Unless France's view was "ban all censorship, period" it isn't all that much more intelligent.
The Internet is not like television. The Internet is an enormous, distributed library. If we conduct periodic purges of the library based on the whims of the moment ("nudity is bad, now it's good; racism is good, now it's bad; cold fusion is a myth, cold fusion works great, no wait--it's a myth after all") we'll end eventually losing all the contents.
Q: So what about things like Napster and FreeNet? "How are artists supposed to make money?"
A: However they want. But technical progress will not and can not stop because of some individual's (or individuals') need for economic support.
Q: What about porn? My children will be scarred if they see a breast.
A: So keep them away from porn sites. Only YOU know what your policy is, so only YOU can enforce it. In any case, it's not my job to raise your children.
Q: What about bomb-making information? Oklahoma City/Columbine, blah blah blah.
A: There are so many answers to this I don't even know where to start. How about: "The same bomb-creating information that blew up an empty school last week can destroy an invading force next week." Or maybe: "High school chemistry textbooks have the same information, maybe we should censor those too?"
The only solution that works for all problems is education. Education requires information. Therefore censorship makes solving problems harder. -- Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
Extremely long, over-intellectualized ("the moderation system takes this subconscious prejudice and places it at the level of doctrine"), rambling post by an AC about something everyone already understands. Add in the irony factor of discussing (on one level) what it is doing (on another level) and you have near-proof.
I'd have a lot more faith in/.'s future if I could see some stats on moderation/meta-moderation: are we losing idiots faster than we are gaining them? -- Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
Don't get me wrong. You guys (and gals) are WAY more knowledgeable about this stuff than I, and I don't want to seem like I'm denigrating your technical skills.
BUT. You didn't figure out what was wrong. You replaced some hardware and "it seemed to work". If this WAS a DDoS (which the floods and IPs seem to indicate), then the hardware problem was a symptom, not a cause. In which case you're still open to further problems.
Or is this firewall supposed to block the flooding? How is a FreeBSD desktop firewall different than the router (or whatever) you put it in front of? -- Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
Well, I was taking the comment re: efficiency to be about Turing-equivalence.
"...programming languages for NN..."
I'd be interested in some links to information on this if you have them.
I've done a lot of semi-serious reading about AI over a number of years. I've also done some messing around with various programming bits. I'm (fairly) well aware of the newer, biology/complex-systems based approaches. But I was totally unaware that anyone had tried using NNs for anything but memory-type uses. -- Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
Two thingsb (neither of which I made clear in my original post):
1) I'd like to be able to say "Digital Camera, holding at least 36 1024x768 images, no LCD, weight less than.25 lb". Then the software has to find ALL models that match and price compare them for me.
2) Reliably finding the price of a given item for even ONE site would be non-trivial (for some sites). Finding it for many sites would take AI (until we get smart and start using some standard XML for this kind of thing). -- Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
Actually, according to the other poster, they are LESS efficient.
But in any case, that doesn't make my project useless. All programming languages (worthy of the name) are of the same power too--but we have many of those. Why? Because while everything is possible in all languages, it isn't always easy.
I'm firmly of the opinion that AI is possible. But I'm not convinced that the current methods are the best path. -- Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
Wouldn't a sufficient number of NAND NNs be "Turing equivalent in a practical sense".
Do you have any pointers to info (for the non-mathematician, please!) on the stuff in your third paragraph ("...purely theoretical sense neural networks...")? In particular I'm interested in your statement about continuous activation functions and Turing equivalancy. -- Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
"One thing about corporate mail infrastructures like Exchange is that they provide user identification."
Not by default they don't. I've worked at two companies that used Exchange (one 4.0, one 5.5) and at BOTH locations I have been able to send untraceable* emails by manually entering them via telnet to port 25. No authentication needed beyond HELO.
"...but ILOVEYOU didn't do anything that perms would have stopped...modify personal startup scripts"
What "personal startup scripts"? All I ever heard about were autoexec.bat, config.sys and related entities. Plus the registry. Any OS with even basic permissions wouldn't allow these to be modified by random users.
*From the email headers themselves. I imagine that examining the logs would have indicated something, but that was beside my purpose. -- Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
I know there are static websites that do this already (pricewarehouse.com comes to mind), but how about an agent that searches for the best price on a given item. Other options include:
-automatic sale ending date detection -automatic score-lowering for companies the user doesn't like (i.e. give me the lowest price that isn't at WalMart) -automatic score-lowering for companies with "bad practices" (i.e. give me the lowest price that isn't from a company with slave labor)
-couple those last two with automatic parent company tree-walking (lowest price that isn't from company doing bad stuff AND isn't owned by a company doing bad stuff) -full generality: I want to price toilet paper AND houses
Any other features? -- Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
"Outlook/Exchange is the only mail system available -- there is no direct SMTP access there is no direct SMTP access."
Check again. Exchange provides an SMTP server--that's how it can deliver internet mail. Try telnetting to port 25 of your nearest Exchange server.
I agree that something is better than nothing. But spending a lot of man-hours thinking up and implementing a solution that does little more than remove functionality without adding any security is worse than useless.
"Implementing this goes way beyond file permissions, and normal Unix/Linux systems don't do it either."
No, but think how nice file permissions are. They keep you from destroying the local machine. Just that one simple fact would change the face of virus-writing immediately. If MS would get off their collective asses and put their money were their mouths are, we'd see an OS that REALLY held users hands by keeping them from shooting themselves in the foot like this.
BTW, I answered you in that other thread. -- Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
And I'm not condemning Windows as sucky. It IS sucky, but this isn't the reason.
If I was running the (IT) world, my first decree would be: "Let there be...biodiversity!". Multiple operating systems, multiple client apps for each general task (email, web, office, etc). Not only would this solve (or lessen) a lot of security/virus issues, but it would also enhance standards compliance (not to mention standards creation).
Second decree: "Let there be...education!". Teach users not to open everything they get. Teach them that, no matter how much they want to run that "A Different Porn Image On Your Desktop Every Hour" program, installing it right off the Internet is probably not a great idea.
Third decree: "Let there be...cryptography!". I used to think cryptography was about "codes and stuff". Not so. I just finished "Applied Cryptography" and has it ever opened my eyes. There are trustable methods for doing everything AND keeping privacy. For instance what about a protocol that required a sender to identify himself unambiguously but would erase that identification if the sent item turned out harmless? And I don't want to hear anything about circumvention from anyone who hasn't read the book. -- Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
First, I agree that disabling Scripting Host doesn't solve anything. But neither does a proliferation of dialog boxes. Asking the user on a per-incident basis is no way to enforce security.
Worse, it doesn't solve the problem. What keeps a program from using MAPI.DLL (or whatever the flavor of the week is) directly rather than the Outlook "objects"? How is Windows supposed to detect the difference between the user->program->email chain and the program->program->email chain?
And even if it could, you still have the problem of straight SMTP to the local (or an Internet) SMTP server. What are you going to do? Pop up a dialog box every time a program opens a socket?
No, there's no way to keep individual machines from SENDING viruses. The only thing we can do is to keep them from EXECUTING them so easily. -- Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
...that I'll stop hearing about the most boring, long-drawn-out and irrelevant business deals ever?
I mean really, what distinguishes the Corel/Inprise thing from any other of the multitude of tech mergers except that Corel produced a briefly popular Linux distro that hasn't been heard from since?
BTW, I thought/. thought business news (especially stock prices) were "uninteresting". -- Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
E-mail attachment security prevents users from accessing several file types when sent as e-mail attachments. Impacted file types include executables, batch files and other file types that contain executable code often used by malicious hackers to spread viruses.
What about.doc files that are really plain text? Wouldn't a better solution be user-modifiable (and admin-lockable) filter mechanism? Better yet, how about just not auto-launching?
Object Model Guard prompts customers with a dialog box when an external program attempts to access their Outlook address book or send e-mail on their behalf, which is how insidious viruses such as I Love You spread.
'Cuz we know you READ all those dialog boxes. "Spell check cancelled. Continue anyway?" "Mouse device moved. Move on-screen pointer?" The problem is not programmitic sending of email--after all, a virus could just call MAPI.DLL itself.
Heightened Outlook default security settings increase the default Internet security zone setting within Outlook from "Internet" to "restricted sites."
Meaning what? I can only get email from domains named by the admin? First of all, that defeats the purpose of email. Secondly, it doesn't address the problem: people were opening the viruses because they came from people they already knew. Just because it comes from someone I trust doesn't mean I should trust the package.
I wish I had the time and space to quote a refute the whole thing, but work awaits. -- Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
Why would I run MacOS X on intel when I can already run Linux or one of the BSDs? All I can think of is "to make porting to MacOS X on Mac easier". -- Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
"Prove to the world that security through increased regulation is never the answer."
Normally I don't respond to trolls and offtopic posters, BUT....
The above quote is EXACTLY what I said when logins became a requirement. I said it again when moderation showed up. The situation has gotten worse and worse.
Now even the TROLLS have picked up on the idea. It will be interesting to see how long it takes before Slashdot finally understands OR fades away to ZDNet-like unimportance. -- Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
I was thinking about putting this in an Ask Slashdot, but since we are already on the topic of "biologic networking", I think I'll slide over by a half-topic and ask here.
I understand that in 1943 McCulloch and Pitts proved that neural networks are Turing Machine equivalent. But I have (at least) two questions:
1) Where can I find details on how to transform a given TM to an NN? Did they just construct AND, NOT and OR gates (or maybe just NAND) and make enormous non-efficient networks? Which leads me to:
2) Did they (M & P [or for that matter anyone since]) exploit the power of NNs? That is, did their TM NNs incorporate the recognitive and associative properties that people use NNs for today?
The reason I ask is: I'm interested in AI. I'm trying to create a Turing-complete computer constructed from an NN (or NNs) that I can then create a programming language for. My hope is that this language/computer combo will have some natural features that make some aspects of AI easier. -- Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
I was a little unsure about my statement re: interest so I did a little calculating:
Let's assume the company can get 8% compounded monthly (should be easy for them in a money market or something).
8% APR is.66%/mo. 5 years is 60 months. $20 * (1.0066 ^ 60) = $29.60.
So in order to fully reimburse the company/artist for a $20 CD copied 5 years ago, youd have to pay nearly $30 today, counting only interest. Did you pay that much? -- Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
No, you are communicating. Specifically, you are now communicating that you have changed your statement.
To quote:
Then: "..the GPL restricts sharing."
Now: "The GPL is the TOOL that PERSON uses not to share with everyone."
These are very different statements. Let's say I write some software. I license it under the GPL. This may keep some people from using it in every way that they might wish.
But, as the author, I can also release under a second, simultaneous license. Let's say I use BSD. Those people who were stopped by the GPL can do whatever they please under the BSD.
Now the PERSON is sharing with everyone. The GPL has not prevented ANY sharing. -- Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
"In this case the record companies lost no revenue because I wouldn't have been able to buy the music anyway....as soon as I turned 14 I...poured most of my earnings into...a lot of [CDs] which I had copied previously..."
I was all set to agree that this one case presents a counter-example and then I rethought: What about decreasing prices, inflation, interest and the time value of money? Let's say it was 1985 when you copied CD C. You saved, let's say, $20. 1990 rolls around and you have money to buy the CD, so you do...for $15.
First, clearly you saved (and thus the company/artist lost) $5 right off the bat.
Second, $20 in 1985 was worth more than the same $20 in 1990, even if you had paid that price.
Third, the interest on $20 for 5 years is probably not entirely negligible at the interest rate someone their size can probably swing.
Fourth is the time value of money. I don't claim to totally understand this, not being an accountant. But my wife (the one with the business degree) says that having money sooner rather than later is a benefit all unto itself (divorced from the interest and inflation issues already mentioned).
So did they really make money from you or not?
But wait! There's more: Even if they made money on this one transaction, it doesn't necessarily mean the company/artist was better off. More copies of C mean lower demand which translate to lower prices (assuming constant supply). For instance, if you ever loaned your illegal copies out, that allowed other people to not-pay or maybe convinced them NOT to buy (the reverse of your case).
In any case, while I agree that maybe "theft" isn't the clearest word for this, I don't think it's the howling error the original poster made it seem. -- Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
Right. So the PERSON is making the decision not to share with everyone. The LICENSE is not forcing that decision. In other words, the GPL does not restrict sharing. -- Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft employs many very smart people.
Microsoft has a history of bone-headed security.
Conclusion: The smart people are being over-ruled by the dumb ones.
Corollary 1: The smart people will eventually tire of this and leave. Also, new smart people will not join.
Corollary 1a: With fewer (if any) smart people, Microsoft will be in even worse shape.
--
Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
Unless France's view was "ban all censorship, period" it isn't all that much more intelligent.
The Internet is not like television. The Internet is an enormous, distributed library. If we conduct periodic purges of the library based on the whims of the moment ("nudity is bad, now it's good; racism is good, now it's bad; cold fusion is a myth, cold fusion works great, no wait--it's a myth after all") we'll end eventually losing all the contents.
Q: So what about things like Napster and FreeNet? "How are artists supposed to make money?"
A: However they want. But technical progress will not and can not stop because of some individual's (or individuals') need for economic support.
Q: What about porn? My children will be scarred if they see a breast.
A: So keep them away from porn sites. Only YOU know what your policy is, so only YOU can enforce it. In any case, it's not my job to raise your children.
Q: What about bomb-making information? Oklahoma City/Columbine, blah blah blah.
A: There are so many answers to this I don't even know where to start. How about: "The same bomb-creating information that blew up an empty school last week can destroy an invading force next week." Or maybe: "High school chemistry textbooks have the same information, maybe we should censor those too?"
The only solution that works for all problems is education. Education requires information. Therefore censorship makes solving problems harder.
--
Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
Extremely long, over-intellectualized ("the moderation system takes this subconscious prejudice and places it at the level of doctrine"), rambling post by an AC about something everyone already understands. Add in the irony factor of discussing (on one level) what it is doing (on another level) and you have near-proof.
/.'s future if I could see some stats on moderation/meta-moderation: are we losing idiots faster than we are gaining them?
I'd have a lot more faith in
--
Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
Don't get me wrong. You guys (and gals) are WAY more knowledgeable about this stuff than I, and I don't want to seem like I'm denigrating your technical skills.
BUT. You didn't figure out what was wrong. You replaced some hardware and "it seemed to work". If this WAS a DDoS (which the floods and IPs seem to indicate), then the hardware problem was a symptom, not a cause. In which case you're still open to further problems.
Or is this firewall supposed to block the flooding? How is a FreeBSD desktop firewall different than the router (or whatever) you put it in front of?
--
Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
If you flesh Scully out any further you're going to burst her bra.
--
Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
"Hmmm, I don't see that in his post."
Well, I was taking the comment re: efficiency to be about Turing-equivalence.
"...programming languages for NN..."
I'd be interested in some links to information on this if you have them.
I've done a lot of semi-serious reading about AI over a number of years. I've also done some messing around with various programming bits. I'm (fairly) well aware of the newer, biology/complex-systems based approaches. But I was totally unaware that anyone had tried using NNs for anything but memory-type uses.
--
Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
Two thingsb (neither of which I made clear in my original post):
.25 lb". Then the software has to find ALL models that match and price compare them for me.
1) I'd like to be able to say "Digital Camera, holding at least 36 1024x768 images, no LCD, weight less than
2) Reliably finding the price of a given item for even ONE site would be non-trivial (for some sites). Finding it for many sites would take AI (until we get smart and start using some standard XML for this kind of thing).
--
Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
Actually, according to the other poster, they are LESS efficient.
But in any case, that doesn't make my project useless. All programming languages (worthy of the name) are of the same power too--but we have many of those. Why? Because while everything is possible in all languages, it isn't always easy.
I'm firmly of the opinion that AI is possible. But I'm not convinced that the current methods are the best path.
--
Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
Wouldn't a sufficient number of NAND NNs be "Turing equivalent in a practical sense".
Do you have any pointers to info (for the non-mathematician, please!) on the stuff in your third paragraph ("...purely theoretical sense neural networks...")? In particular I'm interested in your statement about continuous activation functions and Turing equivalancy.
--
Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
"One thing about corporate mail infrastructures like Exchange is that they provide user identification."
.
Not by default they don't. I've worked at two companies that used Exchange (one 4.0, one 5.5) and at BOTH locations I have been able to send untraceable* emails by manually entering them via telnet to port 25. No authentication needed beyond HELO
"...but ILOVEYOU didn't do anything that perms would have stopped...modify personal startup scripts"
What "personal startup scripts"? All I ever heard about were autoexec.bat, config.sys and related entities. Plus the registry. Any OS with even basic permissions wouldn't allow these to be modified by random users.
*From the email headers themselves. I imagine that examining the logs would have indicated something, but that was beside my purpose.
--
Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
This is the second or third time I've heard J.K. Weston's claims being referred to as false and therefore illegal themselves.
So who is suing him?
--
Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
I know there are static websites that do this already (pricewarehouse.com comes to mind), but how about an agent that searches for the best price on a given item. Other options include:
-automatic sale ending date detection
-automatic score-lowering for companies the user doesn't like (i.e. give me the lowest price that isn't at WalMart)
-automatic score-lowering for companies with "bad practices" (i.e. give me the lowest price that isn't from a company with slave labor)
-couple those last two with automatic parent company tree-walking (lowest price that isn't from company doing bad stuff AND isn't owned by a company doing bad stuff)
-full generality: I want to price toilet paper AND houses
Any other features?
--
Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
"Outlook/Exchange is the only mail system available -- there is no direct SMTP access there is no direct SMTP access."
Check again. Exchange provides an SMTP server--that's how it can deliver internet mail. Try telnetting to port 25 of your nearest Exchange server.
I agree that something is better than nothing. But spending a lot of man-hours thinking up and implementing a solution that does little more than remove functionality without adding any security is worse than useless.
"Implementing this goes way beyond file permissions, and normal Unix/Linux systems don't do it either."
No, but think how nice file permissions are. They keep you from destroying the local machine. Just that one simple fact would change the face of virus-writing immediately. If MS would get off their collective asses and put their money were their mouths are, we'd see an OS that REALLY held users hands by keeping them from shooting themselves in the foot like this.
BTW, I answered you in that other thread.
--
Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
And I'm not condemning Windows as sucky. It IS sucky, but this isn't the reason.
If I was running the (IT) world, my first decree would be: "Let there be...biodiversity!". Multiple operating systems, multiple client apps for each general task (email, web, office, etc). Not only would this solve (or lessen) a lot of security/virus issues, but it would also enhance standards compliance (not to mention standards creation).
Second decree: "Let there be...education!". Teach users not to open everything they get. Teach them that, no matter how much they want to run that "A Different Porn Image On Your Desktop Every Hour" program, installing it right off the Internet is probably not a great idea.
Third decree: "Let there be...cryptography!". I used to think cryptography was about "codes and stuff". Not so. I just finished "Applied Cryptography" and has it ever opened my eyes. There are trustable methods for doing everything AND keeping privacy. For instance what about a protocol that required a sender to identify himself unambiguously but would erase that identification if the sent item turned out harmless? And I don't want to hear anything about circumvention from anyone who hasn't read the book.
--
Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
First, I agree that disabling Scripting Host doesn't solve anything. But neither does a proliferation of dialog boxes. Asking the user on a per-incident basis is no way to enforce security.
Worse, it doesn't solve the problem. What keeps a program from using MAPI.DLL (or whatever the flavor of the week is) directly rather than the Outlook "objects"? How is Windows supposed to detect the difference between the user->program->email chain and the program->program->email chain?
And even if it could, you still have the problem of straight SMTP to the local (or an Internet) SMTP server. What are you going to do? Pop up a dialog box every time a program opens a socket?
No, there's no way to keep individual machines from SENDING viruses. The only thing we can do is to keep them from EXECUTING them so easily.
--
Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
...that I'll stop hearing about the most boring, long-drawn-out and irrelevant business deals ever?
/. thought business news (especially stock prices) were "uninteresting".
I mean really, what distinguishes the Corel/Inprise thing from any other of the multitude of tech mergers except that Corel produced a briefly popular Linux distro that hasn't been heard from since?
BTW, I thought
--
Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
E-mail attachment security prevents users from accessing several file types when sent as e-mail attachments. Impacted file types include executables, batch files and other file types that contain executable code often used by malicious hackers to spread viruses.
.doc files that are really plain text? Wouldn't a better solution be user-modifiable (and admin-lockable) filter mechanism? Better yet, how about just not auto-launching?
What about
Object Model Guard prompts customers with a dialog box when an external program attempts to access their Outlook address book or send e-mail on their behalf, which is how insidious viruses such as I Love You spread.
'Cuz we know you READ all those dialog boxes. "Spell check cancelled. Continue anyway?" "Mouse device moved. Move on-screen pointer?" The problem is not programmitic sending of email--after all, a virus could just call MAPI.DLL itself.
Heightened Outlook default security settings increase the default Internet security zone setting within Outlook from "Internet" to "restricted sites."
Meaning what? I can only get email from domains named by the admin? First of all, that defeats the purpose of email. Secondly, it doesn't address the problem: people were opening the viruses because they came from people they already knew. Just because it comes from someone I trust doesn't mean I should trust the package.
I wish I had the time and space to quote a refute the whole thing, but work awaits.
--
Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
Just curiosity.
Why would I run MacOS X on intel when I can already run Linux or one of the BSDs? All I can think of is "to make porting to MacOS X on Mac easier".
--
Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
"Prove to the world that security through increased regulation is never the answer."
Normally I don't respond to trolls and offtopic posters, BUT....
The above quote is EXACTLY what I said when logins became a requirement. I said it again when moderation showed up. The situation has gotten worse and worse.
Now even the TROLLS have picked up on the idea. It will be interesting to see how long it takes before Slashdot finally understands OR fades away to ZDNet-like unimportance.
--
Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
I was thinking about putting this in an Ask Slashdot, but since we are already on the topic of "biologic networking", I think I'll slide over by a half-topic and ask here.
I understand that in 1943 McCulloch and Pitts proved that neural networks are Turing Machine equivalent. But I have (at least) two questions:
1) Where can I find details on how to transform a given TM to an NN? Did they just construct AND, NOT and OR gates (or maybe just NAND) and make enormous non-efficient networks? Which leads me to:
2) Did they (M & P [or for that matter anyone since]) exploit the power of NNs? That is, did their TM NNs incorporate the recognitive and associative properties that people use NNs for today?
The reason I ask is: I'm interested in AI. I'm trying to create a Turing-complete computer constructed from an NN (or NNs) that I can then create a programming language for. My hope is that this language/computer combo will have some natural features that make some aspects of AI easier.
--
Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
I was a little unsure about my statement re: interest so I did a little calculating:
.66%/mo.
Let's assume the company can get 8% compounded monthly (should be easy for them in a money market or something).
8% APR is
5 years is 60 months.
$20 * (1.0066 ^ 60) = $29.60.
So in order to fully reimburse the company/artist for a $20 CD copied 5 years ago, youd have to pay nearly $30 today, counting only interest. Did you pay that much?
--
Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
No, you are communicating. Specifically, you are now communicating that you have changed your statement.
To quote:
Then: "..the GPL restricts sharing."
Now: "The GPL is the TOOL that PERSON uses not to share with everyone."
These are very different statements. Let's say I write some software. I license it under the GPL. This may keep some people from using it in every way that they might wish.
But, as the author, I can also release under a second, simultaneous license. Let's say I use BSD. Those people who were stopped by the GPL can do whatever they please under the BSD.
Now the PERSON is sharing with everyone. The GPL has not prevented ANY sharing.
--
Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
"In this case the record companies lost no revenue because I wouldn't have been able to buy the music anyway. ...as soon as I turned 14 I...poured most of my earnings into...a lot of [CDs] which I had copied previously ..."
I was all set to agree that this one case presents a counter-example and then I rethought: What about decreasing prices, inflation, interest and the time value of money? Let's say it was 1985 when you copied CD C. You saved, let's say, $20. 1990 rolls around and you have money to buy the CD, so you do...for $15.
First, clearly you saved (and thus the company/artist lost) $5 right off the bat.
Second, $20 in 1985 was worth more than the same $20 in 1990, even if you had paid that price.
Third, the interest on $20 for 5 years is probably not entirely negligible at the interest rate someone their size can probably swing.
Fourth is the time value of money. I don't claim to totally understand this, not being an accountant. But my wife (the one with the business degree) says that having money sooner rather than later is a benefit all unto itself (divorced from the interest and inflation issues already mentioned).
So did they really make money from you or not?
But wait! There's more: Even if they made money on this one transaction, it doesn't necessarily mean the company/artist was better off. More copies of C mean lower demand which translate to lower prices (assuming constant supply). For instance, if you ever loaned your illegal copies out, that allowed other people to not-pay or maybe convinced them NOT to buy (the reverse of your case).
In any case, while I agree that maybe "theft" isn't the clearest word for this, I don't think it's the howling error the original poster made it seem.
--
Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
Right. So the PERSON is making the decision not to share with everyone. The LICENSE is not forcing that decision. In other words, the GPL does not restrict sharing.
--
Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?
Sharing isn't an act of the recipient; it's an act of the giver.
Exactly my point. And since the giver is also the person who chose the license, the GPL doesn't "restrict sharing".
Maybe you'd like to amend your previous statement?
--
Have Exchange users? Want to run Linux? Can't afford OpenMail?