This can backfire seriously if the game ends up being released without proper testing. Take Temple of Elemental Evil as a recent example - still buggy after the first patch (one of the bugs fixed was gems in a treasure chamber turning player characters into chairs...) and now a second patch is in testing (written by the head developer in his spare time). Pools of Radiance (Ruins of Myth Drannor) required four patches - one to fix a serious installer problem that could result in system files being deleted.
The biggest example I can remember though was Frontier: First Encounters. Random hangs and crashes to the point of unplayability. Gametek had to run a second advertising campaign to tell everyone that they had fixed it!
A lot of the comments about being "unable to compete" with regard to outsourcing can also be made by commercial software companies trying to compete with Open/Free source software. The answer typically given is that Open/Free software raises the entry level and provides a better starting point for commercial companies to build upon.
Similarly, Western IT professionals (it is not just the US having to deal with this issue by the way) concerned at this trend should try to acquire a broader-based skillset which includes business and creative as well as "pure" technical skills - and local knowledge that cannot be easily duplicated by an overseas company (in most organisations, it still is a case of not what you know but who you know).
Also the companies outsourcing are mostly major corporations - which by their nature tend to stifle innovation with bureaucracy. Freeing up their workforce will make it easier for smaller companies to start, recruit, expand and innovate (provided the DOJ manages to rein in Microsoft). And it is only a matter of time before senior management and CEOs find themselves being outsourced (who needs a US-based board of directors when all the real decisions are being taken overseas?).
Finally, this also provides the English language with a massive boost - India is gaining a real advantage due to their widespread use of English and other nations like China and Vietnam will have to do the same in order to grab a significant slice of the outsourcing pie (French/German/Spanish supremacists beware!).
Have you ever managed to persuade a major ISP to drop a (high-paying) spammer? The only way is to ensure that that ISP faces financial penalties - and that means denying them access to other networks. No active damage is being done here - SPEWS is not DDOSing or mailbombing, so heaven knows how you can make a "terrorism" analogy.
As for other blocklists - they do the same thing. It is just that SPEWS lists entries earlier - take SPEWS out of the equation and people will start moaning about SpamHaus, SpamCop and ORBS instead. Finally are you an ISP or an end user? An ISPs priority is to discard spam as soon as it enters their network - once it reaches the recipient the damage is done in terms of bandwidth and server storage consumption. To that extent, a "leading edge" blocklist that can stop spam before the complaints roll in is far more important.
The solution is to have every idiot spammer forced to swallow all their v1agra, strap them to their "bodily enhancement products" for a few months and wreck their finances by sinking their money into every pump and dump scam plugged by email.
Ultimately the usefulness of email itself is being destroyed (hands up anyone who would bother with an inbox receiving 1,000+ junk emails a day) and everyone is having to pay (in terms of higher bandwidth fees) for unwanted and wasteful email traffic.
Oh, Mr Anonymous Coward, by "mature, sensible people who don't destroy the email system", are you talking about shining examples like Ronnie Scelson, Alan Ralksy and Juan Garavaglia (Super Zonda)? Sounds like you too are a likely candidate for the ROKSO list (if not already on it).
Which is why anyone contemplating a hosting contract should check every ISP's record on spam - and make it a provision in the contract that the ISP has to pay relocation expenses in the event of their inaction resulting in them being listed on a DNSBL.
The comparison with Iraq is plain wrong - customers can influence their ISP's actions, especially if they act en masse. The only influence an Iraqi citizen could have had on their regime was being the next in line for Saddam's target practice sessions.
SPEWS stands for Spam Prevention Early Warning System. Level 2 is that early warning - which gives listed ISPs a chance to take action before they get moved to level 1. Including the ISP's netblock is necessary because spam-friendly ISPs will relocate their high-paying spammer customers to different IP addresses in order to frustrate single IP-address blocks. Also, if one spammer is tolerated with an ISP, you can count on several others joining up - so a netblock listing pre-empts this.
she's doing it to make a living, not to make big bucks - completely understandable in her situation
Same justification can be used by your local drug dealer, extortionist and 419 scammer - does it mean they are right too?
If you apply the same reasoning to people sharing files you're making a very strong case for the copyright holders
Good thing you said "if" there - since someone sharing files is not actively pushing content into other peoples' faces I fail to see any parallel. It's rather like comparing a store (which you choose to visit and purchase at) with unsolicited catalogs being pushed into your mailbox.
...not that activation is much of an issue for 95% of the people out there
It should be - this activation gives Microsoft the ability to make future Windows upgrades compulsory. How? By no longer issuing activation keys! Once they do this, existing copies will keep running - but anyone planning a reinstall or suffering a hard disk failure will have to pay out for the next version, even if it needs extensive hardware upgrades to run it.
Ten years from now, a Windows 9x/ME/2000 installation CD should still be usable (although you may need emulation for the earlier versions) - Windows XP and later will only be fit for drinks coasters.
The Neuros battery is non-replaceable and is supposed to have a lifetime of 11/2-2 years according to their FAQ. So expect to have to send the unit back to them for a battery change (they quote a replacement charge up to $12 but this seems far too low for a new battery - it may simply be a handling charge).
Given the recent fuss over the iPod's $200 battery replacement charge, this should be worth checking out before purchase.
Someone who is copying copyrighted works is not in the same league as a fraudster. Firstly, copying is not necessarily illegal - you may have rights to do so. An example would be any Linux distribution - the code is copyright, but the GPL gives you the right to copy and distribute - subject to certain conditions.
If we now look at music and films, which is what I presume you were thinking of, the case is again different. The fraudsters and thieves are taking something away from people. The copiers are making another copy of something - the original is not diminished.
At best (or worst), you can argue that copiers are causing a potential loss of profit, if you can prove that those receiving the copy would have paid for the "original" instead.
The "copiers are thieves" mantra should be left with Britney Spears and her ilk...
TCPA isn't a universal panacea by a long shot. Unless you have a centralised authority controlling what everyone does in the "trusted ring" all the time, you will have the problem of "trusted" systems being used in untrustworthy ways (e.g. using a trusted word processor to write a macro to delete or alter files across a network).
And if TCPA does have centralised control, you have the problems of total monitoring, proprietary lock-in and the erosion of usage rights for digital media.
There is a parallel with existing firewalls - they can increase security by blocking certain content (e.g. RPC exploits using port 135), but trusted web traffic with IE-exploits or virus-laden emails usually sail through.
The problem here is flexibility - changing a product that's already embedded in a show isn't really feasible (except in small cases - changing a can of Coke to Pepsi - as long as the actors don't mention what they're drinking - may work!). Therefore networks could not, using this method, get alternative advertisers for repeat showings - or for special occasions (e.g. Christmas, Superbowl, etc).
I would suspect that either dynamically superimposed graphics (e.g. a logo painted over a sports field) or banners at the top and bottom of the screen would be the most likely tactic (this of course could then be defeated by widescreen TV owners switching to Zoom mode, cutting off the top and bottom).
There are some major pieces of work here (e.g. The Darkest Day and Shadows over Soubar weigh in at over 300MB each) - and the most interesting project, The Big Picture combines the 3 largest mods (The Darkest Day, Shadows over Soubar and Tortured Souls) with several smaller ones (and some substantial AI improvements for tougher battles) to greatly add to BG2. This has been through over a dozen updates and has its own forums at PlagueZone. Download and enjoy!
the large corporations are not the ones abusing the patent system - it's that small entrepreneur you mention who patents something completely obvious and then makes the big corporations pay licensing fees to him
What Spamhaus does that is different in that they provide information on the worst spammers on their ROKSO list - including names, addresses and phone numbers where known. For some reason, spammers do not like being "outed" (I wonder why?) and this has, in one case, caused a spammer to cease business.
I doubt that any progress will be made in fighting spam until Microsoft/Apple include authentication options in their default mail applications.
Unfortunately, authentication is unlikely to do much to stop spam unless people use it with a personal whitelist of permitted senders. It is currently straightforward to track a spam email (SpamCop can do this if you paste the email in with full header information) but nowadays it typically comes from a cable/DSL user whose machine has been hijacked.
I receive quite a bit of spam. I'll grant you that it does take a bit of dealing with everytime I fire up my mailbox, both at home and at work, it certainly doesn't have an appreciable effect on my schedule.
That seems a bit of a contradiction - saying it takes time but doesn't affect your schedule. Even so, how about if you received 1,000 spams a day? 1,000 an hour? See the problem? Also many spams are fraudulent ("herbal viagra", pump-and-dump stock scams, phishing emails purpoting to be a bank security check) which cost the unwary money - or offensive (fancy having children receive a link to a beastiality website?).
I don't understand how you think this criticism applies to allowing spam but not to blocking spam. It's pretty clear that it happens whether you allow spam or attempt to block it in the way that's being discussed.
Deleting stuff manually means more chance of a finger-slip trashing a real message than having email from known "spam havens" blocked.
How is this the case?
Your ISP has to spend money on faster links and mail servers with larger disks and faster processors to deal with the 50%-80% of email traffic that is unwanted. This will be reflected in the charges they levy on you for access.
It might make it slightly more difficult for someone to spontaneously set up a SMTP relay, but the benefits exponentially outweigh any inconveniences imposed.
Where do relays come into this? We are talking about end users running whitelists, right?
The way the current SMTP system is set up, it's analagous to a TLD system that requires no registration: anyone can flip on a SMTP relay and start spewing crap to the Internet with bogus header information which in turn creates DDOS situations.
Hence my proposal for bulk mail to be handled separately - bulk servers would need to be registered and ISPs would have to individually decide whether to allow traffic from them, preventing any rogue setups. The current SMTP setup remains for individual mails but with all the counter-measures (rate limiting, tarpits) to limit crapflooding. The problem with the spam countermeasures to date is that they all affect "legitimate" bulk mail like newsletters and mailing lists - moving the legit stuff to another system solves this concern.
Your idea still doesn't deal with the worst problem of spamming, which is the theft of bandwidth.
Please re-read it - bulk email get moved onto a separate system which requires:
registered servers;
individual ISP agreement to carry the traffic (i.e. whitelisting at ISP-level);
confirmed opt-in from subscribers;
one message from the sender which is copied to all registered recipients - a one-to-many communication (like IP multicasts) rather than the many-to-many currently used.
All these attributes should reduce email traffic - SMTP abuse will remain but ISPs now have more freedom to tackle it without hitting legitimate stuff.
enforcement of your bulk-specific protocol would be virtually impossible
Enforcement should be easy, the ISPs run the bulk servers so they set the rules locally. Bulk senders do not get to see the addresses the server forwards their mails to (preventing them from initiating one-one communication separately). If a rogue ISP or well-heeled spammer sets up their own bulk server for spamming, it get dropped from every other ISPs whitelist (assuming it ever gets on there in the first place).
There are already numerous industry-best practices which address what you're talking about, the most obvious of which is simple responsible mailing practices and opt-in+confirm mailing lists.
And the bulk servers will enforce these best practices. All that is needed is to make them compulsory for bulk email (which is achieved by limits on SMTP capacity as mentioned previously).
You can't find a spammer on the planet who would call his crap "unsolicited"
Agreed - which is why this system takes the administration of lists out of the senders' hands - they may be told how many people they're sending to but not to whom (although they could try getting this info through other means). Spammers would most likely try their own rogue bulk server (which would fail to be whitelisted by the majority of ISPs), stick with SMTP (which will be less and less effective as rate limiting cuts in) or leave the party and go elsewhere.
Hate to rain on your parade here, but SpamAssassin does use blocklists by default (as described in the FAQ). It is the existence of such blocklists that has forced certain major ISPs to stop writing "pink contracts" to known spammers and they are the only anti-spam measure that reduces the cost that ISPs have to bear in terms of mail-server storage and excess bandwidth that spam causes. Rest assured that the spam epidemic would be far worse without DNSBLs and the cost of Internet access far higher.
Whitelists may work for some people, but others may need to keep their inboxes open (e.g. vendor support).
Version 1.0 isn't actually version 1.0 anymore. It's more like Version 1.0 Lite.
Yes, the free version does have bits removed (the parts most useful for networks) but for standalone PCs it does do a good job. However its performance against leaktests is not so good nowadays.
I've not used Free for a long time but under Options/System there should be an option to "Enable NetBIOS communication" (covered here in the Web-Hikers Guide) which should do if you want basic file/printer sharing. If you need ICS then this is not supported (although someone here apparently did get it to work). If a specific application needs network access, then adding a rule for it should be no problem. If you still have difficulties, then posting in the user-run support forum would be your best bet.
they deliberately crippled version 1.0 before offering it free, the better to make it a shill for version 2.0
Outpost Free and Outpost Pro 1.0 were both available before 2.0 was released. While the Free version had some features taken out, it can hardly be called "crippled" and for standalone use should be adequate for most people. Outpost 2.0 has replaced 1.0 Pro - there apparently will be a free version of 2.0 once all the issues are sorted out, but it will be far more restricted than 1.0 was.
Slashdot Mirror
The biggest example I can remember though was Frontier: First Encounters. Random hangs and crashes to the point of unplayability. Gametek had to run a second advertising campaign to tell everyone that they had fixed it!
A lot of the comments about being "unable to compete" with regard to outsourcing can also be made by commercial software companies trying to compete with Open/Free source software. The answer typically given is that Open/Free software raises the entry level and provides a better starting point for commercial companies to build upon.
Similarly, Western IT professionals (it is not just the US having to deal with this issue by the way) concerned at this trend should try to acquire a broader-based skillset which includes business and creative as well as "pure" technical skills - and local knowledge that cannot be easily duplicated by an overseas company (in most organisations, it still is a case of not what you know but who you know).
Also the companies outsourcing are mostly major corporations - which by their nature tend to stifle innovation with bureaucracy. Freeing up their workforce will make it easier for smaller companies to start, recruit, expand and innovate (provided the DOJ manages to rein in Microsoft). And it is only a matter of time before senior management and CEOs find themselves being outsourced (who needs a US-based board of directors when all the real decisions are being taken overseas?).
Finally, this also provides the English language with a massive boost - India is gaining a real advantage due to their widespread use of English and other nations like China and Vietnam will have to do the same in order to grab a significant slice of the outsourcing pie (French/German/Spanish supremacists beware!).
Have you ever managed to persuade a major ISP to drop a (high-paying) spammer? The only way is to ensure that that ISP faces financial penalties - and that means denying them access to other networks. No active damage is being done here - SPEWS is not DDOSing or mailbombing, so heaven knows how you can make a "terrorism" analogy.
As for other blocklists - they do the same thing. It is just that SPEWS lists entries earlier - take SPEWS out of the equation and people will start moaning about SpamHaus, SpamCop and ORBS instead. Finally are you an ISP or an end user? An ISPs priority is to discard spam as soon as it enters their network - once it reaches the recipient the damage is done in terms of bandwidth and server storage consumption. To that extent, a "leading edge" blocklist that can stop spam before the complaints roll in is far more important.
The solution is to have every idiot spammer forced to swallow all their v1agra, strap them to their "bodily enhancement products" for a few months and wreck their finances by sinking their money into every pump and dump scam plugged by email.
Ultimately the usefulness of email itself is being destroyed (hands up anyone who would bother with an inbox receiving 1,000+ junk emails a day) and everyone is having to pay (in terms of higher bandwidth fees) for unwanted and wasteful email traffic.
Oh, Mr Anonymous Coward, by "mature, sensible people who don't destroy the email system", are you talking about shining examples like Ronnie Scelson, Alan Ralksy and Juan Garavaglia (Super Zonda)? Sounds like you too are a likely candidate for the ROKSO list (if not already on it).
Which is why anyone contemplating a hosting contract should check every ISP's record on spam - and make it a provision in the contract that the ISP has to pay relocation expenses in the event of their inaction resulting in them being listed on a DNSBL.
The comparison with Iraq is plain wrong - customers can influence their ISP's actions, especially if they act en masse. The only influence an Iraqi citizen could have had on their regime was being the next in line for Saddam's target practice sessions.
SPEWS stands for Spam Prevention Early Warning System. Level 2 is that early warning - which gives listed ISPs a chance to take action before they get moved to level 1. Including the ISP's netblock is necessary because spam-friendly ISPs will relocate their high-paying spammer customers to different IP addresses in order to frustrate single IP-address blocks. Also, if one spammer is tolerated with an ISP, you can count on several others joining up - so a netblock listing pre-empts this.
No spyware in Windows Media Player? Think again!
The article stated that Real employees read Slashdot - at least they could have the grace to post as such and not as Anonymous Cowards.
Give us your URL and we'll soon give your line some bandwidth usage...
Same justification can be used by your local drug dealer, extortionist and 419 scammer - does it mean they are right too?
Good thing you said "if" there - since someone sharing files is not actively pushing content into other peoples' faces I fail to see any parallel. It's rather like comparing a store (which you choose to visit and purchase at) with unsolicited catalogs being pushed into your mailbox.Ten years from now, a Windows 9x/ME/2000 installation CD should still be usable (although you may need emulation for the earlier versions) - Windows XP and later will only be fit for drinks coasters.
Given the recent fuss over the iPod's $200 battery replacement charge, this should be worth checking out before purchase.
I'll bite too.
Someone who is copying copyrighted works is not in the same league as a fraudster. Firstly, copying is not necessarily illegal - you may have rights to do so. An example would be any Linux distribution - the code is copyright, but the GPL gives you the right to copy and distribute - subject to certain conditions.
If we now look at music and films, which is what I presume you were thinking of, the case is again different. The fraudsters and thieves are taking something away from people. The copiers are making another copy of something - the original is not diminished.
At best (or worst), you can argue that copiers are causing a potential loss of profit, if you can prove that those receiving the copy would have paid for the "original" instead.
The "copiers are thieves" mantra should be left with Britney Spears and her ilk...
And if TCPA does have centralised control, you have the problems of total monitoring, proprietary lock-in and the erosion of usage rights for digital media.
There is a parallel with existing firewalls - they can increase security by blocking certain content (e.g. RPC exploits using port 135), but trusted web traffic with IE-exploits or virus-laden emails usually sail through.
The problem here is flexibility - changing a product that's already embedded in a show isn't really feasible (except in small cases - changing a can of Coke to Pepsi - as long as the actors don't mention what they're drinking - may work!). Therefore networks could not, using this method, get alternative advertisers for repeat showings - or for special occasions (e.g. Christmas, Superbowl, etc).
I would suspect that either dynamically superimposed graphics (e.g. a logo painted over a sports field) or banners at the top and bottom of the screen would be the most likely tactic (this of course could then be defeated by widescreen TV owners switching to Zoom mode, cutting off the top and bottom).
The UK Price Guide is also a very useful site - although more for technology items (DVDs, games, audio/video).
There are some major pieces of work here (e.g. The Darkest Day and Shadows over Soubar weigh in at over 300MB each) - and the most interesting project, The Big Picture combines the 3 largest mods (The Darkest Day, Shadows over Soubar and Tortured Souls) with several smaller ones (and some substantial AI improvements for tougher battles) to greatly add to BG2. This has been through over a dozen updates and has its own forums at PlagueZone. Download and enjoy!
and Hugh Jarse...in that episode, there was actually a Hugh Jarse at Moe's who then picked up the phone - resulting in one of Bart's (few) apologies.
Spot on! How dare one-man outfits like IBM demand licence fees from others for their patents!
I doubt that any progress will be made in fighting spam until Microsoft/Apple include authentication options in their default mail applications.
Unfortunately, authentication is unlikely to do much to stop spam unless people use it with a personal whitelist of permitted senders. It is currently straightforward to track a spam email (SpamCop can do this if you paste the email in with full header information) but nowadays it typically comes from a cable/DSL user whose machine has been hijacked.
That seems a bit of a contradiction - saying it takes time but doesn't affect your schedule. Even so, how about if you received 1,000 spams a day? 1,000 an hour? See the problem? Also many spams are fraudulent ("herbal viagra", pump-and-dump stock scams, phishing emails purpoting to be a bank security check) which cost the unwary money - or offensive (fancy having children receive a link to a beastiality website?).
I don't understand how you think this criticism applies to allowing spam but not to blocking spam. It's pretty clear that it happens whether you allow spam or attempt to block it in the way that's being discussed.
Deleting stuff manually means more chance of a finger-slip trashing a real message than having email from known "spam havens" blocked.
How is this the case?
Your ISP has to spend money on faster links and mail servers with larger disks and faster processors to deal with the 50%-80% of email traffic that is unwanted. This will be reflected in the charges they levy on you for access.
Where do relays come into this? We are talking about end users running whitelists, right?
The way the current SMTP system is set up, it's analagous to a TLD system that requires no registration: anyone can flip on a SMTP relay and start spewing crap to the Internet with bogus header information which in turn creates DDOS situations.
Hence my proposal for bulk mail to be handled separately - bulk servers would need to be registered and ISPs would have to individually decide whether to allow traffic from them, preventing any rogue setups. The current SMTP setup remains for individual mails but with all the counter-measures (rate limiting, tarpits) to limit crapflooding. The problem with the spam countermeasures to date is that they all affect "legitimate" bulk mail like newsletters and mailing lists - moving the legit stuff to another system solves this concern.
Your idea still doesn't deal with the worst problem of spamming, which is the theft of bandwidth.
Please re-read it - bulk email get moved onto a separate system which requires:
- registered servers;
- individual ISP agreement to carry the traffic (i.e. whitelisting at ISP-level);
- confirmed opt-in from subscribers;
- one message from the sender which is copied to all registered recipients - a one-to-many communication (like IP multicasts) rather than the many-to-many currently used.
All these attributes should reduce email traffic - SMTP abuse will remain but ISPs now have more freedom to tackle it without hitting legitimate stuff.enforcement of your bulk-specific protocol would be virtually impossible
Enforcement should be easy, the ISPs run the bulk servers so they set the rules locally. Bulk senders do not get to see the addresses the server forwards their mails to (preventing them from initiating one-one communication separately). If a rogue ISP or well-heeled spammer sets up their own bulk server for spamming, it get dropped from every other ISPs whitelist (assuming it ever gets on there in the first place).
There are already numerous industry-best practices which address what you're talking about, the most obvious of which is simple responsible mailing practices and opt-in+confirm mailing lists.
And the bulk servers will enforce these best practices. All that is needed is to make them compulsory for bulk email (which is achieved by limits on SMTP capacity as mentioned previously).
You can't find a spammer on the planet who would call his crap "unsolicited"
Agreed - which is why this system takes the administration of lists out of the senders' hands - they may be told how many people they're sending to but not to whom (although they could try getting this info through other means). Spammers would most likely try their own rogue bulk server (which would fail to be whitelisted by the majority of ISPs), stick with SMTP (which will be less and less effective as rate limiting cuts in) or leave the party and go elsewhere.
Surely it would be more appropriate to force them to take an overdose of their own viagra? Sorry, v1agra.
Hate to rain on your parade here, but SpamAssassin does use blocklists by default (as described in the FAQ). It is the existence of such blocklists that has forced certain major ISPs to stop writing "pink contracts" to known spammers and they are the only anti-spam measure that reduces the cost that ISPs have to bear in terms of mail-server storage and excess bandwidth that spam causes. Rest assured that the spam epidemic would be far worse without DNSBLs and the cost of Internet access far higher.
Whitelists may work for some people, but others may need to keep their inboxes open (e.g. vendor support).
Yes, the free version does have bits removed (the parts most useful for networks) but for standalone PCs it does do a good job. However its performance against leaktests is not so good nowadays.
I've not used Free for a long time but under Options/System there should be an option to "Enable NetBIOS communication" (covered here in the Web-Hikers Guide) which should do if you want basic file/printer sharing. If you need ICS then this is not supported (although someone here apparently did get it to work). If a specific application needs network access, then adding a rule for it should be no problem. If you still have difficulties, then posting in the user-run support forum would be your best bet.
they deliberately crippled version 1.0 before offering it free, the better to make it a shill for version 2.0
Outpost Free and Outpost Pro 1.0 were both available before 2.0 was released. While the Free version had some features taken out, it can hardly be called "crippled" and for standalone use should be adequate for most people. Outpost 2.0 has replaced 1.0 Pro - there apparently will be a free version of 2.0 once all the issues are sorted out, but it will be far more restricted than 1.0 was.