When it comes to business "data" and citizen "data" we have seem to have two standards. Business believe that they can expropriate private data at will. We already have had example where the medical profession has taken samples from patients (without their permission in some cases) and developed tests, patented those tests, and made money; and given the patient zippo.
Now if you, as a citizen, take business "data" such as a song you are deemed to be guilty of theft! Not only that, but as Mike has pointed out in other articles, the MPAA and the RIAA want to ignore due process. If they say you are guilty, you are guilty irrespective of the existence of any evidence.
Business' should NOT have a right to expropriate, at will, what is not theirs.
If corporate Amerika treated my "intellectual 'property'" (i.e. my personal identity, beginning with my email address, which I'll point out that they pay me NOthing for, but rather obtain by extortion: "you must surrender an email addres to register to use this website"!) as MY PRIVATE PROPERTY, maybe I would feel more inclined to treat their "intellectual 'property'" (i.e. music and movies _I_'ve paid money to them to use!) with a little bit more respect.
As it stands now, what's good for the goose is good for the gander, and just as they see nothing wrong with sharing "my" email address with their "coroporate partners and marketing associates", I find nothing wrong with sharing "their" music and movies with my family and friends.
(assuming that the victim was a locked-down end luser)...
...you really can't blame Windows since he had absolutely no control of the matter, it's squarely on the head of the IT guys.
Who were using and administering... winbloze. If "it's so easy", how come "professional" admins could not protect this guy and his company from downloading and storing kidde pr0n?
The republicans and the McCain campaign spam me daily, the libertarians weekly, while the democrats (apparently) haven't found my email _yet_. So who's more technologically (in)competent?
...when a reletive you haven't seen in years finds you and shoots you an email, the[y']re a spammer?
No, they're a relative I haven't seen in years. The major moral distinction here is that they won't be asking me to buy anything (except possibly their dinner). If a relative I haven't seen in years sends me a flier from his new real estate office or his online V1agr@ store, he's a spammer and will receive no response.
I mean, why have one if you don't want people to send you emails.
I do want _people_ to send me emails. "People", however, does NOT include advertisers, and if you can't grok the distinction (between people and advertisers) I cannot help you.
In fairness, I'll expand my statement: "If it's unsolicited, and it's advertising, it's spam. Period."
I don't care if it _is_ "targeted". If you're selling something I happen to be looking for, you'll immediately disqualify yourself by sending me spam. I don't care if you're the market leader, the maker of the best thing since sliced bread, or what!
Fscking marketroids. WHEN are you gonna get the fact that my incoming mail is NOT your advertising billboard?!?
Well, yes, this _is_ the popular usage, even if the math (as demonstrated elsewhere in this thread) is all wet.
The 85% market in the US no longer groks division, and prefers the simplicity of multiplicative expressions like "ten times less" to the more correct "10%", "one-tenth", or "90% less". "-10dB" is, of course, a technical engineering expression understood only by Chinese knurds with coke-bottle-bottom eyeglasses. The "communications" majors (who flunked out of business school when thwarted by the mysteries of the single dimension calculus of loan amortization and compound interest) are more than relieved to reduce the math in their copy to the lowest possible level.
Clarity is a meaningless preoccupation of the elderly for a generation which has no need to bother with the trivial distinctions between "to" and "too", or "they're" and "their". or "breath" and "breathe". Their parents sweated to understand the algebra of fractions, and were baffled by retail markup and markdown.
Like the poster above, there was a hill between my dorm and the computer center, and when there was snow, I'd wind up carrying my punch cards through the snow, uphill _both_ ways!
Insists on having access to a Flash player, or it won't let me in. "For 'Security' Reasons". Now I have even more ammunition with which to criticize their "security". (this began when they recommended Internet Exploiter(tm)(r)(c) and the prevailing commercial "Operating System"s, and locked out me, with my Debian and IceWeasel: "IceWeasel? That's _not_ an approved browser!"
Hey, I know. I need a new bank. Does anybody know of one that's clueful enough to _not_ recommend IE?
...if you can wander through a crowd at 75mph, you shouldn't have to worry much about anyone starting a fight with you.
That depends _very_ much on the crowd!
In a pub, the thing would be merely bulky and awkward. We'll assume that it will work as well at walking speed as at 75MPH. IMHO it would have to be as agile as a pair of rollerskates in order to avoid hostility.
Coming south into Phoenix (from Flagstaff) on Arizona's Interstate 17 on Sunday afternoon, where the Speed Limit is 75MPH and the traffic is moving at 80-90, you'd be in a heap of trouble if all you could do was 75. Honestly, a Harley-Davidson Softail is a bit on the slow side there. I settled for a Buell, which is perfectly happy at 85.
Why did they not even bother to come to court to defend themselves?
Usually netscum put up a vigorous and indignant defense: "Where Are Our First Amendment Rights?", "MySpace violated their ToS by chopping our accounts without due process!" etc. These scumbags didn't even show up!
Was it their complete and utter contempt for the law and justice system, or did it perhaps have something to do with an angry mob outside the courthouse?
"Supporting" the Winbloze OS is _also_ a provision of that Imperial OEM imprisonment"agreement". Other systems could be sold on other terms. IMU SuSE on Dell is "supported" by Novell, NOT Dell.
Of course I would prefer to see OEMs NOT maintain support for XP. The sooner it is eliminated, the sooner the lusers will be forced onto Vista, and the sooner all that XP hardware will wind up on the market for pimples.
HMmmm... 3400 MHz dual-core w/1G RAM? Won't run Vista, but sure as hell WILL scream through GNOME/metacity, or KDE, or...
If the whole OffalXML thing taught us anything, it's that what the Empire wants, the Empire gets. And the Empire (or, at least, the Emperor) wants Yahoo.
Microsoft... has manufacturers that have to insure that they remain on top, Dell & HP etc.
I don't think so. If, say, some other OS were to somehow come to dominate "the desktop", IMHO Dell & HP, et al would quickly roll with that and offer it on their hardware. The Vista vs XP debacle has proven that the OEMs don't care what they have to load to make product move across the shelves. Dell for one is _already_ selling (some) machinery with Linux pre-installs, and would probably be selling more if the Empire didn't limit them to "hobbyist" numbers under their OEM extortion plan<M-Del><M-Del>"agreement".
If the OffalXML thing has shown us anything, it's that what the Empire wants, the Empire gets. And the Empire wants to kill Google.
The most straightforward way to do that is to team up with a viable competitor, then cut off the victim's air supply.
Look forward to M$ acquiring Yahoo (even if they have to steal it), then breaking Google, and keeping it broken. (Weekly "security" updates, anyone?) (Read that Imperial EULA lately?)
The courts might object to such heavy-handedness, but that will take five years, by which time Google will exist only in the memories of reactionary geeks.
The only way that spam will stop is by the consistent and repeated use of lethal force. The Richters and everyone closely associated with them should be shot by a firing squad.
Nah, That's waay to soft. We're talking about Scott Richter here.
I once saw in a move where several victims were tied out to poles on a beach infested with little tiny crabs. Come sundown, all the crabs come out of the water to feed. The screams generated therby were supposed to be blood-curdling. Unfortunately these particular victims were the good guys, so they were rescued before nightfall, so we didn't get to find out about the screams, but the idea stands nonetheless.
Or, they could be simply staked out naked over an anthill with honey poured over their genitalia. That would be good, if perhaps somewhat old-fashioned.
My personal favorite is keelhauling, but not in the old pirate tradition under a sailing ship. Screw that. Keelhauling of Richter et al should be underneath a water-skiing towboat or other skiff with a small, fast-spinning propeller, reducing them to, well, spam.
1. Traceroute into somewhere within this address space. 2. Null route not only 134.17.0.0/16, but whatever outfit(s) are connecting it. Block incoming shite from both as well. 3. ByeBye OptInRealBig, & Snotty Scotty Richter (at least for today). 4. Profit? We all profit from disconnection of this career spammer.
And don't worry about collateral damage. Richter will find some other way to send out his crap, and we'll eventually be able to return this net to its rightful owner (who should already be bringing criminal charges against these hijackers). The upline should remain a black hole, forever, or at least until it changes ownership.
Alas, I'm afraid the only thing that will truly stop Snotty Scotty is a lynchmob which, in his case, is long long overdue.
Exactly. 20e6 is too many systems for the Empire to just let go.
Remember how quick they were to jump on just the quarter-million XO laptops deployed a couple months back.
Now that the install is public, I'll give it three weeks before we hear about the Imperial deal to "upgrade" ALL of these computers to WinBloze(tm)(r)(c).
With his Billness ending his active pursuit of Mammon and turning his attention to not leaving behind the $40 Billion or so he's accumulated, the $2e9 this will co$t is a minor investment to make - in Brazil. It's "software development future" is too valuable to risk its destruction by that viral GPL....
Imagine my shock when I showed up at my brother's place after work, and he's all enthused about the FF3 he's just installed on his iLaptop(tm)(R)(c). He heard about it on his political (not even techie!) blog. It does inertial scrolling! At least on iMach(tm)(r)(c).
"What? Firefox 3!? No way. I woulda seen it on/.!"
At least I was able to take some wind outta his sails by running Acid3 on it. He was pissed to see it score 'only' 71%: "WTF?! It doesn't even _work_!"
So, while you guys still _really_ rule when it comes to Anime & TV Sci-Fi, you're falling behind the curve in the tech deployment stories.
And if you want the dirty details of OffalXML (wait- I guess that's now ISO DIS29500(tm)(r)(c)), Groklaw is the place for that.
But nevermind that. What do we need serious stuff for, anyway?
Who's already seen BSG 4.1, (out Friday on Sci-Fi)? WTF happens?
And who's ready for Summer Glau as a ballet Terminator? Yow!
If it were a "real" company, like, say, Netscape (was), the Empire could cut off its air supply. Same with "Linux" (_not_ a "real company", doesn't need to make money or stay "in business" in order to survive and continue to challenge The Monopoly). "Real Companies"(tm)(r)(c) can be eliminated using "real" monopoly business abuse. This is what _really_ has SteveB pissed off and frustrated to the point where he's reduced to swearing and throwing things.
He has viable competitors out here, about which he can't do a fsckin' thing.
Oh, and _zero_ market loyalty, after ten years of abuse. Make that negative numbers...
Slashdot Mirror
Is there any such thing as a "legitimate IE(x) user"?
How can one be a "legitimate user" of an illegitimate (as in: criminal) browser?
We've seen guys claim that they were "legitimate direct email marketer"s also.
I don't believe in either one of those things.
Just as NO ONE should spam, NO ONE should use Internet Exploiter.
From the TechDirt discussion:
If corporate Amerika treated my "intellectual 'property'" (i.e. my personal identity, beginning with my email address, which I'll point out that they pay me NOthing for, but rather obtain by extortion: "you must surrender an email addres to register to use this website"!) as MY PRIVATE PROPERTY, maybe I would feel more inclined to treat their "intellectual 'property'" (i.e. music and movies _I_'ve paid money to them to use!) with a little bit more respect.
As it stands now, what's good for the goose is good for the gander, and just as they see nothing wrong with sharing "my" email address with their "coroporate partners and marketing associates", I find nothing wrong with sharing "their" music and movies with my family and friends.
is that they're ready with their new "standard", and they're confident that that won't be Reverse Engineered....
Who were using and administering... winbloze.
If "it's so easy", how come "professional" admins could not protect this guy and his company from downloading and storing kidde pr0n?
The republicans and the McCain campaign spam me daily, the libertarians weekly, while the democrats (apparently) haven't found my email _yet_.
So who's more technologically (in)competent?
No, they're a relative I haven't seen in years. The major moral distinction here is that they won't be asking me to buy anything (except possibly their dinner). If a relative I haven't seen in years sends me a flier from his new real estate office or his online V1agr@ store, he's a spammer and will receive no response.
I do want _people_ to send me emails. "People", however, does NOT include advertisers, and if you can't grok the distinction (between people and advertisers) I cannot help you.
In fairness, I'll expand my statement:
"If it's unsolicited, and it's advertising, it's spam. Period."
There. Does that help?
If it's unsolicited, it's spam.
Period.
I don't care if it _is_ "targeted".
If you're selling something I happen to be looking for, you'll immediately disqualify yourself by sending me spam. I don't care if you're the market leader, the maker of the best thing since sliced bread, or what!
Fscking marketroids.
WHEN are you gonna get the fact that my incoming mail is NOT your advertising billboard?!?
Well, yes, this _is_ the popular usage, even if the math (as demonstrated elsewhere in this thread) is all wet.
The 85% market in the US no longer groks division, and prefers the simplicity of multiplicative expressions like "ten times less" to the more correct "10%", "one-tenth", or "90% less". "-10dB" is, of course, a technical engineering expression understood only by Chinese knurds with coke-bottle-bottom eyeglasses. The "communications" majors (who flunked out of business school when thwarted by the mysteries of the single dimension calculus of loan amortization and compound interest) are more than relieved to reduce the math in their copy to the lowest possible level.
Clarity is a meaningless preoccupation of the elderly for a generation which has no need to bother with the trivial distinctions between "to" and "too", or "they're" and "their". or "breath" and "breathe". Their parents sweated to understand the algebra of fractions, and were baffled by retail markup and markdown.
Like the poster above, there was a hill between my dorm and the computer center, and when there was snow, I'd wind up carrying my punch cards through the snow, uphill _both_ ways!
Now get off my lawn!
So where are Drs. Douglas & Martin when you need 'em?
Insists on having access to a Flash player, or it won't let me in.
"For 'Security' Reasons".
Now I have even more ammunition with which to criticize their "security". (this began when they recommended Internet Exploiter(tm)(r)(c) and the prevailing commercial "Operating System"s, and locked out me, with my Debian and IceWeasel: "IceWeasel? That's _not_ an approved browser!"
Hey, I know. I need a new bank. Does anybody know of one that's clueful enough to _not_ recommend IE?
That depends _very_ much on the crowd!
In a pub, the thing would be merely bulky and awkward. We'll assume that it will work as well at walking speed as at 75MPH. IMHO it would have to be as agile as a pair of rollerskates in order to avoid hostility.
Coming south into Phoenix (from Flagstaff) on Arizona's Interstate 17 on Sunday afternoon, where the Speed Limit is 75MPH and the traffic is moving at 80-90, you'd be in a heap of trouble if all you could do was 75. Honestly, a Harley-Davidson Softail is a bit on the slow side there. I settled for a Buell, which is perfectly happy at 85.
Why did they not even bother to come to court to defend themselves?
Usually netscum put up a vigorous and indignant defense: "Where Are Our First Amendment Rights?", "MySpace violated their ToS by chopping our accounts without due process!" etc. These scumbags didn't even show up!
Was it their complete and utter contempt for the law and justice system, or did it perhaps have something to do with an angry mob outside the courthouse?
Inquiring minds want to know.
"Supporting" the Winbloze OS is _also_ a provision of that Imperial OEM imprisonment"agreement". Other systems could be sold on other terms. IMU SuSE on Dell is "supported" by Novell, NOT Dell.
Of course I would prefer to see OEMs NOT maintain support for XP. The sooner it is eliminated, the sooner the lusers will be forced onto Vista, and the sooner all that XP hardware will wind up on the market for pimples.
HMmmm... 3400 MHz dual-core w/1G RAM? Won't run Vista, but sure as hell WILL scream through GNOME/metacity, or KDE, or...
Is there a "-1: incoherent ranting" moderation option?
"Weather control"? Wow.
Please box up some of that shit you're smoking, and send it my way.
I agree, the Yahoo thing is not over.
If the whole OffalXML thing taught us anything, it's that what the Empire wants, the Empire gets. And the Empire (or, at least, the Emperor) wants Yahoo.
I don't think so. If, say, some other OS were to somehow come to dominate "the desktop", IMHO Dell & HP, et al would quickly roll with that and offer it on their hardware. The Vista vs XP debacle has proven that the OEMs don't care what they have to load to make product move across the shelves. Dell for one is _already_ selling (some) machinery with Linux pre-installs, and would probably be selling more if the Empire didn't limit them to "hobbyist" numbers under their OEM extortion plan<M-Del><M-Del>"agreement".
Can you say: 'prostitute'?
and it won't be over until Micro$oft 0wns Yahoo.
If the OffalXML thing has shown us anything, it's that what the Empire wants, the Empire gets. And the Empire wants to kill Google.
The most straightforward way to do that is to team up with a viable competitor, then cut off the victim's air supply.
Look forward to M$ acquiring Yahoo (even if they have to steal it), then breaking Google, and keeping it broken. (Weekly "security" updates, anyone?) (Read that Imperial EULA lately?)
The courts might object to such heavy-handedness, but that will take five years, by which time Google will exist only in the memories of reactionary geeks.
Time to get back to work, I guess...
Nah, That's waay to soft. We're talking about Scott Richter here.
I once saw in a move where several victims were tied out to poles on a beach infested with little tiny crabs. Come sundown, all the crabs come out of the water to feed. The screams generated therby were supposed to be blood-curdling. Unfortunately these particular victims were the good guys, so they were rescued before nightfall, so we didn't get to find out about the screams, but the idea stands nonetheless.
Or, they could be simply staked out naked over an anthill with honey poured over their genitalia. That would be good, if perhaps somewhat old-fashioned.
My personal favorite is keelhauling, but not in the old pirate tradition under a sailing ship. Screw that. Keelhauling of Richter et al should be underneath a water-skiing towboat or other skiff with a small, fast-spinning propeller, reducing them to, well, spam.
That might be good enough for an _ordinary_ career spammer.
But we're talking about Snotty Scotty Richter, here.
He deserves something special .
1. Traceroute into somewhere within this address space.
2. Null route not only 134.17.0.0/16, but whatever outfit(s) are connecting it. Block incoming shite from both as well.
3. ByeBye OptInRealBig, & Snotty Scotty Richter (at least for today).
4. Profit? We all profit from disconnection of this career spammer.
And don't worry about collateral damage. Richter will find some other way to send out his crap, and we'll eventually be able to return this net to its rightful owner (who should already be bringing criminal charges against these hijackers). The upline should remain a black hole, forever, or at least until it changes ownership.
Alas, I'm afraid the only thing that will truly stop Snotty Scotty is a lynchmob which, in his case, is long long overdue.
Exactly. 20e6 is too many systems for the Empire to just let go.
Remember how quick they were to jump on just the quarter-million XO laptops deployed a couple months back.
Now that the install is public, I'll give it three weeks before we hear about the Imperial deal to "upgrade" ALL of these computers to WinBloze(tm)(r)(c).
With his Billness ending his active pursuit of Mammon and turning his attention to not leaving behind the $40 Billion or so he's accumulated, the $2e9 this will co$t is a minor investment to make - in Brazil. It's "software development future" is too valuable to risk its destruction by that viral GPL....
Little Green Footballs ran this yesterday.
/.!"
Imagine my shock when I showed up at my brother's place after work, and he's all enthused about the FF3 he's just installed on his iLaptop(tm)(R)(c). He heard about it on his political (not even techie!) blog. It does inertial scrolling! At least on iMach(tm)(r)(c).
"What? Firefox 3!? No way. I woulda seen it on
At least I was able to take some wind outta his sails by running Acid3 on it. He was pissed to see it score 'only' 71%: "WTF?! It doesn't even _work_!"
So, while you guys still _really_ rule when it comes to Anime & TV Sci-Fi, you're falling behind the curve in the tech deployment stories.
And if you want the dirty details of OffalXML (wait- I guess that's now ISO DIS29500(tm)(r)(c)), Groklaw is the place for that.
But nevermind that. What do we need serious stuff for, anyway?
Who's already seen BSG 4.1, (out Friday on Sci-Fi)?
WTF happens?
And who's ready for Summer Glau as a ballet Terminator? Yow!
If it were a "real" company, like, say, Netscape (was), the Empire could cut off its air supply. Same with "Linux" (_not_ a "real company", doesn't need to make money or stay "in business" in order to survive and continue to challenge The Monopoly). "Real Companies"(tm)(r)(c) can be eliminated using "real" monopoly business abuse. This is what _really_ has SteveB pissed off and frustrated to the point where he's reduced to swearing and throwing things.
He has viable competitors out here, about which he can't do a fsckin' thing.
Oh, and _zero_ market loyalty, after ten years of abuse. Make that negative numbers...