From: support@swbell.net
To: deleted@swbell.net
Sent: Friday, July 27, 2001 11:20 AM
Subject: Attention Usenet Newsgroup Users - Important Information
Dear Southwestern Bell Internet Services Usenet Newsgroup Member,
If you are currently using Southwestern Bell Internet Services Usenet
Newsgroups, we have very important information for you. As you may know,
Southwestern Bell Internet Services has teamed with Prodigy®, a leading
national Internet service provider, as the Southwestern Bell Internet
Services preferred source of Usenet Newsgroups and other Internet related
services.
On July 25, 2001, your newsgroup server, which is currently hosted by
Southwestern Bell Internet Services, will begin a transition to Prodigy. To
continue using Usenet Newsgroups after the final transition date of August
25, you must update your newsgroup software with new server information.
For instructions on how to change your Usenet software, please visit
http://global.swbell.net/usenet_update.html. After August 19, your current
settings will no longer be available.
In addition, after evaluating possible copyright infringement issues,
newsgroup usage and the cost of providing newsgroup access, we will no
longer offer some alt.binary newsgroups. For a list of alt.binaries that
will no longer be offered, please refer to our FAQ at
http://global.swbell.net/usenet_update.html.
For Southwestern Bell Internet Services customer support regarding Usenet,
please call:
* 1-800-NET-HELP for Dial-up Access Customers * 1-877-SBC-DSL5 for DSL Internet Customers
Thank you for using our service and for your attention to this matter. See
you on your new Usenet Newsgroup service!
Sincerely,
The Southwestern Bell Internet Services Team
Copyright 2001 Southwestern Bell Internet Services, Inc All rights
reserved. Southwestern Bell and Southwestern Bell Internet Services, Inc.
are registered trademarks of SBC Communications Inc. or its subsidiaries.
Prodigy is a registered trademark of Prodigy Communications L.P. Other names
may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.
If you're going to pay for news, consider Easynews. They (unlike your description of Uncensored News) don't come off like assholes, have customer support reps available by phone, email, and ICQ (!), and charge a reasonable price for their service. I have no affiliation with them except as a satisfied customer.
If you just want to read text groups, I imagine (though haven't personally checked) that groups.google.com has a fairly complete feed. The downside is that you can't use a traditional NNTP client. However, their web-based threaded reader isn't all that bad.
Next, they'll TOS the customers using {Easynews|Supernews|Giganews|whatever}, since it's really all about bandwidth--the copyright stuff is just a smokescreen.
OK, thanks, I think I get it--QuickTime is a file format independent of the codec used, and is therefore "open," but (nearly) all who use QuickTime have the Sorenson codec, so QuickTime appears to be a (evil, hellbound, other disparaging adjectives) proprietary format. But it's not. It's the Sorenson codec.
Surely there's some kind of evil hack that can call the Windows x86 Sorenson codec code (say that three times fast) and recode on the fly, or even play the video.
I propose that online access to public information be limited such that it doesn't allow a person to retrieve dozens or hundreds of records continuously. If a person wants to access such information, he or she would be allowed a fixed amount of usage (determined by a browser cookie, a scan of the persons IP address, etc.) per day or week. If that person needs to access or download hundreds of records at once for legitimate reasons such as lawsuits, tax research, title research, then such access can be applied for and granted on a case by case basis.
Won't work. Someone only has to get access to all the records once, and can quite legally republish them, since they're public records. Either it's public or it's not--we've too long relied on "public but obscure," which has been no protection at all from those "in the know."
This levels the playing field. So long as there is no special treatment for the rich and/or famous, public records should be public and as easily accessible as possible. Did it make everyone feel better before that only those "in the know" could go look up what we errorneously though were private details about our lives?
The answer to any concerns that there is too much in the public record is to change the laws so such information is not public record, not to make public records harder for the "little people" to access.
My thoughts have also been lately turning to a post-consumerized-Internet network, as well. 802.11 provides some hope, as does the idea of returning even to uucp over the existing Internet, or even over modems, if things became sufficiently bad. While no one will be moving motion pictures over 9.6kbps uucp links, neither will such slow links attract the attention of corporate whores and politicians, which are ruining the Internet to begin with.
So, essentially, you wasted a bunch of your time instead of voting with your feet and encouraging others to do the same. That's the only language they'll hear.
If you're going to threaten their franchise, do it in writing, and to someone who might care (say, the listed contact for service of process typically available from the Secretary of State's office in the state in which the company is incorporated). Bending a customer service rep's ear, or whichever rep is pretending to be a supervisor that day's ear, is a waste of your time and just makes you look like exactly the kind of customer (a demanding one that's costly to service) any mass-market company wants to be rid of.
That said, I hope you have some success with your locals, but if I were you, I'd decide now whether I wanted to go back to dialup for principle's sake or suck it up and change the port number on my http server.
So you think the Rural Electrification Project was Communism? How else do you think there came to be universal access to the grid? The good hearts of power providers?
When I said "manufacturing cost," I was talking only about the costs involved in printing, binding, transporting, etc. physical books, not those involved with marketing, advances, etc. I still don't see savings passed on to the end customer in any significant way, making this a not-very-palatable choice for reading material, once any novelty factor wears off. If the publishers think they can charge the same amount, lock the book to once device, and usurp first sale doctrine rights, I think they're in for a rude, expensive awakening. (I hope.)
No, Evelyn Wood will be picked up by the FBI for teaching people to circumvent access controls, enabling them to rent their books for shorter time periods.
The real problem is that we can't get books through interlibrary loan if they're available on netlibrary
Get a library card at the local public library near your school. They won't have any asinine restrictions about "netlibrary," and will ILL the books you need for you.
I fail to see the problem. If you want to buy the eBook, you can. If you want to rent it, you can. If you think eBooks are incredibly gay, you can buy a dead-tree edition.
I'm glad you can still be optimistic enough to think that the dead-tree edition will be an (affordable) option if this is allowed to become entrenched.
Now quit whining about things that don't matter and Support the EFF
Already have. Thanks for the well-needed kick in the ass, Adobe.
It doesn't actually sound terribly bad. You have the option of buying the "full", untimed version, for $5, or paying $1 for the ten-hour version.
Let me get this straight:
Option 1: I pay almost the same price as for a paperback book. The manufacturing cost is essentially zero, and the royalty to the author is probably unchanged. In return, instead of a paperback book which I may read, trade, lend, give away, or sell at my pleasure, I get an ebook that's locked to one physical device and is not transferable in any way.
Option 2: I pay a buck for what I essentially can get from the public library, except for less time, less portability, and one dollar more. In addition, I no doubt get to "agree" to some Draconian license that disallows anyone from reading over my shoulder or talking about the book in a negative manner.
Yep, sounds good to me. Not! Being a Luddite, I'll do just fine reading what's already been published on paper if this actually were to take off. Unfortunately, one of the first big markets for this crap is already a captive audience: college students. If you think this topic doesn't fit into YRO, you haven't been watching the direction things are headed.
I currently have DHCP on my current DSL service through SBC, and Southwestern Bell as my telephone provider, as well. If they force-convert me over to PPPoE, it's overhead and unholy proprietary client, I'll just cancel all my services with Soutwestern Bell* and get Sprint ION, which has been available here for some time, to replace both telephone lines and DSL, turning a $100/month revenue stream to a competitor. I'm sure there are others. Bring it on, SBC.
Think of what happens when one of the guys who maintains the database happens to be not-so-trustworthy! Not every shop in the world with sensitive data has tight controls--picture a state motor vehicles registry after a budget cut, understaffed, and a hot tech with pretty much free reign. The most sensitive stuff fits on removable media now (CD-R or few). Best case: total honesty, nothing goes wrong. Fair to middlin' case: Hot tech takes a copy of the DMV database, "just in case" he needs to look up someone discreetly. Worse case: Hot tech needs money and sells the registry to organized crime. Makes a few corrupt patrolmen look like small potatoes. At least their queries had been audited.
Cool--thanks! A PCNET driver will be nice when it comes, but I suppose using the modem over the virtual serial port would be enough for playing around.
If your dad desperately wants to learn Oracle, he should get hold of the trial version and some books, install it on a PC (Linux or Windows NT), and start teaching himself. Sitting around waiting for a corp to train him is a recipe for termination.
While that's nice, it won't count as paid experience if he's laid off. What someone learns on his/her own time counts for bupkus with recruiters and hiring managers.
* The Life Sabre is not affiliated with LucasFilms, Star Wars, or any other butthead trademark holders. It should definitely not be confused with "Light Sabre," used in Star Wars. (insert >wink, wink, nudge, nudge< here)
And I suspect Adobe's about face was only a PR move and that behind closed doors, Adobe knew and knows darned well the charges wouldn't be dropped.
This solution allows Adobe to appear to have dropped the case--"We didn't want to pursue it, but the Justice Department wouldn't drop the charges." They get their cake and to eat it as well--the PR heat is off them, and Sklyarov's still in jail.
Adobe does indeed deserve to become the next eToys.
Slashdot Mirror
To: deleted@swbell.net
Sent: Friday, July 27, 2001 11:20 AM
Subject: Attention Usenet Newsgroup Users - Important Information
Dear Southwestern Bell Internet Services Usenet Newsgroup Member,
If you are currently using Southwestern Bell Internet Services Usenet
Newsgroups, we have very important information for you. As you may know,
Southwestern Bell Internet Services has teamed with Prodigy®, a leading
national Internet service provider, as the Southwestern Bell Internet
Services preferred source of Usenet Newsgroups and other Internet related
services.
On July 25, 2001, your newsgroup server, which is currently hosted by
Southwestern Bell Internet Services, will begin a transition to Prodigy. To
continue using Usenet Newsgroups after the final transition date of August
25, you must update your newsgroup software with new server information.
For instructions on how to change your Usenet software, please visit
http://global.swbell.net/usenet_update.html. After August 19, your current
settings will no longer be available.
In addition, after evaluating possible copyright infringement issues,
newsgroup usage and the cost of providing newsgroup access, we will no
longer offer some alt.binary newsgroups. For a list of alt.binaries that
will no longer be offered, please refer to our FAQ at
http://global.swbell.net/usenet_update.html.
For Southwestern Bell Internet Services customer support regarding Usenet,
please call:
* 1-800-NET-HELP for Dial-up Access Customers
* 1-877-SBC-DSL5 for DSL Internet Customers
Thank you for using our service and for your attention to this matter. See
you on your new Usenet Newsgroup service!
Sincerely,
The Southwestern Bell Internet Services Team
Copyright 2001 Southwestern Bell Internet Services, Inc All rights
reserved. Southwestern Bell and Southwestern Bell Internet Services, Inc.
are registered trademarks of SBC Communications Inc. or its subsidiaries.
Prodigy is a registered trademark of Prodigy Communications L.P. Other names
may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.
If you just want to read text groups, I imagine (though haven't personally checked) that groups.google.com has a fairly complete feed. The downside is that you can't use a traditional NNTP client. However, their web-based threaded reader isn't all that bad.
Next, they'll TOS the customers using {Easynews|Supernews|Giganews|whatever}, since it's really all about bandwidth--the copyright stuff is just a smokescreen.
Like the book title says, "Military Justice is to Justice as Military Music is to Music."
Surely there's some kind of evil hack that can call the Windows x86 Sorenson codec code (say that three times fast) and recode on the fly, or even play the video.
So what's the practical difference?
Won't work. Someone only has to get access to all the records once, and can quite legally republish them, since they're public records. Either it's public or it's not--we've too long relied on "public but obscure," which has been no protection at all from those "in the know."
The answer to any concerns that there is too much in the public record is to change the laws so such information is not public record, not to make public records harder for the "little people" to access.
My thoughts have also been lately turning to a post-consumerized-Internet network, as well. 802.11 provides some hope, as does the idea of returning even to uucp over the existing Internet, or even over modems, if things became sufficiently bad. While no one will be moving motion pictures over 9.6kbps uucp links, neither will such slow links attract the attention of corporate whores and politicians, which are ruining the Internet to begin with.
If you're going to threaten their franchise, do it in writing, and to someone who might care (say, the listed contact for service of process typically available from the Secretary of State's office in the state in which the company is incorporated). Bending a customer service rep's ear, or whichever rep is pretending to be a supervisor that day's ear, is a waste of your time and just makes you look like exactly the kind of customer (a demanding one that's costly to service) any mass-market company wants to be rid of.
That said, I hope you have some success with your locals, but if I were you, I'd decide now whether I wanted to go back to dialup for principle's sake or suck it up and change the port number on my http server.
Put quotes around the phrase, and prefix noise words with a plus sign, e.g. "number +of +the beast".
So you think the Rural Electrification Project was Communism? How else do you think there came to be universal access to the grid? The good hearts of power providers?
When I said "manufacturing cost," I was talking only about the costs involved in printing, binding, transporting, etc. physical books, not those involved with marketing, advances, etc. I still don't see savings passed on to the end customer in any significant way, making this a not-very-palatable choice for reading material, once any novelty factor wears off. If the publishers think they can charge the same amount, lock the book to once device, and usurp first sale doctrine rights, I think they're in for a rude, expensive awakening. (I hope.)
No, Evelyn Wood will be picked up by the FBI for teaching people to circumvent access controls, enabling them to rent their books for shorter time periods.
Get a library card at the local public library near your school. They won't have any asinine restrictions about "netlibrary," and will ILL the books you need for you.
I'm glad you can still be optimistic enough to think that the dead-tree edition will be an (affordable) option if this is allowed to become entrenched.
Now quit whining about things that don't matter and Support the EFF
Already have. Thanks for the well-needed kick in the ass, Adobe.
Let me get this straight:
Yep, sounds good to me. Not! Being a Luddite, I'll do just fine reading what's already been published on paper if this actually were to take off. Unfortunately, one of the first big markets for this crap is already a captive audience: college students . If you think this topic doesn't fit into YRO, you haven't been watching the direction things are headed.
I currently have DHCP on my current DSL service through SBC, and Southwestern Bell as my telephone provider, as well. If they force-convert me over to PPPoE, it's overhead and unholy proprietary client, I'll just cancel all my services with Soutwestern Bell* and get Sprint ION, which has been available here for some time, to replace both telephone lines and DSL, turning a $100/month revenue stream to a competitor. I'm sure there are others. Bring it on, SBC.
Think of what happens when one of the guys who maintains the database happens to be not-so-trustworthy! Not every shop in the world with sensitive data has tight controls--picture a state motor vehicles registry after a budget cut, understaffed, and a hot tech with pretty much free reign. The most sensitive stuff fits on removable media now (CD-R or few). Best case: total honesty, nothing goes wrong. Fair to middlin' case: Hot tech takes a copy of the DMV database, "just in case" he needs to look up someone discreetly. Worse case: Hot tech needs money and sells the registry to organized crime. Makes a few corrupt patrolmen look like small potatoes. At least their queries had been audited.
No shit. Quicken comes with more spam than any file sharing app I've tried, for one.
Cool--thanks! A PCNET driver will be nice when it comes, but I suppose using the modem over the virtual serial port would be enough for playing around.
Is there a precooked VMware .DSK for the truly lazy (e.g. me)? The one mentioned commonly is no (etherquest or somesuch) is 404.
While that's nice, it won't count as paid experience if he's laid off. What someone learns on his/her own time counts for bupkus with recruiters and hiring managers.
Life Sabre*
* The Life Sabre is not affiliated with LucasFilms, Star Wars, or any other butthead trademark holders. It should definitely not be confused with "Light Sabre," used in Star Wars. (insert >wink, wink, nudge, nudge< here)
This solution allows Adobe to appear to have dropped the case--"We didn't want to pursue it, but the Justice Department wouldn't drop the charges." They get their cake and to eat it as well--the PR heat is off them, and Sklyarov's still in jail.
Adobe does indeed deserve to become the next eToys.