Um, this isn't really journalism, so much as the Op-Ed page. And frankly when she says 'Republican legislators denounce these industries for trying to take control of individuals' computers, denouncing the "spyware" already on Windows Media Player that tracks what you listen to, and promising to outlaw such intrusive technologies in the future.' you almost have to laugh! The Republicans don't care about this stuff. They're the ones who put John Ashcroft into the AG office and are behind the war on drugs and the war on terrorism. They are more than happy using crime paranoia to push their police state forward.
That is why I specifically used the phrase "open mail relay". FWIW I consider Yahoo and Hotmail to be open mail relays as well and block them accordingly. However, I generally consider spam an end user problem, which requires us (users) to work together to create services that assist us in building blocklists and/or software that is intelligent or easy to use that allows us to build our own filters. Of course, one of the best ways to start is to just block all open known open relays. I agree, there's no good reason to run one.
I don't see any similarity between file sharing programs and open email relays. File sharing requires me to sign on, and usually gives me fine control over who can access my files (just like if I set up a web or FTP server). I am not required to accept files from anyone who clicks my name in the user list. An open relay, however, forces me to accept mail from pretty much anyone (email that often has forged headers, etc).
Important to note that this case was settled out of court, and therefore the Amazon Bookstore Coop did not "have" to do anything. The details of the settlement are not (AFIAK) public, but could well have included a tidy sum being transferred from amazon.com to the ABC. And we should also note that Amazon Bookstore Cooperative is, in fact, the previous legal name of the business in Minneapolis. What they did was start using the full name for a change. Because the case was settled I have a hard time at this point dredging up any sympathy for Amazon in Minneapolis. If they had pursued the case a little more rigorously (which they probably couldn't afford to do), they may well have won. As it is, I have to reiterate my guess that a good chunk of money changed hands to change some attitudes.
Fair use does not seem to be protecting the technically inclined in cases that are brought using the DMCA as the primary legislative support. Else, Goldstein and Sklyarov would never have been dragged into court.
Still, this is yet another law, and it seems designed to keep Disney, WB, and company from shooting themselves in the foot. If consumers are willing to go out and buy a whole slew of new devices in order to support this copyright protection racket, then why should Congress be passing laws to prevent it?
I will agree however, with any attempts (which is part of this proposal) to enforce labeling that makes it clear that the CDs purchased with copy interference mechanisms are not traditional, standard audio CDs. Frankly, I'm disappointed in my fellow Americans that they neither know much or care much about this.
If a law like this is passed, I predict a new standard audio format will appear in no time. An audio DVD for instance, with remixes, videos, and a bunch of other stuff-- and devices ranging from simple audio players for the audio tracks to portable players that have a little video screen to whatever. As long as people buy what they are selling, the law is going to always be a step behind.
I believe telling someone that they are "wallowing in ignorance" is an ad hominem attack. It is substantially unrelated to the truth or validity of the assertion at hand. It is strictly an attack on the person making the assertion, therefore "ad hominem". After all, that is what "ad hominem" means: "to the man". Whether or not I am "wallowing in ignorance" is wholly unrelated to my views on what constitutes an artificially restricted supply in a market.
I believe it is best if you are going to be insulting in tone and accuse others of "ignorance" that one must be certain that one does not make similarly stupid mistakes, like not being able to spell "ignorance". Frankly, I don't think I have any reason to respond to someone who is insulting me.
In fact, the poster of that message, "malcontent" appears to have no real desire to discuss the issue like a civilized person. He or she seems to be more interested in vitriol and argument. Frankly, I don't give a flying fuck what such a person thinks of my statements. They have no reason to treat me poorly even if I am wrong (which I am not, this is a matter of opinion and persuavive discourse, not fact finding), and it is my right to refuse to converse further. I owe this person nothing, not an explanation for my refusal to discuss the matter further (which I did give) nor background on why I hold the opinion that I do (which I am not going to bother with).
By the way, I did not make an "attack on lawyers as some sort of guild". I simply stated that it *is* a guild. Which it is. They call the process of joining the guild "passing the bar". And my assertion was hardly an attack on lawyers. As others have stated, the supply is restricted for a reason: to protect consumers from bad lawyering. If just anyone could call themself a lawyer, we'd be awash in lawyers who knew nothing about the law. The guild itself recognizes that they are in a position where not all who need the services of lawyers may have access due to the fees associated. This is why most state Bars require or strongly encourage pro bono work, and why most law degree programs require it before graduation.
And now to wrap up this, my 1,111th and final post to Slashdot (fitting that it should be to an AC, since I stopped responding to AC's a long time ago normally): I'm tired of this shit. Maybe I'm dead wrong. Fine. You're hardly going to convince me otherwise with this antisocial bullshit. So here's me wallowing in ignorance (mmmm, bliss!): Fuck you.
Don't you think newbies installing stuff mostly won't have to fiddle with config files that much in the first place? It's not like anyone needs sendmail on a simple client machine-- that's what POP mailboxes and SMTP servers at the ISP are for. It's not like Apache needs to be running 25 virtual hosts for a newbie. I don't consider myself a newbie, and I've never installed/run BIND on my systems. And the two major GUI systems (three if you count Enlightenment), KDE and Gnome come with preference control centers-- as do most of the major apps one would use in those systems.
I think the hardest parts of configuration-- what is this machine's IP, what nameservers to use, what fundamental services to run, and stuff like that-- should be handled at install. And as far as I've seen, most distrubutions do it that way.
The people a more unified system might help are systems administrators. And do they really mind the current situation? Now I could understand that configuring services might be a little overwhelming to a new SA, but hopefully they're not being thrown into this cold, having no mentor and needing to configure a large system from scratch. Even with a GUI, I'd call that a recipe for disaster.
Of course I'm not opposed to a better, simpler, more consistent set of configuration files and methods. But is this really a high priority?
Whatever your problem is, don't take it out on me. You're just plain abusive and I refuse to discuss lawyers or economics with you further. Call my argument nonsense all you want, but quit insulting *me*. At least I can spell.
If you're going to accuse me of "wallowing in... ignarance [sic]" at least learn to spell "ignorance", okay? Ad hominem attacks always work better when the attacker doesn't open himself or herself to the same or similar attacks.
If this is so please tell us how this is different from doctors, professional engineers, electricians, plumbers hell even MCSEs.
I never said it was different. Can you even read? At this point you have failed to meet my minimum requirements for continuing this discussion.
No, it isn't. It's a method for authenticating pieces of data against a key. Which might be part of an overall security plan, but does nothing to keep your data secret or any of the other common notions for what it means to be "secure".
What a load. HTTPS is a transport protocol. This spec is about signing stuff so that it can be authenticated against a key, not encrypting it during transmission.
Market economy? Lawyers are a guild whose practice it is illegal to perform without joining the guild. That's an artificially restricted supply, hence not a free market. Try again.
Well he does also claim to have invented ASCII and timeshare computing, so, umm, that question mark thing isn't far off:)
And you probably know it's not the 'Esc' key on your keyboard, but the very idea of an escape sequence that he's talking about (which, of course, is could be triggered in some situations by pressing 'Esc').
Cripes, here I'm joking about it, but then I find this at the end of the article, "The Humane Society of the United States opposes pet cloning, the Journal said, because of the danger of overpopulation." Yeah, cloning is going to cause cat populations to go all out of control.
Access to entertainment? When gene and medicine patents promise to keep biotech corps in double digit profits for years to come, while medical care expenses for the average citizen continue to go through the roof?
Access to entertainment? When only ten major corporations own nearly the full spectrum of visible, audible, and legible media for informational purposes as well as amusement?
Access to entertainment? When increasingly patented "technologies" are being used to generate our food supply, from medications for animals, to fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides, when the seeds themselves have become "intellectual property"?
Access to entertainment? When the government provides for arrest and confiscation in matters surrounding nothing more significant that copying stuff without permission?
Access to entertainment? When the government itself invests heavily in technology "licensed" from firms more willing to rely on tech-secret laws (i.e. DMCA) to keep problems under wraps than they are to truly eliminate security issues on their own? When national security depends on this technology?
At least for now? It's already the case that these laws cause "real" harm to society, and hold the potential for a lot more damage to be done.
The solution? That's what the whole article is about.
The key notion is "oversight". Which means that you watch the watchers. For government this means things like the FOIA, where citizens can see what the files say. This means open meetings with published minutes. It means that court proceedings are public. Things like that. For corporations, it means things like being able to get a copy of your credit report.
Maybe it should also mean standard reports by businesses that consumers can request that will show what's being tracked, and what those tracked values are for that specific consumer. That way, if a supermarket has used my address (which would be consistent across credit/debit cards and checks) to track my purchases, that I can see my whole file, as it were.
It might mean that a credit agency has to give a more complete disclosure than just the "credit report" which don't currently show any of the standard scores assigned to my profile.
But the basic premise of Brin's argument is that privacy, freedom, and security are all orthogonal. None of these are dependent on the others. Which makes sense to me. While I value my right to be left alone (one type of privacy), I almost consider it cowardice that some people are willing to buy/do things that are questionable but won't put their name to it (like only paying cash for computer security books). Their "privacy" isn't helping anyone be free. In fact, their lack of public ownership of who they are and how they behave makes it easier for the power-hungry to use this secrecy to squelch open debate, since anyone who *does* voice oppositional or open opinions becomes suspect.
Hmmm. I have the exact opposite complaint with Gnome. Way too many packages, and build order counts, so it can be fun to keep it all straight. KDE, OTOH, has always been a breeze because you really only needed a few tarballs to get up and running. And if you felt you were installing too much, you could go in and make parts of the packages individually, rather than doing a package level 'make all'.
But I compile from source for all non-base code. And in any case, both projects provide the code reliably--not packages. It's up to distros or volunteers to package stuff one way or another.
And I quote from the Salon article linked above: But Ohio authorities were persistent. They asked the Seattle district attorney to issue a search warrant for the information. Then Amazon officials found out something that Ohio authorities hadn't told them: Although the case was still technically open, the primary suspect that Ohio was hoping to match to the purchases -- local TV personality Joel Rose -- had committed suicide a few weeks earlier. Ohio authorities had suspected that Rose was the stalker. After police took DNA samples from Rose and the story broke in the news, Rose wrote notes to his family and public officials denying his involvement, and then shot himself in the woods behind his house. Ohio authorities were apparently hoping the Amazon sales records would clear them of the perception that they pushed an innocent man to suicide. Ultimately, the Seattle D.A.'s office refused to issue the search warrant. As it turned out, Rose's DNA did not match the DNA found on some of the stalker's mailings.
Quit linking to that lame Courtney Love article. Everyone on Slashdot has read it. Try linking to this page instead: http://www.negativland.com/intprop.html. Negativland know a fuckload more about intellectual property issues than Courtney Love does, and they certainly understand the "Math"-- since they have Steve Albini's original version of the same material on this page.
Not to mention the fact that Courtney Love's music sucks. She is a bleating three year old who wouldn't know punk rock if you pierced her nipple with it. At least Negativland have done some incredibly interesting, funny, thought-provoking, and often fun-to-listen-to stuff.
Or better yet, read Steve Albini's original at http://www.negativland.com/intprop.html along with a host of other excellent articles on "intellectual property" matters by people who care a lot more about the real issues than Salon.com does and who understand them better than Courtney ever will.
Re:We need technical measures, not laws, for spam
on
FTC Goes After Spammers
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
I like the notion of a technical solution to the problem that doesn't rely on simply filtering falsified origins-- since that would eliminate a lot of virtually hosted domains. But another easily implemented technical idea would be to filter all mail based on three criteria: 1) belongs to an allowed list of from addresses (i.e. opt-in lists, friends, family, etc), 2) email contains a valid GnuPG/PGP signature from a key posted to one or more central keyservers, 3) email is encrypted using *my* public key.
Slashdot Mirror
Um, this isn't really journalism, so much as the Op-Ed page. And frankly when she says 'Republican legislators denounce these industries for trying to take control of individuals' computers, denouncing the "spyware" already on Windows Media Player that tracks what you listen to, and promising to outlaw such intrusive technologies in the future.' you almost have to laugh! The Republicans don't care about this stuff. They're the ones who put John Ashcroft into the AG office and are behind the war on drugs and the war on terrorism. They are more than happy using crime paranoia to push their police state forward.
That is why I specifically used the phrase "open mail relay". FWIW I consider Yahoo and Hotmail to be open mail relays as well and block them accordingly. However, I generally consider spam an end user problem, which requires us (users) to work together to create services that assist us in building blocklists and/or software that is intelligent or easy to use that allows us to build our own filters. Of course, one of the best ways to start is to just block all open known open relays. I agree, there's no good reason to run one.
I don't see any similarity between file sharing programs and open email relays. File sharing requires me to sign on, and usually gives me fine control over who can access my files (just like if I set up a web or FTP server). I am not required to accept files from anyone who clicks my name in the user list. An open relay, however, forces me to accept mail from pretty much anyone (email that often has forged headers, etc).
Important to note that this case was settled out of court, and therefore the Amazon Bookstore Coop did not "have" to do anything. The details of the settlement are not (AFIAK) public, but could well have included a tidy sum being transferred from amazon.com to the ABC. And we should also note that Amazon Bookstore Cooperative is, in fact, the previous legal name of the business in Minneapolis. What they did was start using the full name for a change. Because the case was settled I have a hard time at this point dredging up any sympathy for Amazon in Minneapolis. If they had pursued the case a little more rigorously (which they probably couldn't afford to do), they may well have won. As it is, I have to reiterate my guess that a good chunk of money changed hands to change some attitudes.
Fair use does not seem to be protecting the technically inclined in cases that are brought using the DMCA as the primary legislative support. Else, Goldstein and Sklyarov would never have been dragged into court.
Still, this is yet another law, and it seems designed to keep Disney, WB, and company from shooting themselves in the foot. If consumers are willing to go out and buy a whole slew of new devices in order to support this copyright protection racket, then why should Congress be passing laws to prevent it?
I will agree however, with any attempts (which is part of this proposal) to enforce labeling that makes it clear that the CDs purchased with copy interference mechanisms are not traditional, standard audio CDs. Frankly, I'm disappointed in my fellow Americans that they neither know much or care much about this.
If a law like this is passed, I predict a new standard audio format will appear in no time. An audio DVD for instance, with remixes, videos, and a bunch of other stuff-- and devices ranging from simple audio players for the audio tracks to portable players that have a little video screen to whatever. As long as people buy what they are selling, the law is going to always be a step behind.
I believe telling someone that they are "wallowing in ignorance" is an ad hominem attack. It is substantially unrelated to the truth or validity of the assertion at hand. It is strictly an attack on the person making the assertion, therefore "ad hominem". After all, that is what "ad hominem" means: "to the man". Whether or not I am "wallowing in ignorance" is wholly unrelated to my views on what constitutes an artificially restricted supply in a market.
I believe it is best if you are going to be insulting in tone and accuse others of "ignorance" that one must be certain that one does not make similarly stupid mistakes, like not being able to spell "ignorance". Frankly, I don't think I have any reason to respond to someone who is insulting me.
In fact, the poster of that message, "malcontent" appears to have no real desire to discuss the issue like a civilized person. He or she seems to be more interested in vitriol and argument. Frankly, I don't give a flying fuck what such a person thinks of my statements. They have no reason to treat me poorly even if I am wrong (which I am not, this is a matter of opinion and persuavive discourse, not fact finding), and it is my right to refuse to converse further. I owe this person nothing, not an explanation for my refusal to discuss the matter further (which I did give) nor background on why I hold the opinion that I do (which I am not going to bother with).
By the way, I did not make an "attack on lawyers as some sort of guild". I simply stated that it *is* a guild. Which it is. They call the process of joining the guild "passing the bar". And my assertion was hardly an attack on lawyers. As others have stated, the supply is restricted for a reason: to protect consumers from bad lawyering. If just anyone could call themself a lawyer, we'd be awash in lawyers who knew nothing about the law. The guild itself recognizes that they are in a position where not all who need the services of lawyers may have access due to the fees associated. This is why most state Bars require or strongly encourage pro bono work, and why most law degree programs require it before graduation.
And now to wrap up this, my 1,111th and final post to Slashdot (fitting that it should be to an AC, since I stopped responding to AC's a long time ago normally): I'm tired of this shit. Maybe I'm dead wrong. Fine. You're hardly going to convince me otherwise with this antisocial bullshit. So here's me wallowing in ignorance (mmmm, bliss!): Fuck you.
Don't you think newbies installing stuff mostly won't have to fiddle with config files that much in the first place? It's not like anyone needs sendmail on a simple client machine-- that's what POP mailboxes and SMTP servers at the ISP are for. It's not like Apache needs to be running 25 virtual hosts for a newbie. I don't consider myself a newbie, and I've never installed/run BIND on my systems. And the two major GUI systems (three if you count Enlightenment), KDE and Gnome come with preference control centers-- as do most of the major apps one would use in those systems.
I think the hardest parts of configuration-- what is this machine's IP, what nameservers to use, what fundamental services to run, and stuff like that-- should be handled at install. And as far as I've seen, most distrubutions do it that way.
The people a more unified system might help are systems administrators. And do they really mind the current situation? Now I could understand that configuring services might be a little overwhelming to a new SA, but hopefully they're not being thrown into this cold, having no mentor and needing to configure a large system from scratch. Even with a GUI, I'd call that a recipe for disaster.
Of course I'm not opposed to a better, simpler, more consistent set of configuration files and methods. But is this really a high priority?
No.
Forget company policy. It's violation of the Federal Law. My first call would not be to regional management, but to the government.
Whatever your problem is, don't take it out on me. You're just plain abusive and I refuse to discuss lawyers or economics with you further. Call my argument nonsense all you want, but quit insulting *me*. At least I can spell.
If you're going to accuse me of "wallowing in ... ignarance [sic]" at least learn to spell "ignorance", okay? Ad hominem attacks always work better when the attacker doesn't open himself or herself to the same or similar attacks.
If this is so please tell us how this is different from doctors, professional engineers, electricians, plumbers hell even MCSEs.
I never said it was different. Can you even read? At this point you have failed to meet my minimum requirements for continuing this discussion.
this is method of securing XML data
No, it isn't. It's a method for authenticating pieces of data against a key. Which might be part of an overall security plan, but does nothing to keep your data secret or any of the other common notions for what it means to be "secure".
What a load. HTTPS is a transport protocol. This spec is about signing stuff so that it can be authenticated against a key, not encrypting it during transmission.
Market economy? Lawyers are a guild whose practice it is illegal to perform without joining the guild. That's an artificially restricted supply, hence not a free market. Try again.
Well he does also claim to have invented ASCII and timeshare computing, so, umm, that question mark thing isn't far off :)
And you probably know it's not the 'Esc' key on your keyboard, but the very idea of an escape sequence that he's talking about (which, of course, is could be triggered in some situations by pressing 'Esc').
Cripes, here I'm joking about it, but then I find this at the end of the article, "The Humane Society of the United States opposes pet cloning, the Journal said, because of the danger of overpopulation." Yeah, cloning is going to cause cat populations to go all out of control.
Like we even need more cats... my local Humane Society is overloaded with these things and here these people are making more?
Access to entertainment? When gene and medicine patents promise to keep biotech corps in double digit profits for years to come, while medical care expenses for the average citizen continue to go through the roof?
Access to entertainment? When only ten major corporations own nearly the full spectrum of visible, audible, and legible media for informational purposes as well as amusement?
Access to entertainment? When increasingly patented "technologies" are being used to generate our food supply, from medications for animals, to fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides, when the seeds themselves have become "intellectual property"?
Access to entertainment? When the government provides for arrest and confiscation in matters surrounding nothing more significant that copying stuff without permission?
Access to entertainment? When the government itself invests heavily in technology "licensed" from firms more willing to rely on tech-secret laws (i.e. DMCA) to keep problems under wraps than they are to truly eliminate security issues on their own? When national security depends on this technology?
At least for now? It's already the case that these laws cause "real" harm to society, and hold the potential for a lot more damage to be done.
The solution? That's what the whole article is about.
The key notion is "oversight". Which means that you watch the watchers. For government this means things like the FOIA, where citizens can see what the files say. This means open meetings with published minutes. It means that court proceedings are public. Things like that. For corporations, it means things like being able to get a copy of your credit report.
Maybe it should also mean standard reports by businesses that consumers can request that will show what's being tracked, and what those tracked values are for that specific consumer. That way, if a supermarket has used my address (which would be consistent across credit/debit cards and checks) to track my purchases, that I can see my whole file, as it were.
It might mean that a credit agency has to give a more complete disclosure than just the "credit report" which don't currently show any of the standard scores assigned to my profile.
But the basic premise of Brin's argument is that privacy, freedom, and security are all orthogonal. None of these are dependent on the others. Which makes sense to me. While I value my right to be left alone (one type of privacy), I almost consider it cowardice that some people are willing to buy/do things that are questionable but won't put their name to it (like only paying cash for computer security books). Their "privacy" isn't helping anyone be free. In fact, their lack of public ownership of who they are and how they behave makes it easier for the power-hungry to use this secrecy to squelch open debate, since anyone who *does* voice oppositional or open opinions becomes suspect.
Hmmm. I have the exact opposite complaint with Gnome. Way too many packages, and build order counts, so it can be fun to keep it all straight. KDE, OTOH, has always been a breeze because you really only needed a few tarballs to get up and running. And if you felt you were installing too much, you could go in and make parts of the packages individually, rather than doing a package level 'make all'.
But I compile from source for all non-base code. And in any case, both projects provide the code reliably--not packages. It's up to distros or volunteers to package stuff one way or another.
RTFA! Here, I'll read it for you!
And I quote from the Salon article linked above: But Ohio authorities were persistent. They asked the Seattle district attorney to issue a search warrant for the information. Then Amazon officials found out something that Ohio authorities hadn't told them: Although the case was still technically open, the primary suspect that Ohio was hoping to match to the purchases -- local TV personality Joel Rose -- had committed suicide a few weeks earlier. Ohio authorities had suspected that Rose was the stalker. After police took DNA samples from Rose and the story broke in the news, Rose wrote notes to his family and public officials denying his involvement, and then shot himself in the woods behind his house. Ohio authorities were apparently hoping the Amazon sales records would clear them of the perception that they pushed an innocent man to suicide. Ultimately, the Seattle D.A.'s office refused to issue the search warrant. As it turned out, Rose's DNA did not match the DNA found on some of the stalker's mailings.
Quit linking to that lame Courtney Love article. Everyone on Slashdot has read it. Try linking to this page instead: http://www.negativland.com/intprop.html. Negativland know a fuckload more about intellectual property issues than Courtney Love does, and they certainly understand the "Math"-- since they have Steve Albini's original version of the same material on this page.
Not to mention the fact that Courtney Love's music sucks. She is a bleating three year old who wouldn't know punk rock if you pierced her nipple with it. At least Negativland have done some incredibly interesting, funny, thought-provoking, and often fun-to-listen-to stuff.
Or better yet, read Steve Albini's original at http://www.negativland.com/intprop.html along with a host of other excellent articles on "intellectual property" matters by people who care a lot more about the real issues than Salon.com does and who understand them better than Courtney ever will.
I like the notion of a technical solution to the problem that doesn't rely on simply filtering falsified origins-- since that would eliminate a lot of virtually hosted domains. But another easily implemented technical idea would be to filter all mail based on three criteria: 1) belongs to an allowed list of from addresses (i.e. opt-in lists, friends, family, etc), 2) email contains a valid GnuPG/PGP signature from a key posted to one or more central keyservers, 3) email is encrypted using *my* public key.
Besides, who remembers the nominees, anyway?
:)
Agents, promoters, and the people who write all those lies for trailers and promo materials.