No, it's not DRM. And what you read wasn't half bad, only you have to know how its realized in a security context. Basically, you not only decide which objects can be accessed by which classes of entities, but you then likewise decide (on an inclusion only, not exclusion, basis) which entities can access which objects.
For example, I might decide that the only valid files that httpd can "see" are "/etc/a" and a few others. From that point forward, even if someone gets full "root" access to httpd, they cannot, by any act of god do anything more than access/etc/a. A good example of this, commercially, is the Guardian Digital product.
N.B., some "illities" that one might want to restrict would be things like preventing access to raw ip packets and the like. It really just depends on what atoms you put in the kernel.
SE Linux (NSA Linux) does something similar, although it's much harder to configure.
Guardian Digital also has a free version available for download, BTW.
Anyway, MAC systems tend to be "unbreakable" (ah, sic!) unless they are brought down into system configuration mode, which is usually below run level 3.
They're useless! Any competent hacker knows that there are hundreds (thousands?) of ways to get around being caught by an IDS.
Knowledge that LIDS is present on a system being accessed, indeed if they can determine that LIDS is present, will send even the best hackers fleeing the moment they discover it. Anything built around a MAC (Mandatory Access Control) file system is bad mojo. You'd have to be working for a first world intelligence agency to even dream of sticking around.
There's nothing technical about this. downloading music is NOT illegal.
The courts have already ruled that a "download" makes you first party to distribution. You are, in effect, "distributing" a copy to yourself. The courts think of it this way (and technically, they are correct): electronically, the process of duplication involves two (or more) computers, working in concert. Therefore both ends are first party.
BTW, I suggest you peruse the various sites on the internet dedicated to the discussion of copyright law. For example, your assertion that "downloading music is not illegal" does not fit with someone who understands the law that well (in the US anyway), if what you mean is "downloading copyrighted music without permission of the copyright holder".
No citation. Logic... Therefore such decision is unconstitutional.
A piece of advice for you: refrain from throwing around terms like "unconstitutional", all willy-nilly like, as a generic word for something you object to.
See, I find this part of the law distasteful. If someone is breaking the law, you should be required to minimize your losses. In this case, minimizing the losses would require taking down "illegal" servers.
Your conclusion does not follow from the premises introduced, and moreover is biased. It could easily be the opinion of the victim that "minimize losses" consists of identifying and stopping the largest number of perpetrators.
(re: SCO) Failure to take either option should immediately cause their monetary losses to be $0.
As a matter of both detail and practice of law, this is already the case. They have no legal basis to make you sign an NDA, either. Their footing is so slippery, I'm doubting they'll ever bring any of it to court. A judge will slap the gavel down so hard, he'll break it. They simply have no excuse for this sort of gamesmanship.
The court was wrong if it was applied to the person who did not know that the file is copyrighted.
The ruling of the court wasn't so much regarding cognizance of the event, which is always salient, but rather that in engaging your computer in a "download" you are actually first party to a creation of a copy. IOW, someone who requests a download is a proactive copier, not a passive receiver.
Not to mention the fact that going after downloaders in general is illegal and even unconstitutional.
Both of these statements are false. The courts have already ruled that a "downloader" is actually a first party to the generation of any electronic copy. It's actionable. And it's hardly "unconstitutional".
So the only way the RIAA can see you downloading is if you download from one of their computers,...
This conclusion doesn't follow. For example, if they identified a server, they could plop a court order on the ISP to set up observation, and collect all the "downloaders" that way.
Now paying someone $25k to audit security is a perfectly legitimate business undertaking. So, how is providing that service for free necessarily "damage." (???)
When you provide a service for "free," at a time you select, under terms you prefer, you are catering to yourself and not the third party. Such "free" services are hardly "free". They are enacted for self-serving purposes, for one's own personal gratification. The convenenience of the third party isn't even considered.
How would you feel if you left your door unlocked one night, a neighbor came buy and tested it, then entered your house, and begin screaming at the top of his lungs: "HEY! YOU LEFT YOUR DOOR UNLOCKED!!!"
I know how *I* would feel. I would meet him with my GUN loaded, drawn, and leveled at his belly button. Arrest would follow shortly thereafter.
Some laws are really absurd. About a year ago, I was predicting this whole RIAA fiasco, and was telling everyone and their mother to turn off Kazaa and the likes. This was a message that people didn't want to hear.
What's happen is a massive legal showdown, with corporate interests on one side of the battle, and the general public on the other. While only one side of this battle can ultimately win (the public), the process of getting to that point can and will generate plenty of casualties.
My current prediction is, over the next 10 years, for their to arise some sort of generalized meltdown in the entire world intellectual property system. End-game is completely unknown to me. "Round and round she goes, where it stops, nobody knows."
Anyway, conflict and chaos means wildly uncertain outcomes. Both conflict and chaos are now present. Ergo,...
I do not understand your question. The contract will not be able to lawfully sustain a provision that declares something like the following: "you have our source code, do with it what you please, but do not compare it to other source code to see if we are breaking the law." Such a provision would be unlawful.
And Microsoft's NDA surely gives them the right to do this.
A term in any contract, including any NDA, as stipulated by any party, which would obligate the other party to not report a violation of law, either statute or criminial, is PER SE unlawful and cannot be enforced within any jurisdiction of of most first world countries. Any contract bearing such a stipulation would in fact be at significant risk of invalidating the ENTIRE contract, not just the unlawful provisions therein.
We had this video teleconfrence going on, using a mux of video cams and one of those large speaker phones, where one of the participants in a stroke of genius picked up the speaker phone and put it right on top of his computer. From our perspective, he just disappeared...
Another important legal question (and IANAL) but it is something I have been wondering throughout. If the RIAA sues people, don't they have to prove that they have suffered damages and losses?
No. The relevant statutes provide for assumed damages.
If they drop the case, then all of the other people they're suing will (quite publicly) ask: "How come it's okay if a 12-year-old does it, but not if I do?"
Answer: "It's not okay for her to do it, we just picked _you_ to make an example of."
They can publically ask anything they like, however, such an argument will not make one iota of a difference in Court.
Of course; however, ping alone does not ICMP make. If one blocks all of ICMP in an effort to block pings, one isn't as much of a "network demigod" as one might think. Certain other essential network functionalities are hamstrung.
You'll probably appreciate this. Totally rocks, ssh is peanuts in comparison. You can *bridge* across the tunnel if you want, certainly you can route if you'd prefer:
Blocking ICMP will prevent a variety of important transaction information from being sent through, and also halt MTU discovery. That's a broken thing to do.
I was working on my home computer, had it dissassembled in various parts, was doing some testing. Wife called. Handled phone call. Hung up. Now where was I?
*power up*
*puff of smoke*
Oh, yes. The part where I was supposed to put the heatsink on the cpu.
You may very well be right. However, if IBM is able to prove this, their countersuit will be a real humdinger. The Courts look darkly upon those who file to intimidate.
If what the cracker did is actually what this post says, I think he didn't do anything wrong ethically.
I disagree. He had no right to put his value system in front of theirs. It's quite likely that they valued their privacy more than he valued his ability to get into their system and tell them about their lack of privacy. You see, for him to do this, it requires him to invade their privacy and create problems for them on *his* terms. It's narcissism, and that's why he's getting busted. He believed that his terms were more important than theirs.
Slashdot Mirror
No, it's not DRM. And what you read wasn't half bad, only you have to know how its realized in a security context. Basically, you not only decide which objects can be accessed by which classes of entities, but you then likewise decide (on an inclusion only, not exclusion, basis) which entities can access which objects.
/etc/a. A good example of this, commercially, is the Guardian Digital product.
For example, I might decide that the only valid files that httpd can "see" are "/etc/a" and a few others. From that point forward, even if someone gets full "root" access to httpd, they cannot, by any act of god do anything more than access
N.B., some "illities" that one might want to restrict would be things like preventing access to raw ip packets and the like. It really just depends on what atoms you put in the kernel.
SE Linux (NSA Linux) does something similar, although it's much harder to configure.
Guardian Digital also has a free version available for download, BTW.
Anyway, MAC systems tend to be "unbreakable" (ah, sic!) unless they are brought down into system configuration mode, which is usually below run level 3.
C//
They're useless! Any competent hacker knows that there are hundreds (thousands?) of ways to get around being caught by an IDS.
Knowledge that LIDS is present on a system being accessed, indeed if they can determine that LIDS is present, will send even the best hackers fleeing the moment they discover it. Anything built around a MAC (Mandatory Access Control) file system is bad mojo. You'd have to be working for a first world intelligence agency to even dream of sticking around.
C//
Well, to be a little nitpicky, no coporation has ever called you, you know. :)
C//
There's nothing technical about this. downloading music is NOT illegal.
The courts have already ruled that a "download" makes you first party to distribution. You are, in effect, "distributing" a copy to yourself. The courts think of it this way (and technically, they are correct): electronically, the process of duplication involves two (or more) computers, working in concert. Therefore both ends are first party.
BTW, I suggest you peruse the various sites on the internet dedicated to the discussion of copyright law. For example, your assertion that "downloading music is not illegal" does not fit with someone who understands the law that well (in the US anyway), if what you mean is "downloading copyrighted music without permission of the copyright holder".
C//
No citation. Logic... Therefore such decision is unconstitutional.
A piece of advice for you: refrain from throwing around terms like "unconstitutional", all willy-nilly like, as a generic word for something you object to.
C//
See, I find this part of the law distasteful. If someone is breaking the law, you should be required to minimize your losses. In this case, minimizing the losses would require taking down "illegal" servers.
Your conclusion does not follow from the premises introduced, and moreover is biased. It could easily be the opinion of the victim that "minimize losses" consists of identifying and stopping the largest number of perpetrators.
(re: SCO) Failure to take either option should immediately cause their monetary losses to be $0.
As a matter of both detail and practice of law, this is already the case. They have no legal basis to make you sign an NDA, either. Their footing is so slippery, I'm doubting they'll ever bring any of it to court. A judge will slap the gavel down so hard, he'll break it. They simply have no excuse for this sort of gamesmanship.
C//
The court was wrong if it was applied to the person who did not know that the file is copyrighted.
The ruling of the court wasn't so much regarding cognizance of the event, which is always salient, but rather that in engaging your computer in a "download" you are actually first party to a creation of a copy. IOW, someone who requests a download is a proactive copier, not a passive receiver.
The court decision was unconstitutional...
Citation?
C//
Not to mention the fact that going after downloaders in general is illegal and even unconstitutional.
Both of these statements are false. The courts have already ruled that a "downloader" is actually a first party to the generation of any electronic copy. It's actionable. And it's hardly "unconstitutional".
C//
So the only way the RIAA can see you downloading is if you download from one of their computers,...
This conclusion doesn't follow. For example, if they identified a server, they could plop a court order on the ISP to set up observation, and collect all the "downloaders" that way.
C//
Now paying someone $25k to audit security is a perfectly legitimate business undertaking. So, how is providing that service for free necessarily "damage." (???)
When you provide a service for "free," at a time you select, under terms you prefer, you are catering to yourself and not the third party. Such "free" services are hardly "free". They are enacted for self-serving purposes, for one's own personal gratification. The convenenience of the third party isn't even considered.
How would you feel if you left your door unlocked one night, a neighbor came buy and tested it, then entered your house, and begin screaming at the top of his lungs: "HEY! YOU LEFT YOUR DOOR UNLOCKED!!!"
I know how *I* would feel. I would meet him with my GUN loaded, drawn, and leveled at his belly button. Arrest would follow shortly thereafter.
C//
Some laws are really absurd. About a year ago, I was predicting this whole RIAA fiasco, and was telling everyone and their mother to turn off Kazaa and the likes. This was a message that people didn't want to hear.
...
What's happen is a massive legal showdown, with corporate interests on one side of the battle, and the general public on the other. While only one side of this battle can ultimately win (the public), the process of getting to that point can and will generate plenty of casualties.
My current prediction is, over the next 10 years, for their to arise some sort of generalized meltdown in the entire world intellectual property system. End-game is completely unknown to me. "Round and round she goes, where it stops, nobody knows."
Anyway, conflict and chaos means wildly uncertain outcomes. Both conflict and chaos are now present. Ergo,
C//
I do not understand your question. The contract will not be able to lawfully sustain a provision that declares something like the following: "you have our source code, do with it what you please, but do not compare it to other source code to see if we are breaking the law." Such a provision would be unlawful.
C//
And Microsoft's NDA surely gives them the right to do this.
A term in any contract, including any NDA, as stipulated by any party, which would obligate the other party to not report a violation of law, either statute or criminial, is PER SE unlawful and cannot be enforced within any jurisdiction of of most first world countries. Any contract bearing such a stipulation would in fact be at significant risk of invalidating the ENTIRE contract, not just the unlawful provisions therein.
C//
We had this video teleconfrence going on, using a mux of video cams and one of those large speaker phones, where one of the participants in a stroke of genius picked up the speaker phone and put it right on top of his computer. From our perspective, he just disappeared...
Speaker phones have *big* magnets in them.
>:)
C//
Another important legal question (and IANAL) but it is something I have been wondering throughout. If the RIAA sues people, don't they have to prove that they have suffered damages and losses?
No. The relevant statutes provide for assumed damages.
C//
If they drop the case, then all of the other people they're suing will (quite publicly) ask: "How come it's okay if a 12-year-old does it, but not if I do?"
Answer: "It's not okay for her to do it, we just picked _you_ to make an example of."
They can publically ask anything they like, however, such an argument will not make one iota of a difference in Court.
C//
I suppose you're right.
Slashdot amuses me on many days. For example, I got modded to "Insightful" for making an carelessly erroneous remark just now.
Just yesterday I got modded as "Overrated" for saying something that the moderated simply _disagreed_ with.
Go figure.
C//
Innocent until proven guilty"
This has never been the standard in civil cases, which is "preponderance of the evidence".
C//
Of course; however, ping alone does not ICMP make. If one blocks all of ICMP in an effort to block pings, one isn't as much of a "network demigod" as one might think. Certain other essential network functionalities are hamstrung.
C//
You'll probably appreciate this. Totally rocks, ssh is peanuts in comparison. You can *bridge* across the tunnel if you want, certainly you can route if you'd prefer:
http://openvpn.sourceforge.net
C//
Blocking ICMP will prevent a variety of important transaction information from being sent through, and also halt MTU discovery. That's a broken thing to do.
C//
I was working on my home computer, had it dissassembled in various parts, was doing some testing. Wife called. Handled phone call. Hung up. Now where was I?
*power up*
*puff of smoke*
Oh, yes. The part where I was supposed to put the heatsink on the cpu.
*cry*
C//
You may very well be right. However, if IBM is able to prove this, their countersuit will be a real humdinger. The Courts look darkly upon those who file to intimidate.
C//
If what the cracker did is actually what this post says, I think he didn't do anything wrong ethically.
I disagree. He had no right to put his value system in front of theirs. It's quite likely that they valued their privacy more than he valued his ability to get into their system and tell them about their lack of privacy. You see, for him to do this, it requires him to invade their privacy and create problems for them on *his* terms. It's narcissism, and that's why he's getting busted. He believed that his terms were more important than theirs.
C//
You're dreaming.
C//