It's unfortunate that xerox was able to get a patent that could be used to prevent others from communicating using a certain language, in this case graffiti. If this patent is not invalidated, it would set a dangerous precedent.
Your use of the of the phrase "copyright theft" and the word "theft" in this context is confusing. Consider alternatives such as "making unauthorized copies of" or "sharing".
Copying information or art is very different from stealing physical goods, so the word "theft" is inappropriate for use when referring to copying or copyright infringement. If I steal your bong, you can't use it to smoke anymore. But if I make a photocopy of few pages in a book you own a copy of - or a make a MP3 of a song you own a copy of, you can still read that book and listen to that song. Using the words like theft and steal is almost as confusing as using the word piracy to talk about copyright infringement. If you mean copyright infringement, say copyright infringement. These other words serve only to color or mislead. See http://www.fsf.org/philoso phy/words-to-avoid.html#Piracy for details.
The root of this problem is that credit card companies are being negligent. No credit card transaction should be considered valid without a signature. For meatspace purchases, this could be done with pen and paper. On the Internet, it could be done with public key encryption - the cardholder would put a public key on file with the credit card company that would be used to verify signatures on charge requests. Charge requests with bogus signatures would get denied. Charge requests submitted twice would be denied. Modifying a charge request would invalidate its signature.
Secure, anonymous digital cash is also a solution. It would be nice to see a Free digital cash standard emerge. Digital cash would also eliminate many of the privacy and fraud problems inherant in today's credit card transactions.
The word "pirating" has a colorful folkloric flavor to it that blurs the real truth. The word 'theft' or 'stealing' is more accurate.
Copying information or art is very different from stealing physical goods. If I steal your bong, you can't use it to smoke anymore. But if I make a photocopy of few pages in a book you own a copy of - or a MP3 of a song you own a copy of, you can still read that book and listen to that song. Using the words theft and steal is almost as confusing as using the word piracy to talk about copyright infringement. If you mean copyright infringement, say copyright infringement. See http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/wor ds-to-avoid.html
Read some damn psuedo-intellectual website run by tenured do-nothings for the counter arguement to mine.
Pseudo-intellectuals don't get MacArthur fellowships. Richard M. Stallman does.
Altavista and other free ISP's show their banner ads while they copy web sites for you (the process of transmission involves creating many copies in the process). Since the copying is done at the direction of the user, and is required for the user to view the content, it's considered fair use.
The legality of this rebroadcasting web site depends on a lot of factors. Are they acting as an agent of the user, following the users instructions to make form-shifting or time-shifting copies of the broadcast media so that it can be viewed (similar to what an ISP and the free ISP's do - considered fair use), or are they copying the material under their own direction and then reselling the copies?
Remember, it's legal for a copy shop like Kinkos to charge a sight-impaired person money to make 150% enlargements of every page in a book at the sight impaired person's direction so that the person can read the book. It's not legal for the copy shop to make 150% enlargements of books and then resell them to sight-impaired persons.
The two acts are very similar, yet one is fair use and the other is copyright infringement. It's going to be tough to determine which one iCraveTV is similar to, and if their business is legal or not.
I'm currently working on a solution that uses search engines that have no knowledge of what files they've indexed. I'm also working on double-blind cryptographic anonymity for the actual file transfers, using mixmaster-like resenders.
Napster makes claims that its tools can be used legally, but buglar's tools can be used legally, too. And the possesion of such tools is illegal in many places.
In Massachusetts, where I live, it's only illegal to own burglary tools if intend to use them to commit a crime. Many other states take intent into consideration.
Lawsuits like these are why we need a decentralized napster -- multiple independantly operated napster. I'm currently working on a solution that uses search engines that have no knowledge of what files they've indexed.
I'm also working on double-blind cryptographic anonymity for the actual file transfers, using mixmaster-like resenders.
What prevents someone from extracting the key from a signed binary and using it with their own?
Hashcash: A Better Way to Eliminate Spam
on
License to Surf
·
· Score: 1
There's better ways to eliminate spam. For example, you could require a hashcash or digital cash micropayment before you will accept a message from someone you've never corresponded with before.
Hashcash is free, but computationally intensive to make. If spammers had to compute a 26 bit hashcash micropayment for every single message they send, it would limit them to about 100-200 messages a day per computer. Their business would quickly become unprofitable.
We still need popular mailers to get PGP support. I still can't get my Unix and Mac using friends to switch to using PGP for everyday chatting, because they use Elm and Claris Emailer.
Any site that can talk HTTP/1.1 provides information in the header of each document requested indicating whether or not it should be cached. Rob could use this information to programmaticly determine whether or not to cache a given site without asking a human. See RFC-2068 for details.
Except for an older version of mySQL that was relicensed, mySQL does not meet the Open Source Definion, and is not open source software.
As for your comments about Solaris not scaling -- I believe they're unfounded. The only problem I can find with Solaris scalability is the price tag. Those ultra enterprise boxes aren't cheap, and Solaris runs like a dog on anything less.
It's trivial to swap the keys on the server, and in doing that you've blown the whole signature idea. You can send an email to me, but Bob's made sure i have his public key with your name attatched to it, so then he can send a completely different signed email and i'd never know the difference without a phone call...
You'd know the difference because Bob would be hard pressed to get his forged key signed by people in your web of trust.
Or how about i go through whatever paperwork is involved and get a keypair from the issuing authority, but given them all of your information instead. I now have a means of generating untraceable signatures.
Anyone who trusts a key based on only one signature is foolhardy. Good luck defrauding multiple signature authorities and tampering every single keyserver.
One thing about mp3 is that the quality can vary significantly when you change the bitrate, encoder, or player. Looks like you need to find the right combination.
For getting as close to the original CD as possible, I've found bladeenc and its 168, 192, and 256kbit/s encoding modes very helpful. It cuts down on the typical mp3 "cymbal splatter" that is so annoying when played through real speakers with good high end response.
Of course, this won't help you with low quality mp3's you've downloaded from the Internet unless you can get the author to re-encode them, but you can at least re-encode audio CD's you own at a higher bitrate. You'll fit less mp3's on one CD with a higher bitrate, but you'll also be less annoyed by quality loss.
Until I see Veritas First watch for Linux... Until I see 64 processor Linux boxes with 16 gigs of ram... Until I see Oracle running on Linux it wont be even a remote threat to Linux.
Overlooking the fact that your statement makes absolutely no sense, perhaps you missed Oracle's press release?
The fact that ext2fs still has a 2 gigabyte file size limitation means it is still not a real choice for a database server.
The maximum file size on a 64-bit machine is 9223372036854775808 bytes, not 2147483648 bytes. If you invested in large enough disks to requisite such large files, you would probably also invest in modern 64-bit processors as well.
Linux is an excellent OS but it still needs improvements in stability, performance, commercial software support (a la Oracle, Veritas First Watch, Veritas File System and Veritas Volume Manager) and the hardware it runs on needs to be more robust before Sun has anything to worry about.
With the work being done to enable write support on NTFS, and the recent availability of XFS for Linux, you now have your choice between two journaling filesystems. XFS combined with advanced partitioning software and filesystem resizing software recently made available as well as the loopback block device and MD make the Veritas Volume Manager look like a toy.
The No Electronic Theft Act is unfair. It criminalizes sharing lawfully aquired works with your friends in ways that were previously legal -- simply because a computer is involved.
Consider a 20% productivity improvement when using Delphi over open-source tools. If I paid $500 for Delphi and you were using open-source and we each make $30 per hour then you would be loosing $250 per week in productivity after two weeks (the pay-back time for my investment). That adds up in a hurry!
Consider that both your compiler and the other guy's compiler have a serious bug that causes your program to fail mysteriously. You wait a month for Borland to fix your bug and lose $4800, while the guy using the free compiler fixes the bug himself in under a day, losing only $240.
Slashdot Mirror
Handspring is a licensee of Palm Computing. They didn't clone the Palm connected organizer to make their product.
It's unfortunate that xerox was able to get a patent that could be used to prevent others from communicating using a certain language, in this case graffiti. If this patent is not invalidated, it would set a dangerous precedent.
Your use of the of the phrase "copyright theft" and the word "theft" in this context is confusing. Consider alternatives such as "making unauthorized copies of" or "sharing".
Copying information or art is very different from stealing physical goods, so the word "theft" is inappropriate for use when referring to copying or copyright infringement. If I steal your bong, you can't use it to smoke anymore. But if I make a photocopy of few pages in a book you own a copy of - or a make a MP3 of a song you own a copy of, you can still read that book and listen to that song. Using the words like theft and steal is almost as confusing as using the word piracy to talk about copyright infringement. If you mean copyright infringement, say copyright infringement. These other words serve only to color or mislead. See http://www.fsf.org/philoso phy/words-to-avoid.html#Piracy for details.
The root of this problem is that credit card companies are being negligent. No credit card transaction should be considered valid without a signature. For meatspace purchases, this could be done with pen and paper. On the Internet, it could be done with public key encryption - the cardholder would put a public key on file with the credit card company that would be used to verify signatures on charge requests. Charge requests with bogus signatures would get denied. Charge requests submitted twice would be denied. Modifying a charge request would invalidate its signature.
Secure, anonymous digital cash is also a solution. It would be nice to see a Free digital cash standard emerge. Digital cash would also eliminate many of the privacy and fraud problems inherant in today's credit card transactions.
The word "pirating" has a colorful folkloric flavor to it that blurs the real truth. The word 'theft' or 'stealing' is more accurate.
Copying information or art is very different from stealing physical goods. If I steal your bong, you can't use it to smoke anymore. But if I make a photocopy of few pages in a book you own a copy of - or a MP3 of a song you own a copy of, you can still read that book and listen to that song. Using the words theft and steal is almost as confusing as using the word piracy to talk about copyright infringement. If you mean copyright infringement, say copyright infringement. See http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/wor ds-to-avoid.html
Read some damn psuedo-intellectual website run by tenured do-nothings for the counter arguement to mine.
Pseudo-intellectuals don't get MacArthur fellowships. Richard M. Stallman does.
The private sector is free to continue pirating^H^H^H^H^H^H purchasing Windows for its use.
Your use of the word pirate in this context is confusing. Consider alternatives such as "making unauthorized copies of" or "sharing". See http://www.fsf.org/philoso phy/words-to-avoid.html#Piracy for details.
http://osiris.978.org/~brianr/css/
Altavista and other free ISP's show their banner ads while they copy web sites for you (the process of transmission involves creating many copies in the process). Since the copying is done at the direction of the user, and is required for the user to view the content, it's considered fair use.
The legality of this rebroadcasting web site depends on a lot of factors. Are they acting as an agent of the user, following the users instructions to make form-shifting or time-shifting copies of the broadcast media so that it can be viewed (similar to what an ISP and the free ISP's do - considered fair use), or are they copying the material under their own direction and then reselling the copies?
Remember, it's legal for a copy shop like Kinkos to charge a sight-impaired person money to make 150% enlargements of every page in a book at the sight impaired person's direction so that the person can read the book. It's not legal for the copy shop to make 150% enlargements of books and then resell them to sight-impaired persons.
The two acts are very similar, yet one is fair use and the other is copyright infringement. It's going to be tough to determine which one iCraveTV is similar to, and if their business is legal or not.
I'm currently working on a solution that uses search engines that have no knowledge of what files they've indexed. I'm also working on double-blind cryptographic anonymity for the actual file transfers, using mixmaster-like resenders.
See http://osiris.978.org/~brianr/anap/ where I'll be posting some of my ideas. There's also a mailing list. Send a message to list-anap-subscribe@osiris.978.org to join.
Napster makes claims that its tools can be used legally, but buglar's tools can be used legally, too. And the possesion of such tools is illegal in many places.
In Massachusetts, where I live, it's only illegal to own burglary tools if intend to use them to commit a crime. Many other states take intent into consideration.
Lawsuits like these are why we need a decentralized napster -- multiple independantly operated napster. I'm currently working on a solution that uses search engines that have no knowledge of what files they've indexed.
I'm also working on double-blind cryptographic anonymity for the actual file transfers, using mixmaster-like resenders.
See http://osiris.978.org/~brianr/anap/, where I'll be posting some of my ideas. There's also a mailing list. Send a message to list-anap-subscribe@osiris.978.org to join.
What prevents someone from extracting the key from a signed binary and using it with their own?
There's better ways to eliminate spam. For example, you could require a hashcash or digital cash micropayment before you will accept a message from someone you've never corresponded with before.
Hashcash is free, but computationally intensive to make. If spammers had to compute a 26 bit hashcash micropayment for every single message they send, it would limit them to about 100-200 messages a day per computer. Their business would quickly become unprofitable.
See http://www.cypherspace.org/~adam/hashcas h/
I've mirrored the site at http://osiris.978.org/~brianr/www.xenu. net/. Please let me know if anything is missing.
We still need popular mailers to get PGP support. I still can't get my Unix and Mac using friends to switch to using PGP for everyday chatting, because they use Elm and Claris Emailer.
Elm-ME+ 2.4pl25ME+60-1 has PGP support.
Any site that can talk HTTP/1.1 provides information in the header of each document requested indicating whether or not it should be cached. Rob could use this information to programmaticly determine whether or not to cache a given site without asking a human. See RFC-2068 for details.
Except for an older version of mySQL that was relicensed, mySQL does not meet the Open Source Definion, and is not open source software.
As for your comments about Solaris not scaling -- I believe they're unfounded. The only problem I can find with Solaris scalability is the price tag. Those ultra enterprise boxes aren't cheap, and Solaris runs like a dog on anything less.
It's trivial to swap the keys on the server, and in doing that you've blown the whole signature idea. You can send an email to me, but Bob's made sure i have his public key with your name attatched to it, so then he can send a completely different signed email and i'd never know the difference without a phone call...
You'd know the difference because Bob would be hard pressed to get his forged key signed by people in your web of trust.
Or how about i go through whatever paperwork is involved and get a keypair from the issuing authority, but given them all of your information instead. I now have a means of generating untraceable signatures.
Anyone who trusts a key based on only one signature is foolhardy. Good luck defrauding multiple signature authorities and tampering every single keyserver.
When is the anti-skip car turntable going to be perfected?
When they come out with a car power adaptor for the Technics 1200? =)
One thing about mp3 is that the quality can vary significantly when you change the bitrate, encoder, or player. Looks like you need to find the right combination.
For getting as close to the original CD as possible, I've found bladeenc and its 168, 192, and 256kbit/s encoding modes very helpful. It cuts down on the typical mp3 "cymbal splatter" that is so annoying when played through real speakers with good high end response.
Of course, this won't help you with low quality mp3's you've downloaded from the Internet unless you can get the author to re-encode them, but you can at least re-encode audio CD's you own at a higher bitrate. You'll fit less mp3's on one CD with a higher bitrate, but you'll also be less annoyed by quality loss.
Until I see Veritas First watch for Linux... Until I see 64 processor Linux boxes with 16 gigs of ram... Until I see Oracle running on Linux it wont be even a remote threat to Linux.
Overlooking the fact that your statement makes absolutely no sense, perhaps you missed Oracle's press release?
The fact that ext2fs still has a 2 gigabyte file size limitation means it is still not a real choice for a database server.
The maximum file size on a 64-bit machine is 9223372036854775808 bytes, not 2147483648 bytes. If you invested in large enough disks to requisite such large files, you would probably also invest in modern 64-bit processors as well.
Linux is an excellent OS but it still needs improvements in stability, performance, commercial software support (a la Oracle, Veritas First Watch, Veritas File System and Veritas Volume Manager) and the hardware it runs on needs to be more robust before Sun has anything to worry about.
With the work being done to enable write support on NTFS, and the recent availability of XFS for Linux, you now have your choice between two journaling filesystems. XFS combined with advanced partitioning software and filesystem resizing software recently made available as well as the loopback block device and MD make the Veritas Volume Manager look like a toy.
damn - no lynx support.
Probably due to stupid export restrictions, the default lynx installation does not include SSL. You'll need to get a SSL enabled lynx.
The No Electronic Theft Act is unfair. It criminalizes sharing lawfully aquired works with your friends in ways that were previously legal -- simply because a computer is involved.
Consider a 20% productivity improvement when using Delphi over open-source tools. If I paid $500 for Delphi and you were using open-source and we each make $30 per hour then you would be loosing $250 per week in productivity after two weeks (the pay-back time for my investment). That adds up in a hurry!
Consider that both your compiler and the other guy's compiler have a serious bug that causes your program to fail mysteriously. You wait a month for Borland to fix your bug and lose $4800, while the guy using the free compiler fixes the bug himself in under a day, losing only $240.