The net has got to protect itself against parasites that would destroy it. When sites don't play by the rules, they need to be cut off. The bigger a site is, the harder it is to cut it off, it's true, but if a site's behavior is egregious enough (as PSI's clearly is, with these pink contracts) then it can and will be shunned.
Regardless of whether these services (Akamai, RealMapping, and now Quova) do or don't represent an unreasonable encroachment on privacy (or whatever), it occurs to me that (as always) whenever the rules change, there's the possibility of benefits for both sides. In this case, consider the fact that better reverse IP indexing would make it much easier to track down spammers and other net.vermin and nail them to the wall. (Whether or not the average little-guy spambuster could afford a comprehensive commercial reverse IP index service is another question, of course.)
I have to say, I'm afraid you're right. They got lucky; the
story wasn't played up by the major mainstream media very much.
(If it wasn't for slashdot, I don't think I would have heard
about it at all.)
I guess they were helped, too, by the dulled expectations set by
all the previous Outlook-related breakins: "Ho, hum,
another e-mail virus". So I guess we can chalk up another item
on the roster of crippled computer science concepts which
the juggernaut has foisted on a gullible public until that
public accepts them as normal and appropriate -- along with
MS-DOS, blue screens of death, constantly changing and
incompatible document formats, etc...
Sure, puberty hits everybody hard, geeks 'n' cool cats alike.
Sure, there are geek cliques.
But that's not the point.
This is not about geeks being better, or experiencing unique
epiphanies. It's about whether anybody, geek or cool
cat, should be (a) ostracized or (b) celebrated
(or at least (c) tolerated) for daring to be
who they want to be.
Well, I'm a latecomer to all of this, too, also a 39-year old
computer nurd, only been reading slashdot regularly for about a
week, and all I can say is, wow.
This is strong, powerful, real stuff.
I was lucky in high school; I didn't have it nearly as bad as
some of the people posting comments; I actually enjoyed high
school. But I'm not gonna talk about me here; that's not the point.
What I am gonna say is, keep this stuff up. Jon, excellent job
collating it and keeping it going. Maybe you're an arrogant
self-promoter, but wtf, this stuff is too important to let slide
because someone's worried that it's getting told, well, not quite
the way they'd tell it.
I hope this story gets promulgated more widely, somehow, because
the mainstream needs to hear it. Most of them won't get it, of
course, but that doesn't mean the attempt is futile.
(And at least the attempt, in this forum, is reasonably safe --
the real world, unlike high school, takes freedom of speech a
little bit more seriously than smallminded high school teachers
and administrators do; we're not gonna get censored just for
stringing together the words
"I", "could", "understand", "these", "kids", "in", and "Colorado"
like Jay did.)
Finally, to anybody who happens to read this comment who's in
that boat now, I'll add the obligatory:
Don't give up.
Stick with it.
It gets better.
It is worth it.
(I wish I could say that in some way that doesn't, I know, sound
like trite, clichéd, empty words.)
I have to disagree with the theory that Microsoft staged this. There's a very good chance that it's going to hurt them, badly, not because of any outright code theft, but because of what it's going to do to the perception of trust, the blindly faithful acceptance, by all their faithful customers, of everything they churn out as being "good enough". Clearly, in this highly-visible case, it wasn't even that good.
Slashdot Mirror
What He Said.
The net has got to protect itself against parasites that would destroy it. When sites don't play by the rules, they need to be cut off. The bigger a site is, the harder it is to cut it off, it's true, but if a site's behavior is egregious enough (as PSI's clearly is, with these pink contracts) then it can and will be shunned.
Regardless of whether these services (Akamai, RealMapping, and now Quova) do or don't represent an unreasonable encroachment on privacy (or whatever), it occurs to me that (as always) whenever the rules change, there's the possibility of benefits for both sides. In this case, consider the fact that better reverse IP indexing would make it much easier to track down spammers and other net.vermin and nail them to the wall. (Whether or not the average little-guy spambuster could afford a comprehensive commercial reverse IP index service is another question, of course.)
I guess they were helped, too, by the dulled expectations set by all the previous Outlook-related breakins: "Ho, hum, another e-mail virus". So I guess we can chalk up another item on the roster of crippled computer science concepts which the juggernaut has foisted on a gullible public until that public accepts them as normal and appropriate -- along with MS-DOS, blue screens of death, constantly changing and incompatible document formats, etc...
This is not about geeks being better, or experiencing unique epiphanies. It's about whether anybody, geek or cool cat, should be (a) ostracized or (b) celebrated (or at least (c) tolerated) for daring to be who they want to be.
I was lucky in high school; I didn't have it nearly as bad as some of the people posting comments; I actually enjoyed high school. But I'm not gonna talk about me here; that's not the point.
What I am gonna say is, keep this stuff up. Jon, excellent job collating it and keeping it going. Maybe you're an arrogant self-promoter, but wtf, this stuff is too important to let slide because someone's worried that it's getting told, well, not quite the way they'd tell it.
I hope this story gets promulgated more widely, somehow, because the mainstream needs to hear it. Most of them won't get it, of course, but that doesn't mean the attempt is futile. (And at least the attempt, in this forum, is reasonably safe -- the real world, unlike high school, takes freedom of speech a little bit more seriously than smallminded high school teachers and administrators do; we're not gonna get censored just for stringing together the words "I", "could", "understand", "these", "kids", "in", and "Colorado" like Jay did.)
Finally, to anybody who happens to read this comment who's in that boat now, I'll add the obligatory: Don't give up. Stick with it. It gets better. It is worth it. (I wish I could say that in some way that doesn't, I know, sound like trite, clichéd, empty words.)
I have to disagree with the theory that Microsoft staged this. There's a very good chance that it's going to hurt them, badly, not because of any outright code theft, but because of what it's going to do to the perception of trust, the blindly faithful acceptance, by all their faithful customers, of everything they churn out as being "good enough". Clearly, in this highly-visible case, it wasn't even that good.