Sorry, I don't think you get to dictate who runs a mail server. But thanks for playing.
You obviously don't get it. Not me Einstein. A sanctioned body authorizes "SMTP relay licenses" - this is not unlike the type of registration utilized by TLD registrars. And even then, you are happy to run an un-licensed SMTP relay. Just don't be surprised that half the world will not want to talk to your system because you have refused to adhere to honorable, ethical and non-criminal operation. You can be free to associate eith spammers and do what you want. But a coalition of large and small ISPs would IMO jump at the chance to participate in a whitelisted, regulated network of mail relays that refuse to harbor spam traffic. That's the idea.
I have already thought of this and have the perfect solution, which I posted HERE - an officially-sanctioned SMTP relay whitelist. It makes tremendous sense and would also stop the majority of worm/virus propagation on the net as well.
According to statistics from last year, there are more than 27 million registered.com/net/org domain names. If each domain holder paid an additional $2/year for renewal, this would generate more than $50 million for cybercrime enforcement activities. If each domain holder paid $5/year, that would generate more than $1.3 BILLION DOLLARS that could be dedicated towards creating and funding an agency dedicated to actually enforcing all these laws that are currently un-enforced.
I don't know about anyone else, but the prospect of paying a few more dollars per year on my domain registrations would be worth eradicating spam, and it could generate enough money to easily fund whatever efforts were needed to finally enforce these laws, crack down on worm/virus developers and the plethora of other Internet-based crime that's going on.
While I applaud the intent, unfortunately this is another totally ineffective anti-spam legislation. There are plenty of laws already on the books making 99.9% of spam illegal, but the problem is the government and related law enforcement agencies do not enforce the existing laws so why would anyone think this is any different? People need to realize that passing a law, and enforcing a law are entirely different. This is like going into a book store and buying a book, but not reading it! I hear next week Tauzin is going to solve the world hunger problem by passing a law making it illegal to throw out leftovers. Hurrah!
At this point, the only way you can realistically take action against a spammer based on these laws is by printing them out, finding the spammer and then hitting him over the head with the actual laws. Law enforcement agencies and district attorneys have repeatedly demonstrated an apathy towards pursuing and prosecuting spammers. The FBI has a monetary threshold of damages on any case of this nature it even elects to investigate. There are virtually no resources dedicated to enforcing this bill and there are no competent agencies available to even investigate! Please send a message to your political leaders that enforcement and not more laws are key to dealing with this problem.
The law looks good, but without dedicated provisions and a change in policy which will actually insure that these issues will be enforced, this is just a joke.
Any details on exactly what failed? Software? Hardware? Something in between?
I'm not trying logging for fodder in the OS wars, but when two critical systems fail, something or someone is fallible and it's ridiculous that the report didn't go into great detail on the elements of these critical systems.
After browsing all the comments thus far, there doesn't seem to be a definitive answer as to what OS these failed systems were running. Let's find this out... it's also of interest that in the Windows license agreement, it specifically states that Windows shouldn't be used for mission-critical applications involving scenarios like this, so it would be further hilarity if they were running Windows in contrast to the products' own licensing agreement.
This is yet another mafia subscription boondoggle that corporate america wants to foist on the public. It's also another security/business model that only is of value if worms and other undesireable traffic continues to propagate. The tech community should not buy into these schemes becuase they do not really cure the problem, merely promise a slightly-effective treatment (at best) that will require an ongoing investment of time, money and resources to even function.
I keep saying, the best way to reduce worm propagation is through a sanctioned smtp whitelist since most compromised systems use smtp as the transmission vehicle, and most originate from spontaneous, unauthorized mail relays that the worms themselves introduce.
As for other means of worm propagation, a compromised server would easily generate a typical DOS profile that a well-configured network should already identify and deal with, regardless of this client-server-extra-software provision Cisco is trying to impose, which would require constant updating and more money to maintain.
There's the rub, though, the employee has to be willing and able to fight it through the process.
You're completely right. That is the nucleus of the issue. It's not about who's "right." It's about who has the resources and leverage to stay the course long enough to prevail.
Every day we see more and more examples of how money and power overcomes common sense and fairness. For this reason, it would be foolish for slashdotters to blindly assume that the SCO assult on Linux has no chance of succeeding. Just like with 2870, if the company's resources outweight the employee, the odds are the company can prevail or force the employee to settle and get what they want. We should not take for granted that any IP case involving at least one party that has loads of resources, will end up with the most reasonable, logical resolution.
His constituents are his shareholders and customers.
Which at this point probably resolves down to his own company, their satellites and the law firm they've retained to fight their last ditch effort.
SCO does not want to destroy open source or Linux. With the appropriate checks and balances, open source has merit.
I think he means, if people pay with the appropriate checks, he'll consider the effort worthy of merit.
End users are not safe in taking a wait and see position. SCO is contacting customers and asking them to take a license of litigate position.
IOW, please pay us now so we can show some revenue long enough for the remaining shareholders to cash out before this whole thing implodes. Otherwise, the FBI will bust in your door and cart you off to Guantanamo.
There's no free lunch or free Linux. The value proposition of Linux is UNIX for free. Free models such as free music, free Internet, free bandwidth, and free love haven't worked.
On the other hand, the free mushrooms the guys in the legal department put in my tea this morning do seem to be working.
This country was built on the notion of property ownership and being about to protect one's property. What's left in this company are concepts and ideas. If you take away the ability to protect that, we're reduced our ability to compete as a country
If you don't support our desire to scare the crap out of the public in order to extort money for intellectual property my company had absolutely no hand in creating, then you're some sort of unpatriotic, filthy commie scum.
By the way there is no truth to the rumors that I am violating any patents previously held by the Rumsfeld-Cheney group. I am operating with a legitimate license from the holder of the scare-the-crap-out-of-america patent.
GPL will not survive. Open source will survive, but the GPL will have to be reworked in a way that is more pro-business.
By pro business I mean pro-big-mega-corporations that deserve to profit from the innovation of others who have the audacity to claim such work that we can exploit be donated to the public domain.
SCO will prevail in its legal battle. SCO is now worth $200 million and has $60 million in the bank. SCO is committed to seeing this through.
Bill's check cleared! Bill's check cleared!
We are also introducing an exciting new product in cooperation with Kool-Aid and the government of Columbia. Look for it soon.
Linux will not be free.
But a woman who is willing to trade "love" may be able to get a discount on the enterprise edition. I.M. my AOL handle, "sexy14yoGRRL" for more details.
Who do people insist on such boneheaded, counterproductive measures to address the spam issue?
I don't know about most people, but I consider my time valuable. One of the major problems of spam is that it wastes peoples' time, so the prospect of wasting more time to jam the spammer's business model seems stupid.
That's not to say that the essense of distributed protest isn't worthwhile. I do think it is, but you have to pick and choose your battles and spammers are all about quantity and noise and acknowledging their existence in ANY form just fuels that out-of-control fire.
The real solution to deal with the spam problem involves two simple steps:
1. Get law enforcement to enforce the laws each and every spammer already breaks - no new laws are needed.
2. Established a formally sanctioned smtp relay whitelist in the same manner the TLD system is administered. If you want to send mail on the net you need to "register" your server, and those that are tired of spam will only accept mail from registered servers. If you spam, you lose your "license". Simple solution and the problem is instantly solved... and along the way, we also wipe out 90% of the worm propagation on the net as well.
This is so easy and simple, no wonder nobody's figured it out.
The employer may lay claim to things developed using company resources, or which directly relate to what you're doing for them now or which you're involved in R&D on.
Seems a pretty broad assertion that can easily be interpreted as the company sees fit. And in this case, 2870 probably won't help the developer. I don't think anyone would question his access to the company's resources in one form or another was intregal in the development of the product.
If the whole autonomy claim is legit (which I doubt) what he should have done was develop the product in secret and let a third party market it.
So the human staves off the computer to once again prove that The day of the machines has not arrived.
I guess maybe one day they will arrive, and on that day we'll depend upon them for learning and education, scientific research, commerce and trade, communications, navigation, healthcare, transportation, security, comfort, convenience, entertainment and defense. But until then, the days of the humans prevail!
I'm no legal expert, but if this guy is a salaried employee, and he GPL'd the code, and Apple exercised their right to control their IP, it could (and should) be un-GPL'd.
That's a shame. And as a software developer, I'm empathetic to this guy's plight, but he was naive to think he could exploit the resources at his disposal (as an employee) and then own the whole enchilada.
This is one of the first rules of existence for software developers. They should know this stuff already. This isn't some surprise screw-over. Anyone who's ever done contract programming has likely gotten embroiled in the issue of who owns the code.
In fact, I had an issue a few years ago where I was a sub-contractor and developed a complex system for a client. They realized that since I wasn't a formal employee they didn't own the rights to the product and tried to change my status to that of an employee. They even offered to make me a partner in the company. I declined and that forced them to get someone else to continue the work that was on-staff so they had more control over the IP and its evolution.
If the software author was an employee of the company (as opposed to a sub-contractor) and the terms of his employment didn't have any specitic stipulations as to the ownership of work he may have created on his so-called oft-time, he will have a difficult time proving he owns the rights. This is generally the way it is throughout the country.
I've been on both sides of the fence. I've developed award-winning Shareware, and also employed people who goofed off and created product they thought they owned on my time. If you are writing new software and you are an employee of a company, if you want to retain the rights to your work, you should reach an agreement with your employer. All your company has to do is show something like a) you're a salaried employee and you have in the past done work at home for the company, or b) examine the date/time stamp on anything that you're claiming you own and if it's on "company time", you're busted.
In most states, if you are a sub-contractor and not a formal employee, in the absence of specific arragements regarding the ownership of IP, the laws tilt in your favor. But this goes out the window if you are a formal employee.
It might suck for this author, but the reality of the situation is regardless of whether he autonomously developed the product without company resources, his employer subsidized the effort directly or indirectly. If he had dreams of becoming a software mogul, he should have changed his status to a sub-contractor or requested acknowledgement of his IP before going very far.
I agree with the poster who feels client-based filtering is ineffective. I posted a detailed analysis of how to stop spam which addresses your criticisms here - take a look.
What annoys me are all these mail-in rebate promotions these companies use. When you factor in all the added wasted time and the fact that the company holds onto your money so long and it's like pulling teeth getting it back, it's not worth it.
Rebates are taxes on laziness, or more appropriately a false-advertising campaign designed to target people who aren't inclined to jump through the hoops necessary to get the rebates. If the company does an "instant rebate" at the time of purchase, that's another matter, but my policy is I do NOT buy any product that promises a certain price "after rebate" - that's BS. What I pay at the POS is the price of the product and I'm not giving the manufacturer additional information or worrying about documentation, mailing crap and keeping track of that malarky. I encourage everyone else to avoid any product promotions involving rebates so we can send a message to these retailers that we're not going to play their stupid false advertising game.
I'm amused that people think they're getting any sort of revenge against these people. When you can milk them out of US$19M then you have revenge, otherwise it seems to me the scammers are still winning as the time anyone spends to string along these people is not worth it.
This is one of the few scams that I actually don't mind, as anyone foolish enough to think they're going to get millions of dollars in some sort of spontaneous money-laundering scheme, deserves to be penalized for their naivety and perverse sense of greed.
I always thought a good idea would be for a company to establish a "living web site" that someone could continually update while they were living, along with a portion or message that could be put up after they passed. While you're alive, you create your own vision of what you think you've contributed or want to share with others and it lives on online after you're gone. Surely, the potential for the long-term solvency of a company that provides this service would be better than those cryogenic operations?
Imagine all the information, impressions and opinions that we form over the course of our lifetime that dissipate? Even the most mundane existance may shed some wisdom for others, if not a laugh. It always seemed like an cool idea to set up some type of trust to maintain something like this. For all I know it's already been done. Anyone know?
True, but most PAs don't employ elaborate techniques involving meticulous instrument isolation and E.Q., and there's also a studio technique called, "ducking" where they compress the surrounding music around an audio track they want to emphasize (so when the singer sings, the music is actually "ducked" around his vocal phrases in real time).
Obviously live performances are requiring more and more technology to mimmick the trickery of the studio so we'll probably see more of that, however unrealistic the end-sound is likely to be.
Slashdot Mirror
my mistake... i used windows' calculator ; )
still, even $50M or more would be more than adequate to fund law enforcement agency that could make a difference.
Sorry, I don't think you get to dictate who runs a mail server. But thanks for playing.
You obviously don't get it. Not me Einstein. A sanctioned body authorizes "SMTP relay licenses" - this is not unlike the type of registration utilized by TLD registrars. And even then, you are happy to run an un-licensed SMTP relay. Just don't be surprised that half the world will not want to talk to your system because you have refused to adhere to honorable, ethical and non-criminal operation. You can be free to associate eith spammers and do what you want. But a coalition of large and small ISPs would IMO jump at the chance to participate in a whitelisted, regulated network of mail relays that refuse to harbor spam traffic. That's the idea.
I have already thought of this and have the perfect solution, which I posted HERE - an officially-sanctioned SMTP relay whitelist. It makes tremendous sense and would also stop the majority of worm/virus propagation on the net as well.
According to statistics from last year, there are more than 27 million registered .com/net/org domain names. If each domain holder paid an additional $2/year for renewal, this would generate more than $50 million for cybercrime enforcement activities. If each domain holder paid $5/year, that would generate more than $1.3 BILLION DOLLARS that could be dedicated towards creating and funding an agency dedicated to actually enforcing all these laws that are currently un-enforced.
I don't know about anyone else, but the prospect of paying a few more dollars per year on my domain registrations would be worth eradicating spam, and it could generate enough money to easily fund whatever efforts were needed to finally enforce these laws, crack down on worm/virus developers and the plethora of other Internet-based crime that's going on.
While I applaud the intent, unfortunately this is another totally ineffective anti-spam legislation. There are plenty of laws already on the books making 99.9% of spam illegal, but the problem is the government and related law enforcement agencies do not enforce the existing laws so why would anyone think this is any different? People need to realize that passing a law, and enforcing a law are entirely different. This is like going into a book store and buying a book, but not reading it! I hear next week Tauzin is going to solve the world hunger problem by passing a law making it illegal to throw out leftovers. Hurrah!
At this point, the only way you can realistically take action against a spammer based on these laws is by printing them out, finding the spammer and then hitting him over the head with the actual laws. Law enforcement agencies and district attorneys have repeatedly demonstrated an apathy towards pursuing and prosecuting spammers. The FBI has a monetary threshold of damages on any case of this nature it even elects to investigate. There are virtually no resources dedicated to enforcing this bill and there are no competent agencies available to even investigate! Please send a message to your political leaders that enforcement and not more laws are key to dealing with this problem.
The law looks good, but without dedicated provisions and a change in policy which will actually insure that these issues will be enforced, this is just a joke.
What's your source for this information?
Any details on exactly what failed? Software? Hardware? Something in between?
I'm not trying logging for fodder in the OS wars, but when two critical systems fail, something or someone is fallible and it's ridiculous that the report didn't go into great detail on the elements of these critical systems.
After browsing all the comments thus far, there doesn't seem to be a definitive answer as to what OS these failed systems were running. Let's find this out... it's also of interest that in the Windows license agreement, it specifically states that Windows shouldn't be used for mission-critical applications involving scenarios like this, so it would be further hilarity if they were running Windows in contrast to the products' own licensing agreement.
This is yet another mafia subscription boondoggle that corporate america wants to foist on the public. It's also another security/business model that only is of value if worms and other undesireable traffic continues to propagate. The tech community should not buy into these schemes becuase they do not really cure the problem, merely promise a slightly-effective treatment (at best) that will require an ongoing investment of time, money and resources to even function.
I keep saying, the best way to reduce worm propagation is through a sanctioned smtp whitelist since most compromised systems use smtp as the transmission vehicle, and most originate from spontaneous, unauthorized mail relays that the worms themselves introduce.
As for other means of worm propagation, a compromised server would easily generate a typical DOS profile that a well-configured network should already identify and deal with, regardless of this client-server-extra-software provision Cisco is trying to impose, which would require constant updating and more money to maintain.
There's the rub, though, the employee has to be willing and able to fight it through the process.
You're completely right. That is the nucleus of the issue. It's not about who's "right." It's about who has the resources and leverage to stay the course long enough to prevail.
Every day we see more and more examples of how money and power overcomes common sense and fairness. For this reason, it would be foolish for slashdotters to blindly assume that the SCO assult on Linux has no chance of succeeding. Just like with 2870, if the company's resources outweight the employee, the odds are the company can prevail or force the employee to settle and get what they want. We should not take for granted that any IP case involving at least one party that has loads of resources, will end up with the most reasonable, logical resolution.
His constituents are his shareholders and customers.
Which at this point probably resolves down to his own company, their satellites and the law firm they've retained to fight their last ditch effort.
SCO does not want to destroy open source or Linux. With the appropriate checks and balances, open source has merit.
I think he means, if people pay with the appropriate checks, he'll consider the effort worthy of merit.
End users are not safe in taking a wait and see position. SCO is contacting customers and asking them to take a license of litigate position.
IOW, please pay us now so we can show some revenue long enough for the remaining shareholders to cash out before this whole thing implodes. Otherwise, the FBI will bust in your door and cart you off to Guantanamo.
There's no free lunch or free Linux. The value proposition of Linux is UNIX for free. Free models such as free music, free Internet, free bandwidth, and free love haven't worked.
On the other hand, the free mushrooms the guys in the legal department put in my tea this morning do seem to be working.
This country was built on the notion of property ownership and being about to protect one's property. What's left in this company are concepts and ideas. If you take away the ability to protect that, we're reduced our ability to compete as a country
If you don't support our desire to scare the crap out of the public in order to extort money for intellectual property my company had absolutely no hand in creating, then you're some sort of unpatriotic, filthy commie scum.
By the way there is no truth to the rumors that I am violating any patents previously held by the Rumsfeld-Cheney group. I am operating with a legitimate license from the holder of the scare-the-crap-out-of-america patent.
GPL will not survive. Open source will survive, but the GPL will have to be reworked in a way that is more pro-business.
By pro business I mean pro-big-mega-corporations that deserve to profit from the innovation of others who have the audacity to claim such work that we can exploit be donated to the public domain.
SCO will prevail in its legal battle. SCO is now worth $200 million and has $60 million in the bank. SCO is committed to seeing this through.
Bill's check cleared! Bill's check cleared!
We are also introducing an exciting new product in cooperation with Kool-Aid and the government of Columbia. Look for it soon.
Linux will not be free.
But a woman who is willing to trade "love" may be able to get a discount on the enterprise edition. I.M. my AOL handle, "sexy14yoGRRL" for more details.
Who do people insist on such boneheaded, counterproductive measures to address the spam issue?
I don't know about most people, but I consider my time valuable. One of the major problems of spam is that it wastes peoples' time, so the prospect of wasting more time to jam the spammer's business model seems stupid.
That's not to say that the essense of distributed protest isn't worthwhile. I do think it is, but you have to pick and choose your battles and spammers are all about quantity and noise and acknowledging their existence in ANY form just fuels that out-of-control fire.
The real solution to deal with the spam problem involves two simple steps:
1. Get law enforcement to enforce the laws each and every spammer already breaks - no new laws are needed.
2. Established a formally sanctioned smtp relay whitelist in the same manner the TLD system is administered. If you want to send mail on the net you need to "register" your server, and those that are tired of spam will only accept mail from registered servers. If you spam, you lose your "license". Simple solution and the problem is instantly solved... and along the way, we also wipe out 90% of the worm propagation on the net as well.
This is so easy and simple, no wonder nobody's figured it out.
The employer may lay claim to things developed using company resources, or which directly relate to what you're doing for them now or which you're involved in R&D on.
Seems a pretty broad assertion that can easily be interpreted as the company sees fit. And in this case, 2870 probably won't help the developer. I don't think anyone would question his access to the company's resources in one form or another was intregal in the development of the product.
If the whole autonomy claim is legit (which I doubt) what he should have done was develop the product in secret and let a third party market it.
So the human staves off the computer to once again prove that The day of the machines has not arrived.
I guess maybe one day they will arrive, and on that day we'll depend upon them for learning and education, scientific research, commerce and trade, communications, navigation, healthcare, transportation, security, comfort, convenience, entertainment and defense. But until then, the days of the humans prevail!
top 100 web sites running SCO
c omd .net
Here's part of the list:
www.RidiculousIPclaimsRus.com
www.fredspoboys.
www.my-cesarian-scar.com
www.ibm-wets-the-be
www.stock-scam.com
Darl McBride note-to-self: Next time I start a software company, try innovative new method of actually creating my own products.
can they un-GPL it? Or must the code remain GPL?
I'm no legal expert, but if this guy is a salaried employee, and he GPL'd the code, and Apple exercised their right to control their IP, it could (and should) be un-GPL'd.
That's a shame. And as a software developer, I'm empathetic to this guy's plight, but he was naive to think he could exploit the resources at his disposal (as an employee) and then own the whole enchilada.
This is one of the first rules of existence for software developers. They should know this stuff already. This isn't some surprise screw-over. Anyone who's ever done contract programming has likely gotten embroiled in the issue of who owns the code.
In fact, I had an issue a few years ago where I was a sub-contractor and developed a complex system for a client. They realized that since I wasn't a formal employee they didn't own the rights to the product and tried to change my status to that of an employee. They even offered to make me a partner in the company. I declined and that forced them to get someone else to continue the work that was on-staff so they had more control over the IP and its evolution.
If the software author was an employee of the company (as opposed to a sub-contractor) and the terms of his employment didn't have any specitic stipulations as to the ownership of work he may have created on his so-called oft-time, he will have a difficult time proving he owns the rights. This is generally the way it is throughout the country.
I've been on both sides of the fence. I've developed award-winning Shareware, and also employed people who goofed off and created product they thought they owned on my time. If you are writing new software and you are an employee of a company, if you want to retain the rights to your work, you should reach an agreement with your employer. All your company has to do is show something like a) you're a salaried employee and you have in the past done work at home for the company, or b) examine the date/time stamp on anything that you're claiming you own and if it's on "company time", you're busted.
In most states, if you are a sub-contractor and not a formal employee, in the absence of specific arragements regarding the ownership of IP, the laws tilt in your favor. But this goes out the window if you are a formal employee.
It might suck for this author, but the reality of the situation is regardless of whether he autonomously developed the product without company resources, his employer subsidized the effort directly or indirectly. If he had dreams of becoming a software mogul, he should have changed his status to a sub-contractor or requested acknowledgement of his IP before going very far.
I agree with the poster who feels client-based filtering is ineffective. I posted a detailed analysis of how to stop spam which addresses your criticisms here - take a look.
What annoys me are all these mail-in rebate promotions these companies use. When you factor in all the added wasted time and the fact that the company holds onto your money so long and it's like pulling teeth getting it back, it's not worth it.
Rebates are taxes on laziness, or more appropriately a false-advertising campaign designed to target people who aren't inclined to jump through the hoops necessary to get the rebates. If the company does an "instant rebate" at the time of purchase, that's another matter, but my policy is I do NOT buy any product that promises a certain price "after rebate" - that's BS. What I pay at the POS is the price of the product and I'm not giving the manufacturer additional information or worrying about documentation, mailing crap and keeping track of that malarky. I encourage everyone else to avoid any product promotions involving rebates so we can send a message to these retailers that we're not going to play their stupid false advertising game.
I'm announcing my new combo garage door opener and Linux-based DVD player!
I'm amused that people think they're getting any sort of revenge against these people. When you can milk them out of US$19M then you have revenge, otherwise it seems to me the scammers are still winning as the time anyone spends to string along these people is not worth it.
This is one of the few scams that I actually don't mind, as anyone foolish enough to think they're going to get millions of dollars in some sort of spontaneous money-laundering scheme, deserves to be penalized for their naivety and perverse sense of greed.
I always thought a good idea would be for a company to establish a "living web site" that someone could continually update while they were living, along with a portion or message that could be put up after they passed. While you're alive, you create your own vision of what you think you've contributed or want to share with others and it lives on online after you're gone. Surely, the potential for the long-term solvency of a company that provides this service would be better than those cryogenic operations?
Imagine all the information, impressions and opinions that we form over the course of our lifetime that dissipate? Even the most mundane existance may shed some wisdom for others, if not a laugh. It always seemed like an cool idea to set up some type of trust to maintain something like this. For all I know it's already been done. Anyone know?
I am fairly confident some grad student somewhere is using this as his thesis, requesting tremendous computer time for the modelling.
True, but most PAs don't employ elaborate techniques involving meticulous instrument isolation and E.Q., and there's also a studio technique called, "ducking" where they compress the surrounding music around an audio track they want to emphasize (so when the singer sings, the music is actually "ducked" around his vocal phrases in real time).
Obviously live performances are requiring more and more technology to mimmick the trickery of the studio so we'll probably see more of that, however unrealistic the end-sound is likely to be.
With my luck, the guy in the process queue prior to me will insist on writing a check for $1.79.