The RIAA has been working with Los Angeles-based network security solutions firm Vidius to study how peer-to-peer networks operate. The RIAA states in the memo that more information about how the FastTrack code utilizes supernodes, high-bandwidth computers that connect multiple "peers," is needed.
"Our claims would likely be strengthened by learning more about the designation of supernodes and the content of communications within the system. However, the encryption of this communication precludes further learning absent cooperation from one of these companies or court ordered discovery," the memo states.
I just find this beautifully ironic. Does anyone else?
Encryption is wonderful and illegal to crack - when it's the RIAA's encryption. It's a frustrating nuisance when it's employed by those evil hacker thieves. And apparently it's illegal to study the RIAA's code, but it's not circumvention to study FastTrack's. Please explain how THAT makes any sense at all.
Encryption's a bitch, guys, ain't it? How do you like THEM apples, eh? EH? =)
My ISP does not use MAPS and guess what? I am not flooded with spam. Not one bit. You do not need MAPS to avoid spam.
Oh really? I double-dog-dare you to go online, in chatrooms, read certain webpages and enter certain data, and have your email address unobscured on major websites like/. 4 months later, if you're not drowning in spam, then I'll apologize.
Put another way, there are three explanations for your not getting spam without MAPS: Maybe they're just not spamming you. Maybe your ISP is using a non-MAPS blackhole list (gasb! they exist). Or MAYBE the spammers just ain't NOTICED you yet, monkey-boy. New ISP means new email address, duhh.
...Do you think that the "copy protection" of mass market, highly popular CD's might begin to have the effect of bringing consciousness to the proles? If they get pissed off enough... Sure, they won't actually understand the issues in multisyllabic words, but will that prevent us from manipulating their anger and riding it to the destruction of these evils?
Don't look at me that way. Everyone manipulates people. The corporations do it with marketing and outright lies. If we want to defeat these sorts of things, we'll need popular support. And if they get Joe and Jane Sixpack mad enough, we might just GET that popular support. Or is this just wishful thinking?...
I know of colleges where you have to take phys. ed. to get a COMP SCI degree. This is because their core has a requirement of phys. ed.
Now, I have no problem with people who want to study phys. ed., don't get me wrong! I think it's cool that all sorts of things from S.C.U.B.A. to archery to fencing to track and field are available in college. But if someone has no interest in them, and his field of intended study/expertise is totally nonphysical (like mine), then I have never once in my life seen the point in forcing him to study phys. ed. It's a waste of his time, money, and patience.
The only people who profit, *coincidentally*, are colleges with fees for phys. ed. classes... hmmm... well, that's conspiracy # 504,327 I've unearthed today! =P
Picture this: John Q Australian can't get his email and calls Optus. Now in reality he'll get some runaround, but if he were to have a logical conversation with Optus it would go along these lines:
User: Why can't I get my email?
Optus: We've been blackholed by a large U.S. blackhole list.
User: Why?
Optus: Because of some spammers using Optus.
User: WELL KICK THEIR BLOODY ASSES OFF!!!
Naturally, this is not the way the actual phone conversation will go. Doubtless Optus will explain it away, if they explain it at all, with "technical difficulties". But the sheer number of angry letters, calls, and emails will put pressure on them to fix the damn problem.
What YOU don't realize is that spam is everyone's problem. I'm glad of blackholes like MAPS and spews. I'm glad my ISP uses them, and if my ISP stopped using them I'd find a new ISP. Because I don't enjoy having my time wasted, I don't enjoy having my ISP costs being inflated by the cost of handling spam, and I don't enjoy being treated like a cash cow by rude assholes the world over. If an ISP gets on a blacklist, they need only throw the spam in the trash to get out, and they all know this. Lazy corporations uninterested in stopping spamming customers because it mostly eats OTHER people's resources, does not impress me favorably.
Blocking half Australia's email? I see that as a GREAT thing. This will focus LOTS of anger and pressure on Optus, who will either shape up quick or begin to lose money. Corporations tend to hate that second option, I've found.
most modern universities still have Phys. Ed. requirements. We can't even have a simple discussion until that idiocy is gotten rid of. In the modern age, when a 98-lb-weakling (c) like myself can do anything he feels like and is just as successful in his chosen career as an overmuscled visigoth, there is no remaining reason for their viability. So don't get me started on the "well rounded" crap. They're just perpetuating the 19th century teaching methods THEY were trained in. Forward thinking, I think not.
Funny how it's square-jawed normals like Bruce Willis who play heroes in our movies. People like this, who will stand up for their rights and fight this fascism, are true heroes. There should be heroic movies about THIS sort of thing, with heart-rending patriotic movies and the libertarian hackers getting the chicks at the end. =)
Is the enigma machine still a useful method of encryption? If not, wouldn't it fit better into some section about crime & punishment, antiques, historical objects, etc.?
My basic question is, can you actually use the enigma for secure communications still?
Cool companies like Exodus staying in biz and providing competition and customer service == goooooooooooood.
Cool companies like Exodus dying, getting bought out, and consolidated into the Benevolent People's Dictatorship of AOL/TimeWarner/Corpnamehere/Corpnamehere/Corpnameh ere , featuring high prices, low security, and low service == BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD.
Let's recap. Goooooooooooooooooooooooood > BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD. I think we understand these concepts now, hmmm?
"In which case, first contact with the Vulcans was 'botched'. Anyone remember ST: First Contact?
Vulcan: Live Long and Prosper.
ZC:... Thanks
Cracks me up everytime. "
Zefram didn't know, and I'm assuming the Vulcans also didn't know that the humans' minds would be so emotional and unsavory to Vulcans. Perhaps the Vulcans on the team assumed that by offering skin-to-skin contact, Zefram was a member of a touch-telepathic race and wanted to communicate. They probably saw it as a unique opportunity to communicate with another telepathic race, and were no doubt greatly disappointed with the result. This is all conjecture; maybe they just wore gloves!;-)
"Please name one scene in ANY of the series or movies in which it is stated that they can't control their telepathy enough to withstand touching."
Ummm, if you can't find such a scene, you're not looking very hard. Just watch the Vulcans and how they act - hands clasped behind back, maintaining a "warning space" around their bodies. You should also check the novels. Regardless of what many say, they ARE established fan canon and include much that is not explained in the movies. Vulcans CAN touch humans, but they prefer a moment to raise their psychic shields to blot out human emotional overflow. And it is not the VULCANS who can't control their telepathy, it is the HUMANS. Spock's life on the Enterprise is full of the background noise of the emotions and thoughts of the humans around him, who don't know how to stop sending, because they can't receive.
"If spock was half vulcan and half human, how did his father even bear touching his mother? I'm no star trek expert, but I don't think I've ever heard the touch telepath theory"
Well, Sarek and Amanda were in love, silly! Well, Amanda was in love and Sarek was experiencing the closest thing he could allow himself to. Amanda was also trained for many, many years in Vulcan mental disciplines, thus resulting in an orderly, controlled mind that Sarek wouldn't mind touching. Additionally, when they were mated they were of course bound by the Kah (kind of a permanent telepathic connection between mates). This "Kah" is how T'Pring drew Spock home to Pon Farr, by the way. Spock himself was born by genetic manipulation, and then implanted in Amanda (there was also much technological effort involved in merely bringing him to term!). His genes are half Sarek and half Amanda, however.
The touch telepathy is certainly fact in the ST universe, and was decided upon by Gene and Nimoy working together when they fleshed out the character of Spock. Fans are divided over whether the Neck Pinch uses telepathic powers, physical adeptness, or a combination of the two to render its victim unconscious. However, it is certain that the Mind-Meld is evidence of touch-telepathy. Remember, Spock did not like to do the Mind Meld and found it distasteful, since human and other alien minds were a bit unsavory to him. He did it more often than any other known Vulcan, however, possibly because of his half-breed nature and the many years he lived among humans. He melded most, of course, with his best friend Kirk, which wasn't as hard.
Finally, when the episode Journey to Babel was being written, Gene (I think) came up with the idea that instead of holding hands, Sarek and Amanda would simply touch their first two fingers together. This delicate yet sensuous move showcases what Vulcan marriage is like: calm, reserved, physically aloof, and with an undercurrent of psychic unity and love.
"The U.S. has the highest percentage of its citizens in prison of any country ever, in the history of the world."
For fuck's sake, you can't expect me to believe THAT with no back-up! As a matter of fact, I *don't* believe it. I believe the U.S.S.R. under Stalin has us beat. Ever read The Gulag Achipelago?
Provide proof or at least some minimum corroboration when you're going to try to use such fantastic points to base an argument on.
First off, scenes with any human rubbing ANYthing on ANY Vulcan's skin are totally ridiculous. Vulcans are TOUCH TELEPATHS. They are beings of calm reserve and inner discipline, and they can't tolerate being physically touched by emotional and uncontrolled beings like humans. It leads to telepathic overflow of human emotional garbage, thus Vulcans avoid ALL physical (skin to skin) contact with humans as if it were the PLAGUE. It is ungodly bad manners to shake hands with a Vulcan, or even offer to. Rubbing your hands over a Vulcan's naked body could only happen AFTER you overpowered or drugged them. Or during Pon Farr. Take your pick.
Secondly, I don't see where you get off with that crack about "prejudice, intolerance, and violence" in TOS. I *assume* you meant to say "pleasantly surprised by the extremely low level of (etc., etc., etc.)", seeing as how THAT is the only possible analogy to TOS. Devil in the Dark? The Empath? The Corbomite Maneuver? Yep, all sorts of prejudice, intolerance, and violence there. Suuuuuure. Yeah. Riiiiiiight.
"...steganography (the science of obfuscating communications..."
Shouldn't that be, "steganography, the science of encrypting communications as image files"?
Seeing as how "the science of obfuscating communications" is otherwise known as "cryptography". This would seem to be confusing the part with the whole.
Is anyone else getting this feeling of being overwhelmed by sadness and pity? I'm a U.S. citizen, watching laws be considered that would have made the Brown Shirts proud. I'm a compassionate human being who was horrified by the terrible violence brought home, not only to my country, but to close friends of mine in NYC.
But nothing horrifies and saddens me more than seeing such laws even be CONSIDERED in the United States of America. In the U.S. I grew up believing in, the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave, such a law would have been laughed right out of the Capitol building. In the america I grew up believing in, Patrick Henry was one of our heroes, with his fiery "Give me liberty or give me death!" We even have a state whose motto is an even more extreme, "Live free or die!" And then at the slightest fear, at the slightest hint that the price of all this freedom - death, of course - might actually have to be paid, and these Free, Brave americans roll over like mewling puppies and - beg! - for the shackles to be applied. These horrible feats of mislegislation and unconstitutionality are not being forced through against opposition, they're tripping over themselves to write it because Americans are screaming for it.
So I don't know which I'm more ashamed of. Egotistical men with no understanding of their own margin of error, recklessly wielding powers they neither deserve nor understand. Or the people who are meekly letting them do it, because they're too afraid to stand up like men and retain their freedom. I'm going to bed now, and if I could cry I would. I'm just too appalled.
...now all they need to get rid of is that "democracy" part.
I find it continually amusing that we were the ones who decided corporations should be considered people, and now the corporations are deciding that we are not people. Deliciously circular.
Is every slimeball in the world going to crawl out from under their rocks this month and use the WTC attacks as an excuse to fuck someone in the ass? Because I for one am getting really tired of it, really fast. It's disrespectful in the extreme to those who died.
It's a toss-up as to who I hate more: the fanatical monsters who killed thousands, or the opportunistic bastards trying to profit off horror and sorrow.
I felt that this paragraph looked bad: 'In such situations we work with organizations to establish GPL-compliance programs within their enterprises, led by senior managers who report to us, and directly to their enterprises' managing boards, regularly.' I'm all for the GPL, but this sounds suspiciously like an Software Publishers' Association audit.
hypothetical situation:
Company X downloads GPL'd code Y which would be really useful as part of the new commercial product they're writing. Company X uses code Y and locks it into the binary of the program and breaks the GPL, releasing it as closed source payware and not giving any credit either. Hacker Z suspects his GPL'd code was used in the software but can do nothing because company X can use the DMCA to stop anyone from reverse engineering the program.
With this is mind, the only way it seems possible to stop someone from stealing GPL'd code is to watch them AS they write code that may contain it.
By blocking these songs out of stupidity, I feel insulted by them. I find this to be a slap in the face to the freedoms the U.S. once stood for. I find it to be disrespectful in the EXTREME both to those slain in the attacks, as well as to adults everywhere.
I've never liked someone who's got about a 10th of my intelligence treating me like a child for my "own good" which is actually THEIR good. Oh wait, I'm supposed to call that "censorship".
They're saying Ussama Bin Laden is coordinating all this via internet and encryption and steganography. They're making him out to be some genius-cum-hacker.
The guy lives in a fucking wasteland with no communications infrastructure of any kind. He probably doesn't see a modern toilet on a daily basis for chrissakes. People talk about nuking Afghanistan into the Stone Age; it's already there. And they expect us to believe Bin Laden is capable of being some internet manipulator par excellence? One would need an internet connection first.
Trust me. The powers that be are always looking for excuses, and this is a great one. That uncomfortable feeling you're having is the feeling of having smoke blown up your ass. The only people who are going to make out well on this deal are the jackbooted types in our own country, and the terrorists, who will laugh themselves silly at us selling ourselves into slavery out of fear.
I'm all with RMS on this one, but then when am I not? =P
Slashdot Mirror
The RIAA has been working with Los Angeles-based network security solutions firm Vidius to study how peer-to-peer networks operate. The RIAA states in the memo that more information about how the FastTrack code utilizes supernodes, high-bandwidth computers that connect multiple "peers," is needed.
"Our claims would likely be strengthened by learning more about the designation of supernodes and the content of communications within the system. However, the encryption of this communication precludes further learning absent cooperation from one of these companies or court ordered discovery," the memo states.
I just find this beautifully ironic. Does anyone else?
Encryption is wonderful and illegal to crack - when it's the RIAA's encryption. It's a frustrating nuisance when it's employed by those evil hacker thieves. And apparently it's illegal to study the RIAA's code, but it's not circumvention to study FastTrack's. Please explain how THAT makes any sense at all.
Encryption's a bitch, guys, ain't it? How do you like THEM apples, eh? EH? =)
-Kasreyn
My ISP does not use MAPS and guess what? I am not flooded with spam. Not one bit. You do not need MAPS to avoid spam.
/. 4 months later, if you're not drowning in spam, then I'll apologize.
Oh really? I double-dog-dare you to go online, in chatrooms, read certain webpages and enter certain data, and have your email address unobscured on major websites like
Put another way, there are three explanations for your not getting spam without MAPS: Maybe they're just not spamming you. Maybe your ISP is using a non-MAPS blackhole list (gasb! they exist). Or MAYBE the spammers just ain't NOTICED you yet, monkey-boy. New ISP means new email address, duhh.
-Kasreyn
...Do you think that the "copy protection" of mass market, highly popular CD's might begin to have the effect of bringing consciousness to the proles? If they get pissed off enough... Sure, they won't actually understand the issues in multisyllabic words, but will that prevent us from manipulating their anger and riding it to the destruction of these evils?
Don't look at me that way. Everyone manipulates people. The corporations do it with marketing and outright lies. If we want to defeat these sorts of things, we'll need popular support. And if they get Joe and Jane Sixpack mad enough, we might just GET that popular support. Or is this just wishful thinking?...
-Kasreyn
I know of colleges where you have to take phys. ed. to get a COMP SCI degree. This is because their core has a requirement of phys. ed.
Now, I have no problem with people who want to study phys. ed., don't get me wrong! I think it's cool that all sorts of things from S.C.U.B.A. to archery to fencing to track and field are available in college. But if someone has no interest in them, and his field of intended study/expertise is totally nonphysical (like mine), then I have never once in my life seen the point in forcing him to study phys. ed. It's a waste of his time, money, and patience.
The only people who profit, *coincidentally*, are colleges with fees for phys. ed. classes... hmmm... well, that's conspiracy # 504,327 I've unearthed today! =P
-Kasreyn
Picture this: John Q Australian can't get his email and calls Optus. Now in reality he'll get some runaround, but if he were to have a logical conversation with Optus it would go along these lines:
User: Why can't I get my email?
Optus: We've been blackholed by a large U.S. blackhole list.
User: Why?
Optus: Because of some spammers using Optus.
User: WELL KICK THEIR BLOODY ASSES OFF!!!
Naturally, this is not the way the actual phone conversation will go. Doubtless Optus will explain it away, if they explain it at all, with "technical difficulties". But the sheer number of angry letters, calls, and emails will put pressure on them to fix the damn problem.
What YOU don't realize is that spam is everyone's problem. I'm glad of blackholes like MAPS and spews. I'm glad my ISP uses them, and if my ISP stopped using them I'd find a new ISP. Because I don't enjoy having my time wasted, I don't enjoy having my ISP costs being inflated by the cost of handling spam, and I don't enjoy being treated like a cash cow by rude assholes the world over. If an ISP gets on a blacklist, they need only throw the spam in the trash to get out, and they all know this. Lazy corporations uninterested in stopping spamming customers because it mostly eats OTHER people's resources, does not impress me favorably.
Blocking half Australia's email? I see that as a GREAT thing. This will focus LOTS of anger and pressure on Optus, who will either shape up quick or begin to lose money. Corporations tend to hate that second option, I've found.
-Kasreyn
...did I *say* I worked at UF? NO.
...DID I work at UF? NO.
...where did you get this IDEA that I worked at UF?
God only knows.
-Kasreyn
most modern universities still have Phys. Ed. requirements. We can't even have a simple discussion until that idiocy is gotten rid of. In the modern age, when a 98-lb-weakling (c) like myself can do anything he feels like and is just as successful in his chosen career as an overmuscled visigoth, there is no remaining reason for their viability. So don't get me started on the "well rounded" crap. They're just perpetuating the 19th century teaching methods THEY were trained in. Forward thinking, I think not.
-Kasreyn
"heart-rending movies"
Meant "music", D'OH! Need to lay off the Dew and post more carefully. =P
-Kasreyn
Funny how it's square-jawed normals like Bruce Willis who play heroes in our movies. People like this, who will stand up for their rights and fight this fascism, are true heroes. There should be heroic movies about THIS sort of thing, with heart-rending patriotic movies and the libertarian hackers getting the chicks at the end. =)
-Kasreyn
Is the enigma machine still a useful method of encryption? If not, wouldn't it fit better into some section about crime & punishment, antiques, historical objects, etc.?
My basic question is, can you actually use the enigma for secure communications still?
-Kasreyn
As a user of the Proxomitron, I have three words for these numbnuts: BRING IT ON.
Pathetic.
-Kasreyn
My submission about the UF layoffs gets rejected, but the least funny bit in tonight's SatireWire newsletter is worthy of a front page article?
-Kasreyn
Cool companies like Exodus staying in biz and providing competition and customer service == goooooooooooood.
h ere , featuring high prices, low security, and low service == BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD.
Cool companies like Exodus dying, getting bought out, and consolidated into the Benevolent People's Dictatorship of AOL/TimeWarner/Corpnamehere/Corpnamehere/Corpname
Let's recap. Goooooooooooooooooooooooood > BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD. I think we understand these concepts now, hmmm?
-Kasreyn
"In which case, first contact with the Vulcans was 'botched'. Anyone remember ST: First Contact?
... Thanks
;-)
Vulcan: Live Long and Prosper.
ZC:
Cracks me up everytime. "
Zefram didn't know, and I'm assuming the Vulcans also didn't know that the humans' minds would be so emotional and unsavory to Vulcans. Perhaps the Vulcans on the team assumed that by offering skin-to-skin contact, Zefram was a member of a touch-telepathic race and wanted to communicate. They probably saw it as a unique opportunity to communicate with another telepathic race, and were no doubt greatly disappointed with the result. This is all conjecture; maybe they just wore gloves!
"Please name one scene in ANY of the series or movies in which it is stated that they can't control their telepathy enough to withstand touching."
Ummm, if you can't find such a scene, you're not looking very hard. Just watch the Vulcans and how they act - hands clasped behind back, maintaining a "warning space" around their bodies. You should also check the novels. Regardless of what many say, they ARE established fan canon and include much that is not explained in the movies. Vulcans CAN touch humans, but they prefer a moment to raise their psychic shields to blot out human emotional overflow. And it is not the VULCANS who can't control their telepathy, it is the HUMANS. Spock's life on the Enterprise is full of the background noise of the emotions and thoughts of the humans around him, who don't know how to stop sending, because they can't receive.
"If spock was half vulcan and half human, how did his father even bear touching his mother? I'm no star trek expert, but I don't think I've ever heard the touch telepath theory"
Well, Sarek and Amanda were in love, silly! Well, Amanda was in love and Sarek was experiencing the closest thing he could allow himself to. Amanda was also trained for many, many years in Vulcan mental disciplines, thus resulting in an orderly, controlled mind that Sarek wouldn't mind touching. Additionally, when they were mated they were of course bound by the Kah (kind of a permanent telepathic connection between mates). This "Kah" is how T'Pring drew Spock home to Pon Farr, by the way. Spock himself was born by genetic manipulation, and then implanted in Amanda (there was also much technological effort involved in merely bringing him to term!). His genes are half Sarek and half Amanda, however.
The touch telepathy is certainly fact in the ST universe, and was decided upon by Gene and Nimoy working together when they fleshed out the character of Spock. Fans are divided over whether the Neck Pinch uses telepathic powers, physical adeptness, or a combination of the two to render its victim unconscious. However, it is certain that the Mind-Meld is evidence of touch-telepathy. Remember, Spock did not like to do the Mind Meld and found it distasteful, since human and other alien minds were a bit unsavory to him. He did it more often than any other known Vulcan, however, possibly because of his half-breed nature and the many years he lived among humans. He melded most, of course, with his best friend Kirk, which wasn't as hard.
Finally, when the episode Journey to Babel was being written, Gene (I think) came up with the idea that instead of holding hands, Sarek and Amanda would simply touch their first two fingers together. This delicate yet sensuous move showcases what Vulcan marriage is like: calm, reserved, physically aloof, and with an undercurrent of psychic unity and love.
-Kasreyn
"The U.S. has the highest percentage of its citizens in prison of any country ever, in the history of the world."
For fuck's sake, you can't expect me to believe THAT with no back-up! As a matter of fact, I *don't* believe it. I believe the U.S.S.R. under Stalin has us beat. Ever read The Gulag Achipelago?
Provide proof or at least some minimum corroboration when you're going to try to use such fantastic points to base an argument on.
-Kasreyn
First off, scenes with any human rubbing ANYthing on ANY Vulcan's skin are totally ridiculous. Vulcans are TOUCH TELEPATHS. They are beings of calm reserve and inner discipline, and they can't tolerate being physically touched by emotional and uncontrolled beings like humans. It leads to telepathic overflow of human emotional garbage, thus Vulcans avoid ALL physical (skin to skin) contact with humans as if it were the PLAGUE. It is ungodly bad manners to shake hands with a Vulcan, or even offer to. Rubbing your hands over a Vulcan's naked body could only happen AFTER you overpowered or drugged them. Or during Pon Farr. Take your pick.
Secondly, I don't see where you get off with that crack about "prejudice, intolerance, and violence" in TOS. I *assume* you meant to say "pleasantly surprised by the extremely low level of (etc., etc., etc.)", seeing as how THAT is the only possible analogy to TOS. Devil in the Dark? The Empath? The Corbomite Maneuver? Yep, all sorts of prejudice, intolerance, and violence there. Suuuuuure. Yeah. Riiiiiiight.
-Kasreyn
"...steganography (the science of obfuscating communications..."
Shouldn't that be, "steganography, the science of encrypting communications as image files"?
Seeing as how "the science of obfuscating communications" is otherwise known as "cryptography". This would seem to be confusing the part with the whole.
-Kasreyn
Is anyone else getting this feeling of being overwhelmed by sadness and pity? I'm a U.S. citizen, watching laws be considered that would have made the Brown Shirts proud. I'm a compassionate human being who was horrified by the terrible violence brought home, not only to my country, but to close friends of mine in NYC.
But nothing horrifies and saddens me more than seeing such laws even be CONSIDERED in the United States of America. In the U.S. I grew up believing in, the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave, such a law would have been laughed right out of the Capitol building. In the america I grew up believing in, Patrick Henry was one of our heroes, with his fiery "Give me liberty or give me death!" We even have a state whose motto is an even more extreme, "Live free or die!" And then at the slightest fear, at the slightest hint that the price of all this freedom - death, of course - might actually have to be paid, and these Free, Brave americans roll over like mewling puppies and - beg! - for the shackles to be applied. These horrible feats of mislegislation and unconstitutionality are not being forced through against opposition, they're tripping over themselves to write it because Americans are screaming for it.
So I don't know which I'm more ashamed of. Egotistical men with no understanding of their own margin of error, recklessly wielding powers they neither deserve nor understand. Or the people who are meekly letting them do it, because they're too afraid to stand up like men and retain their freedom. I'm going to bed now, and if I could cry I would. I'm just too appalled.
-Kasreyn
...now all they need to get rid of is that "democracy" part.
I find it continually amusing that we were the ones who decided corporations should be considered people, and now the corporations are deciding that we are not people. Deliciously circular.
-Kasreyn
You think dune, I think Magic: The Gathering. Got an Orny in my first deck ever. Took me months to finally realize how bad the card sucks. =P
And the hordes cry out, "But it's better than a Kobold!"
-Kasreyn
Tell me something folks:
Is every slimeball in the world going to crawl out from under their rocks this month and use the WTC attacks as an excuse to fuck someone in the ass? Because I for one am getting really tired of it, really fast. It's disrespectful in the extreme to those who died.
It's a toss-up as to who I hate more: the fanatical monsters who killed thousands, or the opportunistic bastards trying to profit off horror and sorrow.
-Kasreyn
Would this be pronounced boring old "Ah-tole-oh" or exciting hispanic "A-toy-o"? =)
It's got "toy" right in the NAME, it has to be good! =)
-Kasreyn
hypothetical situation:
Company X downloads GPL'd code Y which would be really useful as part of the new commercial product they're writing. Company X uses code Y and locks it into the binary of the program and breaks the GPL, releasing it as closed source payware and not giving any credit either. Hacker Z suspects his GPL'd code was used in the software but can do nothing because company X can use the DMCA to stop anyone from reverse engineering the program.
With this is mind, the only way it seems possible to stop someone from stealing GPL'd code is to watch them AS they write code that may contain it.
Comments, suggestions?
-Kasreyn
By blocking these songs out of stupidity, I feel insulted by them. I find this to be a slap in the face to the freedoms the U.S. once stood for. I find it to be disrespectful in the EXTREME both to those slain in the attacks, as well as to adults everywhere.
I've never liked someone who's got about a 10th of my intelligence treating me like a child for my "own good" which is actually THEIR good. Oh wait, I'm supposed to call that "censorship".
-Kasreyn
They're saying Ussama Bin Laden is coordinating all this via internet and encryption and steganography. They're making him out to be some genius-cum-hacker.
The guy lives in a fucking wasteland with no communications infrastructure of any kind. He probably doesn't see a modern toilet on a daily basis for chrissakes. People talk about nuking Afghanistan into the Stone Age; it's already there. And they expect us to believe Bin Laden is capable of being some internet manipulator par excellence? One would need an internet connection first.
Trust me. The powers that be are always looking for excuses, and this is a great one. That uncomfortable feeling you're having is the feeling of having smoke blown up your ass. The only people who are going to make out well on this deal are the jackbooted types in our own country, and the terrorists, who will laugh themselves silly at us selling ourselves into slavery out of fear.
I'm all with RMS on this one, but then when am I not? =P
-Kasreyn