Considering that the Bin Laden family has had dealings with the Bush administration for the last ten years and he allowed the whole family to fly out of the country the day after 911; that the majority of the terrorists were Saudi and that the government is uber-cushy with these Saudis, you can bet the first people who get these bypass-scrutiny ID cards would be the very people most of us would be concerned about.
The "fantasy" is that anyone actually thinks any single entity can control the Internet.
That notwithstanding, it is equally undeniable that the Internet cannot function without some forms of central authority and control. A good example of this is the root server authority. If we did not establish a sanctioned, regulated array of root servers, the hostname system and all other services would be in chaos.
I see nothing wrong with extending some forms of centralized control to maintain a database similar to the TLD authority that functions as a system to legitimize and authorize SMTP hosts. We do this, we virtually eliminiate 99% of the spam and 99% of all virus and worm propagation on the Internet.
Puleeze.. I'm only going to reply to this because I was foolish enough to take the bait, but you cannot be serious in thinking that what your proposing is even remotely justified, enforceable, much less constitutional.
Purchasing an illegal product is illegal. Purchasing a legal product is legal. How you find out about either product is irrelevant.
What you're basically hoping for is that stupidity be made illegal. I applaud the concept, however ridiculously unrealistic it may be. It's not going to happen.
So what city are you the District Attorney for? I'm curious.
* Our tax dollars have been wasted * Valuable time our leaders could have spent debating something more productive have been wasted * Once again, people receive a bogus sense of security that this totally-ineffective bill will make ANY difference * When people see that yet another spam bill dosn't change a thing, their disenchantment with the government's ability to solve the problem increases, as does their apathy, which makes it even harder to solve the problem * Spammers throw a party and celebrate that the government is still completely clueless and they have nothing to worry about so they ramp up their efforts even more
Every person on the planet has to sign up for this enormous database, which would also likely involve an extensive creation of an "IP identity system" whereby one central source would now know who is connected everywhere on the network. Now there is no such thing as true anonyminity online. This IP database has tremendous privacy-invasion potential.
Furthermore, such a list would be a beast to maintain and place the administrative burden both on end users as well as the database maintainers.
It ultimately wouldn't work because the majority of spammers are small, mobile operations that are already engaging in illegal activity with impunity, so why anybody thinks they're going to suddenly adhere to a do-not-email list is foolish.
B - SMTP relay licenses
Every ISP or company that maintains an SMTP server is "licensed". This puts no burden on end users and results in a dramatically smaller database of authorized mail relays. The end user can choose to use an ISP that accepts mail only from authorized relays. The entity maintaining the database sets specific standards mail servers must adhere to (no header forging, accurate contact info, proper message labelling, etc.)
While I was writing this, I just got a spam.. the header says it's from yahoo.com but an IPWHOIS shows the source of the spam is from a mail relay in LATVIA; an IP with no reverse lookup defined.
With the SMTP whitelist, we don't have these problems. If the Latvian ISP wants to e-mail the Internet proper, it registers the addresses of its mail servers and adheres to industry standards. If not, the mail systems and ISPs that are sick of spam who subscribe to the whitelist tell them to piss off. Problem solved.
I disagree. The existing legislation has proved 100% useless, as will this new legislation. This is analagous to walking into Barnes and Noble and buying a book and never reading the book, yet claiming you know everything in the book. You can't pass a law and have everyone magically follow the rules. It hasn't worked for spam at all. Why someone thinks the 431st bill will make a difference is beyond me.
The issue is not about what the spammer is promoting. It never has been. That's irrelevant. The nature of the products being sold and the legality of the business is a separate issue for a separate agency.
The issue is about spammers breaking into third-party computers. If you stop this exploitation, you will accomplish the following:
1. 90% of the spam on the Internet will disappear 2. The remaining spammers will be forced to collect in little pockets of networks which can be tightly regulated
The reason why you get so much spam is because somewhere, someone's computer has been broken into (a felony) and exploited by a spammer. 90% of spam on the network involves criminal activity, but the authorities have yet to enforce this. Forget about the business model or the content of their messages. If the manner in which 90% of spammers use to deliver their mail is not practical for fear of criminal prosecution, you'll see spamming drop dramatically, and as a result of spammers' increasing inability to hide, the products and services they promote will be more limited to less questionable things.
Unfortunately, the authorities are currently not-equipped or not motivated to pursue aggressive criminal action against these people. Until this starts happening, nothing else will improve the situation.
These spammers deliberately forge their source and identity; they hijack third-party computers and repurpose them for illegal proxy servers; they hack AOL accounts and use the web areas to stage affiliate referral landing pages. It's all totally illegal. But the authorities still have yet to enforce the criminal code on these issues.
To make matters worse, agencies like the FBI actually have a monetary damage level that triggers whether or not they'll pursue a criminal investigation. Spammers know this. So they move from system-to-system sending out small chunks of e-mails, where no single server can easily prove $x amount of damages required to authorize a formal investigation.
This isn't a problem with technology. This isn't a problem with laws. This isn't a problem with freedom of speech. This is a problem with law enforcement.
This is yet another toothless waste of time of a bill. Toss it on the pile.
Now let's get real:
It's important to realize that there are certain characteristics of most spam:
1. Most "legitimate" promotional mail comes from a static, traceable source (i.e. mailing lists or a specific web site such as amazon.com) The more legitimate spammers, due to their visibility, are forced to maintain more responsible mailing practices or else they will be blocked or blacklisted.
2. The vast majority of spam comes from rapidly rotating sources difficult to trace and lock down (random IPs on the Internet that are either unauthorized or compromised SMTP servers). Regardless of the nature of the spam message content, most of these spam sources involve one or both: violation of the ISP's terms of service (which most disallow smtp relaying from direct client IPs), or an illegal exploitation of third-party computers.
#1 is easily dealt with. Any centralized operation that doesn't perform responsible mailing (opt-in/out, non-forged headers, published contact info, etc.) can be dealt with. We know who these people are and how to reach them; they are large, targetable operations.
#2 is the real problem and the major source of spam online. All the penis-enlargement, Nigerian scams, online pharmacies and home mortgage solicitations are promoted through the use of an ever-changing network of computers, most of which are broken into by spammers or otherwise re-routed through a plethora of foreign ISPs.
The key to solving the spam problem is nailing down #2. I believe that most of the rotating spam sources involve illegal computer exploitation and compromises. We're talking criminal activity - not civil wastes of time. This is the angle law enforcement should use. Go after relay hijacking and enact punitive damages on ISPs who have demonstrated a consistent disregard for the control of their IP blocks. If we go after the spammer-criminals, they will be forced to settle with spam-friendly ISPs or face criminal prosecution. At that point they either clean up their act, or their ISP will become blacklisted. So the solution is straightforward: go after the spammers who take over third-party SMTP servers and client machines. These are criminal offenses which the authorities have yet to actively enforce.
My solution to the Spamedemic:
Believe it or not, solving the Spam problem is really easy and practical. It does not involve infringing on freedom of speech. It does not involve denying ANY business interest the freedom to use e-mail for marketing.
1. FORM A DEDICATED CYBERCRIME ENFORCEMENT AGENCY. Populate the agency with well-trained IT people who know the laws and the nature of the problem. This agency does not need to encroach into areas covered by US Customs or the FTC (i.e. not be concerned with the content of spam, but merely focus on computer/network-tampering/exploitation). The FBI is not adequately equipped to fight cybercrime. A new agency separate from the other law enforcement organizations should be created.
How to fund this new agency? How about a small fee for domain registrations? I think most people would be willing to pay an extra $5/year per domain to ensure that the Internet is more secure and spam-free. In any case, there's plenty of frivolous spending that could be repurposed to fund this very useful agency.
2. ENFORCE CRIMINAL PENALTIES for computer exploitation: mail-relay-hijacking, trojan horse, worm, virus and vulnerability exploitation. There are already laws on the books criminalizing these activities, but since Americans like laws and have a short attention span, it wouldn't hurt to pass a new law which exclusively, specifically addresses the issue of computer/network/communications exploitation by third parties, and levies very intimidating CRIMINAL penalties. There should be no threshold of monetary damage before criminality is triggered: that only punishes diligent admins to catch attacks before extreme damage
I can appreciate the value of the concept of self-destructing documents. We all know that once information becomes digital, the potential of controlling its integrity is questionable at best, but that notwithstanding, it could be a useful feature.
However, my concern over the abuse of this feature overshadows any benefit it may offer. If documents, or even worse, all files, now have flags associated with them that could trigger not easily interruptable deletion, you can imagine the total havoc an il-behaved program could wreak on a user's system.
Can you imagine worms and viruses that mass flag files for automatic destruction at random dates? Receive a nasty e-mail or visit the wrong web site and have it cause files to dissapear months later with virtually no evidence or detectable agent? That's scary.
Of course, I'm sure Microsoft has carefully considered these circumstances so we have nothing to worry about.
Isn't it amazing what happens when you innovate instead of regulate?
I'm sure all the people who purchased songs did so because they were in fear that the RIAA was going to sue them, not because Apple has heavily promoted a new way to conviently acquire just the music they want.
Article 1 of the copyright section in the draft FTAA Treaty proposes the following new definition for "fair use":
"Use that does not interfere with the normal exploitation of the work or [unreasonably] [unjustifiably] prejudice the legitimate interests of the author [or right holder]".
FTAA's proposed definition is dramatically narrower than the current open-ended definition of fair use guaranteed by the US Constitution and codified in Section 107 of the US Copyright Act.[40] The US Supreme Court stated that fair use must be decided on a "case-by-case basis" and that there can be no "bright line rules" for deciding matters of fair use. Fair use is intended to permit unauthorized, but socially beneficial, copies of copyrighted works in cases such as personal use, research, and criticism.
In determining whether a particular use would be fair, traditional US copyright law focuses the question primarily on the use engaged it. In contrast, FTAA's definition for fair use focuses solely on the commercial interests of the copyright holder in determining whether a particular use would be ruled fair. No consideration is given to the social benefits of the use under the proposed FTAA Treaty.
FTAA's narrow definition of fair use also gives short shrift to Americans' freedom of expression rights guaranteed by the US Constitution. For example, copying something in order to criticize it can easily prejudice the rightsholders' interests (since it could discourage patronage); and traditional fair use, which accounts for free speech interests, would permit such copying. But under FTAA's definition, copying for critical purposes will count against the use being considered fair, chilling freedom of expression throughout the hemisphere.
If Fair Use is redefined in this manner, it seems like the FTAA could be interpreted to outlaw public libraries. If you check out a book as opposed to buying it, under the FTAA's new economic-based model of assessing Fair Use, a library would be liable for causing financial damage to the publisher.
Kudos to our corporate overlords for their foresight and wisdom.
Every time these stories come up, people should focus on promoting sites and services that allow P2P and download of non-restricted material. Slowly-but-surely, we'll turn people towards artists that are grateful that their work is being heard instead of hoarded by the copyright mafia. Most artists don't make squat off of publishing royalties anyway, so 99% of most artists would actually benefit from more distribution of their material. We need to encourage artists to release material in an unrestricted manner and introduce more to the less-mundane music that is out there that Clear Channel and other monopolies are ignoring.
McGrath, a spokesman for BayStar stated, "I think people will try and come to the conclusion that Microsoft is somehow involved in this deal, but I can tell you with great certainty that Microsoft was not involved with this investment,"
McGrath also added, "It is also a certainty that penis size does not matter to women, the 1969 moon landing was faked, Jimmy Hoffa is currently employed as a sushi chef in Boca Raton, Ben and J-Lo's marriage will last forever, and George W. Bush is a member of MENSA."
Yes, Microsoft is faster at patching things AFTER the weaknesses they've known about for the previous ten months are finally exploited, AFTER people that report their problems months earlier don't see a fix and publicize the vulnerabilities.
Microsoft is indeed very quick at fixing things after their corrupted servers have DDOS'd the rest of the Internet. Congratulations Microsoft!
I recently purchased a GE VCR (model VG4268) which has a feature called "Commercial Advance" which either doesn't record the commercials or skips over them automatically during playback. Since there seems to be units like this that are being sold, there must be some way to automatically stop recording or skip over the commercials in an automated manner. This is the one feature that would make the difference for me in getting a Tivo. Does anyone have more details on the feasibility of this (aside from having to manually press a FF button to skip commercials)?
My main interest with a Tivo is whether or not it can be reliably modified to not record any commercials? I understand some models have a skip-ahead feature, but I could clearly see the quality of my television-viewing life dramatically improved if I had a device that would make commercials disappear. Can this be done with the Tivo, and if so, is this something that you have to fight over and fix every now and then to keep working?
Estimates are now that 70% of all traffic is spam. As another poster mentioned, ISPs, especially the top-level backbone providers are stuck with a conflict-of-interest, as they profit on the sale of bandwidth, and therefore are not motivated to contain the overwhelming amount of unwanted noise clogging the Internet.
Imagine if you picked up your telephone and 70 percent of the time it was already in use?
Imagine if 70% of the time on the DVD you just purchased was filled with commercials?
Imagine if you had to put 233% more gasoline in your car than is necessary to get from one point to another?
This is the Spamedemic we are faced with, with a bunch of idiots in power who are either clueless or uninterested in addressing the problem. If this level of inefficiency were present in any other system, it would not be tolerated.
Mabu's solution to the Spamedemic:
1. Form a new enforcement agency that is dedicated to cyber crime. Populate the agency with well-trained IT people who know the laws and the nature of the problem. This agency does not need to encroach into areas covered by US Customs or the FTC (i.e. not be concerned with the content of spam, but merely focus on computer/network-tampering/exploitation. The FBI is not adequately equipped to fight cybercrime. A new agency separate from the other law enforcement organizations should be created.
2. ENFORCE CRIMINAL PENALTIES for computer exploitation: mail-relay-hijacking, trojan horse, worm, virus and vulnerability exploitation. There are already laws on the books criminalizing these activities, but since Americans like laws and have a short attention span, it wouldn't hurt to pass a new law which exclusively, specifically addresses the issue of computer/network/communications exploitation by third parties, and levies very initimidating CRIMINAL penalties. There should be no threshold of monetary damage before criminality is triggered: that only punishes diligent admins to catch attacks before extreme damage is done, or further encourage spammers to employ larger numbers of smaller, distributed attacks.
I think 1 & 2 would essentially cut spam traffic immediately after a few spammers were made example of.
Now.. to deal with the international/jurisdictional aspect of spamming and network exploitation:
3. Establish a formally-sanctioned SMTP IP whitelist database.
If you want to send mail on the Internet, you have to "register" your IP with a centralized, sanctioned database, not unlike what you have to do to register a domain. Other SMTP servers have the choice of only accepting mail from whitelisted IPs.
Whitelisting the relays makes a lot of sense. It would require less resources than blacklisting IPs on the Internet proper. It would also DRAMATICALLY reduce the ability for worms and viruses to propagate via e-mail (most worms now turn the client IP into an unauthorized SMTP server -- the SMTP IP whitelist could have halted the spread of many of the worms making the rounds)
How do you pay for this? I think that users would be happy to pay an extra $5 or so for each domain registration/renewal to fund a program of this type.
I think it would work. It would also give people the ability to find out definitively where there mail is coming from, as each person who relays mail would effectively require a "license" in order to operate. Since the ratio of users-to-smtp relays maybe on the order of 1:1000+, it wouldn't be difficult at all for ISPs to quickly and conveniently register.
Obviously anyone could artibrarily start an smtp whitelisting service but the reason why this needs to be formally-sanctioned is for the same reason the DNS root servers need to be sanctioned: to create some organization and authority. This is something ICANN could potentially have the authority of implementing but that organization is devoid of any common sense, so I recommend the United States, which controls the majority of Internet resources, take the initiative and imple
The point I was making was there is a difference between an "epic story" and a "series", the latter of which is designed to make money more than it is to tell a story.
Tolkien wrote an epic story - it took as many volumes as was practical to tell the story. He didn't envision merchandising rights; he didn't call it "Episode One" before he even had an idea of what the entire series would be. He didn't arbitrarily decide that there would be X movies. There's a difference between great works of literature and the crap that's being cranked out like syndicated television shows. The Matrix is a good example of formulaic crap.
Another interesting idea about the SMTP whitelist system is that with such a facility in place, it would be much easier to track the source of viruses and worms. A centralized whitelist network could identify the earliest source of virus contamination and therefore make it much more efficient to track down the perpetrators.
But imagine if 70% of the time your phone rang it was someone trying to sell you Vicodin or Penis Enlargement solutions? You CAN call the phone company and they will take action.
Slashdot Mirror
Considering that the Bin Laden family has had dealings with the Bush administration for the last ten years and he allowed the whole family to fly out of the country the day after 911; that the majority of the terrorists were Saudi and that the government is uber-cushy with these Saudis, you can bet the first people who get these bypass-scrutiny ID cards would be the very people most of us would be concerned about.
I know I feel safer already.
The "fantasy" is that anyone actually thinks any single entity can control the Internet.
That notwithstanding, it is equally undeniable that the Internet cannot function without some forms of central authority and control. A good example of this is the root server authority. If we did not establish a sanctioned, regulated array of root servers, the hostname system and all other services would be in chaos.
I see nothing wrong with extending some forms of centralized control to maintain a database similar to the TLD authority that functions as a system to legitimize and authorize SMTP hosts. We do this, we virtually eliminiate 99% of the spam and 99% of all virus and worm propagation on the Internet.
Puleeze.. I'm only going to reply to this because I was foolish enough to take the bait, but you cannot be serious in thinking that what your proposing is even remotely justified, enforceable, much less constitutional.
Purchasing an illegal product is illegal. Purchasing a legal product is legal. How you find out about either product is irrelevant.
What you're basically hoping for is that stupidity be made illegal. I applaud the concept, however ridiculously unrealistic it may be. It's not going to happen.
So what city are you the District Attorney for? I'm curious.
There are reverse effects:
* Our tax dollars have been wasted
* Valuable time our leaders could have spent debating something more productive have been wasted
* Once again, people receive a bogus sense of security that this totally-ineffective bill will make ANY difference
* When people see that yet another spam bill dosn't change a thing, their disenchantment with the government's ability to solve the problem increases, as does their apathy, which makes it even harder to solve the problem
* Spammers throw a party and celebrate that the government is still completely clueless and they have nothing to worry about so they ramp up their efforts even more
Ok, I can see this is a troll.
Exactly how in the world would you enforce such a requirement? It's impossible.
A - "Do Not E-mail List"
Every person on the planet has to sign up for this enormous database, which would also likely involve an extensive creation of an "IP identity system" whereby one central source would now know who is connected everywhere on the network. Now there is no such thing as true anonyminity online. This IP database has tremendous privacy-invasion potential.
Furthermore, such a list would be a beast to maintain and place the administrative burden both on end users as well as the database maintainers.
It ultimately wouldn't work because the majority of spammers are small, mobile operations that are already engaging in illegal activity with impunity, so why anybody thinks they're going to suddenly adhere to a do-not-email list is foolish.
B - SMTP relay licenses
Every ISP or company that maintains an SMTP server is "licensed". This puts no burden on end users and results in a dramatically smaller database of authorized mail relays. The end user can choose to use an ISP that accepts mail only from authorized relays. The entity maintaining the database sets specific standards mail servers must adhere to (no header forging, accurate contact info, proper message labelling, etc.)
While I was writing this, I just got a spam.. the header says it's from yahoo.com but an IPWHOIS shows the source of the spam is from a mail relay in LATVIA; an IP with no reverse lookup defined.
With the SMTP whitelist, we don't have these problems. If the Latvian ISP wants to e-mail the Internet proper, it registers the addresses of its mail servers and adheres to industry standards. If not, the mail systems and ISPs that are sick of spam who subscribe to the whitelist tell them to piss off. Problem solved.
I disagree. The existing legislation has proved 100% useless, as will this new legislation. This is analagous to walking into Barnes and Noble and buying a book and never reading the book, yet claiming you know everything in the book. You can't pass a law and have everyone magically follow the rules. It hasn't worked for spam at all. Why someone thinks the 431st bill will make a difference is beyond me.
The issue is not about what the spammer is promoting. It never has been. That's irrelevant. The nature of the products being sold and the legality of the business is a separate issue for a separate agency.
The issue is about spammers breaking into third-party computers. If you stop this exploitation, you will accomplish the following:
1. 90% of the spam on the Internet will disappear
2. The remaining spammers will be forced to collect in little pockets of networks which can be tightly regulated
The reason why you get so much spam is because somewhere, someone's computer has been broken into (a felony) and exploited by a spammer. 90% of spam on the network involves criminal activity, but the authorities have yet to enforce this. Forget about the business model or the content of their messages. If the manner in which 90% of spammers use to deliver their mail is not practical for fear of criminal prosecution, you'll see spamming drop dramatically, and as a result of spammers' increasing inability to hide, the products and services they promote will be more limited to less questionable things.
You've hit the nail on the head.
This is exactly the solution to the spam problem.
Unfortunately, the authorities are currently not-equipped or not motivated to pursue aggressive criminal action against these people. Until this starts happening, nothing else will improve the situation.
These spammers deliberately forge their source and identity; they hijack third-party computers and repurpose them for illegal proxy servers; they hack AOL accounts and use the web areas to stage affiliate referral landing pages. It's all totally illegal. But the authorities still have yet to enforce the criminal code on these issues.
To make matters worse, agencies like the FBI actually have a monetary damage level that triggers whether or not they'll pursue a criminal investigation. Spammers know this. So they move from system-to-system sending out small chunks of e-mails, where no single server can easily prove $x amount of damages required to authorize a formal investigation.
This isn't a problem with technology. This isn't a problem with laws. This isn't a problem with freedom of speech. This is a problem with law enforcement.
This is yet another toothless waste of time of a bill. Toss it on the pile.
Now let's get real:
It's important to realize that there are certain characteristics of most spam:
1. Most "legitimate" promotional mail comes from a static, traceable source (i.e. mailing lists or a specific web site such as amazon.com) The more legitimate spammers, due to their visibility, are forced to maintain more responsible mailing practices or else they will be blocked or blacklisted.
2. The vast majority of spam comes from rapidly rotating sources difficult to trace and lock down (random IPs on the Internet that are either unauthorized or compromised SMTP servers). Regardless of the nature of the spam message content, most of these spam sources involve one or both: violation of the ISP's terms of service (which most disallow smtp relaying from direct client IPs), or an illegal exploitation of third-party computers.
#1 is easily dealt with. Any centralized operation that doesn't perform responsible mailing (opt-in/out, non-forged headers, published contact info, etc.) can be dealt with. We know who these people are and how to reach them; they are large, targetable operations.
#2 is the real problem and the major source of spam online. All the penis-enlargement, Nigerian scams, online pharmacies and home mortgage solicitations are promoted through the use of an ever-changing network of computers, most of which are broken into by spammers or otherwise re-routed through a plethora of foreign ISPs.
The key to solving the spam problem is nailing down #2. I believe that most of the rotating spam sources involve illegal computer exploitation and compromises. We're talking criminal activity - not civil wastes of time. This is the angle law enforcement should use. Go after relay hijacking and enact punitive damages on ISPs who have demonstrated a consistent disregard for the control of their IP blocks. If we go after the spammer-criminals, they will be forced to settle with spam-friendly ISPs or face criminal prosecution. At that point they either clean up their act, or their ISP will become blacklisted. So the solution is straightforward: go after the spammers who take over third-party SMTP servers and client machines. These are criminal offenses which the authorities have yet to actively enforce.
My solution to the Spamedemic:
Believe it or not, solving the Spam problem is really easy and practical. It does not involve infringing on freedom of speech. It does not involve denying ANY business interest the freedom to use e-mail for marketing.
1. FORM A DEDICATED CYBERCRIME ENFORCEMENT AGENCY. Populate the agency with well-trained IT people who know the laws and the nature of the problem. This agency does not need to encroach into areas covered by US Customs or the FTC (i.e. not be concerned with the content of spam, but merely focus on computer/network-tampering/exploitation). The FBI is not adequately equipped to fight cybercrime. A new agency separate from the other law enforcement organizations should be created.
How to fund this new agency? How about a small fee for domain registrations? I think most people would be willing to pay an extra $5/year per domain to ensure that the Internet is more secure and spam-free. In any case, there's plenty of frivolous spending that could be repurposed to fund this very useful agency.
2. ENFORCE CRIMINAL PENALTIES for computer exploitation: mail-relay-hijacking, trojan horse, worm, virus and vulnerability exploitation. There are already laws on the books criminalizing these activities, but since Americans like laws and have a short attention span, it wouldn't hurt to pass a new law which exclusively, specifically addresses the issue of computer/network/communications exploitation by third parties, and levies very intimidating CRIMINAL penalties. There should be no threshold of monetary damage before criminality is triggered: that only punishes diligent admins to catch attacks before extreme damage
I can appreciate the value of the concept of self-destructing documents. We all know that once information becomes digital, the potential of controlling its integrity is questionable at best, but that notwithstanding, it could be a useful feature.
However, my concern over the abuse of this feature overshadows any benefit it may offer. If documents, or even worse, all files, now have flags associated with them that could trigger not easily interruptable deletion, you can imagine the total havoc an il-behaved program could wreak on a user's system.
Can you imagine worms and viruses that mass flag files for automatic destruction at random dates? Receive a nasty e-mail or visit the wrong web site and have it cause files to dissapear months later with virtually no evidence or detectable agent? That's scary.
Of course, I'm sure Microsoft has carefully considered these circumstances so we have nothing to worry about.
Since when are Self destructing documents a "new feature?"
We all saw that coming so I figured we might as well get it over with.
Isn't it amazing what happens when you innovate instead of regulate?
I'm sure all the people who purchased songs did so because they were in fear that the RIAA was going to sue them, not because Apple has heavily promoted a new way to conviently acquire just the music they want.
Score: Technology 1, Lawyers 0
If Fair Use is redefined in this manner, it seems like the FTAA could be interpreted to outlaw public libraries. If you check out a book as opposed to buying it, under the FTAA's new economic-based model of assessing Fair Use, a library would be liable for causing financial damage to the publisher.
Kudos to our corporate overlords for their foresight and wisdom.
Every time these stories come up, people should focus on promoting sites and services that allow P2P and download of non-restricted material. Slowly-but-surely, we'll turn people towards artists that are grateful that their work is being heard instead of hoarded by the copyright mafia. Most artists don't make squat off of publishing royalties anyway, so 99% of most artists would actually benefit from more distribution of their material. We need to encourage artists to release material in an unrestricted manner and introduce more to the less-mundane music that is out there that Clear Channel and other monopolies are ignoring.
McGrath, a spokesman for BayStar stated, "I think people will try and come to the conclusion that Microsoft is somehow involved in this deal, but I can tell you with great certainty that Microsoft was not involved with this investment,"
McGrath also added, "It is also a certainty that penis size does not matter to women, the 1969 moon landing was faked, Jimmy Hoffa is currently employed as a sushi chef in Boca Raton, Ben and J-Lo's marriage will last forever, and George W. Bush is a member of MENSA."
Yes, Microsoft is faster at patching things AFTER the weaknesses they've known about for the previous ten months are finally exploited, AFTER people that report their problems months earlier don't see a fix and publicize the vulnerabilities.
Microsoft is indeed very quick at fixing things after their corrupted servers have DDOS'd the rest of the Internet. Congratulations Microsoft!
How can you tell if your Tivo is series 1 or 2?
Is the Philips DVR7000 series 1?
I recently purchased a GE VCR (model VG4268) which has a feature called "Commercial Advance" which either doesn't record the commercials or skips over them automatically during playback. Since there seems to be units like this that are being sold, there must be some way to automatically stop recording or skip over the commercials in an automated manner. This is the one feature that would make the difference for me in getting a Tivo. Does anyone have more details on the feasibility of this (aside from having to manually press a FF button to skip commercials)?
My main interest with a Tivo is whether or not it can be reliably modified to not record any commercials? I understand some models have a skip-ahead feature, but I could clearly see the quality of my television-viewing life dramatically improved if I had a device that would make commercials disappear. Can this be done with the Tivo, and if so, is this something that you have to fight over and fix every now and then to keep working?
Estimates are now that 70% of all traffic is spam. As another poster mentioned, ISPs, especially the top-level backbone providers are stuck with a conflict-of-interest, as they profit on the sale of bandwidth, and therefore are not motivated to contain the overwhelming amount of unwanted noise clogging the Internet.
Imagine if you picked up your telephone and 70 percent of the time it was already in use?
Imagine if 70% of the time on the DVD you just purchased was filled with commercials?
Imagine if you had to put 233% more gasoline in your car than is necessary to get from one point to another?
This is the Spamedemic we are faced with, with a bunch of idiots in power who are either clueless or uninterested in addressing the problem. If this level of inefficiency were present in any other system, it would not be tolerated.
Mabu's solution to the Spamedemic:
1. Form a new enforcement agency that is dedicated to cyber crime. Populate the agency with well-trained IT people who know the laws and the nature of the problem. This agency does not need to encroach into areas covered by US Customs or the FTC (i.e. not be concerned with the content of spam, but merely focus on computer/network-tampering/exploitation. The FBI is not adequately equipped to fight cybercrime. A new agency separate from the other law enforcement organizations should be created.
2. ENFORCE CRIMINAL PENALTIES for computer exploitation: mail-relay-hijacking, trojan horse, worm, virus and vulnerability exploitation. There are already laws on the books criminalizing these activities, but since Americans like laws and have a short attention span, it wouldn't hurt to pass a new law which exclusively, specifically addresses the issue of computer/network/communications exploitation by third parties, and levies very initimidating CRIMINAL penalties. There should be no threshold of monetary damage before criminality is triggered: that only punishes diligent admins to catch attacks before extreme damage is done, or further encourage spammers to employ larger numbers of smaller, distributed attacks.
I think 1 & 2 would essentially cut spam traffic immediately after a few spammers were made example of.
Now.. to deal with the international/jurisdictional aspect of spamming and network exploitation:
3. Establish a formally-sanctioned SMTP IP whitelist database.
If you want to send mail on the Internet, you have to "register" your IP with a centralized, sanctioned database, not unlike what you have to do to register a domain. Other SMTP servers have the choice of only accepting mail from whitelisted IPs.
Whitelisting the relays makes a lot of sense. It would require less resources than blacklisting IPs on the Internet proper. It would also DRAMATICALLY reduce the ability for worms and viruses to propagate via e-mail (most worms now turn the client IP into an unauthorized SMTP server -- the SMTP IP whitelist could have halted the spread of many of the worms making the rounds)
How do you pay for this? I think that users would be happy to pay an extra $5 or so for each domain registration/renewal to fund a program of this type.
I think it would work. It would also give people the ability to find out definitively where there mail is coming from, as each person who relays mail would effectively require a "license" in order to operate. Since the ratio of users-to-smtp relays maybe on the order of 1:1000+, it wouldn't be difficult at all for ISPs to quickly and conveniently register.
Obviously anyone could artibrarily start an smtp whitelisting service but the reason why this needs to be formally-sanctioned is for the same reason the DNS root servers need to be sanctioned: to create some organization and authority. This is something ICANN could potentially have the authority of implementing but that organization is devoid of any common sense, so I recommend the United States, which controls the majority of Internet resources, take the initiative and imple
Sorry, that was a goofy response... I apologize
The point I was making was there is a difference between an "epic story" and a "series", the latter of which is designed to make money more than it is to tell a story.
Tolkien wrote an epic story - it took as many volumes as was practical to tell the story. He didn't envision merchandising rights; he didn't call it "Episode One" before he even had an idea of what the entire series would be. He didn't arbitrarily decide that there would be X movies. There's a difference between great works of literature and the crap that's being cranked out like syndicated television shows. The Matrix is a good example of formulaic crap.
Good idea. While you're at it, why don't you move out of your parent's basement.
Another interesting idea about the SMTP whitelist system is that with such a facility in place, it would be much easier to track the source of viruses and worms. A centralized whitelist network could identify the earliest source of virus contamination and therefore make it much more efficient to track down the perpetrators.
Yes, that's sad but true.
But imagine if 70% of the time your phone rang it was someone trying to sell you Vicodin or Penis Enlargement solutions? You CAN call the phone company and they will take action.