Simply untrue. There was no requirement to show a photo ID to board a flight. The "Patriot Act" was not signed into law by Clinton. Clinton did not approve "roving wiretaps." Clinton did not push for a national ID, but Bush is doing that right now in his "Operation TIPS" proposal.
I suggest that you read this ACLU summary of the changes the Bush administration has made since September 11:
You will find that the voices speaking out in opposition to the curtailment of citizens' rights were Democrats while Republicans, Ashcroft, and Bush railroaded this legislation through.
When are people going to wake up to the fact that republicans are trying to take away our liberties and rights?
Most thinking people realized that after September 11. The Republicans have turned that one act of terrorism into an excuse to make this a police state. People are being forced to show ID to fly. ISPs are being told to help the government spy on citizens. Phone conversations are monitored without warrants. People flying on airlines can be pulled aside, frisked, and have all of their belongings unpacked and searched without any probable cause.
I think that there are very few thinking people who don't see this.
The poster was making a humorous remark about the tie-in between Dubya and big oil and how he would not stand for alternative fuels cutting into oil company profits.
If you feel your privacy is more important than everybody else's safety on public transportation, then don't fly.
U.S. Constitution: Fourth Amendment
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Protecting The Constitution of the United States is far more important that giving some coward like you a false sense of security.
Get a car. Hm, need a license. That takes away your privacy. Govt knows you're bound to drive somewhere.
Having a license does not allow the government, and various private institutions, to track your travels.
Got 2 legs?
That's a really intelligent remark. I'll just tell my clients that I'll be out to meet them in a six months when I finish walking coast-to-coast.
I will leave you with the words of brave, wise, and intelligent men in the hopes that the contrast between their words and your own will be enlightening.
Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind. And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader and gladly so. - Julius Caesar
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. - Benjamin Franklin
Because at some point your right to privacy is outweighed by my need for saftey.
If you feel that everyone else's privacy needs to be violated to guarantee your safety on a plane, then don't fly.
You and the rest of the people that would trade the Constitution for safety have to realize something: There is no such thing as absolute safety. Period. Most of what goes on in airport screening now is just done to make you feel safer but it has damned little to do with actual safey. If a bunch of nut-cases can take over multiple planes using nothing more than box cutters, they could just as easily take over the planes with something else. They could carry on plastic knives or ceramic knives.
The entire screening process is just one more attempt by right-wing, ultra-conservatives to erode our civil rights. Every day we read about more abuses. We have to provide ID. Then we can be frisked. We can be randomly pulled out of line and all of our personal travel belongings searched. Our posessions can be damaged and we can be left with our clothes strewn about with not enough time to repack our suitcases. Our e-mail can be read without probable cause. Our phone conversations can be listened to without a search warrant. And even our shopping habits can be perused in the name of fighting terrorists. You better open your eyes and see what's going one while we still have a Constitution to protect.
On the contrary, these are EXACTLY the type of people I want representing our views.
The MPAA, RIAA, and content providers have paid, personable, intelligent, engaging speakers at these hearings. If our side consists of boorish, rude, unkempt, socially dysfunctional buffoons, you might as well scrap your CD-R/W drive right now.
The childish laughing, interruptions, and catcalls are doing our cause no good. It is time for us to start looking into paying professional lobbyists to represent our views. Lobbyists, whether you love or loathe them, have the connections, understanding of Congressional procedures, and the charm that we so desperately need if we want to win this one. Weird looking guys with unkempt hair, open collar shirts, and no public speaking skills are not who we want giving press conferences or representing our views to Congress. When in Rome...
I wasn't trying to flame him. I just wanted to show how easy it is to find grammatical flaws in the kind of casual messages people exchange on Slashdot.
but the literary part of me's got to correct your grammar.
"Me's" is not a word. You cannot form a contraction with "has" by simply adding "'s" to the word that should preceed "has."
Sorry, my wife makes the same grammatical mess up all the time, and I'm trying to cure her of the bad colloquial habits which cause other people to not instantly respect her intellect, which (understandibly) ticks her off.
What ticks her off? Your attempts to "cure her" or that people do "not instantly resprect her intellect"?
Perhaps this is what was meant:
Sorry
. My wife makes the same grammatical mistake all of the time and I'm trying to cure her of the bad colloquial habits which instantly cause other people to have a lack of respect for her intellect -- something which, understandibly, ticks her off.
The pen is mightier than the sword and he who lives by the pen shall die by the pen.;-)
So you are saying that we should take the word of anonymous posters on Slashdot over respected, credentialed, literary journals, experts, publishing professionals, and scholars?
[sarcasm]Then I proclaim "Barney's Friends" (Barney the purple dinosaur) as the the finest literary work of the twentieth century. None may oppose me for I have no literary credentials, am not a scholar of literature, and do not have the respect of literary experts. All hail "Barney's Friends" as the greatest work of literature of the twentieth century.[/sarcasm]
And who are their peers respected by?
Intelligent, educated readers.
Seems like a bit of an egoist circle-jerk, if you ask me.
It isn't reasonable in today's expectations of entertainment or theater to expect an audience to sit through a 4+ hour movie
While I grant that some cuts were probably necessary in the translation from book to movie, I do not feel that the cutting of scenes from The Lord of The Rings are cause for celebration. The cuts are, at best, an unfortunate necessity.
That's your right, but there are many literary critics and experts that disagree with your opinion. The Radcliffe Publishing Course and The Library Journal both listed their choices for The 100 Best English-Language Novels of the 20th Century and LoTR made both lists, placing an impressive third on The Library Journal List.
When respected scholars like those think so highly of The Lord of The Rings, hopefully you can understand my not putting more weight in your comments about the "abyssmal story finale" and "all the parts that suck."
I was extremely glad they cut out the Tom Bombadil scenes from the book.
I disagree. Tom Bombadil was a fascinating character because he was completely carefree yet had powers that were obviously immense. He was the antithesis of the Wizards in attitude yet had tremendous power that you get the feeling was only hinted at.
Also, I don't think that second-guessing Tolkien is something that I'd condone. Tolkien was arguably one of the most brilliant writers of the last century (note that I said "one of"). It's not like the director of LoTR was charged with making a movie out of yet another tired Saturday Night Live sketch. To some extent, I view a director as a conductor. I would not be very happy if I went to an orchestral performance of a Beethoven symphony and discovered that the conductor took it upon himself to cut out major portions of the work.
Thanks for demonstrating the bankruptcy of your position by resorting to silly ad-hominens.
So let me get this right; you are claiming that my position is "bankrupt" because you feel that I made an ad-hominem attack? Isn't that hypocritical? I thought that ad-hominem attacks were considered poor form because they were an attempt to discredit the position by discrediting the person arguing for the position. Isn't that what you just did?
As to why it was not a "silly" ad-hominem attack: I was pointing out, by comparison, that you were making strong anti-government statements with no apparent evidence to support your position. You equated the government as some kind of enemy of the people:
Looking for regulation to solve a monopoly problem is very much like expecting the fox to keep your chickens safe.
When you equate the relationship of the government and the citizens to that of foxes preying on chickens, the comparison to Timothy McVeigh seems an apt one.
---
Since you apparently did not see my other post, I will excerpt it here:
Want to see what a lack of regulation does? Take a look at cost of cable television after it was deregulated. In 1986, when the deregulation took effect, cable TV rates began to skyrocket at three times the rate of inflation. Cable TV remained local monopolies with no competitive pressure to restrain rates or improve customer service policies.
In response to the grotesque rate increases, tens of millions of cable TV subscribers contacted their Congressional representatives. In response, the House Telecommunications Subcommittee and Senate Commerce Committee crafted legislation (the "Cable Television Consumer Protection And Competition Act of 1992") to reign in cable rates which had increased 60% since deregulation only six years earlier!
I've pointed out that your assertion about the government denying competitors (in my county) permission to run cables was false. I've shown you the effects of deregulating cable. I have brought to light (unanswered) that electricity, water, and other utilities are regulated and the prices and quality are kept under control. I have shown how, despite having a level playing field, other cable companies cannot foresee a way to enter a competitor's market. If this discussion is going to degenerate into you voicing your distrust and/or dislike of the government, I'd like to bow out now.
Correct. And, as I said, that is a rare condition and one that doesn't persist forever in any case, barring regulatory support.
Forever is a long time. Why don't you tell me how many areas have choices of cable providers? The vast majority, even when you exclude those communities with contractually guaranteed exclusivity, have only one provider.
Fairfax county, for instance, as I was able to ascertain within a few minutes using google, has something called the 'Department of Cable Communications and Consumer Protection' which does exactly what I posited - it raises the costs of running a cable company in the area, which in turn discourages competition from entering. All well intentioned, of course, but the economic effects are no different than if the whole scheme had been set up to assure Cox a monopoly - economics doesn't respect intention, only action.
The office to which you refer is a consumer protection group that fields complaints about extended outages, poor service, missed service appointments, and so forth. In other words, they monitor Cox Cable to assure that Cox complies with its contractual obligations.
By your argument, the court system encourages monopolies by forcing vendors to comply with their contractual obligations.
And 'the cost to run the network' on their estimates, you can be certain, included a sizeable chunk of money for complying with the various regulations of the Fairfax CPD.
Since he was wrong about my cable system being a government-granted monopoly (via an exclusive contract), I can only assume that you don't have much respect for "Sanford[sic] or Yale" or "Business or Law" degrees.
The monopoly that my cable system has was neither granted by the government nor protected by it. In fact, the county government is actively seeking competitors willing to enter the market. But, since this is a naturally occurring monopoly (in that a competitor would be unlikely to win enough converts to make entering the market profitable), it is likely to remain one and the best that the government can do is regulate it to protect the consumers from abuses (much as they do with electricity, water, telephone service, etc.)
Want to see what a lack of regulation does? Take a look at cost of cable television after it was deregulated. In 1986, when the deregulation took effect, cable TV rates began to skyrocket at three times the rate of inflation. Cable TV remained local monopolies with no competitive pressure to restrain rates or improve customer service policies.
In response to the grotesque rate increases, tens of millions of cable TV subscribers contacted their Congressional representatives. In response, the House Telecommunications Subcommittee and Senate Commerce Committee crafted legislation (the "Cable Television Consumer Protection And Competition Act of 1992") to reign in cable rates which had increased 60% since deregulation only six years earlier!
So don't be too quick to agree with those who would bash regulation of monopolies. You'd be in a lot worse shape if there were not such regulation.
Your actions are designed to bring about what you'd be suing them for. That's going to be a problem for you.
I'm perfectly within my rights to bait anyone I choose. If they are going to claim that I'm exchanging copyrighted material, then they need to have rock-solid proof of it -- regardless of whether I put a file on my PC called "Star_Wars.mov". I'll gladly tell any court that I put the files there with the intent of catching this group trespassing on my computer and to test the accuracy of their methods.
I am not a Mac fan by any stretch of the imagination, but to compare that ugly POS case with a Mac case is completely unfair. From an aesthetic standpoint, the Mac case is far more appealing and was clearly conceived by talented designers. Calling that a clone of the Mac case is like calling a Pontiac Firebird a clone of a Ferrari.
Regardless, I don't think AOL has ever done some like put up a website and then send a letter to someone saying "don't access this public website that is open to everyone (including you), for if you do we will prosecute you".
No, AOL put up an e-mail server and sent a letter saying 'don't access this public e-mail server that is open (in the sense of not being password-protected) to everyone (including you), for if you do we will prosecute you'.
When you join a P2P network, you are participating in an open network.
And how is that different than putting up an e-mail server?
When you join a P2P network, you are agreeing to share files with other members of that network, not to open up your computer to warrantless searches by self-appointed net police.
To use an analogy, a store may open its doors to the public, but that does not mean that they give up their right to exclude people or limit the activities in their store. If a store asks you to stay off of their property, your returning is legally considered trespassing. That's why you don't find Hare Krishnas, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Mormons handing out leaflets in every store.
Monopolies rarely appear and never persist without government intervention.
Monopolies exist whenever the startup costs are high enough to prevent profitable competition. Cable modem/TV is a prime example. Monopolies also exist when there are insufficient customers to support multiple businesses. For example, there is only one store in my area that sells high-end equipment for amateur astronomers. There is only one store that sells and custom-fits foam products (such as is used in custom equipment cases). The government did not create those monopolies nor did they intervene to sustain them.
Looking for regulation to solve a monopoly problem is very much like expecting the fox to keep your chickens safe.
Thank you Timothy McVeigh. Federal, state, and local governments do a reputable job of keeping monopolies in check when they put their minds to it. That's why your utility bills are not astronomical.
Monopolies created and sustained by (typically municipal) governments. Why do you think Cox (or whoever they bought out in your area, more likely) was allowed to lay all that cable across both public and private land, but no one else can lay a competing network the same way?
Fairfax County never gave Cox (or its predecessor Media Genearal) an exclusive contract. They have encouraged other cable companies to enter the market and run competing networks. The only competitor that seriously considered entering the market was RCN but they eventually backed out because they believed that the cost to run the network, when weighed against the likely number of subscribers, would have meant that profitability would have been unlikely. Fairfax County is still looking for a company willing to compete in the cable TV/modem arena. If you know any, send them our way.
Well, the port 80 block isn't neccesarily because of running servers.
That was the excuse used when it was initially blocked. Then when Cox switched from Road Runner to providing their own service, the port 80 block was temporarily removed. The number of Code Red worm hits on my resurrected web server was minimal and certainly insignificant to bandwidth. I, and friends, compiled lists of all infected users on the Cox network and there were only a handful. We provided the information to Cox. Their response was to block incoming port 80 connections for everyone, leaving the infected machines free to attack web servers outside of the Cox network.
Slashdot Mirror
Simply untrue. There was no requirement to show a photo ID to board a flight. The "Patriot Act" was not signed into law by Clinton. Clinton did not approve "roving wiretaps." Clinton did not push for a national ID, but Bush is doing that right now in his "Operation TIPS" proposal.
I suggest that you read this ACLU summary of the changes the Bush administration has made since September 11:
INSATIABLE APPETITE: The Government's Demand for New and Unnecessary Powers After September 11
You will find that the voices speaking out in opposition to the curtailment of citizens' rights were Democrats while Republicans, Ashcroft, and Bush railroaded this legislation through.
When are people going to wake up to the fact that republicans are trying to take away our liberties and rights?
Most thinking people realized that after September 11. The Republicans have turned that one act of terrorism into an excuse to make this a police state. People are being forced to show ID to fly. ISPs are being told to help the government spy on citizens. Phone conversations are monitored without warrants. People flying on airlines can be pulled aside, frisked, and have all of their belongings unpacked and searched without any probable cause.
I think that there are very few thinking people who don't see this.
WTF does Dubya have to do with this?
The poster was making a humorous remark about the tie-in between Dubya and big oil and how he would not stand for alternative fuels cutting into oil company profits.
Get a car. Hm, need a license. That takes away your privacy. Govt knows you're bound to drive somewhere.
Having a license does not allow the government, and various private institutions, to track your travels.
Got 2 legs?
That's a really intelligent remark. I'll just tell my clients that I'll be out to meet them in a six months when I finish walking coast-to-coast.
I will leave you with the words of brave, wise, and intelligent men in the hopes that the contrast between their words and your own will be enlightening.
I bought TurboLinux and can honestly say it was the worst distro I ever installed. Nothing worked correctly. Tech support was abysmal.
Of course, that's just my experience and maybe someone with a newer distro had better luck.
GO TO HELL ASSHOLE!
See folks? Do we want people like that one representing our views to Congress? I couldn't have asked for a better example of why we need lobbyists.
Because at some point your right to privacy is outweighed by my need for saftey.
If you feel that everyone else's privacy needs to be violated to guarantee your safety on a plane, then don't fly.
You and the rest of the people that would trade the Constitution for safety have to realize something: There is no such thing as absolute safety. Period. Most of what goes on in airport screening now is just done to make you feel safer but it has damned little to do with actual safey. If a bunch of nut-cases can take over multiple planes using nothing more than box cutters, they could just as easily take over the planes with something else. They could carry on plastic knives or ceramic knives.
The entire screening process is just one more attempt by right-wing, ultra-conservatives to erode our civil rights. Every day we read about more abuses. We have to provide ID. Then we can be frisked. We can be randomly pulled out of line and all of our personal travel belongings searched. Our posessions can be damaged and we can be left with our clothes strewn about with not enough time to repack our suitcases. Our e-mail can be read without probable cause. Our phone conversations can be listened to without a search warrant. And even our shopping habits can be perused in the name of fighting terrorists. You better open your eyes and see what's going one while we still have a Constitution to protect.
On the contrary, these are EXACTLY the type of people I want representing our views.
The MPAA, RIAA, and content providers have paid, personable, intelligent, engaging speakers at these hearings. If our side consists of boorish, rude, unkempt, socially dysfunctional buffoons, you might as well scrap your CD-R/W drive right now.
The childish laughing, interruptions, and catcalls are doing our cause no good. It is time for us to start looking into paying professional lobbyists to represent our views. Lobbyists, whether you love or loathe them, have the connections, understanding of Congressional procedures, and the charm that we so desperately need if we want to win this one. Weird looking guys with unkempt hair, open collar shirts, and no public speaking skills are not who we want giving press conferences or representing our views to Congress. When in Rome...
I wasn't trying to flame him. I just wanted to show how easy it is to find grammatical flaws in the kind of casual messages people exchange on Slashdot.
Give the the warm orange glow of dual neon machines any day.
but the literary part of me's got to correct your grammar.
"Me's" is not a word. You cannot form a contraction with "has" by simply adding "'s" to the word that should preceed "has."
Sorry, my wife makes the same grammatical mess up all the time, and I'm trying to cure her of the bad colloquial habits which cause other people to not instantly respect her intellect, which (understandibly) ticks her off.
What ticks her off? Your attempts to "cure her" or that people do "not instantly resprect her intellect"?
Perhaps this is what was meant: The pen is mightier than the sword and he who lives by the pen shall die by the pen.
So you are saying that we should take the word of anonymous posters on Slashdot over respected, credentialed, literary journals, experts, publishing professionals, and scholars?
[sarcasm]Then I proclaim "Barney's Friends" (Barney the purple dinosaur) as the the finest literary work of the twentieth century. None may oppose me for I have no literary credentials, am not a scholar of literature, and do not have the respect of literary experts. All hail "Barney's Friends" as the greatest work of literature of the twentieth century.[/sarcasm]
And who are their peers respected by?
Intelligent, educated readers.
Seems like a bit of an egoist circle-jerk, if you ask me.
I did not ask you.
It isn't reasonable in today's expectations of entertainment or theater to expect an audience to sit through a 4+ hour movie
While I grant that some cuts were probably necessary in the translation from book to movie, I do not feel that the cutting of scenes from The Lord of The Rings are cause for celebration. The cuts are, at best, an unfortunate necessity.
Respected by whom?
Their peers.
Hitler was a respected leader by his followers, but that doesn't mean I should let his opinions matter to me.
A "follower" and a credentialed peer are hardly the same.
I'd oppose that argument.
That's your right, but there are many literary critics and experts that disagree with your opinion. The Radcliffe Publishing Course and The Library Journal both listed their choices for The 100 Best English-Language Novels of the 20th Century and LoTR made both lists, placing an impressive third on The Library Journal List.
When respected scholars like those think so highly of The Lord of The Rings, hopefully you can understand my not putting more weight in your comments about the "abyssmal story finale" and "all the parts that suck."
I was extremely glad they cut out the Tom Bombadil scenes from the book.
I disagree. Tom Bombadil was a fascinating character because he was completely carefree yet had powers that were obviously immense. He was the antithesis of the Wizards in attitude yet had tremendous power that you get the feeling was only hinted at.
Also, I don't think that second-guessing Tolkien is something that I'd condone. Tolkien was arguably one of the most brilliant writers of the last century (note that I said "one of"). It's not like the director of LoTR was charged with making a movie out of yet another tired Saturday Night Live sketch. To some extent, I view a director as a conductor. I would not be very happy if I went to an orchestral performance of a Beethoven symphony and discovered that the conductor took it upon himself to cut out major portions of the work.
So let me get this right; you are claiming that my position is "bankrupt" because you feel that I made an ad-hominem attack? Isn't that hypocritical? I thought that ad-hominem attacks were considered poor form because they were an attempt to discredit the position by discrediting the person arguing for the position. Isn't that what you just did?
As to why it was not a "silly" ad-hominem attack: I was pointing out, by comparison, that you were making strong anti-government statements with no apparent evidence to support your position. You equated the government as some kind of enemy of the people: When you equate the relationship of the government and the citizens to that of foxes preying on chickens, the comparison to Timothy McVeigh seems an apt one.
---
Since you apparently did not see my other post, I will excerpt it here: I've pointed out that your assertion about the government denying competitors (in my county) permission to run cables was false. I've shown you the effects of deregulating cable. I have brought to light (unanswered) that electricity, water, and other utilities are regulated and the prices and quality are kept under control. I have shown how, despite having a level playing field, other cable companies cannot foresee a way to enter a competitor's market. If this discussion is going to degenerate into you voicing your distrust and/or dislike of the government, I'd like to bow out now.
In your reply, you wrote:
Correct. And, as I said, that is a rare condition and one that doesn't persist forever in any case, barring regulatory support.
Forever is a long time. Why don't you tell me how many areas have choices of cable providers? The vast majority, even when you exclude those communities with contractually guaranteed exclusivity, have only one provider.
Fairfax county, for instance, as I was able to ascertain within a few minutes using google, has something called the 'Department of Cable Communications and Consumer Protection' which does exactly what I posited - it raises the costs of running a cable company in the area, which in turn discourages competition from entering. All well intentioned, of course, but the economic effects are no different than if the whole scheme had been set up to assure Cox a monopoly - economics doesn't respect intention, only action.
The office to which you refer is a consumer protection group that fields complaints about extended outages, poor service, missed service appointments, and so forth. In other words, they monitor Cox Cable to assure that Cox complies with its contractual obligations.
By your argument, the court system encourages monopolies by forcing vendors to comply with their contractual obligations.
And 'the cost to run the network' on their estimates, you can be certain, included a sizeable chunk of money for complying with the various regulations of the Fairfax CPD.
That is simply unsubstantiated conjecture.
Sanford or Yale, Business or Law... or both?
Since he was wrong about my cable system being a government-granted monopoly (via an exclusive contract), I can only assume that you don't have much respect for "Sanford[sic] or Yale" or "Business or Law" degrees.
The monopoly that my cable system has was neither granted by the government nor protected by it. In fact, the county government is actively seeking competitors willing to enter the market. But, since this is a naturally occurring monopoly (in that a competitor would be unlikely to win enough converts to make entering the market profitable), it is likely to remain one and the best that the government can do is regulate it to protect the consumers from abuses (much as they do with electricity, water, telephone service, etc.)
Want to see what a lack of regulation does? Take a look at cost of cable television after it was deregulated. In 1986, when the deregulation took effect, cable TV rates began to skyrocket at three times the rate of inflation. Cable TV remained local monopolies with no competitive pressure to restrain rates or improve customer service policies.
In response to the grotesque rate increases, tens of millions of cable TV subscribers contacted their Congressional representatives. In response, the House Telecommunications Subcommittee and Senate Commerce Committee crafted legislation (the "Cable Television Consumer Protection And Competition Act of 1992") to reign in cable rates which had increased 60% since deregulation only six years earlier!
So don't be too quick to agree with those who would bash regulation of monopolies. You'd be in a lot worse shape if there were not such regulation.
Your actions are designed to bring about what you'd be suing them for. That's going to be a problem for you.
I'm perfectly within my rights to bait anyone I choose. If they are going to claim that I'm exchanging copyrighted material, then they need to have rock-solid proof of it -- regardless of whether I put a file on my PC called "Star_Wars.mov". I'll gladly tell any court that I put the files there with the intent of catching this group trespassing on my computer and to test the accuracy of their methods.
I am not a Mac fan by any stretch of the imagination, but to compare that ugly POS case with a Mac case is completely unfair. From an aesthetic standpoint, the Mac case is far more appealing and was clearly conceived by talented designers. Calling that a clone of the Mac case is like calling a Pontiac Firebird a clone of a Ferrari.
Regardless, I don't think AOL has ever done some like put up a website and then send a letter to someone saying "don't access this public website that is open to everyone (including you), for if you do we will prosecute you".
No, AOL put up an e-mail server and sent a letter saying 'don't access this public e-mail server that is open (in the sense of not being password-protected) to everyone (including you), for if you do we will prosecute you'.
When you join a P2P network, you are participating in an open network.
And how is that different than putting up an e-mail server?
When you join a P2P network, you are agreeing to share files with other members of that network, not to open up your computer to warrantless searches by self-appointed net police.
To use an analogy, a store may open its doors to the public, but that does not mean that they give up their right to exclude people or limit the activities in their store. If a store asks you to stay off of their property, your returning is legally considered trespassing. That's why you don't find Hare Krishnas, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Mormons handing out leaflets in every store.
Monopolies rarely appear and never persist without government intervention.
Monopolies exist whenever the startup costs are high enough to prevent profitable competition. Cable modem/TV is a prime example. Monopolies also exist when there are insufficient customers to support multiple businesses. For example, there is only one store in my area that sells high-end equipment for amateur astronomers. There is only one store that sells and custom-fits foam products (such as is used in custom equipment cases). The government did not create those monopolies nor did they intervene to sustain them.
Looking for regulation to solve a monopoly problem is very much like expecting the fox to keep your chickens safe.
Thank you Timothy McVeigh. Federal, state, and local governments do a reputable job of keeping monopolies in check when they put their minds to it. That's why your utility bills are not astronomical.
Monopolies created and sustained by (typically municipal) governments. Why do you think Cox (or whoever they bought out in your area, more likely) was allowed to lay all that cable across both public and private land, but no one else can lay a competing network the same way?
Fairfax County never gave Cox (or its predecessor Media Genearal) an exclusive contract. They have encouraged other cable companies to enter the market and run competing networks. The only competitor that seriously considered entering the market was RCN but they eventually backed out because they believed that the cost to run the network, when weighed against the likely number of subscribers, would have meant that profitability would have been unlikely. Fairfax County is still looking for a company willing to compete in the cable TV/modem arena. If you know any, send them our way.
Well, the port 80 block isn't neccesarily because of running servers.
That was the excuse used when it was initially blocked. Then when Cox switched from Road Runner to providing their own service, the port 80 block was temporarily removed. The number of Code Red worm hits on my resurrected web server was minimal and certainly insignificant to bandwidth. I, and friends, compiled lists of all infected users on the Cox network and there were only a handful. We provided the information to Cox. Their response was to block incoming port 80 connections for everyone, leaving the infected machines free to attack web servers outside of the Cox network.