out that this wasn't going according to plan and have greatly lessened their attempts to impose standards from on high.
Based on my personally having seen some the items mentioned in the WSJ article for sale in the U.S., I'm suspicious that they may have exaggerated the issue. Their point about the fragmented wireless market is well taken however. On the other hand, while having a unified standard such as GSM in Europe is good for mass-production and quick adoption of wireless devices, the U.S. might benefit by a combination of intense competition among the three technologies in use here, plus the benefits of not being 'first-mover'. Europe was a little slower to adopt television than the U.S. and consequently ended up with the higher picture resolution of the PAL standard, while the U.S. got stuck with NTSC. Long-term, the U.S. might benefit by being slower off the mark. Or not (hey, I'm flexible).
Only a couple dozen actually bothered to get off their fat ass to go down to Microsoft's complex or whatever
I thought it was the computer makers who were paying the refund. If I had to do direct battle with The Evil From Redmond for just 50 bucks or so, I'd probably forget it too.
9 times out of ten, you will still be paying for Windows twice, as OEMs don't usually deduct the price of the Windows software that they don't load
What happened to that movement where people were reading the Windows Licensing Agreement and taking the "if you don't agree with this, send the software back for a refund" literally? I thought I had heard that lots of Linux users were actually doing that with the Windows software that came with their new machines.
So, the judge is going to trust the Justice (sic) Department to cough up this info? Seeing as how the probe of the Democrat campaign fundraising practices in the 1996 elections is still ongoing, we can count on seeing Carnivore specs about the time David Letterman stops being sarcastic.
Prediction: It'll turn out that the failure to act on the FOIA request was just administrative red tape and such, and that there's nothing wrong/sinister going on here.
My guess is that you're probably correct that Carnivore isn't some nefarious conspiracy on the part of the FBI. However, having worked in large bureaucracies, I think you're wrong that the dealy is just red tape. The first instinct of a bureaucrat is to stonewall any request for information. Disclosure never is to their advantage. At best, there's no harmful stuff there, but the organization/bureaucrat isn't going to get any brownie points for doing the right thing by releasing it. At worst, there's going to be something horrible that will embarrass the organization. get them a hearing on capitol hill, and possibly ruin the bureaucrat's career. The the first question that runs thru a bureaucrat's mind when getting a request like this is: "What's in this stuff they're requesting? Do they know something? I'd better have our staff review it before releasing so maybe we can bury it or at least get our story straight about it."
How bout using software installed on ISP systems instead of some ominous black box clearly put their by watchers to avoid being watched.
I saw an interview with an FBI representative who said that ISPs that were able to provide the data required by the warrant using their in-house resources would not have to install Carnivore.
Being religious does not automatically make one a Republican and the reverse is also true. And forcing values on people is not exclusively a religious/Republican pursuit. For example, try going on a school campus these days and say that you think the gay agenda is harmful. You'll have people trying to have you thrown in jail for hate speech. The left is every bit as guilty of trying to shut up those they disagree with. Diversity my ass.
From here: Hotmail does not condone or support the sending of junk e-mail (aka "spam") through our system. The Hotmail Terms of Services (TOS) strictly forbids sending unsolicited e-mail and we terminate all reported accounts that are in violation of the TOS. If you do receive unsolicited e-mail, report it to abuse@hotmail.com. Remember to include a complete copy of the message, including the full message headers. Have you tried this?
We have lobbied in our town quite a while ago to make sure that public schools do not allow vulgar T-shirts to be worn. The school board agreed with us and T-shirts which glorify alchohol, sex and violence or contain obscene words. We are now attempting to get the same ruling for the public malls in our area.
Normally, I have no arguments with religious people, but this goes too far. Even assuming that you could get this legislation passed, it would be struck down by the courts, and rightly so. If your malls are plagued by this sort of thing (I have yet to see anything offensive on a T-shirt in any mall I've visited), then don't go there. With the internet, you can buy anything you want online these days.
'Subpoena' according to Black's Law Dictionary is "a command to appear at a certain time and place to give testimony upon a certain manner." There are two flavors mentioned by Black's: The subponena duces tecum which is a command to produce a document or paper that is pertinent to the issues in a pending controversy, or the subpoena ad testificandum which is a command to appear in order to give testimony. The article makes clear that Copyleft has been added as a defendant, but from the mention that they've received a subpoena I inferred that they've probably received a subponena duces tecum to produce some material as well. Perhaps the article writer meant to say 'summons' instead of 'subpoena'.
Well, last I checked, Marijuana is still illegal, despite how many people have used it.
The world is coming around. California permits marijuana for 'medicinal' uses (so broadly defined that any doctor could prescribe it for any reason). The federal gummint threatens any doctor issuing such a prescription, but if it's ever tested in court, I believe they'll lose. Many people, including some conservatives, believe that drug use should be legalized. I think that this attitude will eventually prevail, especially as more and more people realize what horrible damage is being inflicted on civil liberties in the name of "the war on drugs".
Let's say for the sake of argument that the code itself could be banned. How about a program that generated the code (for example a perl script that output the C source when invoked)? How about a program that generated that program? How about a story containing sentences whose first letters contain the source code? I can't conceive of a way that the judge could possibly ban all of the ways in which this knowledge could be represented. The MPAA is trying to command the tides to recede.
Not mentioned in the story: who is issuing the subpoena, the defense or the prosecution? And exactly what is being subpoened. The shirt? Sales records (in which case will the MPAA SS be kicking in the doors of anyone who bought one)?
You know how the USPS gets reeeeal upset when you start carrying first class mail in competition with them? Are we going to see them try to put some sort of restrictions on email as well? Dear Sir, It has come to our attention here at the USPS that you've been sending 'first class' email via email servers other than those officially authorized to do so by the USPS. We hereby demand that you cease and desist such communications through unauthorized channels, and turn over your email server logs so that the USPS may bill you the 41 cents per email 'illegal conveyance' penalty. Failure to comply will result in an IRS audit. We appreciate your cooperation in this matter.
or even better a system you can guarentee to have carnivore on it...
Haven't you heard? The USPS system is derived from Carnivore. Seems the FBI wanted to bypass those pesky ISPs and their annoying resistance to attaching unknown boxes to their networks.
(NB: Since in these times nothing seems too absurd: yes, I'm kidding...)
Slashdot Mirror
Dear Sir or Madam: Do you hate someone? I mean deep-down, gut-churning, all-consuming, roast-in-the-fires-of-hell hatred? Then the all-new Revengenator® is for you! Now, with just the push of a button, you can spew tens of thousands of forged email messages to Colorado residents, all in your target's name! Imagine their surprise when they're hit with thousands of lawsuits for millions of dollars! Your dreams of that all-consuming, sword-of-justice, scorched-earth payback is here, for the low-low price of just $49.95! The Revengenator® : now, it's personal.
And do the customers to whom the email was addressed get the money if the ISP wins? I bet I know the answer to that one.
One thing that seems to be overlooked is: how is a spammer supposed to know that the email is going to someone in Colorado? If I were an attorney, I'd be arguing that my client couldn't be held responsible if it turns out that BartSimpson@eat-my-shorts.com happens to reside in a state that has passed one of these laws. And what about people who have, say, a Yahoo email account that they use POP to download their mail from? How can one possibly know where that goes? What if the Yahoo user lives in a state in which it's legal to send commercial email and then moves to Colorado? This law is going to cause more trouble than it solves, even assuming that it isn't declared unconstitutional. I despise spammers as much as anyone, but passing legislation that won't fix the problem, or worse, bogs down the courts, isn't the answer.
The point is that attempting to dictate unusable standards at some remove from those of us in the trenches resulted in us having to use our ingenuity to get around them in order to turn out maintainable products on time and within budget. When finally left to our own devices, we used standards (yes, we actually used some) that made sense. Contrary to what is commonly believed, the military (at least the U.S.) is surprisingly adaptive; when an approach is clearly not working, they'll generally recognize it and make changes. There are a few well-known counter-examples, but that's my experience.
Anyone who thinks that the web was "invented" is either an idiot or someone who is massively naive.
... Uh, never mind.
Clearly you haven't been keeping up. Al Gore was the father of the internet, and he's not an
What happens is that innovative new technologies are invented in the UK, fail miserably because the financiers couldn't tell a good idea if it was rammed up their arse sideways.
Given the degree of taxation and regulation in the U.K., it's surprising anything innovative ever gets funded at all. The prevailing attitude seems to be, all activity not explicitly permitted is prohibited. Ok, a slight exaggeration, but when I worked for a small company trying to sell some new airline-reservation datacomm equipment over there, all we ever heard was that changing things had to be approved by such-and-such a government agency. In the U.S., Australia, and New Zealand we never got that reaction.
The UK is dragged into the new technology kicking and screaming that the bloody Europeans are trying to take over the world.
I recall being in England one time and heard a radio report that "the Continent has been cut off from Great Britain by intense fog." That pretty much sums up the Brit attitude (which, don't get me wrong, I find greatly amusing. The EU must love negotiating with them.).
Amen to this. Having done a lot of work for the military, I can attest to what happens when somebody in the upper stratosphere of the ranks decides on some 'standard'. For the most part, we spent our time either subverting them by creative labeling of what we were doing (for example, if embedded systems are exempt, suddenly everything we produced was an embedded system), or applying for waivers. Not exactly a productive use of our time. Thankfully, even the brass figured out that this wasn't going according to plan and have greatly lessened their attempts to impose standards from on high.
Based on my personally having seen some the items mentioned in the WSJ article for sale in the U.S., I'm suspicious that they may have exaggerated the issue. Their point about the fragmented wireless market is well taken however. On the other hand, while having a unified standard such as GSM in Europe is good for mass-production and quick adoption of wireless devices, the U.S. might benefit by a combination of intense competition among the three technologies in use here, plus the benefits of not being 'first-mover'. Europe was a little slower to adopt television than the U.S. and consequently ended up with the higher picture resolution of the PAL standard, while the U.S. got stuck with NTSC. Long-term, the U.S. might benefit by being slower off the mark. Or not (hey, I'm flexible).
Only a couple dozen actually bothered to get off their fat ass to go down to Microsoft's complex or whatever
I thought it was the computer makers who were paying the refund. If I had to do direct battle with The Evil From Redmond for just 50 bucks or so, I'd probably forget it too.
9 times out of ten, you will still be paying for Windows twice, as OEMs don't usually deduct the price of the Windows software that they don't load
What happened to that movement where people were reading the Windows Licensing Agreement and taking the "if you don't agree with this, send the software back for a refund" literally? I thought I had heard that lots of Linux users were actually doing that with the Windows software that came with their new machines.
When the demand is sufficent a crack will be written, probably in the form of bypassing the need for this generated number by patching the program.
The crack is also going to have to patch the code that decides your Office files have been 'damaged' and wants to fix them.
I don't trust the general population to decide what is and is not appropriate.
You only need to look at who gets sent to Washington to realize the truth of this statement.
So, the judge is going to trust the Justice (sic) Department to cough up this info? Seeing as how the probe of the Democrat campaign fundraising practices in the 1996 elections is still ongoing, we can count on seeing Carnivore specs about the time David Letterman stops being sarcastic.
Please post the names of those who have been submitting this story so that they can be properly 'thanked' by the rest of us ...
Prediction: It'll turn out that the failure to act on the FOIA request was just administrative red tape and such, and that there's nothing wrong/sinister going on here.
My guess is that you're probably correct that Carnivore isn't some nefarious conspiracy on the part of the FBI. However, having worked in large bureaucracies, I think you're wrong that the dealy is just red tape. The first instinct of a bureaucrat is to stonewall any request for information. Disclosure never is to their advantage. At best, there's no harmful stuff there, but the organization/bureaucrat isn't going to get any brownie points for doing the right thing by releasing it. At worst, there's going to be something horrible that will embarrass the organization. get them a hearing on capitol hill, and possibly ruin the bureaucrat's career. The the first question that runs thru a bureaucrat's mind when getting a request like this is: "What's in this stuff they're requesting? Do they know something? I'd better have our staff review it before releasing so maybe we can bury it or at least get our story straight about it."
How bout using software installed on ISP systems instead of some ominous black box clearly put their by watchers to avoid being watched.
I saw an interview with an FBI representative who said that ISPs that were able to provide the data required by the warrant using their in-house resources would not have to install Carnivore.
Being religious does not automatically make one a Republican and the reverse is also true. And forcing values on people is not exclusively a religious/Republican pursuit. For example, try going on a school campus these days and say that you think the gay agenda is harmful. You'll have people trying to have you thrown in jail for hate speech. The left is every bit as guilty of trying to shut up those they disagree with. Diversity my ass.
From here: Hotmail does not condone or support the sending of junk e-mail (aka "spam") through our system. The Hotmail Terms of Services (TOS) strictly forbids sending unsolicited e-mail and we terminate all reported accounts that are in violation of the TOS. If you do receive unsolicited e-mail, report it to abuse@hotmail.com. Remember to include a complete copy of the message, including the full message headers. Have you tried this?
We have lobbied in our town quite a while ago to make sure that public schools do not allow vulgar T-shirts to be worn. The school board agreed with us and T-shirts which glorify alchohol, sex and violence or contain obscene words. We are now attempting to get the same ruling for the public malls in our area.
Normally, I have no arguments with religious people, but this goes too far. Even assuming that you could get this legislation passed, it would be struck down by the courts, and rightly so. If your malls are plagued by this sort of thing (I have yet to see anything offensive on a T-shirt in any mall I've visited), then don't go there. With the internet, you can buy anything you want online these days.
'Subpoena' according to Black's Law Dictionary is "a command to appear at a certain time and place to give testimony upon a certain manner." There are two flavors mentioned by Black's: The subponena duces tecum which is a command to produce a document or paper that is pertinent to the issues in a pending controversy, or the subpoena ad testificandum which is a command to appear in order to give testimony. The article makes clear that Copyleft has been added as a defendant, but from the mention that they've received a subpoena I inferred that they've probably received a subponena duces tecum to produce some material as well. Perhaps the article writer meant to say 'summons' instead of 'subpoena'.
Well, last I checked, Marijuana is still illegal, despite how many people have used it.
The world is coming around. California permits marijuana for 'medicinal' uses (so broadly defined that any doctor could prescribe it for any reason). The federal gummint threatens any doctor issuing such a prescription, but if it's ever tested in court, I believe they'll lose. Many people, including some conservatives, believe that drug use should be legalized. I think that this attitude will eventually prevail, especially as more and more people realize what horrible damage is being inflicted on civil liberties in the name of "the war on drugs".
Let's say for the sake of argument that the code itself could be banned. How about a program that generated the code (for example a perl script that output the C source when invoked)? How about a program that generated that program? How about a story containing sentences whose first letters contain the source code? I can't conceive of a way that the judge could possibly ban all of the ways in which this knowledge could be represented. The MPAA is trying to command the tides to recede.
Not mentioned in the story: who is issuing the subpoena, the defense or the prosecution? And exactly what is being subpoened. The shirt? Sales records (in which case will the MPAA SS be kicking in the doors of anyone who bought one)?
You know how the USPS gets reeeeal upset when you start carrying first class mail in competition with them? Are we going to see them try to put some sort of restrictions on email as well? Dear Sir, It has come to our attention here at the USPS that you've been sending 'first class' email via email servers other than those officially authorized to do so by the USPS. We hereby demand that you cease and desist such communications through unauthorized channels, and turn over your email server logs so that the USPS may bill you the 41 cents per email 'illegal conveyance' penalty. Failure to comply will result in an IRS audit. We appreciate your cooperation in this matter.
or even better a system you can guarentee to have carnivore on it...
Haven't you heard? The USPS system is derived from Carnivore. Seems the FBI wanted to bypass those pesky ISPs and their annoying resistance to attaching unknown boxes to their networks.
(NB: Since in these times nothing seems too absurd: yes, I'm kidding...)