A corporation with sufficiently deep pockets can stop you dead in the water simply by alleging that your patented method infringes on their patent.
Kind of an inconsequential point, but a patent itself cannot infringe on another patent. Only selling or manufacturing something can potentially infringe.
Their patent might be totally unrelated, or might be invalidated by your earlier patent. It won't matter, though; the simple fact that they are threatening legal action will effectively cut you off from venture capital. If they never sue, you're probably stuck. If they do sue, they can bleed you to death, whether there is any merit to your case or not. You might be right, and you might even win, about the time pigs fly, but it might not do you much good.
This would be a real horror story. Not sure if it's ever happened. My advice would be to get your venture capital before the Evil Corporations learn about your secret business plan (it had to be secret, in order to patent it..) Then you could only be burned by corporations attempting to steal your idea, and sue you for infringement, after your patent application and after you'd received venture capital. That should be some ambulance-chaser's wet dream, open and shut, and I bet, after some favorable local newspaper coverage, you'd have sharks lining up to get 50% of the compensatory and punitive damages... it might not be resolved for years, but you're already in business, and if you eventually win, you can, based on recent rulings, recoup hundreds of millions of dollars in damages. Companies are abusing the patent system by patenting everything because of how many have been substantially burned by trying to evade it in the past...
I think that the patent system has become a dance of elephants, and us little guys can only hope to stay out of the way and not get squashed, while everything around us is flattened.
I see. I don't agree, but I can understand why you might see it that way, especially hanging out on slashdot. I say, take a chance! Invent something and find out first hand.
It seems to me that most folks support the present patent system because they fantasize about ``inventing something'' and getting rich. This fantasy is promoted by the people who are getting richer by exploiting the patent system; they realize that popular support for it would evaporate if the reality became evident.
Dude, all the shit I read on slashdot is the same stuff you're saying. I don't hear anything from any other media source promoting the way it is now. I don't hear public service announcements from PR firms proclaiming how great everything is right now, and how we should keep Congress from changing anything. I don't buy the conspiracy theory. Christ, even the administration is pushing its plans to reform the PTO. I don't think anyone believes it works very efficiently right now. Not even me. I'm just saying I haven't heard any ideas for reform that actually make sense, from the perspective of someone who wants to be able to patent something (as opposed to I think a lot of people on/. that want (foolishly, IMHO) no one to be able to patent anything). The exception is the people saying "they shouldn't allow patents with prior art!". I can only shake my head and say, "Well, duh."
I largely disagree, but you do have some valid points.
Because patents have become so pervasive and will continue to do so, large corporations have huge portfolios. It is a near certainty that a lowly peon with a great idea and a patent will be infringing upon a patent owned by a large corporation.
That is a very distinct possibility, and it is certainly the way that large corporations are attempting to (ab)use the patent system. However, concluding that there are no more original ideas out there is in the ballpark of the late great PTO Director, circa 1899, that argued Pres McKinley for the abolition of the PTO, stating that "Everything that can be invented has been invented." I cry bullshit.
If you can prove that you are the inventor of an idea, you can sue any corporation for infringement. A great way to prove you're the inventor is by having a patent. I say, the larger the corporation, the deeper the pockets, and if I can prove that I made them aware of the existence of my patent or patent-pending application before they went into production, I can sue them for additional damages. Any large corporation should have better sense than to willfully disobey the law, I'm sure over the advice of their Legal dept., and try to steal my idea after I've already got a patent. My legal team doesn't have to be better than theirs. It just has to be good enough to get a jury verdict in my favor. In case you haven't been following the US news, the current environment isn't exactly friendly to big business law-breakers.
The best suggestion I saw on/. was to pay examiners for each application they could reject.
I think someone pointed out last time, too, that almost all patent applications are rejected the first time around. They send it back to you with a list of reasons they rejected it, you fix it, and send it back. Maybe a couple times, until it's eventually accepted. So it wouldn't really make sense to pay them for each time they sent it back...
IANAPTOPE, but I read a lot of/. comments by them. And I'd rather have a system that awards too many patents, requiring the lowly peon to challenge the big goliath in a court of law to get a patent busted, than have a system that's abused the other way, preventing the lowly peon from getting deserved patents, while their well-financed competition steals their idea and puts it in practice much faster with their larger capital backing. (disclaimer: I am the lowly peon)
Finally, there should be a bounty (payable by the patenter) for anyone able to break a patent by proving prior art.
Now that's interesting... but again, that would even further skew the patent system from one that tries to put the lowly peon on equal footing with the Established Interests. Example: OmniCorp has a Patent subdivision of their Legal org. The PTO requires an additional $2k (?) bounty deposit to be staked when first patenting something. That's chump change for OmniCorp, but it may be very tricky for John Q. DocBrown to pony up the deposit, in addition to his now-steeper filing fees (thx PTO reorg). So DocBrown is afraid to file his patent, for fear of losing 3-large if his idea turns out to be stupid, instead of just one.
And when do you get your bounty-deposit back? 20 years later, when the patent expires? Now, the PTO could pay the bounty instead, since they kinda screwed up, but I don't think that would help anyone. You might put in place a system where the PE no longer has any reason to approve a valid app, that may be close to prior art, for fear of getting it busted in court and racking up a demerit point.
Another one: patents should be backed up by significant and provable documentation of the actual invention process.
Umm, it's not that way now? You mean including the inspirational moment, or what? Because you have to have everything else well backed up, if you want to assert that you're the actual inventor, if anyone tries ripping you off.
I've got a suggestion for the/. crowd. We all know that these big businesses and their patents suck. But think of a million-dollar idea, (like a Jump to Conclusions mat..) and think of what you'd have to do to start a company to go in to business to exploit the idea, assuming you don't already own one. Put yourself in the position of the lowly peon with a ticket to glory, instead of a role of angry-slashdotter-reacting-to-abuse-by-large-corpo rations, and think of how grateful you are for each protection afforded to the small patenter, and how loathe you would be to "reform" those protections away... It's eye-opening.
Haha. Read this yesterday, from "Chet and Erik" at Old Man Murray, on the "top one hundred game-related fallacies and the crimes we feel they encourage." (they could only think of three.)
The Fallacy of the Woman Gamer
There are no women gamers, and anyone who tells you otherwise is a liar. They don't exist. In the '80s there was one, but she died. The women that you see competing in Quake tournaments are paid employees of id. If you meet a "woman" in an online game such as EverQuest or Tribes, there's a pretty good chance it's either one of us or a 40-year-old man. And if you're sure it's neither of those things, then maybe it's the government testing a robot or a poltergeist because it's not a human female. Some of you may complain that you're positive you've met a woman on one of the various MUDS. Perhaps, which brings up a point that didn't make the list: MUDS are not games.
Crime Encouraged:
Since impersonating a woman isn't a crime unless she's also a police officer, we're going to have to fall back on Chet punching Lord British.
For context, go read the real column, and remember all the good times with oldmanmurray. Anyone have any idea what happened to them?
I'm still undecided as to whether the Xbox is a honeypot for MS to see how easy people find it to crack the hardware, in preparation for whatever is going to replace it.
The Xbox is a honeypot to see how easy it is to tap some of the 9-billion-USD/year-and-rising video game market. Carving off a decent chunk of the console market (don't forget they've already got a PC games division) would represent a substantial slice of their yearly gross. Seems like a good enough reason on it's own.
I'm firmly of the opinion that the DRM features are present in the XBox as a practice run.
Maybe, but this is a bit of a stretch. The Palladium group is totally separate from the X-Box group. Different buildings, different campus. Maybe they've met each other.
MS isn't substantially in the PC-hardware business. Don't confuse their Palladium plans with the TCPA hardware plans. We like to make up fantastic M$ conspiracy plans (they've certainly replaced NSA as the/. boogeyman), but they just don't hold water. Reason: MS devs are the same as the rest of us. (Granted, most of em got recruited straight out of school, so they might be lacking real-world experience, but they're still human.) It's only HR, Marketing, and Legal that are the evil departments, but then show me a corporation that has Catbert the Fairy Godmother HR rep.
The point is, as I struggle to get back on topic, that Palladium could be a very good thing for the Windows world. The ability to efficiently separate software privilege according to least-privilege principle and the status of trusted, signed code -- what's not to like? The thing that all of us are worried about is whether the power to determine what code to run will lie with the end-user or with some external authority.
My guess is both. Right now, XP ships with a very decent home firewall. However, group policy on a domain can overrule Administrator's decision to turn on the firewall, so that in a corporate environment, you don't break things by having your firewall on in an ostensibly trustworthy environment. It's not a big stretch to see how, on an unconnected computer (home user), full control of Palladium's features lies with Administrator, and on a business domain, full control lies with the Domain Administrator.
You could run any app you wanted, but as soon as you connected to a Domain, you'd have to check with the Domain's policy server to verify whether these programs are also allowed to run when connected to the domain. Kazaa would probably be shut down, but Word would stay open. Mozilla would never miss a beat, but bo2k would disconnect.
Compare this to TCPA, where control cannot *possibly* be with the end user, because the end user does not even control the hardware. TCPA hardware might have a market with business, but I can't imagine many people jumping on board to buy crippled hardware, and as long as people are voting with their wallets, somebody will be selling non-crippled hardware.
And don't forget that these days most folks can do everything they need to on free software on a free OS. I don't think we're going to lose converts to the DRM craze, so even in a TCPA-dominated world, you'll only need the platform to run specialized software like Photoshop, 3dsmax, etc., where companies can actually make money selling exclusively TCPA-aware versions. But then look at the progress of the gimp, and blender...
bleagh, this is too long to discuss in a post. =) Summary: TCPA bad, Palladium good, maybe. But then again, I like NSA's SELinux, too... ; )
Nah nah nah, you just spend a little time training the machine, like you would with a speech-recognition program. After a while, it figures out how far you're reaching for the 'Q' from your home-row fingers, etc.
I have always believed that this happens because the editors firmly believe, like Faulkner before them, that there are truly no new stories. In the vast span of human existence, tales of greed and altruism, life and death, nobility and depravity, wonder and Red Hat point releases, have all been played out countless times in the same familiar manner. Only the faces change. To my mind this is a very humanistic sentiment, and I cherish those editors who recognize this fundamental truth of our existence.
*clap* *clap* *clap*
(sorry, no mod points =)
Re:Why do no stories display the year?
on
Slashdot Turns 5
·
· Score: 2
My only main quibble with Slashdot is why aren't YEARS SHOWN ON STORIES!?
It's cool, go to your 'prefs' page, the setting at the top is "Date/Time Format", a pull down you can use to select different formatting options. Pick one with a year.
I remember a couple years ago I had the exact same beef, and figured more people would be bitching about it if it couldn't be changed, so poked around til I found out. =) Judging from your moderation, I'd say it's a fairly common grudge.
I can't believe no one's mentioned The Coroner's Toolkit. Written by Dan Farmer and Wietse Venema, those crazy kids that wrote SATAN, back in the day. It has all kinds of fun tools for poking around backstage on a *nix box, ostensibly forensics-related work after a machine compromise, but if you accidentally delete something important, you could pretend that someone else broke in and did it. =)
What the hell is it? The Coroner's Toolkit (TCT) is a collection of tools designed to assist in a forensic examination of a computer. It is primarily designed for Unix systems, but it can [do] some small amount of data collection & analysis from non-Unix disks/media.
Features: Notable TCT components are the grave-robber tool that captures information, the ils and mactime tools that display access patterns of files dead or alive, the unrm and lazarus tools that recover deleted files, and the findkey tool that recovers cryptographic keys from a running process or from files.
"Take this object, but beware! It carries a terrible curse!"
The advantage is has over some recovery options is that it's entirely post-mortem. If you just deleted the boss's laundry-list, you could go download it, build it, and stand a pretty decent chance of recovering your file.
It does seem like there should be a way to do something hacktivist-like online... I dunno if this is there yet.
If there's a large sit-down protest at an event or business, it attracts attention because everyone can see it, and it only inconveniences the target. This method would seem exactly the opposite. It inconveniences everyone, if the DDoS produces a significant drain on the network besides just the target; and it doesn't attract attention, because no one can walk past your email flood and ask you what you're doing and why you're doing it.
I would suggest that the authors stop wasting time working on a thinly disguised DDoS tool and instead actually try to see how political speech and democratic ideals can actually fit together. The past few years have seen the emergence of weblogs, community forums, indymedia, and a host of other digital tools for helping people build communities of discussion and distribute ideas and information that can be used to educate and inform. I would suggest that people actually interested in digital democracy seek out these tools and help to make them better.
Seems to me that the state-of-the-art in digital democracy is as a means for communication, organization, and education - not as an effective method of civil disobedience in itself, but as a means to effectively organize conventional methods of civil disobedience.
Civil disobedience is a coordination problem, doing little good if only one person practices it, so it requires advance agreement and commitment. Maybe we need an organization and web site to coordinate CD movements...
Come check us out. We just started the group this morning, but if we roll big enough, maybe we can get some heads to turn. We're calling ourselves the Digital Mandate.
Here's the rest of the story --
I've got another post in response to strudeau proposing that we organize large conventions in several cities coast-to-coast, to get some big media exposure. We've also created a new yahoo groups account for collecting us slashdotters. It's called the Digital Mandate Consumer Advocacy Group;)
What cringely suggests is great. I am a huge proponent of organizing to oppose certain laws that adversely affect me. How do you organize people to do something like that?
Come join us, we're trying to figure out the same thing.;)
I've got another post in response to strudeau proposing that we organize large conventions in several cities coast-to-coast, to get some big media exposure. We've also created a new yahoo groups account for collecting us slashdotters. It's called the Digital Mandate Consumer Advocacy Group;)
If you're interested, sub the list and help us figure out what we should be doing with our collective civil disobedience. Our only hope is to get enough people in one place to be effective, and that means WE NEED YOU! =)
Let's do it. I've got another post in response to strudeau proposing that we organize large conventions in several cities coast-to-coast, to get some big media exposure. We've also created a new yahoo groups account for collecting us slashdotters. It's called the Digital Mandate Consumer Advocacy Group;)
Come check us out. We need large numbers of people that are interested in helping to organize and pull off effective anti-DMCA demonstrations. It's fun to be an activist on slashdot, but it might be even more fun to be an activist in a forum where the insightful things you say could inspire people to large scale acts of civil disobedience =)
I'm in. I have another post above, in response to strudeau proposing that we organize large conventions in several cities coast-to-coast, to get some big media exposure. I also created a new yahoo groups account for collecting us slashdotters. I called it the Digital Mandate Consumer Advocacy Group;)
If you guys are interested, Slashdotters Unite! Sub the list, join the Digital Mandate, and we'll figure out who we've got and what we're gonna do about it.
What I propose is a national gathering (perhaps in 2-4 locations simaltaneously) where folks can come together en masse to explicitly violate terms of the DMCA collectively in a public manner.
Would have modded you up, but then couldn't give you my email address =)
schlachtavius _at_ yahoo.com
Are you proposing it, or are you "proposing" it? Because if you're indeed proposing it, I'm in if it's well done, and I'll help organize. I'd probably be in for a California location. Perhaps we should throw up a site to direct people in this conversation to...
Okay, done. Check out the new Digital Mandate Consumer Advocacy group, at yahoo groups. We can start there as a place to gauge interest in a national act of civil disobedience.
If you're an armchair activist for tech issues, consider subbing our new group. The first thing we're gonna do is figure out who we've got, what issues we want to focus on, and how we might stage a massive protest. So sign up! We need you! I'll bring the Hi-C and rice krispy treats.
Seeking redress? What a shame! Your faith is misplaced
in the RBL.
If we had their address, and a name, It would probably
take care of itself...
Or, a Limerick:
Send Congress home -- no laws need be made. Save your money -- the price will be paid. No judges, no jury, have it done in a hurry, A real life black hole -- get a spade.
Yeah. Simpsons is so much more fun with a big crowd. We used to get 22 people (our record) crammed around a 25" TV in a 14'x13' room with no windows.. it got warm, but it was still more fun that way.
I've decided "Real World" is the best small gathering television show. Whenever there's a lull in the conversation, everyone watches the TV and a new conversation springs up about some pathetic foible of one of the cast. I don't like the drinking games, just because that presumes you're watching it all the time..
There's some funny, worthwhile stuff on TV, but I think I speak for many when I say the vast majority is garbage, and isn't watched because it's Quality. Which begs the question, Why is it watched?
Interesting. I'd argue that the basic human demand for live drama hasn't changed too much in several thousand years, so there will always be a demand for plays, shows, and movies.
But I'd say that a lot of the interest in inane television programming is due to a lack of social interaction. This is all armchair, but did you watch more TV during those halcyon childhood summers playing with friends, or when you now get home from your job at 9pm and are too tired to call one of the three people you know in the entire city? Isolation is TV's best friend.
So in that case, maybe an explosion in the quality of videoconferencing software and hardware will replace much of the demand. Friends will replace "Friends". Talking on the phone sucks. I would much rather have seven chat windows open when I want to talk with my friends back on the other coast. But how much better to be able to communicate almost as though face to face? No replacement for having true in-person social interactions, but definitely a replacement for text chat, and just maybe a TV killer...
Maybe Zaphod would take a hit from a not-so-English type, but Bruce "Don't call me Zaphod" Campbell would more than make up for it with what he can bring to the table.
Bruce would be *such* a good idea. Somebody call his agent...
Slashdot Mirror
A corporation with sufficiently deep pockets can stop you dead in the water simply by alleging that your patented method infringes on their patent.
/. that want (foolishly, IMHO) no one to be able to patent anything). The exception is the people saying "they shouldn't allow patents with prior art!". I can only shake my head and say, "Well, duh."
Kind of an inconsequential point, but a patent itself cannot infringe on another patent. Only selling or manufacturing something can potentially infringe.
Their patent might be totally unrelated, or might be invalidated by your earlier patent. It won't matter, though; the simple fact that they are threatening legal action will effectively cut you off from venture capital. If they never sue, you're probably stuck. If they do sue, they can bleed you to death, whether there is any merit to your case or not. You might be right, and you might even win, about the time pigs fly, but it might not do you much good.
This would be a real horror story. Not sure if it's ever happened. My advice would be to get your venture capital before the Evil Corporations learn about your secret business plan (it had to be secret, in order to patent it..) Then you could only be burned by corporations attempting to steal your idea, and sue you for infringement, after your patent application and after you'd received venture capital. That should be some ambulance-chaser's wet dream, open and shut, and I bet, after some favorable local newspaper coverage, you'd have sharks lining up to get 50% of the compensatory and punitive damages... it might not be resolved for years, but you're already in business, and if you eventually win, you can, based on recent rulings, recoup hundreds of millions of dollars in damages. Companies are abusing the patent system by patenting everything because of how many have been substantially burned by trying to evade it in the past...
I think that the patent system has become a dance of elephants, and us little guys can only hope to stay out of the way and not get squashed, while everything around us is flattened.
I see. I don't agree, but I can understand why you might see it that way, especially hanging out on slashdot. I say, take a chance! Invent something and find out first hand.
It seems to me that most folks support the present patent system because they fantasize about ``inventing something'' and getting rich. This fantasy is promoted by the people who are getting richer by exploiting the patent system; they realize that popular support for it would evaporate if the reality became evident.
Dude, all the shit I read on slashdot is the same stuff you're saying. I don't hear anything from any other media source promoting the way it is now. I don't hear public service announcements from PR firms proclaiming how great everything is right now, and how we should keep Congress from changing anything. I don't buy the conspiracy theory. Christ, even the administration is pushing its plans to reform the PTO. I don't think anyone believes it works very efficiently right now. Not even me. I'm just saying I haven't heard any ideas for reform that actually make sense, from the perspective of someone who wants to be able to patent something (as opposed to I think a lot of people on
I largely disagree, but you do have some valid points.
Because patents have become so pervasive and will continue to do so, large corporations have huge portfolios. It is a near certainty that a lowly peon with a great idea and a patent will be infringing upon a patent owned by a large corporation.
That is a very distinct possibility, and it is certainly the way that large corporations are attempting to (ab)use the patent system. However, concluding that there are no more original ideas out there is in the ballpark of the late great PTO Director, circa 1899, that argued Pres McKinley for the abolition of the PTO, stating that "Everything that can be invented has been invented." I cry bullshit.
If you can prove that you are the inventor of an idea, you can sue any corporation for infringement. A great way to prove you're the inventor is by having a patent. I say, the larger the corporation, the deeper the pockets, and if I can prove that I made them aware of the existence of my patent or patent-pending application before they went into production, I can sue them for additional damages. Any large corporation should have better sense than to willfully disobey the law, I'm sure over the advice of their Legal dept., and try to steal my idea after I've already got a patent. My legal team doesn't have to be better than theirs. It just has to be good enough to get a jury verdict in my favor. In case you haven't been following the US news, the current environment isn't exactly friendly to big business law-breakers.
Nope, you're both wrong.
I am not a PTO patent-examiner. (It's true, you know.)
Don't worry, no sarcastic comments about your obvious lack of wit =)
--the biggest loser
The best suggestion I saw on /. was to pay examiners for each application they could reject.
/. comments by them. And I'd rather have a system that awards too many patents, requiring the lowly peon to challenge the big goliath in a court of law to get a patent busted, than have a system that's abused the other way, preventing the lowly peon from getting deserved patents, while their well-financed competition steals their idea and puts it in practice much faster with their larger capital backing. (disclaimer: I am the lowly peon)
/. crowd. We all know that these big businesses and their patents suck. But think of a million-dollar idea, (like a Jump to Conclusions mat..) and think of what you'd have to do to start a company to go in to business to exploit the idea, assuming you don't already own one. Put yourself in the position of the lowly peon with a ticket to glory, instead of a role of angry-slashdotter-reacting-to-abuse-by-large-corpo rations, and think of how grateful you are for each protection afforded to the small patenter, and how loathe you would be to "reform" those protections away... It's eye-opening.
I think someone pointed out last time, too, that almost all patent applications are rejected the first time around. They send it back to you with a list of reasons they rejected it, you fix it, and send it back. Maybe a couple times, until it's eventually accepted. So it wouldn't really make sense to pay them for each time they sent it back...
IANAPTOPE, but I read a lot of
Finally, there should be a bounty (payable by the patenter) for anyone able to break a patent by proving prior art.
Now that's interesting... but again, that would even further skew the patent system from one that tries to put the lowly peon on equal footing with the Established Interests. Example: OmniCorp has a Patent subdivision of their Legal org. The PTO requires an additional $2k (?) bounty deposit to be staked when first patenting something. That's chump change for OmniCorp, but it may be very tricky for John Q. DocBrown to pony up the deposit, in addition to his now-steeper filing fees (thx PTO reorg). So DocBrown is afraid to file his patent, for fear of losing 3-large if his idea turns out to be stupid, instead of just one.
And when do you get your bounty-deposit back? 20 years later, when the patent expires? Now, the PTO could pay the bounty instead, since they kinda screwed up, but I don't think that would help anyone. You might put in place a system where the PE no longer has any reason to approve a valid app, that may be close to prior art, for fear of getting it busted in court and racking up a demerit point.
Another one: patents should be backed up by significant and provable documentation of the actual invention process.
Umm, it's not that way now? You mean including the inspirational moment, or what? Because you have to have everything else well backed up, if you want to assert that you're the actual inventor, if anyone tries ripping you off.
I've got a suggestion for the
schlach quoted (from Gamespot):
There are no women gamers, and anyone who tells you otherwise is a liar. They don't exist. In the '80s there was one, but she died.
Sorry, but I'm still alive.
Oh thank God!! Do you have any idea how worried we were?? Why didn't you ever tell us you were all right?!
Hey everyone! I found her! =p
I just wanted to point out, that's quite a comment you got there:
Moderation Totals: Flamebait=1, Troll=1, Insightful=1, Informative=2, Funny=3, Overrated=1, Total=9.
It's something when you can get modded about equally in both directions... =)
cheers
For context, go read the real column, and remember all the good times with oldmanmurray. Anyone have any idea what happened to them?
I'm still undecided as to whether the Xbox is a honeypot for MS to see how easy people find it to crack the hardware, in preparation for whatever is going to replace it.
/. boogeyman), but they just don't hold water. Reason: MS devs are the same as the rest of us. (Granted, most of em got recruited straight out of school, so they might be lacking real-world experience, but they're still human.) It's only HR, Marketing, and Legal that are the evil departments, but then show me a corporation that has Catbert the Fairy Godmother HR rep.
The Xbox is a honeypot to see how easy it is to tap some of the 9-billion-USD/year-and-rising video game market. Carving off a decent chunk of the console market (don't forget they've already got a PC games division) would represent a substantial slice of their yearly gross. Seems like a good enough reason on it's own.
I'm firmly of the opinion that the DRM features are present in the XBox as a practice run.
Maybe, but this is a bit of a stretch. The Palladium group is totally separate from the X-Box group. Different buildings, different campus. Maybe they've met each other.
MS isn't substantially in the PC-hardware business. Don't confuse their Palladium plans with the TCPA hardware plans. We like to make up fantastic M$ conspiracy plans (they've certainly replaced NSA as the
The point is, as I struggle to get back on topic, that Palladium could be a very good thing for the Windows world. The ability to efficiently separate software privilege according to least-privilege principle and the status of trusted, signed code -- what's not to like? The thing that all of us are worried about is whether the power to determine what code to run will lie with the end-user or with some external authority.
My guess is both. Right now, XP ships with a very decent home firewall. However, group policy on a domain can overrule Administrator's decision to turn on the firewall, so that in a corporate environment, you don't break things by having your firewall on in an ostensibly trustworthy environment. It's not a big stretch to see how, on an unconnected computer (home user), full control of Palladium's features lies with Administrator, and on a business domain, full control lies with the Domain Administrator.
You could run any app you wanted, but as soon as you connected to a Domain, you'd have to check with the Domain's policy server to verify whether these programs are also allowed to run when connected to the domain. Kazaa would probably be shut down, but Word would stay open. Mozilla would never miss a beat, but bo2k would disconnect.
Compare this to TCPA, where control cannot *possibly* be with the end user, because the end user does not even control the hardware. TCPA hardware might have a market with business, but I can't imagine many people jumping on board to buy crippled hardware, and as long as people are voting with their wallets, somebody will be selling non-crippled hardware.
And don't forget that these days most folks can do everything they need to on free software on a free OS. I don't think we're going to lose converts to the DRM craze, so even in a TCPA-dominated world, you'll only need the platform to run specialized software like Photoshop, 3dsmax, etc., where companies can actually make money selling exclusively TCPA-aware versions. But then look at the progress of the gimp, and blender...
bleagh, this is too long to discuss in a post. =) Summary: TCPA bad, Palladium good, maybe. But then again, I like NSA's SELinux, too... ; )
Nah nah nah, you just spend a little time training the machine, like you would with a speech-recognition program. After a while, it figures out how far you're reaching for the 'Q' from your home-row fingers, etc.
I have always believed that this happens because the editors firmly believe, like Faulkner before them, that there are truly no new stories. In the vast span of human existence, tales of greed and altruism, life and death, nobility and depravity, wonder and Red Hat point releases, have all been played out countless times in the same familiar manner. Only the faces change. To my mind this is a very humanistic sentiment, and I cherish those editors who recognize this fundamental truth of our existence.
*clap* *clap* *clap*
(sorry, no mod points =)
My only main quibble with Slashdot is why aren't YEARS SHOWN ON STORIES!?
It's cool, go to your 'prefs' page, the setting at the top is "Date/Time Format", a pull down you can use to select different formatting options. Pick one with a year.
I remember a couple years ago I had the exact same beef, and figured more people would be bitching about it if it couldn't be changed, so poked around til I found out. =) Judging from your moderation, I'd say it's a fairly common grudge.
cheers
From the FAQ:
"Take this object, but beware! It carries a terrible curse!"
The advantage is has over some recovery options is that it's entirely post-mortem. If you just deleted the boss's laundry-list, you could go download it, build it, and stand a pretty decent chance of recovering your file.
The disadvantage is that, perhaps like a real autopsy, it's not for the faint of heart...
If there's a large sit-down protest at an event or business, it attracts attention because everyone can see it, and it only inconveniences the target. This method would seem exactly the opposite. It inconveniences everyone, if the DDoS produces a significant drain on the network besides just the target; and it doesn't attract attention, because no one can walk past your email flood and ask you what you're doing and why you're doing it.
To quote Jim McCoy's comment,
Seems to me that the state-of-the-art in digital democracy is as a means for communication, organization, and education - not as an effective method of civil disobedience in itself, but as a means to effectively organize conventional methods of civil disobedience.
A med-laser? What's that, 5 heat per turn?
The XL engine alone has 10 heat sinks, enough to mount two of those beasts... ; )
</obligatory MechWarrior reference>
Civil disobedience is a coordination problem, doing little good if only one person practices it, so it requires advance agreement and commitment. Maybe we need an organization and web site to coordinate CD movements...
;)
Come check us out. We just started the group this morning, but if we roll big enough, maybe we can get some heads to turn. We're calling ourselves the Digital Mandate.
Here's the rest of the story --
I've got another post in response to strudeau proposing that we organize large conventions in several cities coast-to-coast, to get some big media exposure. We've also created a new yahoo groups account for collecting us slashdotters. It's called the Digital Mandate Consumer Advocacy Group
What cringely suggests is great. I am a huge proponent of organizing to oppose certain laws that adversely affect me. How do you organize people to do something like that?
;)
;)
Come join us, we're trying to figure out the same thing.
I've got another post in response to strudeau proposing that we organize large conventions in several cities coast-to-coast, to get some big media exposure. We've also created a new yahoo groups account for collecting us slashdotters. It's called the Digital Mandate Consumer Advocacy Group
If you're interested, sub the list and help us figure out what we should be doing with our collective civil disobedience. Our only hope is to get enough people in one place to be effective, and that means WE NEED YOU! =)
But what if everybody decided to breach the DMCA?
;)
Let's do it. I've got another post in response to strudeau proposing that we organize large conventions in several cities coast-to-coast, to get some big media exposure. We've also created a new yahoo groups account for collecting us slashdotters. It's called the Digital Mandate Consumer Advocacy Group
Come check us out. We need large numbers of people that are interested in helping to organize and pull off effective anti-DMCA demonstrations. It's fun to be an activist on slashdot, but it might be even more fun to be an activist in a forum where the insightful things you say could inspire people to large scale acts of civil disobedience =)
--schlach
I'm in. I have another post above, in response to strudeau proposing that we organize large conventions in several cities coast-to-coast, to get some big media exposure. I also created a new yahoo groups account for collecting us slashdotters. I called it the Digital Mandate Consumer Advocacy Group ;)
If you guys are interested, Slashdotters Unite! Sub the list, join the Digital Mandate, and we'll figure out who we've got and what we're gonna do about it.
--schlach
What I propose is a national gathering (perhaps in 2-4 locations simaltaneously) where folks can come together en masse to explicitly violate terms of the DMCA collectively in a public manner.
Would have modded you up, but then couldn't give you my email address =)
schlachtavius _at_ yahoo.com
Are you proposing it, or are you "proposing" it? Because if you're indeed proposing it, I'm in if it's well done, and I'll help organize. I'd probably be in for a California location. Perhaps we should throw up a site to direct people in this conversation to...
Okay, done. Check out the new Digital Mandate Consumer Advocacy group, at yahoo groups. We can start there as a place to gauge interest in a national act of civil disobedience.
If you're an armchair activist for tech issues, consider subbing our new group. The first thing we're gonna do is figure out who we've got, what issues we want to focus on, and how we might stage a massive protest. So sign up! We need you! I'll bring the Hi-C and rice krispy treats.
--schlach
Man, if I falsified my data, I wouldn't get no Nobel Prize.
Shit... probably just get my ass fired.
Oh wait. =)
Seeking redress?
What a shame!
Your faith is misplaced
in the RBL.
If we had their address,
and a name,
It would probably
take care of itself...
Or, a Limerick:
Send Congress home -- no laws need be made.
Save your money -- the price will be paid.
No judges, no jury,
have it done in a hurry,
A real life black hole -- get a spade.
Yeah. Simpsons is so much more fun with a big crowd. We used to get 22 people (our record) crammed around a 25" TV in a 14'x13' room with no windows.. it got warm, but it was still more fun that way.
I've decided "Real World" is the best small gathering television show. Whenever there's a lull in the conversation, everyone watches the TV and a new conversation springs up about some pathetic foible of one of the cast. I don't like the drinking games, just because that presumes you're watching it all the time..
There's some funny, worthwhile stuff on TV, but I think I speak for many when I say the vast majority is garbage, and isn't watched because it's Quality. Which begs the question, Why is it watched?
Interesting. I'd argue that the basic human demand for live drama hasn't changed too much in several thousand years, so there will always be a demand for plays, shows, and movies.
But I'd say that a lot of the interest in inane television programming is due to a lack of social interaction. This is all armchair, but did you watch more TV during those halcyon childhood summers playing with friends, or when you now get home from your job at 9pm and are too tired to call one of the three people you know in the entire city? Isolation is TV's best friend.
So in that case, maybe an explosion in the quality of videoconferencing software and hardware will replace much of the demand. Friends will replace "Friends". Talking on the phone sucks. I would much rather have seven chat windows open when I want to talk with my friends back on the other coast. But how much better to be able to communicate almost as though face to face? No replacement for having true in-person social interactions, but definitely a replacement for text chat, and just maybe a TV killer...
yeah but how will they know it was you? ; )
Suggestion noted.
Maybe Zaphod would take a hit from a not-so-English type, but Bruce "Don't call me Zaphod" Campbell would more than make up for it with what he can bring to the table.
Bruce would be *such* a good idea. Somebody call his agent...