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 implement this program. ICANN would likely jump on board for the price of a hotel room at a nice resort in the Bahamas like they do with all their other processes.
I also don't see this infringing on freedom-of-speech issues because participation in only accepting smtp traffic from whitelisted servers would be voluntary: If you don't like it, use an ISP that doesn't recognize the whitelist.
What WON'T Work In the War On Spam
We need to make it clear to people that many of the existing "solutions" being proposed really do not solve the problem. They treat the condition but do not cure the Spamedemic:
1. Client/server-side filtering
Nice idea, but ineffective. Filters require constant maintenance and updating, and consume lots of additional resources. They also don't address the main problem of curbing t
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.
I refuse to see movies that are advertisements for other movies. When a feature-length picture ends in "to be continued", you should ask for your money back.
As a result, I don't care about the latest lemming-creating release on this thread of mediocre cinema. Wake up. Don't be a pawn to hollywood.
It seems to me the ability to designate any web site as a terrorist organization, would potentially give the Feds the authority to tap the entire Internet. That's the gist i get from the Patriot Act, not that you can easily figure out what this law actually does...
For example...
I'd love to get my hands on whatever obfusicator our politicans ran on the USA Patriot Act. What a mess:
SEC. 201. AUTHORITY TO INTERCEPT WIRE, ORAL, AND ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS RELATING TO TERRORISM. Section 2516(1) of title 18, United States Code, is amended-- (1) by redesignating paragraph (p), as so redesignated by section 434(2) of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (Public Law 104-132; 110 Stat. 1274), as paragraph (r); and (2) by inserting after paragraph (p), as so redesignated by section 201(3) of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (division C of Public Law 104-208; 110 Stat. 3009-565), the following new paragraph: `(q) any criminal violation of section 229 (relating to chemical weapons); or sections 2332, 2332a, 2332b, 2332d, 2339A, or 2339B of this title (relating to terrorism); or'.
Trying to figure out the new powers granted the government in the USA Patriot Act involves a ridiculous array of search-and-replace scavenger hunting.
There's no indication that ICANN or Verisign will learn anything from these events. These are just the most recent in a long chain of embarassements and slaps in the face to the Internet community.
NSI/Verisign violated agreements by charging for domains in the first place; NSI/Verisign charged an "illegal tax" on domain registrants and stole millions of dollars; Verisign strong-armed the community by almost-monopolizing the SSL Cert business and charging outrageous prices; ICANN made a total mess out of the new TLD rollouts; ICANN pulled political deals that weren't in the best interest of the Internet community when they continued to allow NSI/Verisign to manage.COM/.NET. Nothing has changed. These companies and organizations do not serve the online community -- they serve only their corporate benefactors.
The only way to teach these entities a lesson is to take away their power NOW!
Don't give ICANN credit on this. I seriously doubt that ICANN ultimately had any influence in Verisign disabling this service. ICANN issued a request for Verisign to stop the service long ago and Verisign blew them off.
The reason Verisign shut down the services is because it was becoming obvious that eventually the entire Internet was going to block their unethical traffic theft, and the community was fed up with their antics.
ICANN had NOTHING to do with this. ICANN needs to be dissolved and replaced by an organization that would not have let Verisign pull this crap in the first place.
I'm sorry but I don't think a story like this deserves to be recognized in any remotely respective manner. Statements like Verisign's ridiculous diatribe over the nobility and innovation exhibited in their blatant a**f*ck of the online community are insulting to the intelligence of anyone who can walk upright and think for themselves.
What is with our society? Are we going to turn the other cheek when corporations so cavalierly violate our sensibilities? We have biased news networks trying to copyright the term, "Fair and Balanced"; we have corporations controlling what is and isn't a "scandal"; we have blatant violations of the law ignored in favor of sensationalized triviality. Things are getting out of hand. What Verisign did was 100% wrong as well as a violation of their agreement to provide services. It's about time we terminated the existence of the totally limp-dicked organization called ICANN and not let corporations railroad over the Internet and then tell us it's "Innovation."
ICANN should be dissolved. Verisign should have its contract to manage the TLDs immediately revoked. A new, non-politicized organization with balls should be formed. And the TLD services should be put up for public bid. The reign of arrogant incompetence and exploitation that was born out of NSI needs to be terminated!
* You must be mistaken. It's all free. They want you to try everything FREE! Yes that's right... FREE! They're so confident that I will love their FREE stuff that if I don't, it will still be FREE!
One thing that has been driving me nuts lately are the barrage of commercials for the "Free Software" from "Video Professor" - They run these commercials 5-6 times an hour minimum across hundreds of cable channels. It disgusts me when companies use the word "free" over and over with little fine print below like "* some restrictions apply" - I do not believe this type of advertising should be legal, not to mention the fact that this is misleading and I suspect the software they're hawking are obsolete versions of mediocre titles.
Whenever these "free software" commercials come on, I pick up the phone and auto-dial the 800 number until the commercial goes off the air. I get a nice recording for about 30s and then call back over and over.. just like they do to me.
I take great satisfaction in making my "free" call to them to listen to the recorded message about their "free" software. Hopefully they'll get the message. Remember, "It's FREE!" Try it yourself: 1-800-259-1553!
P2P will definitely survive. But P2P isn't the true future. The "industry" will be broken into two pieces: commercial and non-commercial, and the non-commercial aspect of the industry will be a hundred times larger, and serve as a breeding ground for artists. Touring will not be as important. More effort will be focused on marketing and distribution and online merchandising. P2P will be one of the major marketing mediums but will eventually be overshadowed by aggressive efforts on the part of the independents to establish larger, better quality sources of content.
Aside from the standard arguments, P2P is flourishing because of two things that are outside the control of the current copyright wars:
Convience - Being able to grab content very quickly and conveniently.
Performance & Availability - P2P works because the bandwidth needs are divested among the online populace.
These two issues will eventually be addressed as broadband becomes more common and economical, and web sites make more of an effort to expand the content they offer and aggregate other content into single points of presence.
P2P has never been about stealing. It's always been about convience. The media have just exacerbated the existing frustrations felt by their market by refusing to acknolwedge how they got into this mess in the first place: by not giving their consumers enough choice and convenience.
Every day, things get worse for the traditional business. In addition to the industry's refusal to aggressively pursue innovation, they've stagnated the state-of-the-art by cranking out bland, formulaic product that is devoid of depth. Meanwhile 99.9% of artists who won't sell-out their soul have less of a chance to exploit the traditional marketing and distribution mediums, and most are asking themselves why they'd want to in the first place.
The massive considation of the media has made things worse, but it's helped the underground industry. P2P is just one sign that people are fed up with the crap being passed off as art. There are many more things to come.
I see a future where there are alternate networks in cyberspace that feature tons of new artists that have never had a voice before (as evidenced by many noble efforts such as IUMA, Songramp, MP3.com, etc. but this is going to grow dramatically), and this spawns influence over the mainstream media, all the while the RIAA keeps trying to figure out who they can sue instead of paying attention to what consumers really want.
This might not be a bad thing. Maybe we can at least surround ourselves with intelligent, creative people (in prison) because normal society is looking more and more pathetic and depressing.
The connections are still there, but not as obvious as they once were... but how do you explain a company that has repeatedly violated its operating agreements continuing to get business? ICANN is a total joke. The whole management of TLDs is a joke. The community should not stand for Verisign/NSI having any control over the TLDs whatsoever... they have repeatedly exhibited total disregard for the rules and rights of the community they serve. But they still get away with that? That's totally messed up.
Verisign's connections with the government are MUCH more insideous than most people know.
I still believe the whole concept of charging for domains was technically illegal. They had a grant from the government to manage the TLDs and almost EXACTLY like what happened in the DNS redirection debacle, they decided to arbitrarily change the terms of their service in direct conflict with the agreement under which they were operating.
At the time of the domain charge scam, they got away with it in part, due to the inciteful activity of one big corporation that decided to register virtually every common name they could think of, from diarrhea.com to diapers.com. So the public turned the other way and didn't question the legality of the domain charge in the first place. Only later did someone challenge this and something like half the charges were ruled illegal. But who got their money back? Nobody to the best of my knowledge. NSI stole millions of dollars from the Internet community. What happened to this money?
Then there is the whole issue of the ridiculous terms of service Verisign/NSI employ which are arguably legal in the first place relative to managing domains. Up until recently, we had a domain that legally didn't require any renewal fee (because it was registered before NSI had the facist TOS agreement) but when we changed the nameserver, we couldn't do so without agreeing to the new terms and then were liable for renewal charges.
These are also the people that arbitrarily started charging for domain registrations, changing the terms of their arrangement with the government to manage domains. These are also the people that had their domain charges ruled an "illegal tax" and never returned any of the millions and millions of dollars they illegally stole.
The list of Verisign/NSI dishonorable activities is virtually endless.
The answer is simple. Do your research. You'll find out that Verisign is owned by a bunch of very-well-connected people that seem to know their way around Langely all too well.
It seems to me that you're opening up a Pandora's Box, potentially making the university more liable for the activities of its users. Without all the active scanning, it might be easier to distance yourself from liabilities associated with the activity of those on your network.
Think of all the time you've wasted on this system when you guys could be coming up with a new color of Gatoraid!
The irony of ironies relating to MMORPGs is that most people play to escape the mundane, hamster-wheel-like existence of real life. Who doesn't yearn to escape the real world, where you're constantly bombarded with messages that you're inadequate and less-resourceful than everyone else? Who doesn't dream of being a valiant warrior or explorer with great riches and power? The lure of MMORPGs is that you can be whatever you want to be in this fantasy world.
The problem is, the games have become so complex and "realistic" that they end up embodying the very nature of existence which people were trying to take a break from. In today's games, you have just as much ass-kissing and mindless grinding as you do in real life, only your rewards are more-or-less intangible. Ultimately as a result, you become an even more pathetic slave to the power-hierarchy.
Someone should do a study and compare the effects of a MMORPG time/productivity-sink with alcohol and other drugs. I think the results would be surprising. There's a new kid in town sucking productivity into a big black hole. It's called Everquest, Asheron's Call, Anarchy Online, SWG, etc.
We as humans have a basic instinct to identify patterns and behavior, which are part of our preprogrammed ability to survive. If you see ten apples and one of them is "good" and the rest are bad, I'd be suspicious even more of the one person preaching that we should generally ignore the overwhelming ratio of bad-to-good because one good apple is among the rotten bunch. Logic seems to be on my side, and if anything it isn't implying that all apples are bad, but instead that it would be naive and foolish to assume they're all safe to eat.
When you see the name Mabu, feel free to conclude whatever you want. My agenda apparently isn't as pointed and polarized as yours. That should be noted.
If you'd check your reading comprehension, you'd note that I made no specific acusations against the CAGW. I just think it is a safe policy to be skeptical of any ambiguously-sounding organization that espouses to lecture to people about what is and isn't acceptable for all.
The bottom line is that EVERYONE has an agenda, no matter how neutral or benevolent their cause might be. If anything, my statement was meant to encourage people to look further into these organizations and not simply assume that ANY group who has a fancy name actually equitably represents the cause they promote.
I don't know about anybody else, but whenever I come across some "organization" with a pretentiously-honorable-sounding yet ambiguous name, my bullshit detector starts ringing. Organizations like Council Against Government Waste, Freedom Foundation, American Heritage Institute, Alliance for Good Government, etc., are usually fueled and funded by some polarized corporate interest.
Once you are able to provide for yourself and your family, IMO, the continued creation of wealth is destructive. Of course this flies in the face of the new mantra of our society which conditions us to demand and consumer more.
Somewhere along the way though, we have become the richest nation in the world, as well as the most unhappy, unsatisfied people on the planet. We are no longer working to solve problems and make life better. We are hamsters running around on a wheel.
What we should be asking ourselves is, "What can we do to be happier and more satisfied that has nothing to do with material gain?" What dynamics are at play around us which are keeping us from being able to appreciate simplicity? Why are more and more people avoiding the contemplation of abstraction, or dismissing the importance of planning ahead? How can we have so much, yet feel so inadequate?
Software development can shed some light into these issues when you examine how the role of software has changed. In the early days, the role of software as a tool to solve problems was paramount. The best products of their genre would be recognized as the best tools. Now the use of software is more a device to maintain the status quo than it is to achieve a certain level of productivity.
Another analogy can be made in examining the evolution of the drug industry. Drugs used to "cure" things, now they "treat conditions". The same thing with software. We tolerate inefficient systems because they create dependencies upon which we rely. We've turned from workers to parasites. Instead of completing transactions, we are buying and selling subscriptions.
How actually does more wealth creation, or more equitable distribution of wealth ultimately make anyone happier? The value of those ideals is propagated by a corrupt system in which people are judged not by their actions and contributions, but instead their acquired resources.
Before you speculate how to solve the problem, you might want to re-examine whether or not you've actually identified the problem.
A year ago, I realized that I was slowly programming myself out of a job.
Let me qualify this further. There are two concepts of "jobs".
Concept one is in the technical sense: a job is a process. The objective is to solve a problem, so there should be an obvious, tangible exit (point at which the job is finished) visualized from the project's inception. Completing this job is a mark of success.
The second concept of a job is more abstract and involves a responsibility to maintain a process. If you are a good programmer, your value in being able to efficiently maintain a process should ideally not make you obsolete. If it does, then the "job" for which you are obsoleting yourself isn't worth having in the first place.
As a programmer and consultant, nothing annoys me more than people in my profession who feel a need to design their own dependence into the jobs they undertake. This usually comes back to haunt them in a way other than they anticipated.
Slashdot Mirror
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 implement this program. ICANN would likely jump on board for the price of a hotel room at a nice resort in the Bahamas like they do with all their other processes.
I also don't see this infringing on freedom-of-speech issues because participation in only accepting smtp traffic from whitelisted servers would be voluntary: If you don't like it, use an ISP that doesn't recognize the whitelist.
What WON'T Work In the War On Spam
We need to make it clear to people that many of the existing "solutions" being proposed really do not solve the problem. They treat the condition but do not cure the Spamedemic:
1. Client/server-side filtering
Nice idea, but ineffective. Filters require constant maintenance and updating, and consume lots of additional resources. They also don't address the main problem of curbing t
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.
I refuse to see movies that are advertisements for other movies. When a feature-length picture ends in "to be continued", you should ask for your money back.
As a result, I don't care about the latest lemming-creating release on this thread of mediocre cinema. Wake up. Don't be a pawn to hollywood.
It seems to me the ability to designate any web site as a terrorist organization, would potentially give the Feds the authority to tap the entire Internet. That's the gist i get from the Patriot Act, not that you can easily figure out what this law actually does...
For example...
I'd love to get my hands on whatever obfusicator our politicans ran on the USA Patriot Act. What a mess:
SEC. 201. AUTHORITY TO INTERCEPT WIRE, ORAL, AND ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS RELATING TO TERRORISM.
Section 2516(1) of title 18, United States Code, is amended--
(1) by redesignating paragraph (p), as so redesignated by section 434(2) of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (Public Law 104-132; 110 Stat. 1274), as paragraph (r); and
(2) by inserting after paragraph (p), as so redesignated by section 201(3) of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (division C of Public Law 104-208; 110 Stat. 3009-565), the following new paragraph:
`(q) any criminal violation of section 229 (relating to chemical weapons); or sections 2332, 2332a, 2332b, 2332d, 2339A, or 2339B of this title (relating to terrorism); or'.
Trying to figure out the new powers granted the government in the USA Patriot Act involves a ridiculous array of search-and-replace scavenger hunting.
There's a problem here. I have a patent on hypocrisy. It's obvious that no. 6,631,412 is a derivative work and therefore infringing upon my IP.
There's no indication that ICANN or Verisign will learn anything from these events. These are just the most recent in a long chain of embarassements and slaps in the face to the Internet community.
.COM/.NET. Nothing has changed. These companies and organizations do not serve the online community -- they serve only their corporate benefactors.
NSI/Verisign violated agreements by charging for domains in the first place; NSI/Verisign charged an "illegal tax" on domain registrants and stole millions of dollars; Verisign strong-armed the community by almost-monopolizing the SSL Cert business and charging outrageous prices; ICANN made a total mess out of the new TLD rollouts; ICANN pulled political deals that weren't in the best interest of the Internet community when they continued to allow NSI/Verisign to manage
The only way to teach these entities a lesson is to take away their power NOW!
Don't give ICANN credit on this. I seriously doubt that ICANN ultimately had any influence in Verisign disabling this service. ICANN issued a request for Verisign to stop the service long ago and Verisign blew them off.
The reason Verisign shut down the services is because it was becoming obvious that eventually the entire Internet was going to block their unethical traffic theft, and the community was fed up with their antics.
ICANN had NOTHING to do with this. ICANN needs to be dissolved and replaced by an organization that would not have let Verisign pull this crap in the first place.
I'm sorry but I don't think a story like this deserves to be recognized in any remotely respective manner. Statements like Verisign's ridiculous diatribe over the nobility and innovation exhibited in their blatant a**f*ck of the online community are insulting to the intelligence of anyone who can walk upright and think for themselves.
What is with our society? Are we going to turn the other cheek when corporations so cavalierly violate our sensibilities? We have biased news networks trying to copyright the term, "Fair and Balanced"; we have corporations controlling what is and isn't a "scandal"; we have blatant violations of the law ignored in favor of sensationalized triviality. Things are getting out of hand. What Verisign did was 100% wrong as well as a violation of their agreement to provide services. It's about time we terminated the existence of the totally limp-dicked organization called ICANN and not let corporations railroad over the Internet and then tell us it's "Innovation."
ICANN should be dissolved. Verisign should have its contract to manage the TLDs immediately revoked. A new, non-politicized organization with balls should be formed. And the TLD services should be put up for public bid. The reign of arrogant incompetence and exploitation that was born out of NSI needs to be terminated!
* You must be mistaken. It's all free. They want you to try everything FREE! Yes that's right... FREE! They're so confident that I will love their FREE stuff that if I don't, it will still be FREE!
(* Some restrictions apply)
One thing that has been driving me nuts lately are the barrage of commercials for the "Free Software" from "Video Professor" - They run these commercials 5-6 times an hour minimum across hundreds of cable channels. It disgusts me when companies use the word "free" over and over with little fine print below like "* some restrictions apply" - I do not believe this type of advertising should be legal, not to mention the fact that this is misleading and I suspect the software they're hawking are obsolete versions of mediocre titles.
Whenever these "free software" commercials come on, I pick up the phone and auto-dial the 800 number until the commercial goes off the air. I get a nice recording for about 30s and then call back over and over.. just like they do to me.
I take great satisfaction in making my "free" call to them to listen to the recorded message about their "free" software. Hopefully they'll get the message. Remember, "It's FREE!" Try it yourself: 1-800-259-1553!
P2P will definitely survive. But P2P isn't the true future. The "industry" will be broken into two pieces: commercial and non-commercial, and the non-commercial aspect of the industry will be a hundred times larger, and serve as a breeding ground for artists. Touring will not be as important. More effort will be focused on marketing and distribution and online merchandising. P2P will be one of the major marketing mediums but will eventually be overshadowed by aggressive efforts on the part of the independents to establish larger, better quality sources of content.
Aside from the standard arguments, P2P is flourishing because of two things that are outside the control of the current copyright wars:
Convience - Being able to grab content very quickly and conveniently.
Performance & Availability - P2P works because the bandwidth needs are divested among the online populace.
These two issues will eventually be addressed as broadband becomes more common and economical, and web sites make more of an effort to expand the content they offer and aggregate other content into single points of presence.
P2P has never been about stealing. It's always been about convience. The media have just exacerbated the existing frustrations felt by their market by refusing to acknolwedge how they got into this mess in the first place: by not giving their consumers enough choice and convenience.
Every day, things get worse for the traditional business. In addition to the industry's refusal to aggressively pursue innovation, they've stagnated the state-of-the-art by cranking out bland, formulaic product that is devoid of depth. Meanwhile 99.9% of artists who won't sell-out their soul have less of a chance to exploit the traditional marketing and distribution mediums, and most are asking themselves why they'd want to in the first place.
The massive considation of the media has made things worse, but it's helped the underground industry. P2P is just one sign that people are fed up with the crap being passed off as art. There are many more things to come.
I see a future where there are alternate networks in cyberspace that feature tons of new artists that have never had a voice before (as evidenced by many noble efforts such as IUMA, Songramp, MP3.com, etc. but this is going to grow dramatically), and this spawns influence over the mainstream media, all the while the RIAA keeps trying to figure out who they can sue instead of paying attention to what consumers really want.
This might not be a bad thing. Maybe we can at least surround ourselves with intelligent, creative people (in prison) because normal society is looking more and more pathetic and depressing.
The connections are still there, but not as obvious as they once were... but how do you explain a company that has repeatedly violated its operating agreements continuing to get business? ICANN is a total joke. The whole management of TLDs is a joke. The community should not stand for Verisign/NSI having any control over the TLDs whatsoever... they have repeatedly exhibited total disregard for the rules and rights of the community they serve. But they still get away with that? That's totally messed up.
Verisign's connections with the government are MUCH more insideous than most people know.
I still believe the whole concept of charging for domains was technically illegal. They had a grant from the government to manage the TLDs and almost EXACTLY like what happened in the DNS redirection debacle, they decided to arbitrarily change the terms of their service in direct conflict with the agreement under which they were operating.
At the time of the domain charge scam, they got away with it in part, due to the inciteful activity of one big corporation that decided to register virtually every common name they could think of, from diarrhea.com to diapers.com. So the public turned the other way and didn't question the legality of the domain charge in the first place. Only later did someone challenge this and something like half the charges were ruled illegal. But who got their money back? Nobody to the best of my knowledge. NSI stole millions of dollars from the Internet community. What happened to this money?
Then there is the whole issue of the ridiculous terms of service Verisign/NSI employ which are arguably legal in the first place relative to managing domains. Up until recently, we had a domain that legally didn't require any renewal fee (because it was registered before NSI had the facist TOS agreement) but when we changed the nameserver, we couldn't do so without agreeing to the new terms and then were liable for renewal charges.
These are also the people that arbitrarily started charging for domain registrations, changing the terms of their arrangement with the government to manage domains. These are also the people that had their domain charges ruled an "illegal tax" and never returned any of the millions and millions of dollars they illegally stole.
The list of Verisign/NSI dishonorable activities is virtually endless.
The answer is simple. Do your research. You'll find out that Verisign is owned by a bunch of very-well-connected people that seem to know their way around Langely all too well.
If the language makes it easy for the good programmer to screw up, there is a problem with the language.
Someone mod this guy up funny.
Don't you guys have anything better to do?
It seems to me that you're opening up a Pandora's Box, potentially making the university more liable for the activities of its users. Without all the active scanning, it might be easier to distance yourself from liabilities associated with the activity of those on your network.
Think of all the time you've wasted on this system when you guys could be coming up with a new color of Gatoraid!
The irony of ironies relating to MMORPGs is that most people play to escape the mundane, hamster-wheel-like existence of real life. Who doesn't yearn to escape the real world, where you're constantly bombarded with messages that you're inadequate and less-resourceful than everyone else? Who doesn't dream of being a valiant warrior or explorer with great riches and power? The lure of MMORPGs is that you can be whatever you want to be in this fantasy world.
The problem is, the games have become so complex and "realistic" that they end up embodying the very nature of existence which people were trying to take a break from. In today's games, you have just as much ass-kissing and mindless grinding as you do in real life, only your rewards are more-or-less intangible. Ultimately as a result, you become an even more pathetic slave to the power-hierarchy.
Someone should do a study and compare the effects of a MMORPG time/productivity-sink with alcohol and other drugs. I think the results would be surprising. There's a new kid in town sucking productivity into a big black hole. It's called Everquest, Asheron's Call, Anarchy Online, SWG, etc.
We as humans have a basic instinct to identify patterns and behavior, which are part of our preprogrammed ability to survive. If you see ten apples and one of them is "good" and the rest are bad, I'd be suspicious even more of the one person preaching that we should generally ignore the overwhelming ratio of bad-to-good because one good apple is among the rotten bunch. Logic seems to be on my side, and if anything it isn't implying that all apples are bad, but instead that it would be naive and foolish to assume they're all safe to eat.
When you see the name Mabu, feel free to conclude whatever you want. My agenda apparently isn't as pointed and polarized as yours. That should be noted.
If you'd check your reading comprehension, you'd note that I made no specific acusations against the CAGW. I just think it is a safe policy to be skeptical of any ambiguously-sounding organization that espouses to lecture to people about what is and isn't acceptable for all.
The bottom line is that EVERYONE has an agenda, no matter how neutral or benevolent their cause might be. If anything, my statement was meant to encourage people to look further into these organizations and not simply assume that ANY group who has a fancy name actually equitably represents the cause they promote.
I don't know about anybody else, but whenever I come across some "organization" with a pretentiously-honorable-sounding yet ambiguous name, my bullshit detector starts ringing. Organizations like Council Against Government Waste, Freedom Foundation, American Heritage Institute, Alliance for Good Government, etc., are usually fueled and funded by some polarized corporate interest.
Once you are able to provide for yourself and your family, IMO, the continued creation of wealth is destructive. Of course this flies in the face of the new mantra of our society which conditions us to demand and consumer more.
Somewhere along the way though, we have become the richest nation in the world, as well as the most unhappy, unsatisfied people on the planet. We are no longer working to solve problems and make life better. We are hamsters running around on a wheel.
What we should be asking ourselves is, "What can we do to be happier and more satisfied that has nothing to do with material gain?" What dynamics are at play around us which are keeping us from being able to appreciate simplicity? Why are more and more people avoiding the contemplation of abstraction, or dismissing the importance of planning ahead? How can we have so much, yet feel so inadequate?
Software development can shed some light into these issues when you examine how the role of software has changed. In the early days, the role of software as a tool to solve problems was paramount. The best products of their genre would be recognized as the best tools. Now the use of software is more a device to maintain the status quo than it is to achieve a certain level of productivity.
Another analogy can be made in examining the evolution of the drug industry. Drugs used to "cure" things, now they "treat conditions". The same thing with software. We tolerate inefficient systems because they create dependencies upon which we rely. We've turned from workers to parasites. Instead of completing transactions, we are buying and selling subscriptions.
How actually does more wealth creation, or more equitable distribution of wealth ultimately make anyone happier? The value of those ideals is propagated by a corrupt system in which people are judged not by their actions and contributions, but instead their acquired resources.
Before you speculate how to solve the problem, you might want to re-examine whether or not you've actually identified the problem.
A year ago, I realized that I was slowly programming myself out of a job.
Let me qualify this further. There are two concepts of "jobs".
Concept one is in the technical sense: a job is a process. The objective is to solve a problem, so there should be an obvious, tangible exit (point at which the job is finished) visualized from the project's inception. Completing this job is a mark of success.
The second concept of a job is more abstract and involves a responsibility to maintain a process. If you are a good programmer, your value in being able to efficiently maintain a process should ideally not make you obsolete. If it does, then the "job" for which you are obsoleting yourself isn't worth having in the first place.
As a programmer and consultant, nothing annoys me more than people in my profession who feel a need to design their own dependence into the jobs they undertake. This usually comes back to haunt them in a way other than they anticipated.
A year ago, I realized that I was slowly programming myself out of a job.
No disrespect intended, but NO decent programmer would ever, ever say that.