There are certainly people making a living off of eBay. They aren't your general user (like you). I'm curious where you read the politicians claiming "millions."
The people making a living off eBay are the small business owners that may (or may not) have a storefront in some town with limited exposure. They setup an eBay store, or list a most of their items on eBay for sale and make additional sales from stock they already had. They adjust their prices to compensate for the fees of doing business (which may very well be cheaper). They're generally able to avoid dealing with taxes (unless you're in their state), they don't have to deal with the overhead of store rent, electricity, etc that a physical store incurs.
If I were so inclined, I'm sure I could setup a business in my house that sells purely online/through eBay and be able to make a better profit than a standard storefront, simply due to the considerable difference in overhead. However, I'm not interested in owning that kind of business.
And lastly, there doesn't seem to be any evidence that Microsoft is making it a subscription service. I was able to download, install, and run the program all without signing up for a subscription of any sort. Maybe that's because the program is still in beta or maybe it's just anti-MS FUD on the subscriber's part... who knows.
Reading the review would reveal why the submitter said that. The review says it might have a subscription based on the fact that it had 206 days until it expired. My personal opinion is that the expiration is there because it's Beta, but it may very well lead to a subscription service.
As far as the summary not saying it's a beta... Well, seemed pretty obvious to me. They just bought the company afterall.
SCO shares closed at $4.51 in regular trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market, down 33 cents, or 7 percent. Then came SCO's dismal earnings reports for the fourth quarter and fiscal 2004; within minutes shares plunged another 46 cents, or 10 percent, in after-hours trading, to $4.05.
>>How is that a given, when Apple didn't register their trademark until a month after the domain name was registered, and didn't release iTunes 1.0 for another month after *that*?
They applied for the trademark in October, a month before the name was registered.
"Hop-on has secured multiple disposable-cell-phone patents from the STX patent collection. These patents have an effective filing date back to December 1995, which we believe predates all other patents directed to disposable cell phone technology. These patents include very broad claims directed to a method of operating a disposable cell phone with pre-programmed minutes.The patents further strengthen our competitive advantage, barring entry into the market by other companies." From: http://www.hop-on.com/technology.html
As a player of a MMORPG I don't like anything that's not totally in genre. If your actually playing it as a RPG and not as a hack and slash then do your really want an add for a credit card at the top while your trying to play your character?
This is a great method in some aspects (when I'm forced to use Windows I use the Full version of Eudora for my mail and I got it free because they put small adds in the bottom left corner). But I would leave any MMORPG that decided to start advertising while I was playing.
Well, I'm not an EE expert, so I won't say if it's possible or not. But in my new PC I use ATA100 Rounded Cables (and for that matter a rounded Floppy Cable) in my machine and have had no problem.
Personally it sounds more like a power surge to me than a problem with the cables...
I just built my brand new computer entirely from stores listed on pricewatch, with exception of my monitor. The trick is to actually know what your buying and not just buy RAM in the size you want. i.e. I didn't go to pricewatch and search for 512 MB Ram. I did my research on RAM manufacturers and decided on a couple that had good reviews. Then I went and searched for those specific ones and made the comparisons on prices between those. I also look for things like the CAS rating on the RAM, if it's not listed I move on.
Anyway, the trick is to know exactly what you are buying. Sure, I could have gotten that 512MB DIMM for $40 less than I paid, but that was a 3 CAS No name brand. You get what you pay for, don't go for the cheapest, go for the deal!
BTW, the only reason that I didn't buy the monitor through price watch is that the prices can't be competitive. Monitors are so big/heavy that shipping is very expensive, so I bought it locally.
I read this expecting to get seriously pissed off, as I occasionally do with RMS, but this is a great piece.
It is a tragedy that so many lives were lost, but that is not an excuse to stop thinking. I am all for retaliation, and elimination of terrorism. Though I'm not exactly sure how they plan to implement the second part of that. But we need to be realistic at the same time. I think that the Russians and British proved that we don't want a ground war in Afganistan. And it's obvious that air strikes won't do all the work for us.
Congress needs to also be using their brains. I know they have them, and I hope they use them when it comes to starting to pass legislation. I think that they made an excelent move in their 'down payment on the fight against terrorism' and a some what dangerous, but not neccessarily bad, move in giving GWB a license to kill (so to speak).
What disturbs me the most are the pushes to pass privacy invading legislation that has nothing to do with and/or no hope of stoping terrorist acts. If you want to make this harder to do, redesign your aircraft. Put the pilots behind locked steel doors, something that'll withstand a kick. And make it so that those doors remain locked during flight. As far as I've heard of the new security measures, everywhere, they're not going to stop what happend.
If you want to learn how to fight terrorism, look to Europe. I lived in Italy for two years. Their measures include a National ID Card (which was mainly used for tax purposes, but also for anti-terrorism purposes). They also have Caribinari (I don't remember the spelling). These are para-military police who's specific job is anti-terrorism. They can stop anyone at anytime, for no reason at all and ask for proof of identification and inspection of cars. I don't say this will stop terrorism, nor do I specifically belive this is what should happen. But it is a more effective solution than what our government has instituted. I give it credit in that it did virtually destroy the Red Brigade...
My final thoughts are to the victims. These include those who are dead, the families that have lost members, friends who lost friends and those who survived. It also includes those who have unfairly felt the backlash of hatred to those who are Muslim and those who 'look Muslim'. I am not a Muslim, but I know and have known several. I have read parts of the Koran along with the Bible, and several other holy books of other religions. As many have said before, and I repeat here, Muslims preach peace, not war. Those who interpret the Koran, or their Muslim faith as a reason to kill are demented individuals. But we must be careful what we think. Terrorist have delcared Jihad against the USA, a religious war against the people they hate. But Christians delcared (in and around the Middle Ages) Crusades against Muslims, a religious war against people they hate. The Crusades are over, but we should be careful as a society in saying that Muslims kill. Christians have killed before for the same reasons.
Though I am not particularly Religious, I must say God Bless the USA. And to those of you who did this, were coming, and you won't survive it...
Let me start by saying that if I misunderstood your statements, let me know!:)
You missed the 10th, 14th (though "hate crime" laws might be well intentioned they weaken the basic concept of equality before the law) as well as the IP clause in the unammended document.
Good point on the 10th, I was just mentioning the ones that immediately came to mind. And I left the Hate Crimes out to keep things from degenerating. That's still a touchy subject that I tend to avoid. Though I agree they are well intentioned, I also agree that they have rather far reaching legal effects.
Which they just arn't going to do unless they are forced into the position of having to do that. If necessary through application of the second ammendment.
/me looks for the black vans w/ FBI inside....
Anyway, I agree that the politicians need a serious knocking around (metaphorically) before they're going to stop taking the money of corporations to do what they want. It's going to be hard to do that. Unfortunately the best way is almost impossible. If even half of the people that each person in congress represents were to write them, they would get the point...
This is also a place where the difference between a democracy and a representative republic come clearly into view.
If that wasn't the intention you'd expect the law to be behind something like DeCSS... In both cases where "circumvention devices" are involved the "device" is a copyright protected piece of software.
I have no problem with copyright protection. I think that it is very important. My problem is with restriction on circumvention devices. I think that circumvention devices should be legal, and that their use to violate copyright law be illegal (which it is, we don't need the DMCA for that). Things such as DeCSS and the PDF Reader that Sklyrov wrote (who's name escapes me at the moment) have perfectly legitimate uses. One to let me watch my legally obtained DVDs on my computer without having to run monopoly M$ Windoze or purchase specific hardware decoding. The other, to allow me to read my legally obtained e-book on any of my computers or other devices.
This is also a point where my mind wanders back to history and the insistance for a 'Bill of Rights' to be included in the Constitution. It seems that our founding fathers were far more wise than they were given credit for... Without the Bill of Rights, where would we be now? Were in a position that's 'not good' and degrading to 'bad'. Without the Bill of Rights, we'd be at 'bad' going to 'horrible'.
In the US, the corporations are trying to impose regulations to get maximum profit, while the government (for now) has mostly stayed out of it because of respect for free speech. Outside the US, where speech is not so free, governments will try to regulate in accordance with their countries beliefs. I hardly think this can be compared to shipping and aviation.
This comes from a person who must not be in the US, or is oblivious to the laws... If you haven't noticed, the DMCA was passed, check out CALEA, and look at the legislation that the US tried to pass the Clipper Chip. Recently our government has done a lot to restrict our 1st Amendment Rights to Free Speach and Expression. I think most of the US Government needs to re-read the first, fourth and nineth, amendment. Further, they need to take their hands out of the industry's pocket and start paying attention to the people they represent.
I don't see how anyone can say that the DMCA's restrictions on fair use is anything but the corporations getting legislation passed to maximize profits.
IANAL, but there's a large weakness in this patent. It's first step requires use of a web browser. Hence, RedHat and SuSE update programs shouldn't be covered. The patent's first step is to connect to a webpage using a web browser, RedHat and SuSE use other programs to update, not a website. On the other hand, Windows Update is going to have a problem, since it is based on a web browser.
My guess is that if Microsoft can't find a way arround this patent they'll squash McAfee until the patent isn't a problem anymore.
If they wan't to do this they really need to learn to make it more broad. Just droping the webpage part and saying connect to the internet would have made it much more valuable for them, let's all just be glad that they didn't.
?Smart Quotes? arn't necessarily exclusive to Micro$oft. I was under this mistaken impression until a few days ago when I cut/paste from Abiword to a web form. Abiword (atleast with the Hevelitca font) has the same problem.
Here's a modified version of the letter. All I did was modify the language so that it said the same thing in a way that they should be able to understand (removing the technical terms). As before, do whatever you want with it, as long as you put your name on it!
Dear Senator,
I am writing to express my opposition to the the School Website Protection Act of 2001 (S 1252) and to urge you to vote against this bill.
This legislation to stop "hackers" in schools is misguided and (frankly speaking) fundamentally ignorant of the technological issues involved. In particular: Sec. 2 (a)(2) makes it a crime to:
knowingly (cause) the transmission of a program, information, code, or command, and as a result of such conduct, intentionally affects or impairs without authorization a computer of an elementary school or secondary school or institution of higher education;
The problem is with the phrase "affects or impairs." This makes ANY unauthorized action on a school computer, whether it is otherwise legal or not, into a criminal act, even if that act doesn?t harm the computer in any way. This includes: moving a mouse, sending someone email, or tapping a key on the keyboard. This is because all of these actions cause the computer to perform an action.
So let us take the following example: I attempt to log into a school computer, believing that I have an account on that computer (when in fact I do not). After being denied access, three times, I give up. However, that computer has been affected by my actions. Undoubtedly I intended to transmit the commands which caused this change, and obviously I was not authorized to do so. Under this bill, I have just committed a federal crime. Whether or not I will be prosecuted now depends on how zealous and paranoid the system administrators are, how ambitious the prosecutor is, how much fear the judge has about "evil hackers," etc.
Even if we were to remove the word "affects," it would not be enough; since the computer is slowed down ever so slightly by my attempts to log in, I have now "impaired" the computer also. In fact this legislation is overzealous unless the phrase "affects or impairs" is changed to "substantially impairs or substantially alters information stored on." This covers what I think Senator Torricelli is trying to legislate against: denial-of-service attacks, virus transmissions, web page defacements, etc.
I might also point out that there are already several laws on the books which prohibit destruction of school property, in addition to regulations of the school. We do not need a federal law to protect schools; "evil hackers" already are subject to prosecution. If they cross state lines, they may even be subject to prosecution in two states. There is no reason for the Federal government to become involved, even on an interstate level.
I urge you to vote against this bill. It proposes a recklessly overzealous change in policy.
Regards,
Signature
I appologize for any ? where there should be ". I used abiword for the editing and cut/past came back with that smart quotes problem I though was limited to micro$oft! Be sure to modify the language for who your sending it too. If your senator is Senator Torricelli, you'll want to change his name to you. You'll want to ask him to withdraw the bill, not 'vote no'. In short, read it!:)
Though this is an interesting patent (if not undeserving of being one), I see a hole that protects open source already. This is a "System for reproducing information in material objects at a point of sale location". Keyword here (or words) would be "point of sale". So, I'm not selling anything, therefore I can't be a point of sale, and you can download from me all you want, for free. On the otherhand, all those software companies that are selling software for download might run into a bit of trouble.
Also, the patent was filed in 1973, with a 17 year rule, it's expired (2000), with a 20 year rule, it'll expire in 2 years. Just keep it in court for 2 years!
Also, I mirroed the patent description. None of the title pictures or anything, just the acutal text. (links will not work from that page).
Hrm... seems my adendum to this post got lost in etherspace.:) Anyway, basically what it corrects is this:
s/[Aa]dobe/lawers representing Adobe
And to continue, granted a lawyer might have gone after them without Adobe's previous knowledge, but Adobe still deserves a good lashing for pulling out of linux. If they don't have any plans on porting their software to linux, they don't really need to worry about what's going on on linux. (Don't come after me with the trademark laws, I know them!)
It was a typo, if you look closely you'll notice that I decided to save some time and copy/paste that set of info. Hence it was incorrectly spelled in both posts.
I think that mosts peoples objections weren't about a name change or trademark protection, they were about several other things.
Method -- Adobe never attempted to talk to the author about a change, they sent a lawyer after him.
Stoping Distribution -- Adobe wanted distribution of the product stoped, not just a name change. Very anti-competitive.
Destruction -- Adobe also wanted the product completely destroyed. This is as anti-competitive as microsoft. The product does the same thing, no matter what the name, destruction just tries to crush competition.
Money -- Adobe was going after the author for a very large sum of money (atleast to us non-millionares).
I personally can see adobe's view on things, though I did not agree with their initial methods. I can understand their reasons (for the name change, but not the rest that I listed above). The fact that both sides have wised up is actually fairly refreshing.
2. So long as these jurisdiction rules are followed, every country agrees to enforce nearly all of the member country judgments and injunctive orders, subject only to a narrow exception for judgments that are "manifestly incompatible with public policy," or to specific treaty exceptions, such as the one for certain antitrust claims.
Okay...So I would say that most of the "narrow laws of china or morroco" would be "manifestly incompatible with public policy"... Problem Solved! With this in there I don't see what the big deal is.
Gore is running for president. Microsoft Anti-Trust Suit is High Profile. Gore Needs two Things: 1) Money 2) Publicity for a 'good thing(tm)' Either way his involvement goes he gets one or both of those....
Actually the recent ABM system shot down a Minuteman III missile using all of the 'avoidance' techniques you mentioned above. And though I have paid little attention to the recent system last I heard (about a month ago) it had a perfect record of hits vs. our best missiles.
Slashdot Mirror
There are certainly people making a living off of eBay. They aren't your general user (like you). I'm curious where you read the politicians claiming "millions."
The people making a living off eBay are the small business owners that may (or may not) have a storefront in some town with limited exposure. They setup an eBay store, or list a most of their items on eBay for sale and make additional sales from stock they already had. They adjust their prices to compensate for the fees of doing business (which may very well be cheaper). They're generally able to avoid dealing with taxes (unless you're in their state), they don't have to deal with the overhead of store rent, electricity, etc that a physical store incurs.
If I were so inclined, I'm sure I could setup a business in my house that sells purely online/through eBay and be able to make a better profit than a standard storefront, simply due to the considerable difference in overhead. However, I'm not interested in owning that kind of business.
Actually, looks like it's a bandwith problem not a server problem. I hit the site a couple minutes ago, but had the images already cached.
Uptime was:
January 11th 2005 17:49:21
Up 6 day(s), 8 hour(s) 33 min(s)
Expire? Why should it expire if it is free?
Because it's a Beta. Most Microsoft Betas expire.
And lastly, there doesn't seem to be any evidence that Microsoft is making it a subscription service. I was able to download, install, and run the program all without signing up for a subscription of any sort. Maybe that's because the program is still in beta or maybe it's just anti-MS FUD on the subscriber's part... who knows.
Reading the review would reveal why the submitter said that. The review says it might have a subscription based on the fact that it had 206 days until it expired. My personal opinion is that the expiration is there because it's Beta, but it may very well lead to a subscription service.
As far as the summary not saying it's a beta... Well, seemed pretty obvious to me. They just bought the company afterall.
Correct, I knew the difference (.7) would be small so I just added being very lazy.
Read the article before you posted?
SCO shares closed at $4.51 in regular trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market, down 33 cents, or 7 percent. Then came SCO's dismal earnings reports for the fourth quarter and fiscal 2004; within minutes shares plunged another 46 cents, or 10 percent, in after-hours trading, to $4.05.
Try 17%, not 7%.
>>How is that a given, when Apple didn't register their trademark until a month after the domain name was registered, and didn't release iTunes 1.0 for another month after *that*?
They applied for the trademark in October, a month before the name was registered.
Gee...
"Hop-on has secured multiple disposable-cell-phone patents from the STX patent collection. These patents have an effective filing date back to December 1995, which we believe predates all other patents directed to disposable cell phone technology. These patents include very broad claims directed to a method of operating a disposable cell phone with pre-programmed minutes.The patents further strengthen our competitive advantage, barring entry into the market by other companies." From: http://www.hop-on.com/technology.html
Everyone's favorite use of a patent!
As a player of a MMORPG I don't like anything that's not totally in genre. If your actually playing it as a RPG and not as a hack and slash then do your really want an add for a credit card at the top while your trying to play your character?
This is a great method in some aspects (when I'm forced to use Windows I use the Full version of Eudora for my mail and I got it free because they put small adds in the bottom left corner). But I would leave any MMORPG that decided to start advertising while I was playing.
Well, I'm not an EE expert, so I won't say if it's possible or not. But in my new PC I use ATA100 Rounded Cables (and for that matter a rounded Floppy Cable) in my machine and have had no problem.
Personally it sounds more like a power surge to me than a problem with the cables...
I just built my brand new computer entirely from stores listed on pricewatch, with exception of my monitor. The trick is to actually know what your buying and not just buy RAM in the size you want. i.e. I didn't go to pricewatch and search for 512 MB Ram. I did my research on RAM manufacturers and decided on a couple that had good reviews. Then I went and searched for those specific ones and made the comparisons on prices between those. I also look for things like the CAS rating on the RAM, if it's not listed I move on.
Anyway, the trick is to know exactly what you are buying. Sure, I could have gotten that 512MB DIMM for $40 less than I paid, but that was a 3 CAS No name brand. You get what you pay for, don't go for the cheapest, go for the deal!
BTW, the only reason that I didn't buy the monitor through price watch is that the prices can't be competitive. Monitors are so big/heavy that shipping is very expensive, so I bought it locally.
I read this expecting to get seriously pissed off, as I occasionally do with RMS, but this is a great piece.
It is a tragedy that so many lives were lost, but that is not an excuse to stop thinking. I am all for retaliation, and elimination of terrorism. Though I'm not exactly sure how they plan to implement the second part of that. But we need to be realistic at the same time. I think that the Russians and British proved that we don't want a ground war in Afganistan. And it's obvious that air strikes won't do all the work for us.
Congress needs to also be using their brains. I know they have them, and I hope they use them when it comes to starting to pass legislation. I think that they made an excelent move in their 'down payment on the fight against terrorism' and a some what dangerous, but not neccessarily bad, move in giving GWB a license to kill (so to speak).
What disturbs me the most are the pushes to pass privacy invading legislation that has nothing to do with and/or no hope of stoping terrorist acts. If you want to make this harder to do, redesign your aircraft. Put the pilots behind locked steel doors, something that'll withstand a kick. And make it so that those doors remain locked during flight. As far as I've heard of the new security measures, everywhere, they're not going to stop what happend.
If you want to learn how to fight terrorism, look to Europe. I lived in Italy for two years. Their measures include a National ID Card (which was mainly used for tax purposes, but also for anti-terrorism purposes). They also have Caribinari (I don't remember the spelling). These are para-military police who's specific job is anti-terrorism. They can stop anyone at anytime, for no reason at all and ask for proof of identification and inspection of cars. I don't say this will stop terrorism, nor do I specifically belive this is what should happen. But it is a more effective solution than what our government has instituted. I give it credit in that it did virtually destroy the Red Brigade...
My final thoughts are to the victims. These include those who are dead, the families that have lost members, friends who lost friends and those who survived. It also includes those who have unfairly felt the backlash of hatred to those who are Muslim and those who 'look Muslim'. I am not a Muslim, but I know and have known several. I have read parts of the Koran along with the Bible, and several other holy books of other religions. As many have said before, and I repeat here, Muslims preach peace, not war. Those who interpret the Koran, or their Muslim faith as a reason to kill are demented individuals. But we must be careful what we think. Terrorist have delcared Jihad against the USA, a religious war against the people they hate. But Christians delcared (in and around the Middle Ages) Crusades against Muslims, a religious war against people they hate. The Crusades are over, but we should be careful as a society in saying that Muslims kill. Christians have killed before for the same reasons.
Though I am not particularly Religious, I must say God Bless the USA. And to those of you who did this, were coming, and you won't survive it...
Let me start by saying that if I misunderstood your statements, let me know! :)
You missed the 10th, 14th (though "hate crime" laws might be well intentioned they weaken the basic concept of equality before the law) as well as the IP clause in the unammended document.
Good point on the 10th, I was just mentioning the ones that immediately came to mind. And I left the Hate Crimes out to keep things from degenerating. That's still a touchy subject that I tend to avoid. Though I agree they are well intentioned, I also agree that they have rather far reaching legal effects.
Which they just arn't going to do unless they are forced into the position of having to do that. If necessary through application of the second ammendment.
/me looks for the black vans w/ FBI inside....
Anyway, I agree that the politicians need a serious knocking around (metaphorically) before they're going to stop taking the money of corporations to do what they want. It's going to be hard to do that. Unfortunately the best way is almost impossible. If even half of the people that each person in congress represents were to write them, they would get the point...
This is also a place where the difference between a democracy and a representative republic come clearly into view.
If that wasn't the intention you'd expect the law to be behind something like DeCSS... In both cases where "circumvention devices" are involved the "device" is a copyright protected piece of software.
I have no problem with copyright protection. I think that it is very important. My problem is with restriction on circumvention devices. I think that circumvention devices should be legal, and that their use to violate copyright law be illegal (which it is, we don't need the DMCA for that). Things such as DeCSS and the PDF Reader that Sklyrov wrote (who's name escapes me at the moment) have perfectly legitimate uses. One to let me watch my legally obtained DVDs on my computer without having to run monopoly M$ Windoze or purchase specific hardware decoding. The other, to allow me to read my legally obtained e-book on any of my computers or other devices.
This is also a point where my mind wanders back to history and the insistance for a 'Bill of Rights' to be included in the Constitution. It seems that our founding fathers were far more wise than they were given credit for... Without the Bill of Rights, where would we be now? Were in a position that's 'not good' and degrading to 'bad'. Without the Bill of Rights, we'd be at 'bad' going to 'horrible'.
This comes from a person who must not be in the US, or is oblivious to the laws... If you haven't noticed, the DMCA was passed, check out CALEA, and look at the legislation that the US tried to pass the Clipper Chip. Recently our government has done a lot to restrict our 1st Amendment Rights to Free Speach and Expression. I think most of the US Government needs to re-read the first, fourth and nineth, amendment. Further, they need to take their hands out of the industry's pocket and start paying attention to the people they represent.
I don't see how anyone can say that the DMCA's restrictions on fair use is anything but the corporations getting legislation passed to maximize profits.
IANAL, but there's a large weakness in this patent. It's first step requires use of a web browser. Hence, RedHat and SuSE update programs shouldn't be covered. The patent's first step is to connect to a webpage using a web browser, RedHat and SuSE use other programs to update, not a website. On the other hand, Windows Update is going to have a problem, since it is based on a web browser.
My guess is that if Microsoft can't find a way arround this patent they'll squash McAfee until the patent isn't a problem anymore.
If they wan't to do this they really need to learn to make it more broad. Just droping the webpage part and saying connect to the internet would have made it much more valuable for them, let's all just be glad that they didn't.
?Smart Quotes? arn't necessarily exclusive to Micro$oft. I was under this mistaken impression until a few days ago when I cut/paste from Abiword to a web form. Abiword (atleast with the Hevelitca font) has the same problem.
Here's a modified version of the letter. All I did was modify the language so that it said the same thing in a way that they should be able to understand (removing the technical terms). As before, do whatever you want with it, as long as you put your name on it!
:)
Dear Senator,
I am writing to express my opposition to the the School Website Protection Act of 2001 (S 1252) and to urge you to vote against this bill.
This legislation to stop "hackers" in schools is misguided and (frankly speaking) fundamentally ignorant of the technological issues involved. In particular: Sec. 2 (a)(2) makes it a crime to:
knowingly (cause) the transmission of a program, information, code, or command, and as a result of such conduct, intentionally affects or impairs without authorization a computer of an elementary school or secondary school or institution of higher education;
The problem is with the phrase "affects or impairs." This makes ANY unauthorized action on a school computer, whether it is otherwise legal or not, into a criminal act, even if that act doesn?t harm the computer in any way. This includes: moving a mouse, sending someone email, or tapping a key on the keyboard. This is because all of these actions cause the computer to perform an action.
So let us take the following example: I attempt to log into a school computer, believing that I have an account on that computer (when in fact I do not). After being denied access, three times, I give up. However, that computer has been affected by my actions. Undoubtedly I intended to transmit the commands which caused this change, and obviously I was not authorized to do so. Under this bill, I have just committed a federal crime. Whether or not I will be prosecuted now depends on how zealous and paranoid the system administrators are, how ambitious the prosecutor is, how much fear the judge has about "evil hackers," etc.
Even if we were to remove the word "affects," it would not be enough; since the computer is slowed down ever so slightly by my attempts to log in, I have now "impaired" the computer also. In fact this legislation is overzealous unless the phrase "affects or impairs" is changed to "substantially impairs or substantially alters information stored on." This covers what I think Senator Torricelli is trying to legislate against: denial-of-service attacks, virus transmissions, web page defacements, etc.
I might also point out that there are already several laws on the books which prohibit destruction of school property, in addition to regulations of the school. We do not need a federal law to protect schools; "evil hackers" already are subject to prosecution. If they cross state lines, they may even be subject to prosecution in two states. There is no reason for the Federal government to become involved, even on an interstate level.
I urge you to vote against this bill. It proposes a recklessly overzealous change in policy.
Regards,
Signature
I appologize for any ? where there should be ". I used abiword for the editing and cut/past came back with that smart quotes problem I though was limited to micro$oft! Be sure to modify the language for who your sending it too. If your senator is Senator Torricelli, you'll want to change his name to you. You'll want to ask him to withdraw the bill, not 'vote no'. In short, read it!
No...83+17 = 100.
If you read the linked patent you'll see that I typoed the date. Someone already posted that the date is 1983, not 73. A slip of one key.
Though this is an interesting patent (if not undeserving of being one), I see a hole that protects open source already. This is a "System for reproducing information in material objects at a point of sale location". Keyword here (or words) would be "point of sale". So, I'm not selling anything, therefore I can't be a point of sale, and you can download from me all you want, for free. On the otherhand, all those software companies that are selling software for download might run into a bit of trouble.
Also, the patent was filed in 1973, with a 17 year rule, it's expired (2000), with a 20 year rule, it'll expire in 2 years. Just keep it in court for 2 years!
Also, I mirroed the patent description. None of the title pictures or anything, just the acutal text. (links will not work from that page).
Located Here. Warning: File size is ~130KB.
Standard Caveat of: I am not a lawyer!.
Hrm... seems my adendum to this post got lost in etherspace. :) Anyway, basically what it corrects is this:
s/[Aa]dobe/lawers representing Adobe
And to continue, granted a lawyer might have gone after them without Adobe's previous knowledge, but Adobe still deserves a good lashing for pulling out of linux. If they don't have any plans on porting their software to linux, they don't really need to worry about what's going on on linux. (Don't come after me with the trademark laws, I know them!)
It was a typo, if you look closely you'll notice that I decided to save some time and copy/paste that set of info. Hence it was incorrectly spelled in both posts.
I personally can see adobe's view on things, though I did not agree with their initial methods. I can understand their reasons (for the name change, but not the rest that I listed above). The fact that both sides have wised up is actually fairly refreshing.
Gore is running for president.
Microsoft Anti-Trust Suit is High Profile.
Gore Needs two Things:
1) Money
2) Publicity for a 'good thing(tm)'
Either way his involvement goes he gets one or both of those....
In a single word summary: Politics
Actually the recent ABM system shot down a Minuteman III missile using all of the 'avoidance' techniques you mentioned above. And though I have paid little attention to the recent system last I heard (about a month ago) it had a perfect record of hits vs. our best missiles.