This is an act of desparation of the spammers. By this action they have exposed their achille's heel.
Spamming is prevalent because it is literally free of cost to the spammers. This tool threatens to raise the cost of spamming end via excessive bandwidth demands at the spammer server end. If the cost of spamming became prohibitive then spam would be extinct and they would not have the resources to retain hackers to carry out their malicious efforts like deceptive URLs and hijacking innocent PCs as spam boxes.
The Lycos tool makes that threat very real. The spammers know this and they have focused their attack on the tool.
If they take legal action arguing that attacks on their ISPs was damaging their liveliehood, the same can be said of spammers' attacks on our inboxes and compromised PCs. When you accuse someone by pointing at them, there are always three fingers pointing back towards you.
Legislative actions are ineffective thanks to lobbying efforts from direct marketing organizations of which spammers are a member. The CANSPAM accomplishes nothing and trumps more aggressive state laws. If the government cannot provide relief, then the private sector will seek alternatives without their help.
I have left the upgrade treadmill on the sidewalk. My VHS player was displaced only two years ago with a DVD/VHS player and I am not going to repeat my investment in media in order to perpetuate your business model.
HD DVD has no significant features that are of value to me. Instead of focusing on new technologies, perhaps you should divert your precious R&D resources to providing better content.
The RIAA is suing Sears Craftsman claiming that their crowbars can be used to break open the doors of brick-and-mortar CD stores. The crowbars are blamed for heavy losses in CD sales although no proof has surfaced to support their claims.
This just in... the President signed into law the latest anti-piracy bill banning the sale of Sharpie pens. With puppet strings visible the President remarked "Piracy of entertainment is a terrorist threat to our nation and must be confronted with swift decisive action" although his southern twang was curiously replaced with a heavy Austrian accent. The bill also retroactively forces all computer keyboards to have their shift keys removed.
...Another one from the wire... The MPAA has completed their assimulation of DVD and camcorder production lifeforms to "improve quality of life by ridding the universe of region free players and rogue movie theater pirates." The MPAA spokesborg reiterated their mission statement: "Resistance is futile. All your base are belong to us."
The gov't provided patents for protection, but in exchange they made it clear that enforcement was the jurisdiction of the patent holder. It was the owner's problem to identify infringers and drag them into court. The only resource the gov't provided was the court system, not law enforcement. It was counterproductive to use taxpayer funded law enforcement to enforce a government granted monopoly.
This was the same with trademarks and copyrights.
Coupled with the Sonny Bono copyright extension act, this should NEVER have been passed. Now we have taxpayer $$$ being used to enforce near-perpetual copyrights. This is WRONG and violates the spirit of the original copyright drafters.
Copyright are entertainment tools, people. There is no public threat to copyright infringement. They pose no threat to the economy, to defense, to public utility infrastructure, or to domestic security. Entertainment is not an economic cornerstone like banking, transportation, farming, and raw goods.
I can't believe this provision evaded the radar of gov't watchdog groups.
"Intellectual property theft is a national security crime. It's appropriate that the fed dedicate resources to deter and prosecute IP theft."
Whoa thar. Time out. Game penalty. Chill.
The sharing of the Anarchist's Cookbook would be a national security issue. IP theft of weapons technology, air defense systems, domestic utility and transportation infrastructuce are national security issues.
But P2P of ENTERTAINMENT is a "national security crime"?!?
That's the most flawed stretch of reasoning I've ever seen. And I don't even engage in P2P.
And if this bill becomes law and my fast forward button is outlawed,
then my DVD player goes in the trash and I will never buy another DVD again.
It's a sad day when laws are passed to perpetuate outdated business models.
Hollywood used its lobbying powers to get the DMCA into law.
The DMCA was used to threaten Ed Felton and his students into silence when they was about to present a research paper on the weaknesses of digital music security. The case sent a chilling tidal wave through the educational system.
With the spirit that Internet2 is designed for educational and research purposes and the precedent set by the Felton case, Hollywood's membership request should be denied in about three nanoseconds.
I recently got a cell phone and of the models they had in the store only two did not have a camera.
I called the salesman over and explained that my work location is a military/government location where classified work is done, and cameras are prohibited on the premises. Only two phones did not have a camera. I told him that if all their cell phones had a camera, then it was pointless to subscribe to their services as I would not be able to use it at work.
He happened to be an ex-marine and understood my point, and would pass that on to his superiors.
Cell phones have way too many gadgets that I'll never use (games? text messaging? please), all at the expense of increased consumption of battery power. If I only use it as a phone, the battery only lasts a little over two hours use. This is not an attractive trend.
Has it occurred to anyone else that Microsoft quite likely owns enough licenses for this application, but the developer who needed it for Media Player knew he could get his work done faster by using an invalid license than going through the corporate bureaucracy.
Has it occurred to anyone else that if a company had a user with an invalid license of M$ Word so he could get his work done faster rather than going through the corporate bureaucracy would be slapped with a BSA audit, fines, and a probationary period for that invalid license?
what sort of electronics existed before 1904 anyway??
Thaddeus Cahill's Telharmonium of 1897 was an organ that generated sounds eletronically, yet predated the vacuum tube amplifier.
The basic components of electronics were in place by the end of the 19th century; resistance, capacitance, inductance, voltage and current sources. Remember that Thomas Edison invented the incandescent light bulb and the power distribution system in that century. Marconi had the telegraph. Bell had the telephone. All of these used the same components used today, the only difference is the reduced scale of the electronics and the invention of the vacuum tube and transistor. Building an amplifier with either device still required the basic components devised from the 19th century.
Wal-Mart does not collect individual customer names for most purchases, there is no customer card thing like there is at a lot of supermarkets. I suppose they could collect data via credit cards, but I doubt that is legal
Actually WalMart does offer their own credit card, and they can collect whatever data they like from customer purchases and accounts. WalMart and Sam's Club are attempting to exclude all major credit cards from their stores except their own, for the purpose of data mining.
I filled out the paperwork for a Sam's Club membership and when the clerk asked for my SSN, I was told it was needed for their credit card. I told her that I had been a victim of identity and credit fraud, I did not want the card, and would not disclose my SSN.
Later I got a letter from the card company telling my that my form was incomplete. I sent the incomplete form back to them with a polite but firm letter stating that I was under no obligation to open a credit account, that their actions constituted fraud under federal fair credit regulations, and that I fully expected my Sam's Club membership to be approved.
Good, but the combination should be alphanumeric (to increase the codebreaking odds to astronomical heights) and the combination changes daily so he has to consume an entire day's energy each day looking for the proverbial needle in the haystack.
I haven't purchased a concert ticket since 1987. That was when Ticketbastard assumed control of ticket sales and added a $6 "shipping and handling fee" for a 7x2 inch piece of index card paper, PER TICKET. If that isn't price gouging, I don't know what is.
That was when tickets were under $25 - they have gotten outrageous since then.
I expect the RIAA to ignore the report from the Economist, the Harvard Gazette, and the WSJ simply because it does not fit their conspiracy theory. They are childish jerks like Howard Stern confronting FCC head Michael Powell on his radio interview.
But I will bookmark those stories to mail to my government representatives when the **AA comes crying to Congress.
I also was in danger of getting screwed bad by a vindictive STBX. Excellent tips given here, to which I'll add my own:
#5 - Know your enemy.
Pay attention to your ex behavior towards you, towards friends, towards business entities. This goes a long way to predicting her tactics. While we were married my ex used to brag of manipulating public welfare - it was a foreshadowing to her manipulating the divorce system. She used to take joy in "getting even" with friends who stiffed her, then she predictably returned the behavior to me. Divorce is war, so take the approach of a West Point graduate - KNOW YOUR ENEMY.
#6 - get a PO Box and change ALL your mail there.
This is for security reasons. My ex stole my mail and attempted to open a credit card without my consent. I caught it just in time and put fraud alerts on all my credit histories.
With a PO Box no one can access your mail except you, and the USPS clerks cannot retrieve your PO Box mail they will insist that you use your key.
I went through a painful drawn out divorce (no kids, simple assets) and reluctantly followed all the tips given here. THEY WORK, GUYS! In the end the judge slammed my vindictive ex and totally vindicated me - thanks to my hotshot lawyer who provided evidence in court that she was delaying the divorce process.
M$ already partnered with BMW to embed their computers with WinCE back in 2002.
The results have been less than rosey. One famous example is the Thai Finance Minister who was trapped in his BMW after WinCE crashed and immobilized the vehicle - doors, locks, windows, AC, everything.
Why isn't there a music supplier who enjoys doing business with WalMart?
Could it be that the five major labels were accused by 41 states of price fixing because "Previously, the companies said that MAP [Minimum Advertised Price] was needed to protect independent music retailers from rising competition from discount chains such as Wal-Mart, Circuit City and Best Buy."
Mind you, I'm not fond of WalMart putting mom-n-pop stores out of business, but that settlement could amount to a loaded gun to the labels' heads.
Slashdotters have not been convicted of price fixing
They do not sue software lovers for sharing code
They did not lobby the government for DMCA laws or INDUCE bills
to protect the software business
They are smart enough not to sign contracts that construe them as
endentured slavery and rape them of earnings by inflating expenses
against their account
"Captain (cough) the anti(gag)matter core (gag) is (gag) collapsing (wheeze) have to abandon (gag) weapons control (hack) can't (gag) breathe (gaaaggg)"
Slashdot Mirror
Revenge is a dish best served cold.
Spamming is prevalent because it is literally free of cost to the spammers. This tool threatens to raise the cost of spamming end via excessive bandwidth demands at the spammer server end. If the cost of spamming became prohibitive then spam would be extinct and they would not have the resources to retain hackers to carry out their malicious efforts like deceptive URLs and hijacking innocent PCs as spam boxes.
The Lycos tool makes that threat very real. The spammers know this and they have focused their attack on the tool.
If they take legal action arguing that attacks on their ISPs was damaging their liveliehood, the same can be said of spammers' attacks on our inboxes and compromised PCs. When you accuse someone by pointing at them, there are always three fingers pointing back towards you.
Legislative actions are ineffective thanks to lobbying efforts from direct marketing organizations of which spammers are a member. The CANSPAM accomplishes nothing and trumps more aggressive state laws. If the government cannot provide relief, then the private sector will seek alternatives without their help.
It was only inevitable that this happened.
Begun, the spam war has.
Just get out a yardstick and measure their noses.
HD DVD has no significant features that are of value to me. Instead of focusing on new technologies, perhaps you should divert your precious R&D resources to providing better content.
With love,
The Consumer
This just in... the President signed into law the latest anti-piracy bill banning the sale of Sharpie pens. With puppet strings visible the President remarked "Piracy of entertainment is a terrorist threat to our nation and must be confronted with swift decisive action" although his southern twang was curiously replaced with a heavy Austrian accent. The bill also retroactively forces all computer keyboards to have their shift keys removed.
This was the same with trademarks and copyrights.
Coupled with the Sonny Bono copyright extension act, this should NEVER have been passed. Now we have taxpayer $$$ being used to enforce near-perpetual copyrights. This is WRONG and violates the spirit of the original copyright drafters.
Copyright are entertainment tools, people. There is no public threat to copyright infringement. They pose no threat to the economy, to defense, to public utility infrastructure, or to domestic security. Entertainment is not an economic cornerstone like banking, transportation, farming, and raw goods.
I can't believe this provision evaded the radar of gov't watchdog groups.
Whoa thar. Time out. Game penalty. Chill.
The sharing of the Anarchist's Cookbook would be a national security issue. IP theft of weapons technology, air defense systems, domestic utility and transportation infrastructuce are national security issues.
But P2P of ENTERTAINMENT is a "national security crime"?!?
That's the most flawed stretch of reasoning I've ever seen. And I don't even engage in P2P.
And if this bill becomes law and my fast forward button is outlawed,
It's a sad day when laws are passed to perpetuate outdated business models.
I've got a patent on the != operator
The DMCA was used to threaten Ed Felton and his students into silence when they was about to present a research paper on the weaknesses of digital music security. The case sent a chilling tidal wave through the educational system.
With the spirit that Internet2 is designed for educational and research purposes and the precedent set by the Felton case, Hollywood's membership request should be denied in about three nanoseconds.
They are not welcome.
I called the salesman over and explained that my work location is a military/government location where classified work is done, and cameras are prohibited on the premises. Only two phones did not have a camera. I told him that if all their cell phones had a camera, then it was pointless to subscribe to their services as I would not be able to use it at work.
He happened to be an ex-marine and understood my point, and would pass that on to his superiors.
Cell phones have way too many gadgets that I'll never use (games? text messaging? please), all at the expense of increased consumption of battery power. If I only use it as a phone, the battery only lasts a little over two hours use. This is not an attractive trend.
Has it occurred to anyone else that if a company had a user with an invalid license of M$ Word so he could get his work done faster rather than going through the corporate bureaucracy would be slapped with a BSA audit, fines, and a probationary period for that invalid license?
Thaddeus Cahill's Telharmonium of 1897 was an organ that generated sounds eletronically, yet predated the vacuum tube amplifier.
The basic components of electronics were in place by the end of the 19th century; resistance, capacitance, inductance, voltage and current sources. Remember that Thomas Edison invented the incandescent light bulb and the power distribution system in that century. Marconi had the telegraph. Bell had the telephone. All of these used the same components used today, the only difference is the reduced scale of the electronics and the invention of the vacuum tube and transistor. Building an amplifier with either device still required the basic components devised from the 19th century.
Actually WalMart does offer their own credit card, and they can collect whatever data they like from customer purchases and accounts. WalMart and Sam's Club are attempting to exclude all major credit cards from their stores except their own, for the purpose of data mining.
I filled out the paperwork for a Sam's Club membership and when the clerk asked for my SSN, I was told it was needed for their credit card. I told her that I had been a victim of identity and credit fraud, I did not want the card, and would not disclose my SSN.
Later I got a letter from the card company telling my that my form was incomplete. I sent the incomplete form back to them with a polite but firm letter stating that I was under no obligation to open a credit account, that their actions constituted fraud under federal fair credit regulations, and that I fully expected my Sam's Club membership to be approved.
Good, but the combination should be alphanumeric (to increase the codebreaking odds to astronomical heights) and the combination changes daily so he has to consume an entire day's energy each day looking for the proverbial needle in the haystack.
I submitted a M$ Windows XP EULA. The code parser exploded and it was disqualified.
That was when tickets were under $25 - they have gotten outrageous since then.
I expect the RIAA to ignore the report from the Economist, the Harvard Gazette, and the WSJ simply because it does not fit their conspiracy theory. They are childish jerks like Howard Stern confronting FCC head Michael Powell on his radio interview.
But I will bookmark those stories to mail to my government representatives when the **AA comes crying to Congress.
#5 - Know your enemy.
Pay attention to your ex behavior towards you, towards friends, towards business entities. This goes a long way to predicting her tactics. While we were married my ex used to brag of manipulating public welfare - it was a foreshadowing to her manipulating the divorce system. She used to take joy in "getting even" with friends who stiffed her, then she predictably returned the behavior to me. Divorce is war, so take the approach of a West Point graduate - KNOW YOUR ENEMY.
#6 - get a PO Box and change ALL your mail there.
This is for security reasons. My ex stole my mail and attempted to open a credit card without my consent. I caught it just in time and put fraud alerts on all my credit histories.
With a PO Box no one can access your mail except you, and the USPS clerks cannot retrieve your PO Box mail they will insist that you use your key.
I went through a painful drawn out divorce (no kids, simple assets) and reluctantly followed all the tips given here. THEY WORK, GUYS! In the end the judge slammed my vindictive ex and totally vindicated me - thanks to my hotshot lawyer who provided evidence in court that she was delaying the divorce process.
Presidents do not hold absolute power to repeal laws, but judging from Bush's record they can repeal regulations and rules.
The results have been less than rosey. One famous example is the Thai Finance Minister who was trapped in his BMW after WinCE crashed and immobilized the vehicle - doors, locks, windows, AC, everything.
Begun, the slashdotting has...
Could it be that the five major labels were accused by 41 states of price fixing because "Previously, the companies said that MAP [Minimum Advertised Price] was needed to protect independent music retailers from rising competition from discount chains such as Wal-Mart, Circuit City and Best Buy."
Mind you, I'm not fond of WalMart putting mom-n-pop stores out of business, but that settlement could amount to a loaded gun to the labels' heads.
"Captain (cough) the anti(gag)matter core (gag) is (gag) collapsing (wheeze) have to abandon (gag) weapons control (hack) can't (gag) breathe (gaaaggg)"