You don't need Outlook to be infected with either this virus, or with ILOVEYOU. Outlook is needed for the virus to propagate, but not to infect.
So all Windows users are vulnerable.
There is a class of viruses that will infect an Outlook user's PC without the user launching an attachment (Good Times becomes real), but these two aren't like this.
I dare you to produce a piece of code that IE handles contrary to W3C CSS specs.
I know you said CSS specs, but IE 5 can't get HTML 4 right yet. Ever tried using <OBJECT>? Hell, there's parts of HTML 2 that IE 5 still hasn't got around to supporting.
Because Gnutella and Freenet have no profit potential and no incentive to create user-friendly software, this new technology will probably be limited to a relatively small community of highly-skilled computer operators. If these decentralized software protocols do ever gain widespread popularity, Congress will have to revisit this issue.
If Napster dies cos of harassment by RIAA etc, Gnutella and Freenet will definitely take up the slack. Its ridiculous to say that Gnutella is hard to use - its no harder than any mainstream commercial app like MS Word. And there are even web interfaces for it, like Daily Phat and Surfy, that make using Gnutella as easy as using a web site.
Frankly, I can't understand the fuss over Napster, which is simply the messenger, delivering the message that peer-to-peer file sharing will totally transform the music industry and the movie industry, as well as parts of the software industry, and probably a bunch of other industries as well.
Check out how often people are searching for things like Win2000 or Win98 on Gnutella! I can't see Microsoft making too many sales to non-businesses in the very near future.
Dialectizer redistributes their (modified) work to other parties. Whatever anyone does to the content before viewing it, doesn't matter as long as they don't redistribute it.
But if the server distributes a plugin that allows the transformation...?
Lets imagine for a moment that the dialectizer continues as a server based transformation, and is also distributed as a browser plugin.
The server redistributes the transformed web page to those who request it. The server also distributes the plugin to those who request it, and is then installed on the client's PC, and transforms the web page.
I really can't see what the difference here is. How does it matter where the transformation take place?
It makes sense to have a distinction between what you can do as a local user, and what you can do in a server and then retransmit to random people.
I don't think so.
We all use different web browsers, and we use different settings that may ignore the page author's images, colours, fonts and style sheets. We may even use a user style sheet that radically transforms the appearance of a page. And that user style sheet may even be located on a remote server! So what then?
This case shows how people have not come to terms with how open the structure of the web is. Its just a stream of text that can be modified at the client, or at a server (when requested by the client).
The balance of power has shifted between information providers and information consumers. The consumers now have the power to siginificantly transform the information they receive. I can't see how it is relevant whether they use only their own machine to do it, or whether they enlist the help of a friendly server somewhere along the way.
Ignorance of the laws is of course no excuse for breaking them. Never has been, never will be.
This is true for criminal law, but a software license is contract law. Contract law is based on the two parties agreeing to a set of terms, but they can't agree to a term if they are ignorant of it.
The catch is that a term does not have to be explicitly stated - it can be implied. So for instance if both parties are aware (or should reasonably be aware) of a particular fact, and that fact is a significant element in the agreement, but is not explicitly stated anywhere, it can be construed as a legally binding term of the contract.
The EULA in this case can't apply to people who don't read it, unless its considered that a reasonable person should have and could have read it.
I think that the argument of the Linux user who uses unrar, or the Windows user using winzip (due to concerns about running EXE files on a virus-prone operating system like Windows:) would be good enough reasons for a person to have avoided viewing the EULA, and therefore agreeing to it.
IANAL, but I have a law degree, and its in Australian law, so whatever I've just said may not apply to the USA:)
Slashdot Mirror
And to clear up another issue:-
You don't need Outlook to be infected with either this virus, or with ILOVEYOU. Outlook is needed for the virus to propagate, but not to infect.
So all Windows users are vulnerable.
There is a class of viruses that will infect an Outlook user's PC without the user launching an attachment (Good Times becomes real), but these two aren't like this.
I dare you to produce a piece of code that IE handles contrary to W3C CSS specs.
I know you said CSS specs, but IE 5 can't get HTML 4 right yet. Ever tried using <OBJECT>? Hell, there's parts of HTML 2 that IE 5 still hasn't got around to supporting.
Because Gnutella and Freenet have no profit potential and no incentive to create user-friendly software, this new technology will probably be limited to a relatively small community of highly-skilled computer operators. If these decentralized software protocols do ever gain widespread popularity, Congress will have to revisit this issue.
If Napster dies cos of harassment by RIAA etc, Gnutella and Freenet will definitely take up the slack. Its ridiculous to say that Gnutella is hard to use - its no harder than any mainstream commercial app like MS Word. And there are even web interfaces for it, like Daily Phat and Surfy, that make using Gnutella as easy as using a web site.
Frankly, I can't understand the fuss over Napster, which is simply the messenger, delivering the message that peer-to-peer file sharing will totally transform the music industry and the movie industry, as well as parts of the software industry, and probably a bunch of other industries as well.
Check out how often people are searching for things like Win2000 or Win98 on Gnutella! I can't see Microsoft making too many sales to non-businesses in the very near future.
Dialectizer redistributes their (modified) work to other parties. Whatever anyone does to the content before viewing it, doesn't matter as long as they don't redistribute it.
But if the server distributes a plugin that allows the transformation...?
Lets imagine for a moment that the dialectizer continues as a server based transformation, and is also distributed as a browser plugin.
The server redistributes the transformed web page to those who request it. The server also distributes the plugin to those who request it, and is then installed on the client's PC, and transforms the web page.
I really can't see what the difference here is. How does it matter where the transformation take place?
It makes sense to have a distinction between what you can do as a local user, and what you can do in a server and then retransmit to random people.
I don't think so.
We all use different web browsers, and we use different settings that may ignore the page author's images, colours, fonts and style sheets. We may even use a user style sheet that radically transforms the appearance of a page. And that user style sheet may even be located on a remote server! So what then?
This case shows how people have not come to terms with how open the structure of the web is. Its just a stream of text that can be modified at the client, or at a server (when requested by the client).
The balance of power has shifted between information providers and information consumers. The consumers now have the power to siginificantly transform the information they receive. I can't see how it is relevant whether they use only their own machine to do it, or whether they enlist the help of a friendly server somewhere along the way.
Ignorance of the laws is of course no excuse for breaking them. Never has been, never will be.
This is true for criminal law, but a software license is contract law. Contract law is based on the two parties agreeing to a set of terms, but they can't agree to a term if they are ignorant of it.
The catch is that a term does not have to be explicitly stated - it can be implied. So for instance if both parties are aware (or should reasonably be aware) of a particular fact, and that fact is a significant element in the agreement, but is not explicitly stated anywhere, it can be construed as a legally binding term of the contract.
The EULA in this case can't apply to people who don't read it, unless its considered that a reasonable person should have and could have read it.
I think that the argument of the Linux user who uses unrar, or the Windows user using winzip (due to concerns about running EXE files on a virus-prone operating system like Windows :) would be good enough reasons for a person to have avoided viewing the EULA, and therefore agreeing to it.
IANAL, but I have a law degree, and its in Australian law, so whatever I've just said may not apply to the USA :)