AOL says that since it will control the network, it can protect users from the sorts of viruses and spyware that infect other peer-to-peer systems.
Sounds like a challenge to me.
AOL is using file-sharing technology from Kontiki, a Silicon Valley company providing a similar system to the ambitious Internet video program of the BBC.
That's odd, I remember Kontiki working off of caching, which means that part of the copyrighted video would be actually stored on client's computers.
The Kontiki Delivery Grid dynamically optimizes delivery from many PCs and media servers by caching content at the very edge of the network. This creates network efficiency gains of 10 to 25 times over traditional approaches.
It also brings legality into question for other distribution mechanisms, I would think. If Kontiki is legal, how would caching a bittorrent for an episode of "Lost" be any different?
IANAL, but I'm very interested in this, because while I understand that the producers of Lost grant only ABC distribution rights, then obviously it's not the mechanism, but the individual violation that is at fault. In other words, the success of Kontiki would basically ensure that Bittorrent would continue to be a legal distribution method, even if the content being distributed itself was not. Right?
While I'm not aware of any specific attacks on Bittorrent's legality, I know that it has been questioned before. We just had some legal cases with Grokster and others that even now have on their webpages that there is such a thing as "unauthorized peer-to-peer services". If Bittorrent is one of these, then why is Kontiki be considered not one?
Re:In 1918, the young and healthy were dead by nig
on
A Flu Pandemic?
·
· Score: 1
Mod parent up, mod grand parent down.
That's why older people faired better in 1918. They hadn't seen the same strain, but they had seen enough variety that they had a stronger initial response than their younger peers.
This is inaccurate. The believed cause of twenty and thirty year-olds dying in larger numbers is because of dead tissue buildup in the lungs. This tissue buildup, believed to have happened quickly because their immune systems were stronger, prevented them from breathing, and they died. But even this isn't certain. And the young and old didn't fare especially well here:
The death curves were W-shaped, with peaks for the babies and toddlers under age 5, the elderly who were aged 70 to 74, and people aged 20 to 40.
I think it was like Gateway vs. Phoenix or Compaq or something like that where it was found that reverse-engineering software was not illegal. I also don't think reverse-engineering hardware is illegal either, but building something might break patent law.
Now, the US stands to benefit from controlling a global resource
For example, how?
That's the one reason why I never got involved in the argument. Half our politicians are idiots when it comes to the Internet, and it's not like the technicians that know the stuff are speaking down to the politician's level.
Here's a sample conversation: Politician: "Why kan't we jist block all the kiddie porn on dat dere intar-web?" Technician: "Well, that's an interesting proposition. Supposing that we... TCP & UDP, as well as ICMP... JPG or GIF, compressed with such newer models as 7zip... (INSERT RANDOM NEW ACRONYM)... Otherwise, yes, it is possible, but very improbable." Politician: "I lost ya at supposin'. Hmmph. Nebermind."
Granted, there are some exceptions, but that's the problem with politics in baby boomer, genx, and millenium generations: everyone thinks they are an expert on everything. We need to start having politicians say things like: "I don't know" and "I'm not knowlegeable enough on that subject to comment."
The US, specifically, would be a better place if people just stuck to what they actually knew and didn't purport to know everything. Now, in no way is this limited to the US, but most of the people I know here have opinions on topics they know absolutely nothing about.
Yeah, I quit for similar reasons: I already owned Tribes 2, and it had no monthly fee.
Granted, PS was different from Tribes 2 in more than one way, but the *feel* of the game made it similar enough that I couldn't justify $15/month of $12.95 or whatever it was at the time.
I still liked and like it, but I can't justify a monthly fee for massively multiplayer Tribes 2. I've heard it better labeled a MMOFPS, but I used MMORPG because it fit.
On a related note, SWG looks like it is going to be a MMOFPS here soon. I don't know how they can do this with the horrible lag, but, oh well.
If Warden attempts to scan the "$sys$DRMServer.exe" to do an MD5 hash of it and determine if it is a legit Sony executable or one removed/modified by a cheater, they are circumventing the DMCA. Of course, the user has to agree to the installation of the rootkit, which as far as I know, is installed without user permission anyway.
This REALLY gets involved when you consider that Sony has 4+ MMORPG games (Star Wars Galaxies, Planetside, EverQuest, EverQuest 2) that are of varying levels of competition to World of Warcraft.
I originally mentioned this news on the last Sony DRM rootkit post here.
You are already double taxed. You pay 30% or so, and your employers pays that same amount for their taxes on you. The only reason you don't see it is because they are required by law to take it on as a tax of their own.
Sony could be held liable in a class-action lawsuit. Anyone can design a virus and name it "$sys$" now, and AV software won't be able to detect it if this rootkit is installed. An IM worm could use this naming scheme, only infect a few thousand people, and the news would report, "SONY's DRM software used to hide latest virus". It'd be a horrible blow, and they'd totally deserve it. I still think we'll see a virus/worm that does this before the end of this month.
"Despite the seriousness of the Bush White House, more than one Bush staffer reads The Onion and enjoys it thoroughly," he said. "We do have a sense of humor, believe it or not."
He went on to state that the White House staffer that found it is actually a closet libertarian, doesn't really like Bush, and kept shaking his head when his supervisor insisted they "look more into this satan-worshipping-pinko-commie-hippie-website".
Re:Source of creation, or evolution?
on
The Los Alamos Bug
·
· Score: 0, Flamebait
Does this experiment do anything to address that question? Do biologists have any ideas on how it happened?
Abiogenesis is a hypothesis that stated that life may be able to be made from non-life. This, of course, goes against the Laws of Biogenesis, and is a fundamental tenet of Atheism. While having never been observed, it is claimed to be falsifiable, scientists just keep trying and believe that one day they'll eventually "get it".
What it says: Microsoft Reference License (Ms-RL) -- The Ms-RL is a reference-only license that allows licensees to view source code in order to gain a deeper understanding of the inner workings of a Microsoft technology. It does not allow for modification or redistribution. This license is used primarily for technologies such as development libraries.
What it means: Microsoft Reference License (Ms-RL) -- The Ms-RL is an open invitation to a future lawsuit. You get to look at our code, and we get to sue your ass when you create something that does a similar function. Since we will have proof of who has viewed our code from user registrations, we'll start scanning open source community websites for names of those users here in a few years. If you can't pay us, it's okay, we'll just take over your project for you.
Yeah, I believe that Microsoft will work its way out of the rut its in. I do think that Ballmer isn't likely to be the one to pull it out of it, though. I mean, this is a guy that is the longest Microsoft employee. He's too afraid when things get worse to try totally new ideas, and understandably so.
I think it's likely that he may pass off the company to someone that *can* revive it. We'll have to see.
I suspect that there are more "former Microsoft employees" than there are "current Microsoft employees."
But isn't that the breaking point then?
Think of it like this. Microsoft has, for two decades now, shown itself as the bright younge upstart. But the truth is they are coming to maturity now. They aren't "cool" anymore. iPods are "cool". Facebook is "cool". Google is "cool". Microsoft is like the youngest uncle at the family renions, too young to know that he's too old to be hanging out with the kids anymore.
IMHO we're likely to see Ballmer have a heart attack or other adverse health issue during a promotional gig (don't laugh, remember how he required vocal chord surgery after yelling Windows?) and shareholders will ask him to step down for safety concerns. His problem is that he doesn't realize what Microsoft is. IBM didn't realize who it was till Lou Gerstner defined it.
With all these individuals leaving Microsoft for open source or other commercial ventures, does anyone suspect maybe there is about to be a shareholder shakeup of upper-level management? It would appear to me that Microsoft has gotten far too rigid, top-heavy, and doesn't provide autonomy at the development level anymore. Anyone else get the same idea based on the staff that are leaving?
You won't either. The ninth amendment has been interepretted to mean privacy sort of, but no where does it explicitly state that citizens have a right to privacy. I don't think that's what the issue is, though.
Think about it, why should it be coming down to personal rights? Why can it be small business (ISP) rights? They obviously didn't want to turn the name over, so why should they have to?
Personally, I think it'd be great if there were no constitutional right to anonymity and instead we just started enforcing (and judges started ruling on) the laws we already have.
If some company subpeonas an ISP for their records there should be a mandatory ruling and it should be final for each and every instance unless a clear case can be established that the situation is different. Case law is like this, but for some reason we still get these idiotic lawsuits where one company sue another. This only happens in a society of "laws". Eventually 9/10ths the planet will be lawyers, and yet none of them will be wise.
So I wonder how long until we can expect to see a similar service from Microsoft.
You won't, Microsoft doesn't understand the hoopla around AJAX.
In fact, most people don't, which is why only a few companies are going to be major players in this market. I actually kind of thought Sun was too old and stoic to do anything along these lines, but maybe I'm wrong.
I memorized my Social Security Number when I was 16. Recording it sounds like the stupidest idea ever. If someone *really* needs proof of who you are, the fact that you can recall the number from your head should be enough. Otherwise, just tell the government who you are and get a new card. It's not rocket science.
The solution to the problem isn't legislation, it's litigation. The problem is that the people that do phishing aren't usually from the U.S. In fact, I would even go so far as to say that only maybe 1% of phishers even live in California. And that's probably stretching it.
Really, if you want to solve the problem of phising, what better/easier way than to remove the stupid social security number (SS#) from existence? People are worried about identity theft of credit card numbers(CC#) and we have a NATIONAL ID CARD proposal? Sounds kind of ridiculous to me.
I know a lot of you really probably don't know the technicalities of phishing, but the only reason why identity theft is an issue is because of the holy grail of all numbers, the SS#. If I get someone's SS#, it's better than a CC#, because now I can register a CC# under their name and SS#. If you think that phishers do what they do to get a CC#, you're wrong. The SS# is what many of them are *really* after.
The one thing I never had to question Microsoft was the privacy aspects of their business. Google, on the other hand, basically standardized the permanent cookie. Every time a search is done, they log the search, cookie id, IP, and timestamp. This provides authorities with far more than you can imagine, and Google has never answered the question of subpeonas.
Slashdot Mirror
AOL says that since it will control the network, it can protect users from the sorts of viruses and spyware that infect other peer-to-peer systems.
Sounds like a challenge to me.
AOL is using file-sharing technology from Kontiki, a Silicon Valley company providing a similar system to the ambitious Internet video program of the BBC.
That's odd, I remember Kontiki working off of caching, which means that part of the copyrighted video would be actually stored on client's computers.
From:
http://www.kontiki.com/technology/index.html
The Kontiki Delivery Grid dynamically optimizes delivery from many PCs and media servers by caching content at the very edge of the network. This creates network efficiency gains of 10 to 25 times over traditional approaches.
It also brings legality into question for other distribution mechanisms, I would think. If Kontiki is legal, how would caching a bittorrent for an episode of "Lost" be any different?
IANAL, but I'm very interested in this, because while I understand that the producers of Lost grant only ABC distribution rights, then obviously it's not the mechanism, but the individual violation that is at fault. In other words, the success of Kontiki would basically ensure that Bittorrent would continue to be a legal distribution method, even if the content being distributed itself was not. Right?
While I'm not aware of any specific attacks on Bittorrent's legality, I know that it has been questioned before. We just had some legal cases with Grokster and others that even now have on their webpages that there is such a thing as "unauthorized peer-to-peer services". If Bittorrent is one of these, then why is Kontiki be considered not one?
That's why older people faired better in 1918. They hadn't seen the same strain, but they had seen enough variety that they had a stronger initial response than their younger peers.
This is inaccurate. The believed cause of twenty and thirty year-olds dying in larger numbers is because of dead tissue buildup in the lungs. This tissue buildup, believed to have happened quickly because their immune systems were stronger, prevented them from breathing, and they died. But even this isn't certain. And the young and old didn't fare especially well here:
I think it was like Gateway vs. Phoenix or Compaq or something like that where it was found that reverse-engineering software was not illegal. I also don't think reverse-engineering hardware is illegal either, but building something might break patent law.
I shouldn't have to say this, but your statement announcing you are "a woman" on Slashdot is akin to saying you're available and looking.
So stating "I already have a boyfriend" only indicates to the rest of us that you're looking for a geekier one than you already have.
Now, the US stands to benefit from controlling a global resource
For example, how?
That's the one reason why I never got involved in the argument. Half our politicians are idiots when it comes to the Internet, and it's not like the technicians that know the stuff are speaking down to the politician's level.
Here's a sample conversation:
Politician: "Why kan't we jist block all the kiddie porn on dat dere intar-web?"
Technician: "Well, that's an interesting proposition. Supposing that we... TCP & UDP, as well as ICMP... JPG or GIF, compressed with such newer models as 7zip... (INSERT RANDOM NEW ACRONYM)... Otherwise, yes, it is possible, but very improbable."
Politician: "I lost ya at supposin'. Hmmph. Nebermind."
Granted, there are some exceptions, but that's the problem with politics in baby boomer, genx, and millenium generations: everyone thinks they are an expert on everything. We need to start having politicians say things like: "I don't know" and "I'm not knowlegeable enough on that subject to comment."
The US, specifically, would be a better place if people just stuck to what they actually knew and didn't purport to know everything. Now, in no way is this limited to the US, but most of the people I know here have opinions on topics they know absolutely nothing about.
Yeah, I quit for similar reasons: I already owned Tribes 2, and it had no monthly fee.
Granted, PS was different from Tribes 2 in more than one way, but the *feel* of the game made it similar enough that I couldn't justify $15/month of $12.95 or whatever it was at the time.
I still liked and like it, but I can't justify a monthly fee for massively multiplayer Tribes 2. I've heard it better labeled a MMOFPS, but I used MMORPG because it fit.
On a related note, SWG looks like it is going to be a MMOFPS here soon. I don't know how they can do this with the horrible lag, but, oh well.
Actually it's newsworthy for more than just that.
If Warden attempts to scan the "$sys$DRMServer.exe" to do an MD5 hash of it and determine if it is a legit Sony executable or one removed/modified by a cheater, they are circumventing the DMCA. Of course, the user has to agree to the installation of the rootkit, which as far as I know, is installed without user permission anyway.
This REALLY gets involved when you consider that Sony has 4+ MMORPG games (Star Wars Galaxies, Planetside, EverQuest, EverQuest 2) that are of varying levels of competition to World of Warcraft.
I originally mentioned this news on the last Sony DRM rootkit post here.
You are already double taxed. You pay 30% or so, and your employers pays that same amount for their taxes on you. The only reason you don't see it is because they are required by law to take it on as a tax of their own.
Parent is misinformation and wholly inaccurate. Why is it still modded 5?
Plus, it doesn't even cover other people that can get your personal info (without having anything to do with lawyers or cops).
Sony could be held liable in a class-action lawsuit. Anyone can design a virus and name it "$sys$" now, and AV software won't be able to detect it if this rootkit is installed. An IM worm could use this naming scheme, only infect a few thousand people, and the news would report, "SONY's DRM software used to hide latest virus". It'd be a horrible blow, and they'd totally deserve it. I still think we'll see a virus/worm that does this before the end of this month.
On a related note: World of Warcraft hackers are now using Sony's DRM rootkit to hide from "the Warden". I tried to submit this as a standalone story, but since I saw this DRM news update, I figured I'd post it here.
Is Sony aiding and abetting cheaters?
"Despite the seriousness of the Bush White House, more than one Bush staffer reads The Onion and enjoys it thoroughly," he said. "We do have a sense of humor, believe it or not."
He went on to state that the White House staffer that found it is actually a closet libertarian, doesn't really like Bush, and kept shaking his head when his supervisor insisted they "look more into this satan-worshipping-pinko-commie-hippie-website".
Does this experiment do anything to address that question? Do biologists have any ideas on how it happened?
Abiogenesis is a hypothesis that stated that life may be able to be made from non-life. This, of course, goes against the Laws of Biogenesis, and is a fundamental tenet of Atheism. While having never been observed, it is claimed to be falsifiable, scientists just keep trying and believe that one day they'll eventually "get it".
You're right about the 'humor aside'; it could be argued that intelligence has yet to be created.
What it says:
Microsoft Reference License (Ms-RL) -- The Ms-RL is a reference-only license that allows licensees to view source code in order to gain a deeper understanding of the inner workings of a Microsoft technology. It does not allow for modification or redistribution. This license is used primarily for technologies such as development libraries.
What it means:
Microsoft Reference License (Ms-RL) -- The Ms-RL is an open invitation to a future lawsuit. You get to look at our code, and we get to sue your ass when you create something that does a similar function. Since we will have proof of who has viewed our code from user registrations, we'll start scanning open source community websites for names of those users here in a few years. If you can't pay us, it's okay, we'll just take over your project for you.
Yeah, I believe that Microsoft will work its way out of the rut its in. I do think that Ballmer isn't likely to be the one to pull it out of it, though. I mean, this is a guy that is the longest Microsoft employee. He's too afraid when things get worse to try totally new ideas, and understandably so.
I think it's likely that he may pass off the company to someone that *can* revive it. We'll have to see.
I suspect that there are more "former Microsoft employees" than there are "current Microsoft employees."
But isn't that the breaking point then?
Think of it like this. Microsoft has, for two decades now, shown itself as the bright younge upstart. But the truth is they are coming to maturity now. They aren't "cool" anymore. iPods are "cool". Facebook is "cool". Google is "cool". Microsoft is like the youngest uncle at the family renions, too young to know that he's too old to be hanging out with the kids anymore.
IMHO we're likely to see Ballmer have a heart attack or other adverse health issue during a promotional gig (don't laugh, remember how he required vocal chord surgery after yelling Windows?) and shareholders will ask him to step down for safety concerns. His problem is that he doesn't realize what Microsoft is. IBM didn't realize who it was till Lou Gerstner defined it.
With all these individuals leaving Microsoft for open source or other commercial ventures, does anyone suspect maybe there is about to be a shareholder shakeup of upper-level management? It would appear to me that Microsoft has gotten far too rigid, top-heavy, and doesn't provide autonomy at the development level anymore. Anyone else get the same idea based on the staff that are leaving?
From the horses's mouth:
http://namb.la/popular/tech.html
Not likely.
http://www.google.com/apis/maps/
Google retains the right to put advertising on the map in the future.
You won't either. The ninth amendment has been interepretted to mean privacy sort of, but no where does it explicitly state that citizens have a right to privacy. I don't think that's what the issue is, though.
Think about it, why should it be coming down to personal rights? Why can it be small business (ISP) rights? They obviously didn't want to turn the name over, so why should they have to?
Personally, I think it'd be great if there were no constitutional right to anonymity and instead we just started enforcing (and judges started ruling on) the laws we already have.
If some company subpeonas an ISP for their records there should be a mandatory ruling and it should be final for each and every instance unless a clear case can be established that the situation is different. Case law is like this, but for some reason we still get these idiotic lawsuits where one company sue another. This only happens in a society of "laws". Eventually 9/10ths the planet will be lawyers, and yet none of them will be wise.
So I wonder how long until we can expect to see a similar service from Microsoft.
You won't, Microsoft doesn't understand the hoopla around AJAX.
In fact, most people don't, which is why only a few companies are going to be major players in this market. I actually kind of thought Sun was too old and stoic to do anything along these lines, but maybe I'm wrong.
I memorized my Social Security Number when I was 16. Recording it sounds like the stupidest idea ever. If someone *really* needs proof of who you are, the fact that you can recall the number from your head should be enough. Otherwise, just tell the government who you are and get a new card. It's not rocket science.
The solution to the problem isn't legislation, it's litigation. The problem is that the people that do phishing aren't usually from the U.S. In fact, I would even go so far as to say that only maybe 1% of phishers even live in California. And that's probably stretching it.
Really, if you want to solve the problem of phising, what better/easier way than to remove the stupid social security number (SS#) from existence? People are worried about identity theft of credit card numbers(CC#) and we have a NATIONAL ID CARD proposal? Sounds kind of ridiculous to me.
I know a lot of you really probably don't know the technicalities of phishing, but the only reason why identity theft is an issue is because of the holy grail of all numbers, the SS#. If I get someone's SS#, it's better than a CC#, because now I can register a CC# under their name and SS#. If you think that phishers do what they do to get a CC#, you're wrong. The SS# is what many of them are *really* after.
I've heard people say that all we need is the Golden Rule: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."
But I don't like it. Why? Because the Golden Rule implies that action is a far honorable stance than inaction.
Instead, the Golden Rule should have been this: "Don't do unto others as you would not have them do unto you."
Humanity has paid dearly because of this mistake.
Also, JFK got it wrong too: "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country."
He should have said: "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for yourself."
People need to be given the freedom back to make mistakes, no matter how harmful the effects on themselves.
The one thing I never had to question Microsoft was the privacy aspects of their business. Google, on the other hand, basically standardized the permanent cookie. Every time a search is done, they log the search, cookie id, IP, and timestamp. This provides authorities with far more than you can imagine, and Google has never answered the question of subpeonas.