This is a really clever infection mechanism but it is hardly the worst problem facing Gnutella. Many servers simply house large numbers of files (with appropriate names) that redirect users to the owner's porn site or places a desktop link to said porn site. Many novice users will not think to check the file size and will end up with just porn advertising instead of what they were looking for.
I think this low signal/noise ration is what is going to hurt Gnutella. Napster avoids this problem by only allowing MP3 files. If it is a worthless file, it will only open in an MP3 player and be found to be an invalid file. On Gnutella, the user could execute a file in the appropriate program--making novices all the more vulnerable to viruses and advertising.
No, I'm saying that they should not be subjected to an investigation that will reveal that this kid's accusations are untrue. Why should these faculty members be subjected to additional srutiny when it is probable that they have done nothing wrong.
BTW, in order to prove libel, the claims must be untrue. If the prosecutors cannot prove this, then they will lose.
The Web site at issue here is, in some ways, the digital equivalent of the taunting and baiting that has always gone on in many American schools. ----------------------------------- Not quite. Posting a web site is akin to publishing a document. Not only are you humiliating your targets but you are unfairly criticizing them in the presence of others who might heed your criticism. Sure, confiscating the kid's computer is a bit harsh, but we cannot ignore the damage that could have resulted if the school board believed the student's claims and investigated the employees who he called "drunk" or "incompetant."
Libel is libel, plain and simple. Your claim that it is simply high-tech bullying is misguided. Bullying is a very personal action (believe me, I've been subjected to it, too), while publishing a web page constitutes using a public medium. As a result, it is subjected to libel laws. Of course, if a bully makes hurtful and *damaging* statements about a student, he can sue for defamation.
While I do not invoke the Katz filter, I can understand why people do. Katz has a strong analytical ability but his tendency for sensationalism is rivaled only by the tabloids. Here, he is trying to connect two very different and independent issues in an attempt to make a grandiose statement about how society unfairly treats people who don't fit in--again. Try again, Jon; if you cast often enough, you may catch something.
A while back, one of the local news stations in my area carried a story about the "How to Be a Hit Man" case and quoted lines from the book. This is the "brick-and-mortar" equivalent of linking--making reference to a particular section of published material and identifying that material for the viewwers. It would be a horrendous first-amendment restriction if news outlets could not so much as make reference to incendiary material (I think the author was ultimately convicted).
Even the NY Times linked to the DeCSS mirror page on 2600 in an article about the case. Linking must be protected in order to ensure the existence of a free press.
What commercial potential does Iridium have? Their phones are bulky, the service is unreliable, the data transmission speed would be rediculously low. When the service was cancelled, Iridium had under 100,000 subscribers--not even enough to cover operating costs let alone the cost of the network itself. Even if the cost-per-minute is reduced so as to virtually eliminate sat-phones from the marketplace, how many subscribers could the get? It seems like more good money being thrown after bad.
If the site that is getting hacked wants to have any opportunity to sue the attacker for damages or attempt to use the extent of the financial loss suffered to prosecute, then it should not retaliate. If a commercial site retaliates, it opens itself up to a counterclaim from the hackers themselves. It is as if a burgler runs down your electric fence. In many jurisdictions, the burgler has as much right to sue for the injuries he suffered as you do to reclaim the cost of the fence (note: there are exceptions). Even though the fence is merely applying a shock to the burgler in a direct response to his putting pressure against the fence, you are still responsible for his injuries.
For a governmental or non-profit organization that cannot claim damages against the hackers, this is a creative way to get even.
It is good that a corporation like HP is willing to admit its error and offer users a refund. Many companies, even when presented with information that suggests their products may be dangerous, will neglect to recall them. It is nice to see a large company like HP take responsibility for its mistake to ensure customer satisfaction.
McAfee's license agreement really does state that the results of benchmarks cannot be published without the company's permission. This *is* a provision that is designed specifically to stifle dissenting opinions about their product.
Even if Apogee does not intend to litigate against critics of its product, somebody will.
Do you ever plan to release a detailed set of specifications that explains the set of software installed across all nodes, the source code of any custom software that needed to be written, a network topology diagram, etc?
The creation of this type of software was inevitable. In order to facilitate the transfer, these file-sharing programs need to know the IP address of the sender and the recipient. In addition, services like Napster that identify users by a unique username have yet another field that allows for the identification of this user.
All that is required to create a program like this is to set it to request all file names that contain a substring. When the software receives the username/IP from which the file is being sent, it logs it instead of merely downloading the file.
In order to prevent this "spying," the file-sharing utility would need to obscure the identity of the users by acting as an intermediary. Either the server could contact the computer offering the file, download it to the server, and then send it from the server to the second client (waste of bandwidth and forces the company hosting the main server to commit copyright violation by temporarily hosting potentially pirated files), or it could somehow encrypt the identifiable information so that only a secret routine in the program could decrypt it for use (which is against the principle of open source).
I think that, at least for the near future, we will have to accept the possibility of spying on file-sharing networks as a given.
In an ideal world, anonymity in not necessary in order to have privacy. Even though identifying information would be available, it is possible for people not to use it for personal or commercial purposes. The one factor that my "ideal world" scenario does not take into account is the value of identifying information.
If you stumble across a $100 bill on your way to work, would you pick it up? Even if you knew, at the back of your mind that somebody will probably be looking for it? With personal information floating in the information ether, companies would be hard pressed *not* to amass database of identifying information. If just one company decides to amass a large database of personal information without individual consent (picking up the $100 bill in the example), the possibility for abuse exists. As individuals and consumers, we have a responsibility to protect ourselves from this abuse through the use of anonymity.
In the gaming industry, the developers are generally representative of the consumer base. The excitement that the development team brought to a project could certainly be an indicator of how well the product would sell and it is foolish for management to ignore it.
That being said, I cannot understand why anybody would respond to the request for applications that was posted in that.plan file. Given the situation surrounding the firing of Steed, a new employee is likely to be confronted with a somewhat hostile work environment when he arrives.
The firing of Steed casts a cloud around the eventual release of Doom III and the need to train another employee at this time could delay or reduce the quality of the product. id's behavior in this case is very unprofessional and management clearly did not consider the best interests of the company or the consumers.
Because of the restrictive nomination process, the only way for a consumer representative who is not nominated by the business interests to succeed is if a community like/. unofficially nominates a representative of its own as the default write in. That would ensure that people who want a true at-large representative have the option of voting for one who is not nominated through official channels, while ensuring that such a representive could receive enough votes to win.
The UCITA states that license provisions cannot be contrary to "public policy" (one of those vague legalistic phrases). The Constitution should qualify as a "public policy" exception. However, one would have to fend off a legal challenge from Apogee in order to ensure that criticism of the product qualifies for this exception.
The primary problem with the UCITA is not that it says *anything* can be put into a license agreement. Instead, it is simply that anything can be put in a license agreement until it is determined through the judicial process that such a term *cannot* be included and qualifies for an exception.
It is yet another opt-in vs. opt-out debate; should the allowable terms be explicitly defined and all else deemed inappropriate, or should all terms be considered allowable unless they qualify as an exception. There is little doubt that the former is better for consumers.
I have been working on a similar site that is specifically oriented towards the/. crowd and fellow technophiles. In order for a/.-like forum to succeed where mass-media has not, it is necessary to have an intelligent and analytical group of people around (and by) whom the site is built.
Since your site is designed as a general-interest politics site, what will prevent it from having the same superficial "sound-byte" content as other mass-media outlets? Self-moderation only produces content as valuable as the contributors.
It is great that, only a few weeks after MS sent a letter to/. about possible copyright infringement relating to Kerberos, they are accused of copyright violation, themselves. Best of all, it is publicized by the organization that they tried to bully. Whereas they wrote to/. about a few obscure posts on a large message board, they steal a trademarked name and *compete* with the trademark holders. I love it!
It seems to be fairly common for authors of well-known utilities to either form their own start-ups or be absorbed into existing ones. If the ideology of OSS is to develop code "for the good of humanity," I am more than a little curious why Slashdot's absorbtion into Andover.net, L0pht's absorbtion into @stake, and now Python's absorbtion into BeFree has not spawned criticism. Since I view myself as somewhat of an outsider in relation to OSS, I see it as the natural evolution of OSS into the marketplace at large. In my mind, it legitimizes OSS more than it reflects on the founders' desire for material possessions.
How do you feel about OSS companies becoming part of for-profit ventures?
The first time I programmed for any significant length of time was in Seventh grade. We had an algebra final and were told that we could bring programs on our graphing calculators. As a result, I was confronted with mathematical programs that could be solved most easily with a calculator program, and given an incentive to sit down and start coding.
If the kids are displaying an interest in programming already, they are likely to be *already* hooked on computer games. I played computer games for years on an 8086 (ascii DoD) before I even knew what a programming language was. Now, you have to show them that programming can help them solve problems that they are already confronted with all of the time. Show them how to make a tip-calculator for restaurants, an adding machine, and show them how easy it is.
After they realize how easy and useful programming is, you will have drawn them in.
The problem is that communications technologies will continue to improve and may require upgraded wiring. For example, a friend of mine paid to have his house wired with Cat5, cable (with central hub), multi-room stereo, etc.
Since his house was built, the local cable acess provider has upgraded its system to support cable modems, but my friend's hub is too old for it. Gigabit ethernet requires either fibre or copper with a grade higher than category 5. Now, good home theater preamps support multi-room video as well as audio. He will need to upgrade his wiring anyway if he wants to take advantage of this new technology and his house is only a few years old.
The problem exists because people tend to keep their houses longer than the cycle of obsolescence for computer components. As a result, even people who purchase these wired homes will have to pay large sums of money to upgrade their wiring if they want to stay on the cutting edge.
In the last update, you mentioned that you abandoned Adfu in favor of a C program that you developed for ad-rotation, which would run under Apache. When will the code for that be available?
The problem with the digital interface that they are using is that it is only found on *very* high-end home theater equiptment. Most HDTVs (even high end ones) use the standard Firewire input to receive data from an external decoder or other digital video source. As a result, the DVD players that will ultimately come with this output will be priced to compete only in the high-end market (for the near future).
In addition, most people do not even have HDTVs yet. As a result, their TVs cannot receive a digital input. Even if standard TV manufacturers built D/A converters into their sets, the signal wouuld have to undergo the same D/A conversion that currently takes place within the player, anyway.
Since their is nothing preventing somebody from developing a device that will let this digital output connect to a firewire device, that should be the next product offering. As a result, people could ultimately get the firewire outputs, which the MPAA tried to eliminate, on their DVD players despite the manufacturers contractual agreement!
The worst effect of this decision will be on meta-search engines and shopping bots. Those sites rely on the ability to act as a proxy on behalf of the user to request pages from other sites in real time and add value to this data by presenting it in one screen (and removing duplicate listings, etc.). Bidder's edge does not use a "spider" and is thus not concerned with robots.txt. Instead, it is simply acting as an intelligent proxy server--requesting information from multiple auction sites on behalf of its users.
Ebay's objection to this practice had nothing to do with ad-revenue. They were upset that they were being compared equally with other auction sites. It is as if Amazon wrote to the companies operating the shopping bots with a statement that they were "Amazon" and should not be compared with mere booksellers. Ebay's brand is their major asset and they are willing to protect it at all costs.
As a result of the injunction that Ebay obtained, consumer choice and fair competition can be undermined by any e-commerce site with a superiority complex.
While many of the libertarians on/. (including myself) may see the merit of the "code is free speech" defense, the fact is that it has little legal merit. The authors of viruses can be prosecuted because that code may present a real danger. Just as the courts have decided to impose limits on verbal expression (i.e. the overused fire in a theater example) that can present a public danger, they will place restrictions on the distribution of code. One of the questions that is raised is: is the *threat* of piracy a public hazard that justifies the restriction on expression.
While we will answer that question one way, the MPAA is sure to present an alternative answer. The fervor with which they advocated the DMCA and prosecuted the DeCSS case indicates that *they* see the free distribution of Digital Media as a threat to their billions in revenue and their shareholders' interests.
This is a simple case. Whether code is a form of expression that is protected is *irrelevant*. The fact is that DeCSS can be used for *legitimate* purposes as previous copyright law defines "fair use" and will thus be permitted to be distributed. This is not a "test case" and 10 years from now will be seen as having little significance.
Slashdot Mirror
This is a really clever infection mechanism but it is hardly the worst problem facing Gnutella. Many servers simply house large numbers of files (with appropriate names) that redirect users to the owner's porn site or places a desktop link to said porn site. Many novice users will not think to check the file size and will end up with just porn advertising instead of what they were looking for.
I think this low signal/noise ration is what is going to hurt Gnutella. Napster avoids this problem by only allowing MP3 files. If it is a worthless file, it will only open in an MP3 player and be found to be an invalid file. On Gnutella, the user could execute a file in the appropriate program--making novices all the more vulnerable to viruses and advertising.
No, I'm saying that they should not be subjected to an investigation that will reveal that this kid's accusations are untrue. Why should these faculty members be subjected to additional srutiny when it is probable that they have done nothing wrong.
BTW, in order to prove libel, the claims must be untrue. If the prosecutors cannot prove this, then they will lose.
The Web site at issue here is, in some ways, the digital equivalent of the taunting and baiting that has always gone on in many American schools.
-----------------------------------
Not quite. Posting a web site is akin to publishing a document. Not only are you humiliating your targets but you are unfairly criticizing them in the presence of others who might heed your criticism. Sure, confiscating the kid's computer is a bit harsh, but we cannot ignore the damage that could have resulted if the school board believed the student's claims and investigated the employees who he called "drunk" or "incompetant."
Libel is libel, plain and simple. Your claim that it is simply high-tech bullying is misguided. Bullying is a very personal action (believe me, I've been subjected to it, too), while publishing a web page constitutes using a public medium. As a result, it is subjected to libel laws. Of course, if a bully makes hurtful and *damaging* statements about a student, he can sue for defamation.
While I do not invoke the Katz filter, I can understand why people do. Katz has a strong analytical ability but his tendency for sensationalism is rivaled only by the tabloids. Here, he is trying to connect two very different and independent issues in an attempt to make a grandiose statement about how society unfairly treats people who don't fit in--again. Try again, Jon; if you cast often enough, you may catch something.
A while back, one of the local news stations in my area carried a story about the "How to Be a Hit Man" case and quoted lines from the book. This is the "brick-and-mortar" equivalent of linking--making reference to a particular section of published material and identifying that material for the viewwers. It would be a horrendous first-amendment restriction if news outlets could not so much as make reference to incendiary material (I think the author was ultimately convicted).
Even the NY Times linked to the DeCSS mirror page on 2600 in an article about the case. Linking must be protected in order to ensure the existence of a free press.
The link to CNN should be CNN and not http://www.slashdot.org/www.cnn.com.
What commercial potential does Iridium have? Their phones are bulky, the service is unreliable, the data transmission speed would be rediculously low. When the service was cancelled, Iridium had under 100,000 subscribers--not even enough to cover operating costs let alone the cost of the network itself. Even if the cost-per-minute is reduced so as to virtually eliminate sat-phones from the marketplace, how many subscribers could the get? It seems like more good money being thrown after bad.
If the site that is getting hacked wants to have any opportunity to sue the attacker for damages or attempt to use the extent of the financial loss suffered to prosecute, then it should not retaliate. If a commercial site retaliates, it opens itself up to a counterclaim from the hackers themselves. It is as if a burgler runs down your electric fence. In many jurisdictions, the burgler has as much right to sue for the injuries he suffered as you do to reclaim the cost of the fence (note: there are exceptions). Even though the fence is merely applying a shock to the burgler in a direct response to his putting pressure against the fence, you are still responsible for his injuries.
For a governmental or non-profit organization that cannot claim damages against the hackers, this is a creative way to get even.
It is good that a corporation like HP is willing to admit its error and offer users a refund. Many companies, even when presented with information that suggests their products may be dangerous, will neglect to recall them. It is nice to see a large company like HP take responsibility for its mistake to ensure customer satisfaction.
McAfee's license agreement really does state that the results of benchmarks cannot be published without the company's permission. This *is* a provision that is designed specifically to stifle dissenting opinions about their product.
Even if Apogee does not intend to litigate against critics of its product, somebody will.
If they are that sincere about not taking legal action with that aspect of their EULA, why include it at all, and risk generating controvesy.
Do you ever plan to release a detailed set of specifications that explains the set of software installed across all nodes, the source code of any custom software that needed to be written, a network topology diagram, etc?
The creation of this type of software was inevitable. In order to facilitate the transfer, these file-sharing programs need to know the IP address of the sender and the recipient. In addition, services like Napster that identify users by a unique username have yet another field that allows for the identification of this user.
All that is required to create a program like this is to set it to request all file names that contain a substring. When the software receives the username/IP from which the file is being sent, it logs it instead of merely downloading the file.
In order to prevent this "spying," the file-sharing utility would need to obscure the identity of the users by acting as an intermediary. Either the server could contact the computer offering the file, download it to the server, and then send it from the server to the second client (waste of bandwidth and forces the company hosting the main server to commit copyright violation by temporarily hosting potentially pirated files), or it could somehow encrypt the identifiable information so that only a secret routine in the program could decrypt it for use (which is against the principle of open source).
I think that, at least for the near future, we will have to accept the possibility of spying on file-sharing networks as a given.
In an ideal world, anonymity in not necessary in order to have privacy. Even though identifying information would be available, it is possible for people not to use it for personal or commercial purposes. The one factor that my "ideal world" scenario does not take into account is the value of identifying information.
If you stumble across a $100 bill on your way to work, would you pick it up? Even if you knew, at the back of your mind that somebody will probably be looking for it? With personal information floating in the information ether, companies would be hard pressed *not* to amass database of identifying information. If just one company decides to amass a large database of personal information without individual consent (picking up the $100 bill in the example), the possibility for abuse exists. As individuals and consumers, we have a responsibility to protect ourselves from this abuse through the use of anonymity.
In the gaming industry, the developers are generally representative of the consumer base. The excitement that the development team brought to a project could certainly be an indicator of how well the product would sell and it is foolish for management to ignore it.
.plan file. Given the situation surrounding the firing of Steed, a new employee is likely to be confronted with a somewhat hostile work environment when he arrives.
That being said, I cannot understand why anybody would respond to the request for applications that was posted in that
The firing of Steed casts a cloud around the eventual release of Doom III and the need to train another employee at this time could delay or reduce the quality of the product. id's behavior in this case is very unprofessional and management clearly did not consider the best interests of the company or the consumers.
Because of the restrictive nomination process, the only way for a consumer representative who is not nominated by the business interests to succeed is if a community like /. unofficially nominates a representative of its own as the default write in. That would ensure that people who want a true at-large representative have the option of voting for one who is not nominated through official channels, while ensuring that such a representive could receive enough votes to win.
The UCITA states that license provisions cannot be contrary to "public policy" (one of those vague legalistic phrases). The Constitution should qualify as a "public policy" exception. However, one would have to fend off a legal challenge from Apogee in order to ensure that criticism of the product qualifies for this exception.
The primary problem with the UCITA is not that it says *anything* can be put into a license agreement. Instead, it is simply that anything can be put in a license agreement until it is determined through the judicial process that such a term *cannot* be included and qualifies for an exception.
It is yet another opt-in vs. opt-out debate; should the allowable terms be explicitly defined and all else deemed inappropriate, or should all terms be considered allowable unless they qualify as an exception. There is little doubt that the former is better for consumers.
I have been working on a similar site that is specifically oriented towards the /. crowd and fellow technophiles. In order for a /.-like forum to succeed where mass-media has not, it is necessary to have an intelligent and analytical group of people around (and by) whom the site is built.
Since your site is designed as a general-interest politics site, what will prevent it from having the same superficial "sound-byte" content as other mass-media outlets? Self-moderation only produces content as valuable as the contributors.
It is great that, only a few weeks after MS sent a letter to /. about possible copyright infringement relating to Kerberos, they are accused of copyright violation, themselves. Best of all, it is publicized by the organization that they tried to bully. Whereas they wrote to /. about a few obscure posts on a large message board, they steal a trademarked name and *compete* with the trademark holders. I love it!
It seems to be fairly common for authors of well-known utilities to either form their own start-ups or be absorbed into existing ones. If the ideology of OSS is to develop code "for the good of humanity," I am more than a little curious why Slashdot's absorbtion into Andover.net, L0pht's absorbtion into @stake, and now Python's absorbtion into BeFree has not spawned criticism. Since I view myself as somewhat of an outsider in relation to OSS, I see it as the natural evolution of OSS into the marketplace at large. In my mind, it legitimizes OSS more than it reflects on the founders' desire for material possessions.
How do you feel about OSS companies becoming part of for-profit ventures?
The first time I programmed for any significant length of time was in Seventh grade. We had an algebra final and were told that we could bring programs on our graphing calculators. As a result, I was confronted with mathematical programs that could be solved most easily with a calculator program, and given an incentive to sit down and start coding.
If the kids are displaying an interest in programming already, they are likely to be *already* hooked on computer games. I played computer games for years on an 8086 (ascii DoD) before I even knew what a programming language was. Now, you have to show them that programming can help them solve problems that they are already confronted with all of the time. Show them how to make a tip-calculator for restaurants, an adding machine, and show them how easy it is.
After they realize how easy and useful programming is, you will have drawn them in.
The problem is that communications technologies will continue to improve and may require upgraded wiring. For example, a friend of mine paid to have his house wired with Cat5, cable (with central hub), multi-room stereo, etc.
Since his house was built, the local cable acess provider has upgraded its system to support cable modems, but my friend's hub is too old for it. Gigabit ethernet requires either fibre or copper with a grade higher than category 5. Now, good home theater preamps support multi-room video as well as audio. He will need to upgrade his wiring anyway if he wants to take advantage of this new technology and his house is only a few years old.
The problem exists because people tend to keep their houses longer than the cycle of obsolescence for computer components. As a result, even people who purchase these wired homes will have to pay large sums of money to upgrade their wiring if they want to stay on the cutting edge.
In the last update, you mentioned that you abandoned Adfu in favor of a C program that you developed for ad-rotation, which would run under Apache. When will the code for that be available?
The problem with the digital interface that they are using is that it is only found on *very* high-end home theater equiptment. Most HDTVs (even high end ones) use the standard Firewire input to receive data from an external decoder or other digital video source. As a result, the DVD players that will ultimately come with this output will be priced to compete only in the high-end market (for the near future).
In addition, most people do not even have HDTVs yet. As a result, their TVs cannot receive a digital input. Even if standard TV manufacturers built D/A converters into their sets, the signal wouuld have to undergo the same D/A conversion that currently takes place within the player, anyway.
Since their is nothing preventing somebody from developing a device that will let this digital output connect to a firewire device, that should be the next product offering. As a result, people could ultimately get the firewire outputs, which the MPAA tried to eliminate, on their DVD players despite the manufacturers contractual agreement!
The worst effect of this decision will be on meta-search engines and shopping bots. Those sites rely on the ability to act as a proxy on behalf of the user to request pages from other sites in real time and add value to this data by presenting it in one screen (and removing duplicate listings, etc.). Bidder's edge does not use a "spider" and is thus not concerned with robots.txt. Instead, it is simply acting as an intelligent proxy server--requesting information from multiple auction sites on behalf of its users.
Ebay's objection to this practice had nothing to do with ad-revenue. They were upset that they were being compared equally with other auction sites. It is as if Amazon wrote to the companies operating the shopping bots with a statement that they were "Amazon" and should not be compared with mere booksellers. Ebay's brand is their major asset and they are willing to protect it at all costs.
As a result of the injunction that Ebay obtained, consumer choice and fair competition can be undermined by any e-commerce site with a superiority complex.
While many of the libertarians on /. (including myself) may see the merit of the "code is free speech" defense, the fact is that it has little legal merit. The authors of viruses can be prosecuted because that code may present a real danger. Just as the courts have decided to impose limits on verbal expression (i.e. the overused fire in a theater example) that can present a public danger, they will place restrictions on the distribution of code. One of the questions that is raised is: is the *threat* of piracy a public hazard that justifies the restriction on expression.
While we will answer that question one way, the MPAA is sure to present an alternative answer. The fervor with which they advocated the DMCA and prosecuted the DeCSS case indicates that *they* see the free distribution of Digital Media as a threat to their billions in revenue and their shareholders' interests.
This is a simple case. Whether code is a form of expression that is protected is *irrelevant*. The fact is that DeCSS can be used for *legitimate* purposes as previous copyright law defines "fair use" and will thus be permitted to be distributed. This is not a "test case" and 10 years from now will be seen as having little significance.