I think that some domain names should belong to the public, and be usable only for the obvious public use that they should be used for.
For example, did you know that www.aristotle.com belongs to some obscure company, Aristotle International? What the sites about, what the company sells, who knows. The point is, that a site with the name of one of the greatest philosophers of all time isn't devoted to him.
To me, that's outrageous.
Sites with the names of such influencial people in our history, or historic names, or something in them which belongs to us all, should be in the public domain. Namely, they should be devoted to this commons, in the public domain.
How to make a good use of those sites in the commons, I'm not sure of. Perhaps a government-funded reference list of all relevant information, books, etc. For example, aristotle.* would have a listing of hyperlinks to all the books written by Aristotle, as well as his biography, and links to other sites about him.
Other such domain-names which I think should be in the commons include:
www.plato.*
www.einstein.*
www.hobbes.*
www.orwell.*
www.nuremburg.*
www.socrates.*
www.bohrniels.*
www.rutherford.*
www.usconstitution.*
etc.
You get the point.
The idea that some companies get to profit off names which belong in the commons, the public domain, which belongs to us all, is outrageous.
There is a case to be made that there is nothing wrong with cybersquatting. From my point of view, its no different than when some smart investors back in the day bought lots of worthless land and held onto it because they knew eventually railroad companies would need it. Nothing wrong with that -- they had foresight, the railroad companies didn't. Similarly, a wise person today would buy land about a block back from the beachfront on California. Why? Because the average water line is advancing. In about 40 or so years, land that is now "beach front property" in California will be underwater and land that is now worthless and a little bit back, behind the current beachfront property, will be beachfront property. Nothing wrong with that either. In both of these cases, there is nothing wrong, even if the individual only bought the land to later sell it to the railroad company or hotel company at a high price.
However, consider a reverse case. Consider if a smart large bank -- like JP Morgan and Co -- buys tons and tons of land, which is now cheap. Despite the land now being cheap, it will eventually be valuable, as the US population is increasing and more space will be required to house future populations. Once over-crowding starts occuring, and people experience the need to perhaps live on the inter-city land that populates our expressways/highways/throughways/whatever, the banks will be in prime-time position to sell that land at outrageous prices. That doesn't seem so fair, and for good reason. Why? Because it is the powerful using their resources to take advantage of the disempowered.
Though these cases are relevant to the internet-case of cybersquatting and reverse-cyber-squatting, they don't map directly. These cases deal with real-world examples, real world property. The internet is more metaphysical, abstract: in the realm of ideas.
(1) Cybersquatting is registering a domain name with no intent to use it, but simply the intent to use the name as leverage to get a company, organization, or person to buy it at the highest price possible; alternatively, the site may be used for some constructive purpose, but aa temporary location for that constructive purpose, with the end goal being using that domain name to extract maximum money from another entity.
a. Against a company. An example would be my registering the domain name www.ibm.org and never using it for anything, but simply hoping that IBM would pay you money to get the rights to it. This brings up an important point. As IBM already has a website -- ibm.com -- its claim to take that site from the original owner based solely on cybersquatting is diminished. IBM already has a recognizable domain name which will bring most people to it: in fact, the most recognizable domain name. Company.com is what you type as a standard to get to a companies home page. A case where the company would have a strong claim would be where it had no internet site before, and someone put up site wwww.company-that-previously-had-no-site.com, and put nothing on it, its clearly to extract money. However, if they put up such a site and provided a message board about company products, criticisms, etc, as well as information and hints from ppl who've bought their products, then its not cybersquatting and the organization has no claim.
b. Against an organization. For example, registering the domain name www.naral.net in hopes of extracting money from NARAL. Again, the same as above applies. NARAL has the most obvious most recognizable website for what they are, so their claim is diminished. But if someone puts up a site wwww.organization-that-previously-had-no-site.com, and has no intention of using it for any purpose, but only trying to extract maximal money, that's cybersquatting. But if they put up such a site and use it constructively -- i.e., perhaps they have their own organization/group abbreviated by "ORGANIZATION", or perhaps they with to criticize said organization, or perhaps they want to make it an informal "fan page" -- then its not cybersquatting and the company has no claim.
c. Against a person. This hasn't occured much yet, but it may in the future. For example person A, named John Doe, puts up a website named www.janedoe.com. He has no intention of using that website, but knows Jane Doe is rich and will eventually want to have her own website after her own name; so he simply holds onto the website, in hopes that eventually he can squeeze her. This is cybersquatting. But if another woman with the same name, Jane Doe, puts up a website and uses it, its not cybersquatting. Finally, if a company or organization puts up a website with a persons name -- unless it be an organization member -- that's cybersquatting. Organizations/companies have no business putting up sites named with people's name. The only exception would be if that person is a member of the organization, or if they want to use that person as a positive example; i.e., an anarchist organization putting up the domain name KattieSierra.com to honor her. There's nothign malevolent about that; though, of course, if she doesn't want it, she has the rights to claim it. Every individual should be able to claim a domain name named after them. In cases where individuals share the same first, middle, and last names, first come first serve (unless one David Cassidy puts up a website titled David Heinrich to try to extract money from all the other David Heinrich). These are the easy cases. What about the hard cases. What if someone who hates you puts up a website with your first, middle, and last name -- johnxdoe -- and spews about how much of a jerk you are, makes hateful remarks about you, and otherwise demeans you on the site. Or worse, what if said person puts up a website with your name and pretends to be you, except misrepresenting you? I think that these cases are unacceptable. And I realize that's iffy. If someone wants to put up a website trying to masquerade as me or insult me, they should have to in some way put "anti" or something similar in the address: i.e., www.antidavidheinrich.com. This is a minor restriction on freedom of speech which serves to prevent misrepresentation.
Now, back to the comparisons with people hoarding potential rail-road land back in the day, or buying "2nd tier" beach property in California. There is a clear difference between those cases and stategic registration of domain names. Those cases apply for physical property and must be strategically made; one can't simply buy all land. Furthermore, one is actually abstracting the real value the land will hold in the future. That property is in fact that valuable, and would cost that much to the hotels. But if I squat a domain name, the company might have to pay me a million dollars for something that would've costed only a few bucks otherwise.
Its not that I'm for big corporations. Its that this type of game-playing demeans the usefulness of the internet and domain names. And its not to say that big corporations don't play this game to.
Corporations usually don't engage in cybersquatting; though they could if they wanted to. Cybersquatting is really a riskless activity, as I believe it should be. Do you really want to fine someone or put them in jail for that? The worst that can happen is the person loses his domain name, and doesn't get to sell it to the corporation for a high price. But back to corporations -- what they do do is distort cybersquatting norms to allow them to strangle competition or prevent sites from displaying that are critical of them, and otherwise abuse domain-name norms.
A site opens up with the domain name, www.anti-riaa.com, and uses it to harsly criticize the RIAA. The RIAA sues for "cybersquatting". Plainly ludicrous. Cybersquatting implies that the "target" had the intent or motive to want to use the domain-name. The RIAA would never use that domain-name. Yet, they want to claim it in order to prevent criticism. This is a kind of reverse cybersquatting. It furthermore diminishes the functionality of domain names. People expect that if they type in such a domain name, they'll get a website against the RIAA, not a blank page.
Another case is where companies try to take away competing companies domain names, or individuals domain names based on "trademark similarlities". Prime example, Lindows.com. Do they really think that people will confuse Windows with Lindows? Most intelligent people wouldn't. But even if they would, that's not Lindows fault -- that's the fault of ppl who are so dumb. Furthermore, Lindows intent isn't to confuse people, making them think its an MS product. Its simply to let them know that it should work fine with MS software. If anyone is confused, they'll be straightened out once they look at the sight. More disturbing is the implication by MS that they have trademark rights to anything that rhymes with Windows, or if of a similar sound.
I think its obvious to most COMMON-SENSE people that something is or is not cybersquatting when they see it. But that ridiculous definition of "I'll know it when I see it" doesn't do. The public has a right to know EXACTLY is and is not acceptable; EXACTLY what is an is not, for example, "PORNOGRAPHY" (one of the more brilliant quotes by one of the 9 wise men, "I can't define it, but I'll know it when I see it"). If we cannot define precisely what is not an acceptable activity, we have no right to expect people not to do it. People need to know the rules of the game before they play. There's no reason why norms, laws, customs, etc can't be as precisely defined as the rules of chess.
For example, in chess, there are a few official rules, clearly defined, and there are also some "unofficial" rules which any two professionals understand:
(1) The official rules. I.e., how each piece moves, exceptions to the normal movement of pieces, conditions in which the king must move, stalemate conditions, and checkmate conditions.
(2) The unofficial rules. A typical set goes something like this: 1 You touch a piece, you have to move it; 2 No taking back moves; 3 No talking; 4 No motions, positions, etc that would distract the opponent and detract from his/her ability to think.
The rules in chess are clearly defined. There is no ambiguity.
The rules governing law and domain-name resolution should be the same: precisely clear. I will attempt to propose some here. I do not pretend that they are perfectly clear, nor that they are comprehensive. But I will try to make them as much so as I can. Obviously, a real set of rules needs to be thoroughly thought out. Each rule must be stated as clearly as possible, as elegantlty as possible, and with as few words as possible. There must be a sufficient number of rules to cover all "inappropriate activity". Here's my rough draft:
1. IF someone registers a domain name (entity-name.com) BEFORE entity-name does, assuming entity-name exists at the time of registration, AND that someone has no intent of using that domain name, but only trying to extract money from entity-name, THEN it is cybersquatting. The entity-name should be able to obtain entity-name.com from the cybersquatter at the price of domain-name registration.
2. IF someone registers a domain-name (entity-name.com) BEFORE entity-name does, AND actually uses it for some purpose, whether connected to the domain-name or not, AND has no intent of using it to extract money from entity-name, THEN that is not cybersquatting. Entity-name can always register the domain-name Entity_name.com.
3. IF someone registers a domain-name (entity-name.com) BEFORE entity-name does, AND uses it for some purpose, whether connected to the domain-name or not, BUT has the intent of never-the-less using it to extract money from entity-name, AND is thus simply using that "purpose" as a front, THEN that is cybersquatting. The individual can copy the web-site content to his hard drive and post it at another domain-name. Meanwhile, entity-name should be able to get entity-name.com from that individual by paying him the cost of registration.
4. IF someone registers a domain name (entity-name.com) before entity-name exists, THEN no matter the post-entity-name existance activity of that someone, it is not cybersquatting. Whether or not the indivual makes use of that domain-name, it is clearly not his intent to use the domain-name to extract money from entity-name. Simply because the person has not yet used entity-name.com by the time entity-name comes into existence does not mean the person should be deprived of his site. There has been no planned extortion. Should entity-name offer the individual money to get that domain-name, so be it.
5. IF entity-name already owns a domain-name (entity-name.com) AND an individual creates a site with a similar domain-name (i.e., entity_name.com), AND that individual's end intent is to extract money from entity-name for entity_name.com, THEN that is cybersquatting. However, entity-name hasn't as strong a claim to have the domain-name taken away. Entity-name already has the best domain name possible (as they themselves have affirmed by registering that as their domain-name). They have no real need obtain entity_name.com when they already have entity-name.com.
6. IF entity-name already has a domain-name (entity-name.com) AND an individual creates a similar domain-name (i.e., entity_name.com or anti-entity-name.com), AND uses that domain name either to offer useful information about entity-name from a member/customer's pov, or to criticize entity-name, THEN that is not cybersquatting. Entity-name has no claim to take away that domain-name.
7. Dormancy time limit. I believe that all "intellectual property" -- if we are to have such a draconian thing -- should last a maximum of five years. Thus, for non-users of a domain-name, the domain-name is automatically relinquished from their control after 5 years if they do nothing with it. "Nothing" is a very high standard. If an individual uses the domain name for nothing other than saying, "I like blah blah blah blah blah", then that is NOT nothing. Nothing means either no page has been put there, or its just been a "for sale" sign for 5 years, or its just been an "under construction" sign for 5 years.
8. Assumption of innocence. The party brining the complaint must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the other has done what is alleged.
9. The power tilt modifier. Naturally, in resolving disputes, the balance should be tilted towards the side of the less powerful, as the less powerful is more likely to be the innocent side in any given case, and the side less able to defend itself. If the less powerful is the person bearing the complaints, then its tilted towards them. If the less powerful is the person brining the complaint, then its tilted towards them. This does not overturn rule #8, but only modifies it slightly.
This is just great...now, we have sacraficed video quality and have to put up with just that many more ads. What really tees me off is we pay alotta money for DigitalTV and we still get ads on the DigitalTV channels -- even the 5 HBO channels. What a rip.
Pretty soon, they'll be saying, "We now interrupt your regularly scheduled ad to go to a program". Or, "We now interrupt your adomercial for some ads".
We need to go back to the days before the radio waves were controlled by the FCC...no control at all...there'd be no ads, and diverse viewpoints would get out. Access to particular frequencies would be determined by a LAN-like system...if two people requested the same frequency at the same time, their machines would each resend the request after a random time interval...whoever got it first would go.
The US is generally lazy and stubborn about implementing new, superior technologies.
This is partially due to corporate interests, as discussed in my previous post; partly due to lazyness, which seems to be an American tradition; partly due to stupidity, another American tradition; and partly due to irrational fear of the unknown, a good American tradition going back to the burning of innocent women as witches at the stake.
Typical examples:
1. The metric system. Vastly superior to inches and miles, as any scientist will tell you.
2. Military time. Again, superior to civillian time. No confusion with AM or PM. You can even say 13-o'clock.
3. Metric (n-base-10) time. Time is currently measured in increments of 60 about seconds...then, when below 1s, its metric, measured in nano, micro, and pico-seconds. All time should be metric. Time should be metric. Seconds should be glopped into units of 100, as should hours. Not for purposes of telling time by the watch, but for purposes of telling how much time has elapsed, time should be measured in metric (decimal). 100 seconds in a "big-minute" for example, or 100 minutes in a "big-hour". This makes calculations easier. For example, if someone says to me, "I'll meet you in one hour and 23 minutes"... what does that mean? How many minutes? I have to add it up: 60 + 23 = 83 minutes. But if someone says to me "I'll meet you in.83 'big-hours' or 83 'big minutes' ", I know exactly how many minutes, and seconds (83 * 100 = 8300).
4. 220V outlets. High-voltage outlets are much more efficient. In Germany, my father says, they were the standard 60+ years ago in Germany, during the war. How is it that us asshole Americans are that far behind? No excuse for such incompetence. 220V outlets are more electrically efficient, and allow for thinner wires, which may increase "bandwidth" and also reduces material costs. Indeed, even higher voltage outlets -- such as 440 -- may be better, allowing for even thinner wires, and more efficiency. Of course, its more dangerous if you touch it -- just consider it another way to weed out the stupid. Additionally, for old 110V devices, adapters could be made, so no one would be left behind. Eventually, people would replace old equipments, and everyone would be higher voltage. You hear democrats whining so much about energy efficiency? Ever hear any of those genuises mention this possiblity? No, of course not -- that would actually be an intelligent practical suggestion. But can politicians come up with practical long-term solutions? No. The solution to the energy problem is either the democrat's impractical and impossible "walk instead of driving" (like that'll happen) or the republican's short-term fix, "drill in Alaska". Admittedly, in my mind -- given, I don't care much about the environment -- the republican solution should be implemented as a short-term fix. But a long-term solution -- such as efficient solar cells or nuclear fusion -- should be implemented. Even fission's fine with me, so long as appropriate safety precautions against a nuclear disaster are taken. Don't know what to do with the nuclear waste? Save it, and put it on a rocket ship -- send it on a path of direct intercept with the sun. There's a solution for all our trash problems. Save up trash for 10 years, then make one big trip to the sun -- its like a giant garbage disposer. Pssst, environmental wacko's, sending a little bit of nuclear waste, pollution, and trash into the sun isn't going to alter anything...nothing man can do can mess up the sun.
5. Switching from Windows to superior OS's like the Linux family, *BSD, BeOS, Amiga QNX, Hurd, etc.
6. The temperature scale. Fahrenheit? Fahrenheit was based of of human body temperature as a reference point. Temperature is a measure of motion. Fahrenheit can be negative, and that makes no sense, as there's no such thing as negative motion. Though Celsuis was based off of the boiling point of water, its no different in effect -- negative temperatures don't make sense. Kelvin's are the only logical and really meaningful unit of temperature. Big deal, people would have to learn what room temperature is in Kelvin. Just remember this, 25C is room temp, and Kelvin is Celsius + 273. Thus, 298K is room-temp in Kelvin.
UWB not getting the green light is a reflection of corporate and political corruption, and big-money politicians protecting their big-money business buddies. And its not just republican's and GWB who are in on it. Big business has influence on both major parties, major influence. Personally, I think GWB's gotten an unfair rap in this Enron thing, b/c the Execs called him up asking him to bail out the company, and he did nothing: how's that favoratism?
But anyways, back to UWB. There's no reason to stop the release of this technology -- it could be very useful. Forget about...no, fuck all those companies and industries who would lose big because of it. They're obsolete. Survival of the fittest. No one gave a shit when electricity put the whalers out of business, why should we care if ISP's, communications, and TV companies get shut out?
If we are to be an enlightened society -- worthy of the superiority we claim we have over despotic socities -- new technology cannot be held back because it challenges old and obsolete regimes, beliefs, or companies. No, we can't stop the inevitable wave of gene therapy, genetic engineering, and cloning because it "makes religious nutcases worried about playing god, or messing with nature" or because some people think "its not right". No, we can't stop P2P, MP3-Player, Encoding, or UWB technologies because they make old industries or companies (i.e., Time Warner, Verizon, RIAA) obsolete. No, we can't prevent strong encryption technologies because it hinders the US Govt's ability to spy on its own people.
Not only should UWB be given the green-light by the FCC, but it should be totally unregulated...as radio waves should have *remained* unregulated. With UWB, there's no justification for regulation, because one signal cannot interfere with others. Even with radiowaves, it isn't necessary. Anyone could be allowed to use frequencies, and no jibberish or noise would result. You simply use a LAN-type system. As people want to use the radiowaves, they're dynamically assigned a random frequency. If two people make a request the same frequency at the same time, an error message is sent to each of their transmitting device, and each device resends the request after a random time interval.
But this technology does face strong opposition (though it also has strong support, such as IBM). We need to fight that opposition. Indeed, there's a long history of powerful companies buying out potentially challenging technologies, or stiffling their release, or FUD. MS does it all the time. AT&T consistently bought patent-rights to superior phone-system/infrastructure designs so it wouldn't have to redesign. The Music industry simply buys out companies that produce file-sharing technologies.
These are all acts which, though facilitated by having a large monopoly, do not require it. Any *large* corporation can engage in them. This is a different kind of abuse and unfair competition -- as well as unfair to consumers -- which should be prohibited. It is buying patents for the express purposes of stiffling innovation/progress, and not having to upgrade. Or engaging in public lobbying to get a threatening technology banned (i.e., w/ the FCC). This should be banned, and treated just as seriously as monopolies.
Lawrencce Lessig has a nice discussion of this in "The Future of Ideas" as does Brian Martin in "Information Liberation", both of which I'm sure you've all already read.
As a corollary to this strategy, let me also suggest that you only download the headers for any messages over 50KB, or only the text of a message if the message includes attachments; if its a html e-mail, try to implement a protocol to transform the relevant html text to plain text and download only that. Most SPAM involve large graphic/html e-mails, so this is an effective way to save your bandwidth. Also, do you really want to see 4 or 5 pictures of some relative's kids, who you don't even know?
Here's the strategy I use to eliminate spam. I use this strategy with PocoMail, as its a powerful e-mail prog with complex scripting options...but with thought, it can be adopted to almost any e-mail program...even MS Outlook Express.
I. Things to completely download automatically that almost certainly aren't spam:
1. Anything from a person (e-mail contact) you know and have in your address book.
2. That's it.
II. Things to delete from your server automatically:
1. Any incoming message with a dirty or four-letter word in its subject line. I.e., "fuck", "asshole", "pussy", etc. This includes: (1) Mean words like "fuck", asshole; (2) Pornography words like "pussy", "lesbian", "sex"; (3) Derogatory words like "bitch", "nigger", "spic", "mic", "croat", etc etc. I realize that by the nature of these categories, some of them overlap.
2. Anything that has to do with a money-making scheme, something-for-nothing, a great deal, or free stuff. If something has the "$" character in it, its spam. If something has the word "money" in it, its spam. Furthermore: "rich", "free", "great deal", "deal", "can't afford to miss this", "no risk", "zero risk", etc. I realize that this list is far from comprehensive. Its an ongoing project. As spammers send you more spam, they help you to filter out more such advertisements.
3. Anything from a known spammer; potentially, even, anything from a domain/ISP that doesn't deal with its spam.
4. Anything from microsoft.com (just joking).
Make sure to tell your e-mail prog to download the *Headers* only of these e-mail progs to a folder titled "Junk Mail". Have it then auto-delete the whole thing. Use the downloaded headers as an opportunity to examine new and novel types of spam, so you can better add to your spam-blocking abilities. Remember, the point of blocking spam is to save you bandwidth and time, and downloading headers is trivial in terms of bandwidth/time, and it may allow you to increase your spam-blocking abilities.
III. Things for which to only download the message header/subject line.
Everything not covered under category I and II. Have these messages downloaded to an alternate folder in your e-mail prog, such as "possible spam". Examine the headers...if they appear to be spam, add the subject and sender to your block-list, as well as any words in the subject that are spam-words (dirty, pornography, hateful, or advertisement words). As for messages that don't appear to be spam, you have the option to download them and, if desired, ass the sender to your address book, so that sender can send you mail.
There's lots of language in these things about the applicable laws, regulations, and the right to choose venues (where any trial might take place). If you recall the UCITA had some particularly odious language about venue choice and gave all the power to the vendors.
Yes, they might have that right on paper, big deal. How can they force me to go anywhere? Besides, I get my online space from an ISP, and the ISP wouldn't have issues w/ fordsucks.com. But even if my ISP vendors agree w/ Ford that the trial should be held in zimbabwee, how can they force me there? The server's here in NY, my state.
Finally, *THE INTERNET ISN'T A LOCATION*. While you may live in NY, where is the server that's hosting your site? Maybe it's in your basement, or a local ISP, but maybe it's somewhere else in the US or the World. Second, where are the resources used to find and access your site? The distributed nature of the Internet laughs at national borders (though nations are trying to erect borders).
Most ppl get servers in their own state, so again, how can anyone force me to defend it out of state? As for the "resources used to access my site" no one can effectively prevent access to my site...large search engines like Google will have anything, whether the courts want or not...but even w/o that, there are engines capable of searching the invisible net.
1. Assinite corporations can force a US citizen, who, for example, lives in NY to defend his right to the domain-name site www.fordsucks.com in Switzerland, or some other foreign country, or even some other state? If I live in NY, and have all of my resources in NY, how can they force me to appear before a court in another state/country? And if all my resources are here, and the server hosting my site is here, what coersive force do they have?
2. How a WIPO court, or any court outside of NY state (aside from a US Federal Court) has jurisdiction over a NY-state citizen?
From what I've read, some people seem to be thinking this is some kind of "magic bullet". For example, one comment, which emanated stupidity, was titled something like, "Infinite Zooming" and the implication of the post was that it might be possible with this method to "zoom in" on an image and accurately reconstruct the image. In other words, the idea is you could zoom in on a tiny head on a photograph and accurately reconstruct all of the details.
This, my friends, is complete nonsense. You cannot zoom in on an image and accurately reconstruct further details. To imply that this is possible is to imply that you can add accurately representative data where there was none before.
As for "zooming technology" it is possible to better reconstruct a zoomed-in image, though not any more accurately. For example, when I go into MS Paint and zoom in, it simply blows up all the pixels as larger blocks. This clearly is not good. You could create some kind of algorithm to determine the "shapes" of sharp edges, as well as where gradients where, and scale those up when zooming in...for example, small a circle can be composed of four pixels -- such a technology would scale this up, not as four very large blocks, but as a circle.
But this involves assumptions about what the original pattern was representative of? Was it representative of a circle, or of four large blocks seen from a distance? So you're not really adding data, but just attempting to "zoom in" on an image "better" based on a set of good assumptions which generally work.
Such a thing could be accomplished. Indeed, it already has been accomplished -- in us. When we look at a small photograph and want to draw a poster from it, we don't draw a large, blocky, pixelated image. We are able to tell what things -- such as frecles -- are details to be scaled up in our drawing; what things are gradients -- such as a dark to light gradient going from the near to the far side of a forehead -- to be scaled up and gradiated; and what are sharp borders, to kept sharp -- such as the sides of one's face.
However, even this amazing system we have of reconstructing larger images from smaller one's cannot add detail where there is none. If a woman is freckled with tiny freckles, they won't be visible from 10 feet away; a picture taken from that distance won't show them, and if we wanted to make a portrait of her head based on that picture, we wouldn't know to add freckles.
The idea of loosening restrictions is absurd, as they weren't tight enough before. Allowing 30% ownership of the market? That means that an ENTIRE market can be almost completely owned by 4 companies. This is not a good condition for competition, and allows companies to easily set up cartels.
History has proven time and again that monopolies never serve the public's interest overall. They may have some fringe benefits, but overall, in the long run, they always screw the public interest over -- good intentions or not. Carnegie Steel, Standard Oil, AT&T, and MS are just some examples. Lets take AT&T: as Lawrence Lessig states, the idea for redundant networks and datagrams (packets) as a method to carry data in a phone conversation had been proposed to AT&T very early one; they rejected it, even though it was superior, because of the risk. Were there competition, it would've been implemented. MS, another example, engages in competition squashing, and prevents any other OS from competing, as all hardware and software developers (or almost all) develop for Windows; furthermore, they use their monopoly in one position to try to gain a monopoly in another.
No company should be allowed to obtain over 10% of the market. If they do, the company should have to mandatorily be split into two separate parts of equal amount. The shareholders would still have the same amount and value in stocks; only difference is, the companies would have to compete.
This is a rather complex issue because there are many people who are "paying" to create software at Universities...(1) The students pay, as some of their tuition money must go to software development at the university (2) Businesses pay, as they often donate money to such projects (3) The public pays, as our tax dollars go to university grants (4) The researchers "pay" by putting in large amounts of time. Now, that I've said "who pays", let me try to classify in what order (that is, who pays the most in the typical situation):
1st: I believe it's clear that the researchers contribute the most to these projects, as they put in their own time.
2nd: I believe after the researchers, businesses contribute the most.
3rd/4th: After businesses, clearly the university students (NOT the university) who pay the most. In many universities, the yearly tuition comes up to 20,000+ dollars a year. Multiply that by thousands of students.
4th/3rd: After students, I think the public contributes the remainder. Note, the public may contribute *more* than students, because the public contributes to many student grants, not to mention putting the students through high school.
So, now I've identified the orders of interests. So what does that mean? What should each party get for his/her/their interest in it? How can we do this while satisfying the interests of all parties?
To satisfy the researchers interest -- the researcher should be able to publish the code under a non-free license for a limited time: just enough time to allow him to make a reasonable profit considering his/her efforts (pehaps 1 or 2 years). However, he should not be able to choose the license at his will, and certainly shouldn't have the EULA option. Researchers should only be able to publish under the least restrictive license which still gives them the possibility of profit. Some critical parts of the program should be public-domain from the start, so they can be reviewed. As for the rest of the license, it should be something which does not prohibit reverse-engineering, nor does it take away end-users rights to modify it on their system, or to distribute modifications: a license like the one Quake is released under, which is very liberal.
To satisfy the business' interest (for the businesses w/c contributed to the project), they should have full access to free use of the program, as well as source code. Additionally, 1-2 years after the initial release, businesses should have the right to make modifications and sell such under the license of their choice. Should the original investor choose to release under a license like the GPL, the business would be granted an excpetion, and would be able to treat it as if a BSD license.
To satisfy the students interest. Students should get free use of the program, as well as access to the source code, so they can make any modifications they want. They get the same deal businesses get, minus the option to modify and sell 1-2 years after the initial release. Furthermore, before 1-2 years, they should have the right to release source-code additions (but not modifications). If they make modifications, they should have to release them as binaries...they may release the source code for their modifications after the "inventors" 1-2 year license expires.
To satisfy the public's interest. Of course, the government has full access to the software, free of charge. After the 1-2 year profit-making deal given the original inventor, the work falls into public domain. Should the businesses have made modifications on that original work and sold them, the modified parts are not affected, but the non-modified parts must be public-domained.
The ultimate payback the public gets for supporting inventors little projects is to have public-domain access. The more involved the public (i.e., citizen taxdollars) are, the quicker that should come. In the case of typical software, where the public does not "donate" but does support it by paying to enforce draconian IP laws (w/c, btw, should be scaled back), the public doesn't get access soon enough [20 years for patents, life + 70 and (probably eternity, if they keep on extending it) for copyrights). For things where the public is only involved in that it protects IP, it should get public-domain access in at least 10 years.
Note, this also applies for GPLed and BSDed (free) software. The public pays to support GPLed and BSDed software by enforcing the terms of those contracts. Thus, after 10 years, the original work that was GPLed (but not the modifications) needs to fall into the public domain. The modifications should fall into public domain 10 years after their publication.
Personally, I like GPL and BSD better than public domain. But as the public does pay for GPL/BSD licenses by enforcing the terms of their contracts, even things covered under them should -- by logic -- eventually have to fall under the public domain.
Remember, an ideal world is a world where there is no intellectual property at all. GPL and BSD licenses are just a way help liberate information in a world where there is intellectual property.
For most of us here, the gov'ts electron-microscope method of determining old data is irrelevant. How many of you here think that it'll be employed against you? That said, I suppose for those of us who engage in a big-time trading of files via P2P networks, & DeCSS, etc, there's always the possibility of criminal prosecutions. So, let me go over the 3 types of "data deletion", and say where each should be used:
1. Typical deletion. Files are unlinked with their directories, so your OS does not "see" them and has more space available to write with. If the information is not sensitive, or you don't fear intrusion, this is the fastest, and also best, method of deletion. It simply changes the first character of a file name do something that your OS doesn't recognize -- a very fast process. The Advantage: data is recoverable via a data-recovery utility. The Disadvantage: the data has not been securely eliminated.
2. Simple once-sweep wipe-over deletion. Either random 1s and 0s, or wholly 1s, or wholly 0s, are written over an entire file. Use this for data that is sensitive, or where you fear cyber-intrusion by hackers. The Advantage: data is securely eliminated, beyond the reach of anyone who hacks into your computer. The Disadvantage: data is irrecoverable to you, should you realize you made a mistake, and this process is slower.
3. A multi-sweep wipe. Same as above, but many sweeps are performed, enough to make typical electron-microscopy methods of data-recovery inviable. This method effectively makes data irrecoverable by any means. Electron microscopes can detect "old zeros" by ghost-patterns, a slight trace. But if data has been written over many times, the older data is impossible to recover even by those methods. The Advantage: this method securely removes the data, beyond the reach of any technological means. The Disadvantage: this method is very slow, and again, data is irrecoverable should you learn you made a mistake.
It should be noted that whenever you want to securely delete data, not only do you need to wipe the file, but you also need to wipe your swap files and your temporary files.
So, let me summarize when each of the methods of "data-removal" should be used, starting with the strongest method (a multi-sweep wipe), and ending with the weakest method (the renaming of the first filename character to something unrecognizable):
1. A multi-sweep wipe. Use this when you have data on your computer that could be used against you in a lawsuit or prosecution. For example, certain kinds of pornography, copyrighted files, warez, and other various information that's been deemed "illegal" by the Information Police in the MPAA, RIAA, MS, and the US Gov't.
2. A single-sweep wipe. Use this for information that is sensitive, but that you need not fear should the government get ahold of. For exmaple, financial files, files containing credit-card information, etc -- anything you'd want to protect from online-hackers using data-recovery programs. The government, though draconian, has not been known to steal people's credit cards using electron-microscopy. Similarly, hackers have not the resources to use electron-microscopy to acquire your credit cards -- nor would it be worth it. However, if your a high-tech company selling your computer equipment to another company, a multi-sweep delete of your files may be necessary to protect your information from competing companies, who may have bought your machinery through another company as a front.
3. A deletion that dissociates the file from the directory (renames the 1st character). Use this for non-sensitive data. For example, stories you've written, calendars, lists, ideas, old programs, pictures, etc etc.
Hope this has been helpful -- and please, remember, if you want to securely remove sensitive data either by a single-sweep wipe (to protect it from hackers) or a multi-sweep wipe (to protect it from the government), please remember to also securely remove swap files and temporary files as well!
think we have two different perspectives here. Sure, piracy is illegal. But any technique that would supposedly prevent piracy would also prevent fair use. I'm sure the studios will be crying all the way to the bank.
Well, you know so much, so give me one good way that fair-use copying can be allowed while at the same time disallowing illegal redistribution of music and movies... didn't think so!
Well, genius, if you had read his post, you'd know that he said, quote unquote, "any technique that would prevent piracy would also prevent fair use." Yes, he said there was no way to disallow piracy without infringing on fair use rights . You simply repeated that...
However, it seems your implication is that fair use rights are not important and should be valued less than the "right" of entertainment companies to make money. This is nonsense. They have no right to make money, nor any right to prevent piracy at the expense of our rights. We have the right to fair use -- that trumps all else. They can not try to prevent piracy by infringing our right to fair use.
Of course, I don't believe in intellectual property, thus don't believe in the need to stop Information Liberation. You, apparently, do.
I'm having a really hard time believing you're a) serious, and b) not Jack Valenti.
I am serious... I just have an understanding of economics and respect for others.
Yes, indeed, I believe your serioius. As for understanding of economics, nope, you don't have that. Companies make many many movies...the odds are very strong that enough of those movies will be successes to more than offset their costs. If a company can make a profit by making a product, irrelevant of how small, they'll make it -- because they'd lose more money by not making it. Indeed, it is even true that an unprofitable company will stay in business, because the cost of going out of business is greater than the cost of staying in business. In short, companies will make something if there is a positive profit-margin...period. The government -- representing US as a society -- has the duty to impose our societal values, designed to protect us as citizens (against those companies), on those companies.
As for your "respect for others" -- nonsense. You are clearly somehow involved in the movie industry, directly or indirectly, in a way that would bias your judgement. Respect for others only occurs when there's self interest in it. Everyone is out for their own self interests -- to maximize their own self-interests. Me and other consumers, to get as much for as low a cost as possible; the movie industry, to screw us over by charing as much as possible for as little as possible.
Gracenote's lawsuit clearly had not merit and was nothing more than an attempt to shake down Roxio for some money -- namely, to continue paying them for use of CDDB. The idea is simple, fraudulant, and illegal...but it usually works, if the settlement is cheaper than the cost of legal fees. Here's how it goes:
1. Sue someone on an absolutely meritless lawsuit
2. Try to make them think you'll take it to its end, so that it will cost them a ton in legal fees.
3. Ask them for a settlement which would be less expensive to them than the legal fees they'd have to pay to defend themselves from your baseless lawsuit.
This is in short what Gracenote did. Its a very simply stategy, which needs to be exposed and eliminated. Such fraud should be made illegal with severe financial penalties. Really, its more than just fraud -- its blackmail.
WTO ultimately means enforcing the values of the rich corporate US -- which is not the majority of the US -- onto the rest of the world. If other countries don't subscribe to the US-corporate view of intellectual property, they can't join the WTO. Furthermore, aside from not being able to join the WTO, they also get sanctioned as if they were despot nations like Iraq (i.e., Ukraine being sanctioned for not enforcing intellectual property). China has enough bad despotic laws of its own -- it doesn't need any of the US' information-owning laws on top of its own bad laws.
Really, what we need to do is take the fight against intellectual property beyond the US. Because the biggest intellectual property war is the war between the US-owned WTO and nations that are not WTO members. We need to take the fight against intellectual property to nations that have the most to gain from ignoring IP, and the most to lose from enforcing it -- Russua, China, India, Eastern European nations, and even Western European nations. Russia and the Eastern European states are the best place...that's where most warez comes from, and those nations have the loosest IP laws.
So, how do we do this? Well, for one thing, you start writing more software that they can use -- i.e., file-sharing, ripping, encoding, decrypting, encrypting programs written in Russian, Chinese, and Indian. For another, we can look to nations like Russia for a quazi-model of an intellectual property system -- though even those nations have IP laws which are too strict. Furthermore, Russia presents a practical example of where intellectual property clearly harms people. If intellectual property laws were strict and enforced in Russia, their economy would be even worse, because they'd have to be paying US-based corporations.
Intellectual property is really just a way to suck even more money away from the already-poor (or at least not rich) -- be it foreign nations, or US-citizens -- to the already rich.
Simply put, their attempt to claim royalties on CD-R's and CD-RW's sold, while also putting copy protection on their music CDs, is fraudulent and an unfair business practice. If they're going to claim that they should get royalties of blank CD's sold, because those CD's can be used to create copies of their audio CD's, then they can't put copy protection on their audio CD's. Simple as that.
Not that their copy protection works anyway. Copy protection mechanisms fail when dealing with DVD drives. Furthermore, alt. OS people can always set up a minimal Win98 partition to play and rip the "copy-protected" CDs. Simply put, you play the CD and open up a program like Creative Recorder, which directly and digitally records to output of the sound card...this kind of copying cannot be gaurded against unless you don't allow the CD to be played on a computer. If record companies start preventing ppl from playing CD's on computers, they're in for big profit losses and bad publicity. No one's going to put up with that crap. No one's putting up with this copy-protection crap, either. In a previous post, I outlined a recipee for ripping their "copy-protected" CD's:
This is clearly a good move by Bush, and we should continue in that direction. Really, there should be no restrictions on exporting any product outside of the United States that is not legal to sell within the United States.
Politics makes strange bedfellows, and your lover one day may be your killer the next. So its time we acknowledge our corporate and even political allies -- if only temporarily, and on this specific issue -- in the fight against the MPAA, RIAA, and BSA for our rights regarding fair use (and beyond) of intellectual property. This is simply about interests. Right and wrong are for the most part relative -- for some things, such as murder and rape, there is a clear right and wrong. For others, such as intellectual property, all is relative and a matter of your viewpoint. It is in our interests that we be able to trade any files we want freely.
So, here's a listof our two allies and the reasons they're our allies. They consist of the audio-hardware industry (i.e., MP3-player makers), the computer hardware industry (i.e., computer OEMs such as Gateway, Dell, IBM, etc etc), and the Hard-drive industry (which is in kept very profitable largely due to people who want to store 80GB of mp3s or wmas).
1. SonicBlue (RioVolt), Archos (Jukebox HD), Intel (Concert Audio), Apple (iPod), TDK (Mojo), and other makers of MP3-players. They are basically immune from any of the RIAA/MPAA's ridiculous attempts to pin responsibility on the makers of a product for the users actions with that product (as, I believe, if the constitution is upheld, so will software developers eventually be). It is not in their interest at all that music be solidly protected and not traded online -- in fact, this is against their interests. The MP3-player business depends on the trading of music files over the internet. Without the swapping of millions of mp3, wma, and ogg files over Morpheus and LimeWire, the companies that make MP3-players are out of business (if that's their only product) or out of one profitable market (if that's one of their products). These companies most likely will fight and fight hard on our side and against the MPAA/RIAA. Right now, most of them are keeping hands off, because business is fine for them, and we are fighting their indirect legal battle for them. But should the restriction of trading threaten their business, they'll step in.
2. Gateway, Dell, IBM, Compaq, Apple, HP, and other OEMs. Part of what supplies their business is the online world of trading. People buy computers expecting to be able to use them to trade sound and video files, and to store enormous amounts of these files on them. Without that ability, their sales will drop, as their products will be less useful. If protections are build directly into the hardware, sales will really take a hit, as people will be more likely to stick with their current systems.
3. Makers of hard drives. The fact that MP3s and WMAs are small for the amount of information they contain hasn't stopped people from obtaining huge amounts of them in GB.
These are three relatively obvious allies that I thought of off the top of my head. There may be many more. Indeed, our allies in one cause -- i.e., MP3-makers in the cause against the RIAA -- may be our foes in another (i.e., the right to modify their firmware software and distribute the modifications). However, that is not relevant. You use and rally people and organizations where they help you; where they don't, you fight against them. It is up to us to figure out who should be our allies for for obvious profit-margin reasons and alert them to the reality of how their interest lies in supporting us.
In response to this, please feel free to comment on any of the 3 allies I mentioned and add some of your own.
Hurray! Yet another unnecessary and useless way to make programs even more bloated!
Now, not only can we have little comic-book like "help assistants" which run around your screen, cheerfully ask you to enter a question, and then display some goofy animation that's meant to be more amusing than functional, now we also get to have a password program which clogs up RAM and slows down boot time.
Is it really too difficult to ask people to remember a few simple passwords? Heck, they can even write them down on a sheet of paper to help them remember.
As I've said before, we do not need any features to make operating systems easier to use. Windows, MacOSX, BeOS, and now even Unix' (beyond the initial installation) are intuitive and can easily be figured out. Perhaps the slight difficult associated with OS' should serve as a barrier to keep those too lazy or dumb to learn a few basics away from complicated machinery -- after all, anyone who can't sit down at Windows, MacOS, BeOS, or even a Linux desktop and figure out how to use it is clearly a few brain cell short of an amoeba. Wouldn't want to make those people think too much!
Look, just because new computers make it possible to add new and more graphical features doesn't mean you should add them! Is it really necessary for "ease of use" to have a little "Help assistant" as MS has in MS Word? No, it is not. The Help menu is unmistakenably visible. Now that doesn't mean you shouldn't add graphics where they increase functionality, as MacOSX has done. The glassy and gradiated menus which appear to pop out of the screen add to functionality because they clearly separate different components of the GUI.
For example, look at an Aqua theme under themes.org (note: If you want to understand the rest of my comment, you probably should look at this link):
I'll tell you the good and the bad about this theme, where the aqua glassy gradiation helps and where it is irrelevant. In the XMMS Window, the Aqua gradiation clearly distinguishes the backwards/play/pause/stop/forward section of the player. This is useful as these are major functions of any sound player. However, the penguin to the right of the image is just a useless graphic. As for the stratiated horizontal white/gray bands going accross this and every other window, which is typical of MacOSX, this is useless in terms of functionality, and should be removed. For functionality, the background should simply be a pure white, light gray, or light blue, or perhaps a dark blue or black for contrast. If you want to have any background graphics on this window, you should have a gradiating darkness around the edges, to make it appear to be bulging out, and clearly demarkate the termination of the window. As for the red, yellow, and green buttons in the upper right hand corner, the color distinction is useful for recognition, but does not help one figure out what the functions are initially; there should be slight pictures within the jelly-bean buttons to demakate what their functions are. As for the text in this window, while it looks nice, it is hardly functionaly. For example, the "Equalizer" is hard to read because it is block-typed. I'll end my criticism and commentary of this particular aqua sheme at that.
I've remarked on one example, but this is what developers should be asking of every feature and every inch of their program before they release it. If they have a graphical feature, does it really contribute to usability? Are start-up screens really necessary, or just a waste of CPU cycles? What about the logos you typically see in the corners of programs -- useful, or just a waste of space and of RAM, which slightly increase load time, without offering any benefits? In limewire, is that little Lime logo really necessary? Even in Linux, are the brand logos in programs necessary? Come on, we all know what program we have and who made it -- no need to advertise. Yes, it does look cool the first time we open the program, and it looks neat when your advertising, but as you use the program more and more, it becomes and annoyance. At hte least, the ability to remove such useless graphics should be added.
What I am proposing is an analysis of graphical features beyond, "that looks cool", or "that's pretty", or "that's neat". Cool, pretty, and neat are all fine and dandy -- but they shouldn't be the reason for adding a graphic to your program. Approach graphical interfaces the same way you approach language, or try to. Firstly, it should be functional; secondly, it should be clear; thirdly, it should be precise and minimal in nature to serve that function (i.e., for a button, making it larger increases its utility to its function, up to a certain point, beyond which it becomes annoying and distracting); fourthly, it should be pretty and elegant.
Where we disagree is on the distinction between physical "property" and intangible or metaphysical "property" (information).
II. If a person breaks into a system and takes information, this should be treated as (1) Breaking-and-entering, as mentioned before; (2) A privacy violation; (3) An act of theft, though again treated less seriously than the theft of physical property, as it does not deny the owner possession.
Again, I have no major disputes - just minor ones. Let's say the theortectical thieft steals passwords for other machines/services. Clearly the passwords in my head still exisit, but yet, important information that is now worthless (I have to change all my passwords) has been taken. If a theif breaks into my house and photocopies my bank records, is it still theft? I am not sure on that one. Its an interesting hypothetical. However, as I see it, no major laws or common laws distinguish between theft of possesions or information. I don't think we need to make the distinction for computer crimes either. However, there is distinction made on value which is far more realistic and very widely used already. If a person copies my soon-to-be published book from my workstation and distributes it all over the Internet I haven't lost that book, just my rights over it. This debate is essentially the one going on in regards to digital music, movies, etc. Either way (equal or inequal punishments for theft of IP), we can agree that entering a computer system and stealing the contents is both B&E and theft.
Specifically, this relates to:
4. The distinction between phyiscal and computer crimes is irrelevant because at the fundamental level all property is just that - property. Picking a lock (without destroying it) and entering a home is the same as running a root kit against a server. The elements, outcome, level of violence, level of damage, etc are identical. The punishment should be indentical for both.
Namely, I do not think that it can be justified to own information, ideas, concepts, methodologies, techniques, etc., in the same or similar sense as it is to own physical property such as a house. This is because I think that owning intangible things -- such as ideas, as are owned in copyrights, processes and formuli, which are owned in patents, and symbols or, which are owned in trademarks -- is incompatable with a truely free and democratic society. You briefly alluded to this in your example of someone pre-publishing your soon-to-be published digital book. In such a case, I think that person should be punished for breaking into your system, but not for publishing the information (namely, because that would be a restriction on freedom of speech).
Another area where we disagree is on the punishment of physical crimes (i.e., direct action) v. non-physical ones (i.e., indirect action through a computer). There is a certain distance that a computer and the internet creates between action, motivation, consequence, and the sponsor of the action -- an even greater distance than is created by a car. Namely, the internet depersonalizes crimes, and separates the mind from considerations of the victim. This can be observed simply by entering a chat room...in real life, would you really say, "F*** Y** Y** F***ing a**hole" to someone who made a comment you disagree with? No, it would normally be out of the question. However, in a chat room, depending on the mood of the chatter, it can be almost spontaneous. A similar situation is created for online credit card theft v. physical world credit cart theft. If you hold someone up and steal their credit card, you have to see their faces, and are directly confronted with the affect of your action on the victims. However, if you electronically jack someone's credit card, you are barely confronted with your actions at all. It is just one IP number sending a digitally encrypted string.
I am not saying that this makes any difference from the victims point of view. The victim, in all cases, should be reimbersed. In most cases, the victim is protected from financial liability, however, and the real victim is the credit card company. I am not saying that we should not take these crimes seriously, but just that they should be differently classified from their real world counterparts. Acts committed in "road rage" are given a legally different classification than other acts, and for similar reasons, so should acts committed on computers.
We should stand up against this kind of nonsense. It is little more than the industry trying to brainwash our kids to believe in their warped way of thinking.
Most of us here are young, and we, not the sickly old men that sit in CEO positions at music companies, are the future. We should teach our children ideals that will propel this nation beyond the dated zero sum game of economics that's been played for ages. We should teach them that information should be freely available to all, that US citizens rights should be respected, irrelevant of their differences, or the consequences of doing such, or "national security concerns".
Undermining the traditional system in the "real world" -- where politicians say that rights are important, but then disrespect and ignore them (i.e., Katie Sierra, who was prevented from wearing an anti-war T-shirt at school; Brandi Blackbear, who was suspended from school for "casting a spell on a teacher") -- will require resolve, disobedience, and awareness.
To undermine the traditional intellectual property system is something of slightly another matter, because its more convenient and easy. I do not propose that we take the moral high road, as Martin Luther King did when he fought racism by peaceful protests, and by allowing police to brutalize him. I suggest we take the path taken by Malcom X -- violent disobediance. Get roudy. Here's my recipe to undermine intellectual property:
(1) Support open-sourced software, or "open-information". Support it namely by using it, wherever possible, in place of closed-sourced software or information.
(2) Support "free" software or information, which is different from "open" software or information. This is software or information which is freely obtainable, but in which the source is closed. Normally, these endeavers are supported either by ads or by promotions for the "full product".
(3) If you use "free" software or information, don't support the sponsors economic endeavers by upgrading to the "full" product or watching their ads. If you want the full product, find a hack, or download a crack -- either a warez version or a crack for some serial numbers to be entered. If its ad-based, don't support the ads.
(4) To avoid supporting ads -- remember, we need to undermine the current zero-sum economic system as well -- create a HOSTS file for your browser. As a reply to this message, I'll post my HOSTS file. Disable animations or sounds from your browser -- many ads come in such form. If there's an ad-based program, like LimeWire, try to block the ads by deleting the file that might be responsible. If not, try to find a crack to block the ads. For LimeWire, since its open-sourced, this should be easy -- surely, someone must have released a patch to remove the ads. If you cannot remove the ads, simply ignore them. NEVER buy anything based off an internet AD. That support the ad-system which clogs our bandwidth.
(5) If you must get a commercial product, there are still ways to avoid supporting commercial endeavers. i. You can try to find warez for the product you want. Search the web from google.com. This is hard, because very few warez sites actually offer software -- most are just fronts for advertisements and porno. You can also try searching from a P2P program, like LimeWire. ii. Sometimes, a retailer will allow you to return a product even after its been opened. So open up the CD package and copy it. If it has copy-protection, you can try making a 1:1 copy by CloneCD.
(6) For textual information -- i.e., books, textbooks, scientific papers published, etc. If possible, offer these in pure format -- i.e., a PDF file or html file -- if you can overcome copy-protection. Otherwise, transcribe them. If only each person transcribes one book, out of every 10, that's millions of books you have online. You don't have to do it all at once. Many of you are very adept typists, and this should be no problem. I've found many transcribed books on LimeWire...even a copy of Crichton's "Jurassic Park".
(7) Most obviously, publicly protest against the intellectual property system.
I disagree. I think that criminal activity should be held to the same standard regardless of medium.
But the medium is important. In this case, the medium prevents any physical injuries from coming from such an activity.
Now, if I hack into that man's computer and take his credit card information from it, that should also be a robbery, and it should be punished just the same. Just because I did it without leaving my easy chair doesn't mean its less of a crime.
Felonies in most states are reserved for crimes that are very serious - crimes involving violence, damage or harm to property, sexual or sexually related crimes, crimes of extreme disregard for safety, etc.
I couldn't really find an unbiased account of what happened, so I want comment on this specific case. But I will say again that computer crimes should be treated as directly analagous to their physical world counter parts.
If you break into a computer and steal a piece of information, it should be treated as robbery, as well as a violation of privacy. However, it can only be treated as a privacy violation if you're breaking into a personal, not corporate or government, computer. The government and corporations are not person's, and have no expectation of privacy. And there is a difference between computer crimes and their physical world counterparts. Breaking into a computer does not necessarily do the system any harm, unlike breaking into a house, which means the door will be broken down. Furthermore, a system per se is not a physical place from the perspective of the person breaking in. You can hardly attach the same seriousness to breaking into a computer system as to breaking into a house. Compare the types of people who break into houses and the types of people who break into computers: Do you really think some hacker should be sitting in jail for 10 years next to some guy who held up a bank at gun-point?
I. If a person simply breaks into a system, that should be treated like breaking-and-entering, as well as a privacy violation, but less seriously, because no physical aspect is involved; it certainly should not carry a felony status: misdemeaner at most.
II. If a person breaks into a system and takes information, this should be treated as (1) Breaking-and-entering, as mentioned before; (2) A privacy violation; (3) An act of theft, though again treated less seriously than the theft of physical property, as it does not deny the owner possession.
III. If a person breaks into a system does the same as in II, and then destroys that system before leaving, this should be treated identically as II, with the added penalty of destruction of property. This offense should be treated seriously, as it denies the owner the use of their property...the owner should be entitled to remimbursement, and the encroaching individual should be imprisoned under typical destruction-of-property laws, the same one's as would apply if someone smashed up your car. In this case, physical property has been ruined and made useless. This only should carry a felony status.
Your example of speeding is poor - breaking into a computer should be treated as breaking into any other piece of property, and punished as such. You wouldn't break into someone else's home, would you? Then don't break into their computer. Its simple, fair, and straightforward.
You've said that computer encroachments should be treated the same as their physical world counterparts several times, yet you have not provided one ounce of reasoning to support that assertion, and I've disputed it as above. Saying something over and over again does not make it true or reasonable. As for my example of speeding, it is very reasonable -- speeding ENDANGERS people's lives...it can lead to vehicular manslaughter. As for cracking, that doesn't pose one ounce of physical threat to any individual. Again, think about the type of people who are crackers...they're typically teenagers, or computer-experts, who sit in front of their computer all day. They typically have very little physical attributes. It is unlikely that they would be willing or able to physically hurt anyone. Do you really want to send these people to jail for hard time to be raped up the ass by some guy named Joe?
Slashdot Mirror
I think that some domain names should belong to the public, and be usable only for the obvious public use that they should be used for.
For example, did you know that www.aristotle.com belongs to some obscure company, Aristotle International? What the sites about, what the company sells, who knows. The point is, that a site with the name of one of the greatest philosophers of all time isn't devoted to him.
To me, that's outrageous.
Sites with the names of such influencial people in our history, or historic names, or something in them which belongs to us all, should be in the public domain. Namely, they should be devoted to this commons, in the public domain.
How to make a good use of those sites in the commons, I'm not sure of. Perhaps a government-funded reference list of all relevant information, books, etc. For example, aristotle.* would have a listing of hyperlinks to all the books written by Aristotle, as well as his biography, and links to other sites about him.
Other such domain-names which I think should be in the commons include:
www.plato.*
www.einstein.*
www.hobbes.*
www.orwell.*
www.nuremburg.*
www.socrates.*
www.bohrniels.*
www.rutherford.*
www.usconstitution.*
etc.
You get the point.
The idea that some companies get to profit off names which belong in the commons, the public domain, which belongs to us all, is outrageous.
There is a case to be made that there is nothing wrong with cybersquatting. From my point of view, its no different than when some smart investors back in the day bought lots of worthless land and held onto it because they knew eventually railroad companies would need it. Nothing wrong with that -- they had foresight, the railroad companies didn't. Similarly, a wise person today would buy land about a block back from the beachfront on California. Why? Because the average water line is advancing. In about 40 or so years, land that is now "beach front property" in California will be underwater and land that is now worthless and a little bit back, behind the current beachfront property, will be beachfront property. Nothing wrong with that either. In both of these cases, there is nothing wrong, even if the individual only bought the land to later sell it to the railroad company or hotel company at a high price.
, and has no intention of using it for any purpose, but only trying to extract maximal money, that's cybersquatting. But if they put up such a site and use it constructively -- i.e., perhaps they have their own organization/group abbreviated by "ORGANIZATION", or perhaps they with to criticize said organization, or perhaps they want to make it an informal "fan page" -- then its not cybersquatting and the company has no claim.
However, consider a reverse case. Consider if a smart large bank -- like JP Morgan and Co -- buys tons and tons of land, which is now cheap. Despite the land now being cheap, it will eventually be valuable, as the US population is increasing and more space will be required to house future populations. Once over-crowding starts occuring, and people experience the need to perhaps live on the inter-city land that populates our expressways/highways/throughways/whatever, the banks will be in prime-time position to sell that land at outrageous prices. That doesn't seem so fair, and for good reason. Why? Because it is the powerful using their resources to take advantage of the disempowered.
Though these cases are relevant to the internet-case of cybersquatting and reverse-cyber-squatting, they don't map directly. These cases deal with real-world examples, real world property. The internet is more metaphysical, abstract: in the realm of ideas.
(1) Cybersquatting is registering a domain name with no intent to use it, but simply the intent to use the name as leverage to get a company, organization, or person to buy it at the highest price possible; alternatively, the site may be used for some constructive purpose, but aa temporary location for that constructive purpose, with the end goal being using that domain name to extract maximum money from another entity.
a. Against a company. An example would be my registering the domain name www.ibm.org and never using it for anything, but simply hoping that IBM would pay you money to get the rights to it. This brings up an important point. As IBM already has a website -- ibm.com -- its claim to take that site from the original owner based solely on cybersquatting is diminished. IBM already has a recognizable domain name which will bring most people to it: in fact, the most recognizable domain name. Company.com is what you type as a standard to get to a companies home page. A case where the company would have a strong claim would be where it had no internet site before, and someone put up site wwww.company-that-previously-had-no-site.com, and put nothing on it, its clearly to extract money. However, if they put up such a site and provided a message board about company products, criticisms, etc, as well as information and hints from ppl who've bought their products, then its not cybersquatting and the organization has no claim.
b. Against an organization. For example, registering the domain name www.naral.net in hopes of extracting money from NARAL. Again, the same as above applies. NARAL has the most obvious most recognizable website for what they are, so their claim is diminished. But if someone puts up a site wwww.organization-that-previously-had-no-site.com
c. Against a person. This hasn't occured much yet, but it may in the future. For example person A, named John Doe, puts up a website named www.janedoe.com. He has no intention of using that website, but knows Jane Doe is rich and will eventually want to have her own website after her own name; so he simply holds onto the website, in hopes that eventually he can squeeze her. This is cybersquatting. But if another woman with the same name, Jane Doe, puts up a website and uses it, its not cybersquatting. Finally, if a company or organization puts up a website with a persons name -- unless it be an organization member -- that's cybersquatting. Organizations/companies have no business putting up sites named with people's name. The only exception would be if that person is a member of the organization, or if they want to use that person as a positive example; i.e., an anarchist organization putting up the domain name KattieSierra.com to honor her. There's nothign malevolent about that; though, of course, if she doesn't want it, she has the rights to claim it. Every individual should be able to claim a domain name named after them. In cases where individuals share the same first, middle, and last names, first come first serve (unless one David Cassidy puts up a website titled David Heinrich to try to extract money from all the other David Heinrich). These are the easy cases. What about the hard cases. What if someone who hates you puts up a website with your first, middle, and last name -- johnxdoe -- and spews about how much of a jerk you are, makes hateful remarks about you, and otherwise demeans you on the site. Or worse, what if said person puts up a website with your name and pretends to be you, except misrepresenting you? I think that these cases are unacceptable. And I realize that's iffy. If someone wants to put up a website trying to masquerade as me or insult me, they should have to in some way put "anti" or something similar in the address: i.e., www.antidavidheinrich.com. This is a minor restriction on freedom of speech which serves to prevent misrepresentation.
Now, back to the comparisons with people hoarding potential rail-road land back in the day, or buying "2nd tier" beach property in California. There is a clear difference between those cases and stategic registration of domain names. Those cases apply for physical property and must be strategically made; one can't simply buy all land. Furthermore, one is actually abstracting the real value the land will hold in the future. That property is in fact that valuable, and would cost that much to the hotels. But if I squat a domain name, the company might have to pay me a million dollars for something that would've costed only a few bucks otherwise.
Its not that I'm for big corporations. Its that this type of game-playing demeans the usefulness of the internet and domain names. And its not to say that big corporations don't play this game to.
Corporations usually don't engage in cybersquatting; though they could if they wanted to. Cybersquatting is really a riskless activity, as I believe it should be. Do you really want to fine someone or put them in jail for that? The worst that can happen is the person loses his domain name, and doesn't get to sell it to the corporation for a high price. But back to corporations -- what they do do is distort cybersquatting norms to allow them to strangle competition or prevent sites from displaying that are critical of them, and otherwise abuse domain-name norms.
A site opens up with the domain name, www.anti-riaa.com, and uses it to harsly criticize the RIAA. The RIAA sues for "cybersquatting". Plainly ludicrous. Cybersquatting implies that the "target" had the intent or motive to want to use the domain-name. The RIAA would never use that domain-name. Yet, they want to claim it in order to prevent criticism. This is a kind of reverse cybersquatting. It furthermore diminishes the functionality of domain names. People expect that if they type in such a domain name, they'll get a website against the RIAA, not a blank page.
Another case is where companies try to take away competing companies domain names, or individuals domain names based on "trademark similarlities". Prime example, Lindows.com. Do they really think that people will confuse Windows with Lindows? Most intelligent people wouldn't. But even if they would, that's not Lindows fault -- that's the fault of ppl who are so dumb. Furthermore, Lindows intent isn't to confuse people, making them think its an MS product. Its simply to let them know that it should work fine with MS software. If anyone is confused, they'll be straightened out once they look at the sight. More disturbing is the implication by MS that they have trademark rights to anything that rhymes with Windows, or if of a similar sound.
I think its obvious to most COMMON-SENSE people that something is or is not cybersquatting when they see it. But that ridiculous definition of "I'll know it when I see it" doesn't do. The public has a right to know EXACTLY is and is not acceptable; EXACTLY what is an is not, for example, "PORNOGRAPHY" (one of the more brilliant quotes by one of the 9 wise men, "I can't define it, but I'll know it when I see it"). If we cannot define precisely what is not an acceptable activity, we have no right to expect people not to do it. People need to know the rules of the game before they play. There's no reason why norms, laws, customs, etc can't be as precisely defined as the rules of chess.
For example, in chess, there are a few official rules, clearly defined, and there are also some "unofficial" rules which any two professionals understand:
(1) The official rules. I.e., how each piece moves, exceptions to the normal movement of pieces, conditions in which the king must move, stalemate conditions, and checkmate conditions.
(2) The unofficial rules. A typical set goes something like this: 1 You touch a piece, you have to move it; 2 No taking back moves; 3 No talking; 4 No motions, positions, etc that would distract the opponent and detract from his/her ability to think.
The rules in chess are clearly defined. There is no ambiguity.
The rules governing law and domain-name resolution should be the same: precisely clear. I will attempt to propose some here. I do not pretend that they are perfectly clear, nor that they are comprehensive. But I will try to make them as much so as I can. Obviously, a real set of rules needs to be thoroughly thought out. Each rule must be stated as clearly as possible, as elegantlty as possible, and with as few words as possible. There must be a sufficient number of rules to cover all "inappropriate activity". Here's my rough draft:
1. IF someone registers a domain name (entity-name.com) BEFORE entity-name does, assuming entity-name exists at the time of registration, AND that someone has no intent of using that domain name, but only trying to extract money from entity-name, THEN it is cybersquatting. The entity-name should be able to obtain entity-name.com from the cybersquatter at the price of domain-name registration.
2. IF someone registers a domain-name (entity-name.com) BEFORE entity-name does, AND actually uses it for some purpose, whether connected to the domain-name or not, AND has no intent of using it to extract money from entity-name, THEN that is not cybersquatting. Entity-name can always register the domain-name Entity_name.com.
3. IF someone registers a domain-name (entity-name.com) BEFORE entity-name does, AND uses it for some purpose, whether connected to the domain-name or not, BUT has the intent of never-the-less using it to extract money from entity-name, AND is thus simply using that "purpose" as a front, THEN that is cybersquatting. The individual can copy the web-site content to his hard drive and post it at another domain-name. Meanwhile, entity-name should be able to get entity-name.com from that individual by paying him the cost of registration.
4. IF someone registers a domain name (entity-name.com) before entity-name exists, THEN no matter the post-entity-name existance activity of that someone, it is not cybersquatting. Whether or not the indivual makes use of that domain-name, it is clearly not his intent to use the domain-name to extract money from entity-name. Simply because the person has not yet used entity-name.com by the time entity-name comes into existence does not mean the person should be deprived of his site. There has been no planned extortion. Should entity-name offer the individual money to get that domain-name, so be it.
5. IF entity-name already owns a domain-name (entity-name.com) AND an individual creates a site with a similar domain-name (i.e., entity_name.com), AND that individual's end intent is to extract money from entity-name for entity_name.com, THEN that is cybersquatting. However, entity-name hasn't as strong a claim to have the domain-name taken away. Entity-name already has the best domain name possible (as they themselves have affirmed by registering that as their domain-name). They have no real need obtain entity_name.com when they already have entity-name.com.
6. IF entity-name already has a domain-name (entity-name.com) AND an individual creates a similar domain-name (i.e., entity_name.com or anti-entity-name.com), AND uses that domain name either to offer useful information about entity-name from a member/customer's pov, or to criticize entity-name, THEN that is not cybersquatting. Entity-name has no claim to take away that domain-name.
7. Dormancy time limit. I believe that all "intellectual property" -- if we are to have such a draconian thing -- should last a maximum of five years. Thus, for non-users of a domain-name, the domain-name is automatically relinquished from their control after 5 years if they do nothing with it. "Nothing" is a very high standard. If an individual uses the domain name for nothing other than saying, "I like blah blah blah blah blah", then that is NOT nothing. Nothing means either no page has been put there, or its just been a "for sale" sign for 5 years, or its just been an "under construction" sign for 5 years.
8. Assumption of innocence. The party brining the complaint must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the other has done what is alleged.
9. The power tilt modifier. Naturally, in resolving disputes, the balance should be tilted towards the side of the less powerful, as the less powerful is more likely to be the innocent side in any given case, and the side less able to defend itself. If the less powerful is the person bearing the complaints, then its tilted towards them. If the less powerful is the person brining the complaint, then its tilted towards them. This does not overturn rule #8, but only modifies it slightly.
LOL, the oldest thing on the earth is bush.
This is just great...now, we have sacraficed video quality and have to put up with just that many more ads. What really tees me off is we pay alotta money for DigitalTV and we still get ads on the DigitalTV channels -- even the 5 HBO channels. What a rip.
Pretty soon, they'll be saying, "We now interrupt your regularly scheduled ad to go to a program". Or, "We now interrupt your adomercial for some ads".
We need to go back to the days before the radio waves were controlled by the FCC...no control at all...there'd be no ads, and diverse viewpoints would get out. Access to particular frequencies would be determined by a LAN-like system...if two people requested the same frequency at the same time, their machines would each resend the request after a random time interval...whoever got it first would go.
The US is generally lazy and stubborn about implementing new, superior technologies.
.83 'big-hours' or 83 'big minutes' ", I know exactly how many minutes, and seconds (83 * 100 = 8300).
This is partially due to corporate interests, as discussed in my previous post; partly due to lazyness, which seems to be an American tradition; partly due to stupidity, another American tradition; and partly due to irrational fear of the unknown, a good American tradition going back to the burning of innocent women as witches at the stake.
Typical examples:
1. The metric system. Vastly superior to inches and miles, as any scientist will tell you.
2. Military time. Again, superior to civillian time. No confusion with AM or PM. You can even say 13-o'clock.
3. Metric (n-base-10) time. Time is currently measured in increments of 60 about seconds...then, when below 1s, its metric, measured in nano, micro, and pico-seconds. All time should be metric. Time should be metric. Seconds should be glopped into units of 100, as should hours. Not for purposes of telling time by the watch, but for purposes of telling how much time has elapsed, time should be measured in metric (decimal). 100 seconds in a "big-minute" for example, or 100 minutes in a "big-hour". This makes calculations easier. For example, if someone says to me, "I'll meet you in one hour and 23 minutes"... what does that mean? How many minutes? I have to add it up: 60 + 23 = 83 minutes. But if someone says to me "I'll meet you in
4. 220V outlets. High-voltage outlets are much more efficient. In Germany, my father says, they were the standard 60+ years ago in Germany, during the war. How is it that us asshole Americans are that far behind? No excuse for such incompetence. 220V outlets are more electrically efficient, and allow for thinner wires, which may increase "bandwidth" and also reduces material costs. Indeed, even higher voltage outlets -- such as 440 -- may be better, allowing for even thinner wires, and more efficiency. Of course, its more dangerous if you touch it -- just consider it another way to weed out the stupid. Additionally, for old 110V devices, adapters could be made, so no one would be left behind. Eventually, people would replace old equipments, and everyone would be higher voltage. You hear democrats whining so much about energy efficiency? Ever hear any of those genuises mention this possiblity? No, of course not -- that would actually be an intelligent practical suggestion. But can politicians come up with practical long-term solutions? No. The solution to the energy problem is either the democrat's impractical and impossible "walk instead of driving" (like that'll happen) or the republican's short-term fix, "drill in Alaska". Admittedly, in my mind -- given, I don't care much about the environment -- the republican solution should be implemented as a short-term fix. But a long-term solution -- such as efficient solar cells or nuclear fusion -- should be implemented. Even fission's fine with me, so long as appropriate safety precautions against a nuclear disaster are taken. Don't know what to do with the nuclear waste? Save it, and put it on a rocket ship -- send it on a path of direct intercept with the sun. There's a solution for all our trash problems. Save up trash for 10 years, then make one big trip to the sun -- its like a giant garbage disposer. Pssst, environmental wacko's, sending a little bit of nuclear waste, pollution, and trash into the sun isn't going to alter anything...nothing man can do can mess up the sun.
5. Switching from Windows to superior OS's like the Linux family, *BSD, BeOS, Amiga QNX, Hurd, etc.
6. The temperature scale. Fahrenheit? Fahrenheit was based of of human body temperature as a reference point. Temperature is a measure of motion. Fahrenheit can be negative, and that makes no sense, as there's no such thing as negative motion. Though Celsuis was based off of the boiling point of water, its no different in effect -- negative temperatures don't make sense. Kelvin's are the only logical and really meaningful unit of temperature. Big deal, people would have to learn what room temperature is in Kelvin. Just remember this, 25C is room temp, and Kelvin is Celsius + 273. Thus, 298K is room-temp in Kelvin.
UWB not getting the green light is a reflection of corporate and political corruption, and big-money politicians protecting their big-money business buddies. And its not just republican's and GWB who are in on it. Big business has influence on both major parties, major influence. Personally, I think GWB's gotten an unfair rap in this Enron thing, b/c the Execs called him up asking him to bail out the company, and he did nothing: how's that favoratism?
But anyways, back to UWB. There's no reason to stop the release of this technology -- it could be very useful. Forget about...no, fuck all those companies and industries who would lose big because of it. They're obsolete. Survival of the fittest. No one gave a shit when electricity put the whalers out of business, why should we care if ISP's, communications, and TV companies get shut out?
If we are to be an enlightened society -- worthy of the superiority we claim we have over despotic socities -- new technology cannot be held back because it challenges old and obsolete regimes, beliefs, or companies. No, we can't stop the inevitable wave of gene therapy, genetic engineering, and cloning because it "makes religious nutcases worried about playing god, or messing with nature" or because some people think "its not right". No, we can't stop P2P, MP3-Player, Encoding, or UWB technologies because they make old industries or companies (i.e., Time Warner, Verizon, RIAA) obsolete. No, we can't prevent strong encryption technologies because it hinders the US Govt's ability to spy on its own people.
Not only should UWB be given the green-light by the FCC, but it should be totally unregulated...as radio waves should have *remained* unregulated. With UWB, there's no justification for regulation, because one signal cannot interfere with others. Even with radiowaves, it isn't necessary. Anyone could be allowed to use frequencies, and no jibberish or noise would result. You simply use a LAN-type system. As people want to use the radiowaves, they're dynamically assigned a random frequency. If two people make a request the same frequency at the same time, an error message is sent to each of their transmitting device, and each device resends the request after a random time interval.
But this technology does face strong opposition (though it also has strong support, such as IBM). We need to fight that opposition. Indeed, there's a long history of powerful companies buying out potentially challenging technologies, or stiffling their release, or FUD. MS does it all the time. AT&T consistently bought patent-rights to superior phone-system/infrastructure designs so it wouldn't have to redesign. The Music industry simply buys out companies that produce file-sharing technologies.
These are all acts which, though facilitated by having a large monopoly, do not require it. Any *large* corporation can engage in them. This is a different kind of abuse and unfair competition -- as well as unfair to consumers -- which should be prohibited. It is buying patents for the express purposes of stiffling innovation/progress, and not having to upgrade. Or engaging in public lobbying to get a threatening technology banned (i.e., w/ the FCC). This should be banned, and treated just as seriously as monopolies.
Lawrencce Lessig has a nice discussion of this in "The Future of Ideas" as does Brian Martin in "Information Liberation", both of which I'm sure you've all already read.
As a corollary to this strategy, let me also suggest that you only download the headers for any messages over 50KB, or only the text of a message if the message includes attachments; if its a html e-mail, try to implement a protocol to transform the relevant html text to plain text and download only that. Most SPAM involve large graphic/html e-mails, so this is an effective way to save your bandwidth. Also, do you really want to see 4 or 5 pictures of some relative's kids, who you don't even know?
Here's the strategy I use to eliminate spam. I use this strategy with PocoMail, as its a powerful e-mail prog with complex scripting options...but with thought, it can be adopted to almost any e-mail program...even MS Outlook Express.
I. Things to completely download automatically that almost certainly aren't spam:
1. Anything from a person (e-mail contact) you know and have in your address book.
2. That's it.
II. Things to delete from your server automatically:
1. Any incoming message with a dirty or four-letter word in its subject line. I.e., "fuck", "asshole", "pussy", etc. This includes: (1) Mean words like "fuck", asshole; (2) Pornography words like "pussy", "lesbian", "sex"; (3) Derogatory words like "bitch", "nigger", "spic", "mic", "croat", etc etc. I realize that by the nature of these categories, some of them overlap.
2. Anything that has to do with a money-making scheme, something-for-nothing, a great deal, or free stuff. If something has the "$" character in it, its spam. If something has the word "money" in it, its spam. Furthermore: "rich", "free", "great deal", "deal", "can't afford to miss this", "no risk", "zero risk", etc. I realize that this list is far from comprehensive. Its an ongoing project. As spammers send you more spam, they help you to filter out more such advertisements.
3. Anything from a known spammer; potentially, even, anything from a domain/ISP that doesn't deal with its spam.
4. Anything from microsoft.com (just joking).
Make sure to tell your e-mail prog to download the *Headers* only of these e-mail progs to a folder titled "Junk Mail". Have it then auto-delete the whole thing. Use the downloaded headers as an opportunity to examine new and novel types of spam, so you can better add to your spam-blocking abilities. Remember, the point of blocking spam is to save you bandwidth and time, and downloading headers is trivial in terms of bandwidth/time, and it may allow you to increase your spam-blocking abilities.
III. Things for which to only download the message header/subject line.
Everything not covered under category I and II. Have these messages downloaded to an alternate folder in your e-mail prog, such as "possible spam". Examine the headers...if they appear to be spam, add the subject and sender to your block-list, as well as any words in the subject that are spam-words (dirty, pornography, hateful, or advertisement words). As for messages that don't appear to be spam, you have the option to download them and, if desired, ass the sender to your address book, so that sender can send you mail.
Most ppl get servers in their own state, so again, how can anyone force me to defend it out of state? As for the "resources used to access my site" no one can effectively prevent access to my site...large search engines like Google will have anything, whether the courts want or not...but even w/o that, there are engines capable of searching the invisible net.
How about a domain name incorporating everything that really really sucks:
u cking-sucks.org
http://www.riaa-mpaa-bsa-wipo-wto-ms-apple-govt-f
Any suggested additions?
Can someone explain to me how:
1. Assinite corporations can force a US citizen, who, for example, lives in NY to defend his right to the domain-name site www.fordsucks.com in Switzerland, or some other foreign country, or even some other state? If I live in NY, and have all of my resources in NY, how can they force me to appear before a court in another state/country? And if all my resources are here, and the server hosting my site is here, what coersive force do they have?
2. How a WIPO court, or any court outside of NY state (aside from a US Federal Court) has jurisdiction over a NY-state citizen?
From what I've read, some people seem to be thinking this is some kind of "magic bullet". For example, one comment, which emanated stupidity, was titled something like, "Infinite Zooming" and the implication of the post was that it might be possible with this method to "zoom in" on an image and accurately reconstruct the image. In other words, the idea is you could zoom in on a tiny head on a photograph and accurately reconstruct all of the details.
This, my friends, is complete nonsense. You cannot zoom in on an image and accurately reconstruct further details. To imply that this is possible is to imply that you can add accurately representative data where there was none before.
As for "zooming technology" it is possible to better reconstruct a zoomed-in image, though not any more accurately. For example, when I go into MS Paint and zoom in, it simply blows up all the pixels as larger blocks. This clearly is not good. You could create some kind of algorithm to determine the "shapes" of sharp edges, as well as where gradients where, and scale those up when zooming in...for example, small a circle can be composed of four pixels -- such a technology would scale this up, not as four very large blocks, but as a circle.
But this involves assumptions about what the original pattern was representative of? Was it representative of a circle, or of four large blocks seen from a distance? So you're not really adding data, but just attempting to "zoom in" on an image "better" based on a set of good assumptions which generally work.
Such a thing could be accomplished. Indeed, it already has been accomplished -- in us. When we look at a small photograph and want to draw a poster from it, we don't draw a large, blocky, pixelated image. We are able to tell what things -- such as frecles -- are details to be scaled up in our drawing; what things are gradients -- such as a dark to light gradient going from the near to the far side of a forehead -- to be scaled up and gradiated; and what are sharp borders, to kept sharp -- such as the sides of one's face.
However, even this amazing system we have of reconstructing larger images from smaller one's cannot add detail where there is none. If a woman is freckled with tiny freckles, they won't be visible from 10 feet away; a picture taken from that distance won't show them, and if we wanted to make a portrait of her head based on that picture, we wouldn't know to add freckles.
The idea of loosening restrictions is absurd, as they weren't tight enough before. Allowing 30% ownership of the market? That means that an ENTIRE market can be almost completely owned by 4 companies. This is not a good condition for competition, and allows companies to easily set up cartels.
History has proven time and again that monopolies never serve the public's interest overall. They may have some fringe benefits, but overall, in the long run, they always screw the public interest over -- good intentions or not. Carnegie Steel, Standard Oil, AT&T, and MS are just some examples. Lets take AT&T: as Lawrence Lessig states, the idea for redundant networks and datagrams (packets) as a method to carry data in a phone conversation had been proposed to AT&T very early one; they rejected it, even though it was superior, because of the risk. Were there competition, it would've been implemented. MS, another example, engages in competition squashing, and prevents any other OS from competing, as all hardware and software developers (or almost all) develop for Windows; furthermore, they use their monopoly in one position to try to gain a monopoly in another.
No company should be allowed to obtain over 10% of the market. If they do, the company should have to mandatorily be split into two separate parts of equal amount. The shareholders would still have the same amount and value in stocks; only difference is, the companies would have to compete.
This is a rather complex issue because there are many people who are "paying" to create software at Universities...(1) The students pay, as some of their tuition money must go to software development at the university (2) Businesses pay, as they often donate money to such projects (3) The public pays, as our tax dollars go to university grants (4) The researchers "pay" by putting in large amounts of time. Now, that I've said "who pays", let me try to classify in what order (that is, who pays the most in the typical situation):
1st: I believe it's clear that the researchers contribute the most to these projects, as they put in their own time.
2nd: I believe after the researchers, businesses contribute the most.
3rd/4th: After businesses, clearly the university students (NOT the university) who pay the most. In many universities, the yearly tuition comes up to 20,000+ dollars a year. Multiply that by thousands of students.
4th/3rd: After students, I think the public contributes the remainder. Note, the public may contribute *more* than students, because the public contributes to many student grants, not to mention putting the students through high school.
So, now I've identified the orders of interests. So what does that mean? What should each party get for his/her/their interest in it? How can we do this while satisfying the interests of all parties?
To satisfy the researchers interest -- the researcher should be able to publish the code under a non-free license for a limited time: just enough time to allow him to make a reasonable profit considering his/her efforts (pehaps 1 or 2 years). However, he should not be able to choose the license at his will, and certainly shouldn't have the EULA option. Researchers should only be able to publish under the least restrictive license which still gives them the possibility of profit. Some critical parts of the program should be public-domain from the start, so they can be reviewed. As for the rest of the license, it should be something which does not prohibit reverse-engineering, nor does it take away end-users rights to modify it on their system, or to distribute modifications: a license like the one Quake is released under, which is very liberal.
To satisfy the business' interest (for the businesses w/c contributed to the project), they should have full access to free use of the program, as well as source code. Additionally, 1-2 years after the initial release, businesses should have the right to make modifications and sell such under the license of their choice. Should the original investor choose to release under a license like the GPL, the business would be granted an excpetion, and would be able to treat it as if a BSD license.
To satisfy the students interest. Students should get free use of the program, as well as access to the source code, so they can make any modifications they want. They get the same deal businesses get, minus the option to modify and sell 1-2 years after the initial release. Furthermore, before 1-2 years, they should have the right to release source-code additions (but not modifications). If they make modifications, they should have to release them as binaries...they may release the source code for their modifications after the "inventors" 1-2 year license expires.
To satisfy the public's interest. Of course, the government has full access to the software, free of charge. After the 1-2 year profit-making deal given the original inventor, the work falls into public domain. Should the businesses have made modifications on that original work and sold them, the modified parts are not affected, but the non-modified parts must be public-domained.
The ultimate payback the public gets for supporting inventors little projects is to have public-domain access. The more involved the public (i.e., citizen taxdollars) are, the quicker that should come. In the case of typical software, where the public does not "donate" but does support it by paying to enforce draconian IP laws (w/c, btw, should be scaled back), the public doesn't get access soon enough [20 years for patents, life + 70 and (probably eternity, if they keep on extending it) for copyrights). For things where the public is only involved in that it protects IP, it should get public-domain access in at least 10 years.
Note, this also applies for GPLed and BSDed (free) software. The public pays to support GPLed and BSDed software by enforcing the terms of those contracts. Thus, after 10 years, the original work that was GPLed (but not the modifications) needs to fall into the public domain. The modifications should fall into public domain 10 years after their publication.
Personally, I like GPL and BSD better than public domain. But as the public does pay for GPL/BSD licenses by enforcing the terms of their contracts, even things covered under them should -- by logic -- eventually have to fall under the public domain.
Remember, an ideal world is a world where there is no intellectual property at all. GPL and BSD licenses are just a way help liberate information in a world where there is intellectual property.
For most of us here, the gov'ts electron-microscope method of determining old data is irrelevant. How many of you here think that it'll be employed against you? That said, I suppose for those of us who engage in a big-time trading of files via P2P networks, & DeCSS, etc, there's always the possibility of criminal prosecutions. So, let me go over the 3 types of "data deletion", and say where each should be used:
1. Typical deletion. Files are unlinked with their directories, so your OS does not "see" them and has more space available to write with. If the information is not sensitive, or you don't fear intrusion, this is the fastest, and also best, method of deletion. It simply changes the first character of a file name do something that your OS doesn't recognize -- a very fast process. The Advantage: data is recoverable via a data-recovery utility. The Disadvantage: the data has not been securely eliminated.
2. Simple once-sweep wipe-over deletion. Either random 1s and 0s, or wholly 1s, or wholly 0s, are written over an entire file. Use this for data that is sensitive, or where you fear cyber-intrusion by hackers. The Advantage: data is securely eliminated, beyond the reach of anyone who hacks into your computer. The Disadvantage: data is irrecoverable to you, should you realize you made a mistake, and this process is slower.
3. A multi-sweep wipe. Same as above, but many sweeps are performed, enough to make typical electron-microscopy methods of data-recovery inviable. This method effectively makes data irrecoverable by any means. Electron microscopes can detect "old zeros" by ghost-patterns, a slight trace. But if data has been written over many times, the older data is impossible to recover even by those methods. The Advantage: this method securely removes the data, beyond the reach of any technological means. The Disadvantage: this method is very slow, and again, data is irrecoverable should you learn you made a mistake.
It should be noted that whenever you want to securely delete data, not only do you need to wipe the file, but you also need to wipe your swap files and your temporary files.
So, let me summarize when each of the methods of "data-removal" should be used, starting with the strongest method (a multi-sweep wipe), and ending with the weakest method (the renaming of the first filename character to something unrecognizable):
1. A multi-sweep wipe. Use this when you have data on your computer that could be used against you in a lawsuit or prosecution. For example, certain kinds of pornography, copyrighted files, warez, and other various information that's been deemed "illegal" by the Information Police in the MPAA, RIAA, MS, and the US Gov't.
2. A single-sweep wipe. Use this for information that is sensitive, but that you need not fear should the government get ahold of. For exmaple, financial files, files containing credit-card information, etc -- anything you'd want to protect from online-hackers using data-recovery programs. The government, though draconian, has not been known to steal people's credit cards using electron-microscopy. Similarly, hackers have not the resources to use electron-microscopy to acquire your credit cards -- nor would it be worth it. However, if your a high-tech company selling your computer equipment to another company, a multi-sweep delete of your files may be necessary to protect your information from competing companies, who may have bought your machinery through another company as a front.
3. A deletion that dissociates the file from the directory (renames the 1st character). Use this for non-sensitive data. For example, stories you've written, calendars, lists, ideas, old programs, pictures, etc etc.
Hope this has been helpful -- and please, remember, if you want to securely remove sensitive data either by a single-sweep wipe (to protect it from hackers) or a multi-sweep wipe (to protect it from the government), please remember to also securely remove swap files and temporary files as well!
think we have two different perspectives here. Sure, piracy is illegal. But any technique that would supposedly prevent piracy would also prevent fair use. I'm sure the studios will be crying all the way to the bank.
Well, you know so much, so give me one good way that fair-use copying can be allowed while at the same time disallowing illegal redistribution of music and movies... didn't think so!
Well, genius, if you had read his post, you'd know that he said, quote unquote, "any technique that would prevent piracy would also prevent fair use." Yes, he said there was no way to disallow piracy without infringing on fair use rights . You simply repeated that...
However, it seems your implication is that fair use rights are not important and should be valued less than the "right" of entertainment companies to make money. This is nonsense. They have no right to make money, nor any right to prevent piracy at the expense of our rights. We have the right to fair use -- that trumps all else. They can not try to prevent piracy by infringing our right to fair use.
Of course, I don't believe in intellectual property, thus don't believe in the need to stop Information Liberation. You, apparently, do.
I'm having a really hard time believing you're a) serious, and b) not Jack Valenti.
I am serious... I just have an understanding of economics and respect for others.
Yes, indeed, I believe your serioius. As for understanding of economics, nope, you don't have that. Companies make many many movies...the odds are very strong that enough of those movies will be successes to more than offset their costs. If a company can make a profit by making a product, irrelevant of how small, they'll make it -- because they'd lose more money by not making it. Indeed, it is even true that an unprofitable company will stay in business, because the cost of going out of business is greater than the cost of staying in business. In short, companies will make something if there is a positive profit-margin...period. The government -- representing US as a society -- has the duty to impose our societal values, designed to protect us as citizens (against those companies), on those companies.
As for your "respect for others" -- nonsense. You are clearly somehow involved in the movie industry, directly or indirectly, in a way that would bias your judgement. Respect for others only occurs when there's self interest in it. Everyone is out for their own self interests -- to maximize their own self-interests. Me and other consumers, to get as much for as low a cost as possible; the movie industry, to screw us over by charing as much as possible for as little as possible.
Gracenote's lawsuit clearly had not merit and was nothing more than an attempt to shake down Roxio for some money -- namely, to continue paying them for use of CDDB. The idea is simple, fraudulant, and illegal...but it usually works, if the settlement is cheaper than the cost of legal fees. Here's how it goes:
1. Sue someone on an absolutely meritless lawsuit
2. Try to make them think you'll take it to its end, so that it will cost them a ton in legal fees.
3. Ask them for a settlement which would be less expensive to them than the legal fees they'd have to pay to defend themselves from your baseless lawsuit.
This is in short what Gracenote did. Its a very simply stategy, which needs to be exposed and eliminated. Such fraud should be made illegal with severe financial penalties. Really, its more than just fraud -- its blackmail.
WTO ultimately means enforcing the values of the rich corporate US -- which is not the majority of the US -- onto the rest of the world. If other countries don't subscribe to the US-corporate view of intellectual property, they can't join the WTO. Furthermore, aside from not being able to join the WTO, they also get sanctioned as if they were despot nations like Iraq (i.e., Ukraine being sanctioned for not enforcing intellectual property). China has enough bad despotic laws of its own -- it doesn't need any of the US' information-owning laws on top of its own bad laws.
Really, what we need to do is take the fight against intellectual property beyond the US. Because the biggest intellectual property war is the war between the US-owned WTO and nations that are not WTO members. We need to take the fight against intellectual property to nations that have the most to gain from ignoring IP, and the most to lose from enforcing it -- Russua, China, India, Eastern European nations, and even Western European nations. Russia and the Eastern European states are the best place...that's where most warez comes from, and those nations have the loosest IP laws.
So, how do we do this? Well, for one thing, you start writing more software that they can use -- i.e., file-sharing, ripping, encoding, decrypting, encrypting programs written in Russian, Chinese, and Indian. For another, we can look to nations like Russia for a quazi-model of an intellectual property system -- though even those nations have IP laws which are too strict. Furthermore, Russia presents a practical example of where intellectual property clearly harms people. If intellectual property laws were strict and enforced in Russia, their economy would be even worse, because they'd have to be paying US-based corporations.
Intellectual property is really just a way to suck even more money away from the already-poor (or at least not rich) -- be it foreign nations, or US-citizens -- to the already rich.
Simply put, their attempt to claim royalties on CD-R's and CD-RW's sold, while also putting copy protection on their music CDs, is fraudulent and an unfair business practice. If they're going to claim that they should get royalties of blank CD's sold, because those CD's can be used to create copies of their audio CD's, then they can't put copy protection on their audio CD's. Simple as that.
2 443
Not that their copy protection works anyway. Copy protection mechanisms fail when dealing with DVD drives. Furthermore, alt. OS people can always set up a minimal Win98 partition to play and rip the "copy-protected" CDs. Simply put, you play the CD and open up a program like Creative Recorder, which directly and digitally records to output of the sound card...this kind of copying cannot be gaurded against unless you don't allow the CD to be played on a computer. If record companies start preventing ppl from playing CD's on computers, they're in for big profit losses and bad publicity. No one's going to put up with that crap. No one's putting up with this copy-protection crap, either. In a previous post, I outlined a recipee for ripping their "copy-protected" CD's:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=25052&cid=272
This is clearly a good move by Bush, and we should continue in that direction. Really, there should be no restrictions on exporting any product outside of the United States that is not legal to sell within the United States.
Politics makes strange bedfellows, and your lover one day may be your killer the next. So its time we acknowledge our corporate and even political allies -- if only temporarily, and on this specific issue -- in the fight against the MPAA, RIAA, and BSA for our rights regarding fair use (and beyond) of intellectual property. This is simply about interests. Right and wrong are for the most part relative -- for some things, such as murder and rape, there is a clear right and wrong. For others, such as intellectual property, all is relative and a matter of your viewpoint. It is in our interests that we be able to trade any files we want freely.
So, here's a listof our two allies and the reasons they're our allies. They consist of the audio-hardware industry (i.e., MP3-player makers), the computer hardware industry (i.e., computer OEMs such as Gateway, Dell, IBM, etc etc), and the Hard-drive industry (which is in kept very profitable largely due to people who want to store 80GB of mp3s or wmas).
1. SonicBlue (RioVolt), Archos (Jukebox HD), Intel (Concert Audio), Apple (iPod), TDK (Mojo), and other makers of MP3-players. They are basically immune from any of the RIAA/MPAA's ridiculous attempts to pin responsibility on the makers of a product for the users actions with that product (as, I believe, if the constitution is upheld, so will software developers eventually be). It is not in their interest at all that music be solidly protected and not traded online -- in fact, this is against their interests. The MP3-player business depends on the trading of music files over the internet. Without the swapping of millions of mp3, wma, and ogg files over Morpheus and LimeWire, the companies that make MP3-players are out of business (if that's their only product) or out of one profitable market (if that's one of their products). These companies most likely will fight and fight hard on our side and against the MPAA/RIAA. Right now, most of them are keeping hands off, because business is fine for them, and we are fighting their indirect legal battle for them. But should the restriction of trading threaten their business, they'll step in.
2. Gateway, Dell, IBM, Compaq, Apple, HP, and other OEMs. Part of what supplies their business is the online world of trading. People buy computers expecting to be able to use them to trade sound and video files, and to store enormous amounts of these files on them. Without that ability, their sales will drop, as their products will be less useful. If protections are build directly into the hardware, sales will really take a hit, as people will be more likely to stick with their current systems.
3. Makers of hard drives. The fact that MP3s and WMAs are small for the amount of information they contain hasn't stopped people from obtaining huge amounts of them in GB.
These are three relatively obvious allies that I thought of off the top of my head. There may be many more. Indeed, our allies in one cause -- i.e., MP3-makers in the cause against the RIAA -- may be our foes in another (i.e., the right to modify their firmware software and distribute the modifications). However, that is not relevant. You use and rally people and organizations where they help you; where they don't, you fight against them. It is up to us to figure out who should be our allies for for obvious profit-margin reasons and alert them to the reality of how their interest lies in supporting us.
In response to this, please feel free to comment on any of the 3 allies I mentioned and add some of your own.
Hurray! Yet another unnecessary and useless way to make programs even more bloated!
Now, not only can we have little comic-book like "help assistants" which run around your screen, cheerfully ask you to enter a question, and then display some goofy animation that's meant to be more amusing than functional, now we also get to have a password program which clogs up RAM and slows down boot time.
Is it really too difficult to ask people to remember a few simple passwords? Heck, they can even write them down on a sheet of paper to help them remember.
As I've said before, we do not need any features to make operating systems easier to use. Windows, MacOSX, BeOS, and now even Unix' (beyond the initial installation) are intuitive and can easily be figured out. Perhaps the slight difficult associated with OS' should serve as a barrier to keep those too lazy or dumb to learn a few basics away from complicated machinery -- after all, anyone who can't sit down at Windows, MacOS, BeOS, or even a Linux desktop and figure out how to use it is clearly a few brain cell short of an amoeba. Wouldn't want to make those people think too much!
Look, just because new computers make it possible to add new and more graphical features doesn't mean you should add them! Is it really necessary for "ease of use" to have a little "Help assistant" as MS has in MS Word? No, it is not. The Help menu is unmistakenably visible. Now that doesn't mean you shouldn't add graphics where they increase functionality, as MacOSX has done. The glassy and gradiated menus which appear to pop out of the screen add to functionality because they clearly separate different components of the GUI.
For example, look at an Aqua theme under themes.org (note: If you want to understand the rest of my comment, you probably should look at this link):
Aqua Theme
I'll tell you the good and the bad about this theme, where the aqua glassy gradiation helps and where it is irrelevant. In the XMMS Window, the Aqua gradiation clearly distinguishes the backwards/play/pause/stop/forward section of the player. This is useful as these are major functions of any sound player. However, the penguin to the right of the image is just a useless graphic. As for the stratiated horizontal white/gray bands going accross this and every other window, which is typical of MacOSX, this is useless in terms of functionality, and should be removed. For functionality, the background should simply be a pure white, light gray, or light blue, or perhaps a dark blue or black for contrast. If you want to have any background graphics on this window, you should have a gradiating darkness around the edges, to make it appear to be bulging out, and clearly demarkate the termination of the window. As for the red, yellow, and green buttons in the upper right hand corner, the color distinction is useful for recognition, but does not help one figure out what the functions are initially; there should be slight pictures within the jelly-bean buttons to demakate what their functions are. As for the text in this window, while it looks nice, it is hardly functionaly. For example, the "Equalizer" is hard to read because it is block-typed. I'll end my criticism and commentary of this particular aqua sheme at that.
I've remarked on one example, but this is what developers should be asking of every feature and every inch of their program before they release it. If they have a graphical feature, does it really contribute to usability? Are start-up screens really necessary, or just a waste of CPU cycles? What about the logos you typically see in the corners of programs -- useful, or just a waste of space and of RAM, which slightly increase load time, without offering any benefits? In limewire, is that little Lime logo really necessary? Even in Linux, are the brand logos in programs necessary? Come on, we all know what program we have and who made it -- no need to advertise. Yes, it does look cool the first time we open the program, and it looks neat when your advertising, but as you use the program more and more, it becomes and annoyance. At hte least, the ability to remove such useless graphics should be added.
What I am proposing is an analysis of graphical features beyond, "that looks cool", or "that's pretty", or "that's neat". Cool, pretty, and neat are all fine and dandy -- but they shouldn't be the reason for adding a graphic to your program. Approach graphical interfaces the same way you approach language, or try to. Firstly, it should be functional; secondly, it should be clear; thirdly, it should be precise and minimal in nature to serve that function (i.e., for a button, making it larger increases its utility to its function, up to a certain point, beyond which it becomes annoying and distracting); fourthly, it should be pretty and elegant.
Another area where we disagree is on the punishment of physical crimes (i.e., direct action) v. non-physical ones (i.e., indirect action through a computer). There is a certain distance that a computer and the internet creates between action, motivation, consequence, and the sponsor of the action -- an even greater distance than is created by a car. Namely, the internet depersonalizes crimes, and separates the mind from considerations of the victim. This can be observed simply by entering a chat room...in real life, would you really say, "F*** Y** Y** F***ing a**hole" to someone who made a comment you disagree with? No, it would normally be out of the question. However, in a chat room, depending on the mood of the chatter, it can be almost spontaneous. A similar situation is created for online credit card theft v. physical world credit cart theft. If you hold someone up and steal their credit card, you have to see their faces, and are directly confronted with the affect of your action on the victims. However, if you electronically jack someone's credit card, you are barely confronted with your actions at all. It is just one IP number sending a digitally encrypted string.
I am not saying that this makes any difference from the victims point of view. The victim, in all cases, should be reimbersed. In most cases, the victim is protected from financial liability, however, and the real victim is the credit card company. I am not saying that we should not take these crimes seriously, but just that they should be differently classified from their real world counterparts. Acts committed in "road rage" are given a legally different classification than other acts, and for similar reasons, so should acts committed on computers.
We should stand up against this kind of nonsense. It is little more than the industry trying to brainwash our kids to believe in their warped way of thinking.
Most of us here are young, and we, not the sickly old men that sit in CEO positions at music companies, are the future. We should teach our children ideals that will propel this nation beyond the dated zero sum game of economics that's been played for ages. We should teach them that information should be freely available to all, that US citizens rights should be respected, irrelevant of their differences, or the consequences of doing such, or "national security concerns".
Undermining the traditional system in the "real world" -- where politicians say that rights are important, but then disrespect and ignore them (i.e., Katie Sierra, who was prevented from wearing an anti-war T-shirt at school; Brandi Blackbear, who was suspended from school for "casting a spell on a teacher") -- will require resolve, disobedience, and awareness.
To undermine the traditional intellectual property system is something of slightly another matter, because its more convenient and easy. I do not propose that we take the moral high road, as Martin Luther King did when he fought racism by peaceful protests, and by allowing police to brutalize him. I suggest we take the path taken by Malcom X -- violent disobediance. Get roudy. Here's my recipe to undermine intellectual property:
(1) Support open-sourced software, or "open-information". Support it namely by using it, wherever possible, in place of closed-sourced software or information.
(2) Support "free" software or information, which is different from "open" software or information. This is software or information which is freely obtainable, but in which the source is closed. Normally, these endeavers are supported either by ads or by promotions for the "full product".
(3) If you use "free" software or information, don't support the sponsors economic endeavers by upgrading to the "full" product or watching their ads. If you want the full product, find a hack, or download a crack -- either a warez version or a crack for some serial numbers to be entered. If its ad-based, don't support the ads.
(4) To avoid supporting ads -- remember, we need to undermine the current zero-sum economic system as well -- create a HOSTS file for your browser. As a reply to this message, I'll post my HOSTS file. Disable animations or sounds from your browser -- many ads come in such form. If there's an ad-based program, like LimeWire, try to block the ads by deleting the file that might be responsible. If not, try to find a crack to block the ads. For LimeWire, since its open-sourced, this should be easy -- surely, someone must have released a patch to remove the ads. If you cannot remove the ads, simply ignore them. NEVER buy anything based off an internet AD. That support the ad-system which clogs our bandwidth.
(5) If you must get a commercial product, there are still ways to avoid supporting commercial endeavers. i. You can try to find warez for the product you want. Search the web from google.com. This is hard, because very few warez sites actually offer software -- most are just fronts for advertisements and porno. You can also try searching from a P2P program, like LimeWire. ii. Sometimes, a retailer will allow you to return a product even after its been opened. So open up the CD package and copy it. If it has copy-protection, you can try making a 1:1 copy by CloneCD.
(6) For textual information -- i.e., books, textbooks, scientific papers published, etc. If possible, offer these in pure format -- i.e., a PDF file or html file -- if you can overcome copy-protection. Otherwise, transcribe them. If only each person transcribes one book, out of every 10, that's millions of books you have online. You don't have to do it all at once. Many of you are very adept typists, and this should be no problem. I've found many transcribed books on LimeWire...even a copy of Crichton's "Jurassic Park".
(7) Most obviously, publicly protest against the intellectual property system.
Hope you found this helpful...
If you break into a computer and steal a piece of information, it should be treated as robbery, as well as a violation of privacy. However, it can only be treated as a privacy violation if you're breaking into a personal, not corporate or government, computer. The government and corporations are not person's, and have no expectation of privacy. And there is a difference between computer crimes and their physical world counterparts. Breaking into a computer does not necessarily do the system any harm, unlike breaking into a house, which means the door will be broken down. Furthermore, a system per se is not a physical place from the perspective of the person breaking in. You can hardly attach the same seriousness to breaking into a computer system as to breaking into a house. Compare the types of people who break into houses and the types of people who break into computers: Do you really think some hacker should be sitting in jail for 10 years next to some guy who held up a bank at gun-point?
I. If a person simply breaks into a system, that should be treated like breaking-and-entering, as well as a privacy violation, but less seriously, because no physical aspect is involved; it certainly should not carry a felony status: misdemeaner at most.
II. If a person breaks into a system and takes information, this should be treated as (1) Breaking-and-entering, as mentioned before; (2) A privacy violation; (3) An act of theft, though again treated less seriously than the theft of physical property, as it does not deny the owner possession.
III. If a person breaks into a system does the same as in II, and then destroys that system before leaving, this should be treated identically as II, with the added penalty of destruction of property. This offense should be treated seriously, as it denies the owner the use of their property...the owner should be entitled to remimbursement, and the encroaching individual should be imprisoned under typical destruction-of-property laws, the same one's as would apply if someone smashed up your car. In this case, physical property has been ruined and made useless. This only should carry a felony status.
You've said that computer encroachments should be treated the same as their physical world counterparts several times, yet you have not provided one ounce of reasoning to support that assertion, and I've disputed it as above. Saying something over and over again does not make it true or reasonable. As for my example of speeding, it is very reasonable -- speeding ENDANGERS people's lives...it can lead to vehicular manslaughter. As for cracking, that doesn't pose one ounce of physical threat to any individual. Again, think about the type of people who are crackers...they're typically teenagers, or computer-experts, who sit in front of their computer all day. They typically have very little physical attributes. It is unlikely that they would be willing or able to physically hurt anyone. Do you really want to send these people to jail for hard time to be raped up the ass by some guy named Joe?