I love these debates. First off.. isn't smut to you -- but it might be smut to concerned parents not wishing their young children to see naked women. CAse in point. The Poseidon Adventure where a local christian home schooling group 'clothed' the naked Poseidon that was standing near a convention center they were attending. The main quote -- and principal fact we must remember here is.. "What is art in one person's eye is not art in another's,".
If this is deemed offensive, what makes you think other art that incorporates nudity or perhaps other potentially questionable content wont' be silenced? How do we know the Venus DeMilo won't be categorized in the.sex TLD?
I still like the solution of creating a.sex (or whatever you want to call it) and requiring any porn companies in the US to house their domain there.
The problem with making a.sex TLD is that you make it far too -easy- to regulate. Entire countries could just outlaw.sex without a blink. THe way legislation is passed in the US, we could have it effectively blocked, and upheld in the courts, as unprotected speech. Because it would encompass _ALL_ pornography, the courts wouldn't have to differentiate. Period.
As much as I don't necessarily dig porn, meshing it in with everything else on the net preserves its right to be a sought medium. If you set it as a.sex, you take away that right. And that, flat out is wrong. Whether you dig porn or not.
ITs apparent they don't work to protect the moral sensibilities of the individuals they're supposedly protecting -- but rather they censor according to the company's agenda.. THis has been openly admitted by at least cyberpatrol and probably is very similar with many others.
Why people would think its anythign else is beyond me. Every time I read these articles I tend to shiver, and then sigh. Shiver because this stuff is popular, and sigh because most people are clueless about the true motives.
You don't want your kid looking at smut? Turn off MTV. You don't want your daughter becoming a devil worshiper? Try instilling a religion You don't want your son smoking pot? Teach him what it does to you.
Something is seriously wrong when you allow technology to be the parent. Nuff said.
I love the net.
Independent labels are EASY to find if you know where to look.. college record stores area sure bet, as well as any record outlet that sells non-mainstream music. But just in case, I found a few websites that have a generous list of non-RIAA record labels.
Whatever happened to capitalism? If companies want to spy on this, that's their right; if we don't like them doing this, we simply don't have to give them any of our money. Don't like doubleclick.net? Don't visit any sites with doubleclick.net advertisemenets -- if enough people do it, dc.net will be forced to change its policies to get any business. It's called freedom, and it's what capitalism is all about.
Here's what I figure. First off the government isn't getting that invovled (I can't believe i'm arguing for the government). They want to do the self-regulatory thang for awhile. The FTC only begins suing the pants off the fools once they go overboard. I think if anything this might be a step in the right direction. Could you imagine being able to sue for misuse of information by advertisers (a la Doubleclick). The FTC is providing a mechanism of protection, and a strong arm if you will to keep the Advertisers on their toes.
Now here's something more corrupt than I'm used to...
Imagine that the government can be bought and sold with the advertising information. The regulatory recourse provided by the FTC is bought for the superior collection capabilities of the Advertising scum. Sort of like the mob and local governments, but sooo much worse. That is far worse a thing to fear than the FTC recognizing that marketers are effil and doing something about it when they go too far.
Far more humorous would be to create the 'ideal' middle grounder -- you know.. white male, 25-50, middle class owns a home a dog, goes out 2.5 nights a week... in otherwords, the statistical average human, and when the cookie mixer got your cookie, it simply replaced it with the statistical average. All the marketing scum would see is millions of the average... It sure would make the charts interesting:)
These people should be called what they are, digital grafitti artists with nothing better to do
Don't you think its depreciatory and negative image of young people? Doesn't matter if you call them a script kiddie or a digital graffiti artist or a blue llama of doom. You're still assigning a category and still making a label. Its like the whole debate between classifying crackers and hackers together. Separating the good from the bad and just lumping the bad in a new name category.
Full disclosure helps, but in some cases is too extreme, does source code for a particular exploit really need to be published? In reality, when an exploit surfaces, it should be publicised, but not in detail. This would give reputable companies time to fix it (presuming the finder gave details to the company and perhaps a handful of reputable security experts who might be able to create a workaround plus IDS fingerprints).
The big question for me is: Who are the reputable Handful? When you limit it to some arbitrary number, decided by whoever finds the bug, you have different gradients of information in the field. THat is, some know, and others don't. You leave it to be a judgement call, and everyone gets screwed over in the process.
Then you said...
DoS'ing, cracking, exploiting, rooting, sniffing should all be classified as illegal, and penalties must be established. Although the cost of tracking down perpetrators is high, the increasing number of these l337 scr1p7 k1dd13s is only going to cause more and more financial loss, especially as the Internet becomes more ingrained in society.
Fine, all well and good as long as you can adequately measure 'Malicious'. All Rooting, sniffing and exploiting is not always malicious. Hell, Security folks who find vulnerabilities would be out of work. The boys and girls who find the bugs in the first place would be incarcerated. (That would at least solve your security-holes-for-the-script-kiddies problem.) Malicious is all dependent on the act and who's view you're looking at. I may scan someone's box without malicious intent, but they may think its terribly intrusive and serving only a sinister plan.
[what do you do with people who violate the unwritten rules? You can (a) pursue legal action, but that's difficult and *time consuming*; the legal system doesn't work on internet time --- and you may not even be able to identify the guy without going after him. You can (b) apply social sanctions --- but the 'script kiddies' aren't part of our social order; they respond to different pressures and rules, and our social sanctions are *useless* against them.]
Script kiddie Jail?:-)... Seriously though. I wonder how much of the separation does it to them? I mean, the philosophical question always comes back to 'Are the insane really as insane as we categorize them to be?'... 'Are the script kiddies really as evil/stupid/wastes/fillin the bad name as e categorize them to be? Its really funny. In the computer world, they're separated. They're like unwanted stepchildren. But in the real world, where the masses get the info from media outlets that lump us alltogether, there is no clear separation.
Incidentally, what are our social sanctions? I mean the ones that work... We flame people we don't like, but very rarely do they change. Doesn't matter if they're a script kiddie or a Troll. Maybe we should find a way to assign Script kiddie and barcode it to their forehead...
You can (c) retaliate and take them out; or you can
(d) ignore them and keep being victimized]
You forgot one... You can get smarter. If they're really the low class cretins that everyone attributes them to be, keep working on ways to beat them. Security, forethought, understanding the machine you operate, etc. Information is power, and it beats the heck out of being ignorant.
Everytime I see a DOS (to any site) it makes me cringe. Not because I have a emphatic feeling about that site in general, but its the same cringe that I get when someone gets killed. It's the loss of life . People fail to respect, and above all, fail to take responsibiltiy for the actions they directly cause. Ours is now a society taht has degenerated into a lethargy of responsibiltiy and respect. ITs a damn scary thing. SOmeone, somewhere out there has now congragulated themselves on something they consider to be good. REgardless of the fact that they
1. Haven't made a point.
2. Haven't illustrated a problem.
3. And haven't done anything more than aggrivate many people,
they still feel good about their action. There is no appreciation for the efforts, and above all no respect for anyone.
But it doesn't stop with them. As I was scanning down the list, I was saddened again. Retaliation, spite and 'I'm going to _____ your ____' seemed to be large percentages of the responses. Its no better. And its scary to thing that this is the way the computer world (often) gets recognized. Both as the hostile and renegate Script kiddies, and the retaliatory aggressors who go after them.
Excuse me... but this isn't who I am.
Listen. I've preached this diatribe before. We need to take respect in what we do -- and in what our fellow programmers do. We need to understand, that be it volunteer site, or evil corporate empire, we can't do this shit. Period. This isn't hacking. But thats what it gets reported as to them. This isn't who we are, but thats what gets reported.
The coolest thing in the world that I've found about computers is that they have the abiltiy to exact change and genuinely change the mess we've put ourselves in. They unlock information. And that information remains power. But with that information, with the knowledge, we have to take the necessary steps to assure that we're adequately responsible to use it. Kicking someone's ass at Defcon isn't doing it guys.
I'll leave with one last... This has helped me out along life (both in and out of the machine:
Access to computers should be unlimited and total.
All information should be free.
Mistrust authority - promote decentralization.
Hackers should be judged by their hacking not bogus criteria such as degrees, age, race, or position.
You create art and beauty on a computer,
Computers can change your life for the better.
For the uninitiated -- its the Hacker Ethic, best formulated by Steven Levy in Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution.
Slashdot Mirror
I love these debates. First off.. isn't smut to you -- but it might be smut to concerned parents not wishing their young children to see naked women. CAse in point. The Poseidon Adventure where a local christian home schooling group 'clothed' the naked Poseidon that was standing near a convention center they were attending. The main quote -- and principal fact we must remember here is.. "What is art in one person's eye is not art in another's,".
If this is deemed offensive, what makes you think other art that incorporates nudity or perhaps other potentially questionable content wont' be silenced? How do we know the Venus DeMilo won't be categorized in the .sex TLD?
The problem with making a .sex TLD is that you make it far too -easy- to regulate. Entire countries could just outlaw .sex without a blink. THe way legislation is passed in the US, we could have it effectively blocked, and upheld in the courts, as unprotected speech. Because it would encompass _ALL_ pornography, the courts wouldn't have to differentiate. Period.
As much as I don't necessarily dig porn, meshing it in with everything else on the net preserves its right to be a sought medium. If you set it as a .sex, you take away that right. And that, flat out is wrong. Whether you dig porn or not.
Why people would think its anythign else is beyond me. Every time I read these articles I tend to shiver, and then sigh. Shiver because this stuff is popular, and sigh because most people are clueless about the true motives.
You don't want your kid looking at smut? Turn off MTV. You don't want your daughter becoming a devil worshiper? Try instilling a religion You don't want your son smoking pot? Teach him what it does to you.
Something is seriously wrong when you allow technology to be the parent. Nuff said.
This will convince the mildly clueful to try using PGP in all their email correspondence. Maybe its just wishful thinking...
http://bandradio.com/dir/Record_Companies/Indepe ndent_Labels/
http://www.cs.ucl.ac.uk/external/T.Wicks/ill/
http://www.novia.net/~landphil/indies.html -- this is a list of stores in the US and canada that sell indie music
Go scour the net.. there is tons of this stuff. Support your indie bands.. They tend to be hostile to the RIAA and don't charge as much :)
Vertical-limit announced...
Whatever happened to capitalism? If companies want to spy on this, that's their right; if we don't like them doing this, we simply don't have to give them any of our money. Don't like doubleclick.net? Don't visit any sites with doubleclick.net advertisemenets -- if enough people do it, dc.net will be forced to change its policies to get any business. It's called freedom, and it's what capitalism is all about.
Here's what I figure. First off the government isn't getting that invovled (I can't believe i'm arguing for the government). They want to do the self-regulatory thang for awhile. The FTC only begins suing the pants off the fools once they go overboard. I think if anything this might be a step in the right direction. Could you imagine being able to sue for misuse of information by advertisers (a la Doubleclick). The FTC is providing a mechanism of protection, and a strong arm if you will to keep the Advertisers on their toes.
Now here's something more corrupt than I'm used to...
Imagine that the government can be bought and sold with the advertising information. The regulatory recourse provided by the FTC is bought for the superior collection capabilities of the Advertising scum. Sort of like the mob and local governments, but sooo much worse. That is far worse a thing to fear than the FTC recognizing that marketers are effil and doing something about it when they go too far.
Far more humorous would be to create the 'ideal' middle grounder -- you know.. white male, 25-50, middle class owns a home a dog, goes out 2.5 nights a week... in otherwords, the statistical average human, and when the cookie mixer got your cookie, it simply replaced it with the statistical average. All the marketing scum would see is millions of the average... It sure would make the charts interesting :)
These people should be called what they are, digital grafitti artists with nothing better to do
Don't you think its depreciatory and negative image of young people? Doesn't matter if you call them a script kiddie or a digital graffiti artist or a blue llama of doom. You're still assigning a category and still making a label. Its like the whole debate between classifying crackers and hackers together. Separating the good from the bad and just lumping the bad in a new name category.
Full disclosure helps, but in some cases is too extreme, does source code for a particular exploit really need to be published? In reality, when an exploit surfaces, it should be publicised, but not in detail. This would give reputable companies time to fix it (presuming the finder gave details to the company and perhaps a handful of reputable security experts who might be able to create a workaround plus IDS fingerprints).
The big question for me is: Who are the reputable Handful? When you limit it to some arbitrary number, decided by whoever finds the bug, you have different gradients of information in the field. THat is, some know, and others don't. You leave it to be a judgement call, and everyone gets screwed over in the process.
Then you said...
DoS'ing, cracking, exploiting, rooting, sniffing should all be classified as illegal, and penalties must be established. Although the cost of tracking down perpetrators is high, the increasing number of these l337 scr1p7 k1dd13s is only going to cause more and more financial loss, especially as the Internet becomes more ingrained in society.
Fine, all well and good as long as you can adequately measure 'Malicious'. All Rooting, sniffing and exploiting is not always malicious. Hell, Security folks who find vulnerabilities would be out of work. The boys and girls who find the bugs in the first place would be incarcerated. (That would at least solve your security-holes-for-the-script-kiddies problem.) Malicious is all dependent on the act and who's view you're looking at. I may scan someone's box without malicious intent, but they may think its terribly intrusive and serving only a sinister plan.
Script kiddie Jail? :-) ... Seriously though. I wonder how much of the separation does it to them? I mean, the philosophical question always comes back to 'Are the insane really as insane as we categorize them to be?' ... 'Are the script kiddies really as evil/stupid/wastes/fillin the bad name as e categorize them to be? Its really funny. In the computer world, they're separated. They're like unwanted stepchildren. But in the real world, where the masses get the info from media outlets that lump us alltogether, there is no clear separation.
Incidentally, what are our social sanctions? I mean the ones that work... We flame people we don't like, but very rarely do they change. Doesn't matter if they're a script kiddie or a Troll. Maybe we should find a way to assign Script kiddie and barcode it to their forehead...
You can (c) retaliate and take them out; or you can
(d) ignore them and keep being victimized]
You forgot one... You can get smarter. If they're really the low class cretins that everyone attributes them to be, keep working on ways to beat them. Security, forethought, understanding the machine you operate, etc. Information is power, and it beats the heck out of being ignorant.
I'll make this simple.
Everytime I see a DOS (to any site) it makes me cringe. Not because I have a emphatic feeling about that site in general, but its the same cringe that I get when someone gets killed. It's the loss of life . People fail to respect, and above all, fail to take responsibiltiy for the actions they directly cause. Ours is now a society taht has degenerated into a lethargy of responsibiltiy and respect. ITs a damn scary thing. SOmeone, somewhere out there has now congragulated themselves on something they consider to be good. REgardless of the fact that they
1. Haven't made a point.
2. Haven't illustrated a problem.
3. And haven't done anything more than aggrivate many people,
they still feel good about their action. There is no appreciation for the efforts, and above all no respect for anyone.
But it doesn't stop with them. As I was scanning down the list, I was saddened again. Retaliation, spite and 'I'm going to _____ your ____' seemed to be large percentages of the responses. Its no better. And its scary to thing that this is the way the computer world (often) gets recognized. Both as the hostile and renegate Script kiddies, and the retaliatory aggressors who go after them.
Excuse me... but this isn't who I am.
Listen. I've preached this diatribe before. We need to take respect in what we do -- and in what our fellow programmers do. We need to understand, that be it volunteer site, or evil corporate empire, we can't do this shit. Period. This isn't hacking. But thats what it gets reported as to them. This isn't who we are, but thats what gets reported.
The coolest thing in the world that I've found about computers is that they have the abiltiy to exact change and genuinely change the mess we've put ourselves in. They unlock information. And that information remains power. But with that information, with the knowledge, we have to take the necessary steps to assure that we're adequately responsible to use it. Kicking someone's ass at Defcon isn't doing it guys.
I'll leave with one last... This has helped me out along life (both in and out of the machine:
Access to computers should be unlimited and total.
All information should be free.
Mistrust authority - promote decentralization.
Hackers should be judged by their hacking not bogus criteria such as degrees, age, race, or position.
You create art and beauty on a computer,
Computers can change your life for the better.
For the uninitiated -- its the Hacker Ethic, best formulated by Steven Levy in Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution.