how can you complain when the action is taken against you?
Because I've already given them a "no trespassing" notice for my computer. If they obey the law, they won't ever see what's on my computer, much less take action.
Besides, I don't "know" how they evaluate what they find. Do they watch it? Do they download the entire thing? Do they just look at the title? If the latter, how do they tell the difference between copyrighted material and something that just has a title that looks like it could be copyrighted material? Is that the movie "Woodstock" or is it home video shot there?
The trespass upon chattels claim I don't know enough about, but I'd guess it'll be suspect as well.
That one is rock-solid. If you give someone notice that they are not to use your computer server, whether FTP, Kazaa, or e-mail, their continued use of that computer is a trespass to chattels.
When there is a monopoly, whether government sanctioned or driven by market forces, there has to be regulation or the consumer will be screwed.
In my county, Cox Communications has a monopoly because no other provider can envision a way to run a parallel service and get enough people to switch that it would be profitable. Most of the phones go through multiplexing equipment that makes DSL impossible.
The result? Horrendous problems with outages, packet loss, and latency. Service appointments for outages are typically five days or more after the report. The price recently jumped between 17% and 25% (25% for those of us who do not also subscribe to cable TV). Servers, which were permitted at the time I signed up, are now banned and port 80 has been blocked to prevent people from running web servers. I hear from reliable sources that more port blocking is on the way.
This is why "normal" utilities (phone, water, electricity, etc.) are regulated. The government realizes that the infrastructure costs make it virtually impossible for competitors to join the market and that without competition, the consumer will be the loser.
Which are more successful? The attacks on Windows machines, or the attacks on Linux machines?
A better thing to know is what the goals of the attacks were. For instance, attackers trying to get credit card numbers from major e-commerce sites would be more likely to attack Linux machines because (I believe that) Linux powers more successful e-commerce sites than does Windows. This is even more true lately, when respected security professionals are warning customers off of IIS (It Isn't Secure) and Windows platforms.
Another possible motivation is bragging rights. Defacing a web site running on Windows NT and IIS is not really all that impressive when Microsoft is issuing new security warnings and patches on an almost hourly basis. If you are going to try to impress everyone, you pick a fight with the biggest, meanest guy at the bar, not with some little shrimp that can't defend himself.
How will you know if they are following your demand?
I can't prove that they have not, through some means, started scanning my address, but I sincerely hope that Ranger Online uses an IP address assigned to them to try to scan my system. I have VERY good logs complete with reverse DNS resolution.
I have thought of various means to make it look like I am sharing copyrighted content when, in fact, I am not. I won't go into details about this for obvious reasons, but suffice it to say that I'd love for my ISP to get a letter from Ranger Online falsely accusing me of sharing copyrighted material. At that point, Ranger Online can expect to have a bumpy ride in court, not only for the trespass to chattels matter, but also for defamation, slander, damage to my business, etc.
The firm is not 'snooping around' on your computer. Rather, they are accessing public information.
Incorrect. If I prohibit them them from accessing it, then it is not "public." I have the right to set the terms for the access of my computer and the data on it. If I choose to share data with a certain group, it does not mean that anyone who masquerades as part of that group has a legal right to the data.
As for using your bandiwdth, I've never seen a case where using bandwidth was illegial, except in DDoS attacks, where intent to deny services was evident.
Then read up on "trespass to chattels" as it applies to computers. You will find that several ISPs, including AOL, have filed suit under that legal concept and have won. In each case, it was a spammer accessing what you would call a "public" mail server after having been explicitly denied permission to do so.
Disgusted by this whole modus operandi, I sent the following e-mail to several addresses within Ranger Online:
--- Gentlemen,
I have the static IP address xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx (via my {ISP Name Here} business Internet service) and am officially notifying you that I will not tolerate your firm snooping around on my computer, using bandwidth that I paid for, in order to conduct your clandestine spying. I suggest that you take whatever steps are necessary to assure that Ranger Online and its affiliates never access that IP address. Any attempts by your firm to access data on my computer will be treated as a "trespass to chattels."
I do not like your self-appointed 'net police' attitude. You are not a law enforcement agency and your searches are being carried out without probable cause or a warrant. The accuracy of the information you produce is suspect and your methods have not been undergone public scrutiny and peer review. You are using huge amounts of bandwidth from consumers, businesses, and institutions that often have limited resources and bandwidth already.
Frankly, you are like spammers. You believe that you have a right to use bandwidth paid for by others for your own financial gain.
Regards,
{Name and address}
If I do not get a response from them, I will reformat the message into a printed letter and have it delivered with a signature required and a return receipt.
Suck me. It's damned unlikely that you have anything even approaching the sophistication of the spam filtering that I run. On my mail server, I have autoresponders telling people how to resend non-spam, blind-copied messages caught by my filters. I have IP-based filters for foreign domains. I have filters to catch HTML-only e-mail that's blind-copied to me. I have filters based on the e-mail encoding, character set, and content. I create addresses on my mail server that can only be reached from an individual domain. I have trusted sender and domain lists. I have an auto-complaint generator for Brazillian spam. I regularly track down the spam to its source, perform open relay tests, and submit open relays to open relay databases.
So what do you have? Hotmail with the spam filter box checked?
Next time don't make stupid assumptions, dick-head.
If that were the case, managers would not have to worry, would they? The fact that adults play games and get distracted from work by them is why so many managers are wary of things that look like game-playing devices.
Odd that the availablilty of PC games hasn't relegated them to toys.
It's not odd at all. The PC has long been accepted as a proven, valuable piece of technology in the office. Handhelds are not nearly so widely accepted and many people see no need for them. Make these people, many of whom are in management, believe that handhelds are just pocketable game machines that can also store some phone numbers, and handheld sales and adoption rates will slow.
Finally a Palm with a button layout that can be useful for games! This has taken too long!
That's like someone bemoaning the fact that a GameBoy does not ship with good software for organizing business contacts. The market for handhelds is business people, not kids who want to play video games. In fact, if Palm devices start to be used for video gaming, the business market may start to regard them as toys rather than useful technology for professionals.
You laugh, but I think there's more truth to that than you know. Slashdot creates a text-only story with a couple of links. The story is what? 500 bytes? Then Slashdot readers click on the links and each one downloads several hundred K of web site and images.
For Slashdot to cache the sites that they now indiscriminately take down would require that they increase their bandwidth substantially -- maybe by an order of magnitude or more.
Plus you have to know where on the CD is the mp3 you want to listen to.
My CDs are organized as:
root \____Artist
\_____Album Title
\Song 1
\Song n
Navigating is a simple matter of selecting the artist, album, and, if desired, song. There are buttons for next and prev directory and file. It's really pretty intuitive once you use it for a while -- although I can understand how it could be daunting at first.
There is no single "point", but that's one valid point for anyone that wants to be able to resell their car, restore it to factory condition if the MP3 unit fails, etc.
Any Joe Six Pack can go to Goodguys and pay someone else to put a MP3 stereo in their car.
I installed the unit. I did a sano job creating a harness that was a plug-in, complete with soldered, shrink-wrapped connections. I also modified the unit, opening it up and removing the bundle of cables that hung out the back with RCA jacks for input and output (they plugged into connectors on the PC board internal to the unit). They interfered with the fit of the unit and got entangled with the ventilation controls.
I got a good buddy who started making a MP3 for his car in early 1997. He got about halfway done but then got distracted with other projects.
Sounds like a good argument for buying a professionally made unit and installing it. I have no desire to f*** up a 2002 model year car, leaving me with an ugly mess and no MP3 capability.
Otherwise, why would they have issues of network security, if it wasn't hooked up to their network?
Because they might believe that the consumer is lying when he claims that he will never hook the wireless equipment to their network. What possible reason would they have for believing some person who says that he's creating two home networks, one with, and one without, Internet access? Chances are that it's like the customers with three computers that swear that only one will be on the cable modem. 99% of them are lying.
I have a 2002 VW Golf TDi into which I installed an MP3 player. The player is mounted in the center console. It has an electroluminescent, multi-color display, infrared remote control, motorized, multi-angle display/control panel, and plays MP3s that I burn onto CD-R/RW media. That way I don't have to hook it up to my PC to put songs on it. And the CD-R/RW media holds probably 10 hours or more per CD, so it's a great way to have lots of music in a small space. That also freed me from having to worry about shock-mounting a hard drive, how the drive would deal with temperature extremes, etc.
You need to stop watching the BSA/SPA propaganda films.
When you take a Jaguar, someone else is missing a Jaquar.
When you pirate a copy of software, no one has fewer copies of it.
If you pirate a copy of Photoshop instead of buying it, you deprive Adobe of income.
If you pirate a copy of Photoshop instead of buying Paintshop Pro, you deprive JASC of income.
If you pirate a copy of Photoshop instead of using the GPL GIMP program, no one has been deprived of income.
Now, this being the Internet, I'll sit back and wait for the self-righteous indignation, unfounded accusations, and heavy-handed diatribes about the legality and morality of software piracy (despite the fact that I never addressed the morality or legality of it).
Anyone who believes that Anonymous Coward is a lawyer has been trolled.
"Anonymous Coward" is the name given to all persons who choose to post without a login. It's not one person.
You're just pissed off because he/she pegged you right as one of the "people that obviously have little grasp of even simple contract law pretend[ing] to be legal experts."
The new york city cable franchise agreement with TWC NYC (Southern Manhattan), section 4, paragraph 6. "Nondiscrimination"
Provide a link to it. There is no logical search on Google that reveals that document and I have no intention of wasting any more time looking for it. If you can't link to it, quote the section in full.
Most "nondiscrimination" clauses have to do with race, ethnic background, physical handicaps, etc. and nothing to do with networking hardware. "Reasonable persons" (I thought it was "reasonable contracts" in your previous post) would agree that a cable company could have legitimate concerns about network security related to wireless networking.
I just read the response posted by the lawyer. I guess it really sucks to be you right now. Of course, I expect that you'll slink off silently rather than being man/woman enough to admit that you were wrong.
So I see that your mom decided to let you use the computer again.
But, as usual, you are back to making claims with no basis in fact:
Cable companies are regulated by the FCC and cannot currently decline to provide service to paying customers who abide by reasonable contracts.
"Reasonable contracts"? Yeah, that sounds like a real solid legal definition. LOL! Show me anything -- ruling, law, etc. that demonstrates that the FCC forces cable modem companies to provide service based on how "reasonable" a contract is. Or were you just spewing more of your unsubstantiated bull****?
P.S. If being "right" is important to you, just start agreeing with me and you'll be right far more often than you are now.
They are not banning 802.11, and nor could they if they wanted.
Yes, they could. They can ban whatever they like because it's their service. As for enforcement, they can ride around in a sniffer van to detect who has 802.11a/b/g and send out letters telling them to shut it off. They don't have to prove that you were sharing the connection. They don't have to even show that the 802.11 was hooked, directly or indirectly, to the cable modem. They could simply say that they don't want you as a customer if you use wireless networking.
802.11 is a transport mechanism.. your cable modem has no IDEA what types of transport are being used downstream.
I don't think the average Slashdot reader thought that their cable modem was aware of what was using it for connectivity.
My cable modem does not have an "IDEA" about what servers I'm running either, but that has not stopped my cable company from changing their AUP to ban servers.
This kind of stupidity, along with the crackdown on "bandwidth hogs", is all due to the shortsightedness of those creating the subscriber contracts and AUPs. If the ISPs would simply provide clear policy on bandwidth usage and set something that both their customers and they could live with, this kind of witch hunt would be unnecessary. We have cable modem providers banning servers regardless of whether they are public or private (for the subscriber's use only). They are banning 802.11 because they think it might cause a bandwidth problem. They block ports for applications ranging from web servers to P2P networks.
If there is a usage limit, spell it out. If you want more money for more usage, publish a price schedule. But quit targeting early adopters who are just using their connections in new and innovative ways.
Slashdot Mirror
how can you complain when the action is taken against you?
Because I've already given them a "no trespassing" notice for my computer. If they obey the law, they won't ever see what's on my computer, much less take action.
Besides, I don't "know" how they evaluate what they find. Do they watch it? Do they download the entire thing? Do they just look at the title? If the latter, how do they tell the difference between copyrighted material and something that just has a title that looks like it could be copyrighted material? Is that the movie "Woodstock" or is it home video shot there?
The trespass upon chattels claim I don't know enough about, but I'd guess it'll be suspect as well.
That one is rock-solid. If you give someone notice that they are not to use your computer server, whether FTP, Kazaa, or e-mail, their continued use of that computer is a trespass to chattels.
When there is a monopoly, whether government sanctioned or driven by market forces, there has to be regulation or the consumer will be screwed.
In my county, Cox Communications has a monopoly because no other provider can envision a way to run a parallel service and get enough people to switch that it would be profitable. Most of the phones go through multiplexing equipment that makes DSL impossible.
The result? Horrendous problems with outages, packet loss, and latency. Service appointments for outages are typically five days or more after the report. The price recently jumped between 17% and 25% (25% for those of us who do not also subscribe to cable TV). Servers, which were permitted at the time I signed up, are now banned and port 80 has been blocked to prevent people from running web servers. I hear from reliable sources that more port blocking is on the way.
This is why "normal" utilities (phone, water, electricity, etc.) are regulated. The government realizes that the infrastructure costs make it virtually impossible for competitors to join the market and that without competition, the consumer will be the loser.
Which are more successful? The attacks on Windows machines, or the attacks on Linux machines?
A better thing to know is what the goals of the attacks were. For instance, attackers trying to get credit card numbers from major e-commerce sites would be more likely to attack Linux machines because (I believe that) Linux powers more successful e-commerce sites than does Windows. This is even more true lately, when respected security professionals are warning customers off of IIS (It Isn't Secure) and Windows platforms.
Another possible motivation is bragging rights. Defacing a web site running on Windows NT and IIS is not really all that impressive when Microsoft is issuing new security warnings and patches on an almost hourly basis. If you are going to try to impress everyone, you pick a fight with the biggest, meanest guy at the bar, not with some little shrimp that can't defend himself.
How will you know if they are following your demand?
I can't prove that they have not, through some means, started scanning my address, but I sincerely hope that Ranger Online uses an IP address assigned to them to try to scan my system. I have VERY good logs complete with reverse DNS resolution.
I have thought of various means to make it look like I am sharing copyrighted content when, in fact, I am not. I won't go into details about this for obvious reasons, but suffice it to say that I'd love for my ISP to get a letter from Ranger Online falsely accusing me of sharing copyrighted material. At that point, Ranger Online can expect to have a bumpy ride in court, not only for the trespass to chattels matter, but also for defamation, slander, damage to my business, etc.
The firm is not 'snooping around' on your computer. Rather, they are accessing public information.
Incorrect. If I prohibit them them from accessing it, then it is not "public." I have the right to set the terms for the access of my computer and the data on it. If I choose to share data with a certain group, it does not mean that anyone who masquerades as part of that group has a legal right to the data.
As for using your bandiwdth, I've never seen a case where using bandwidth was illegial, except in DDoS attacks, where intent to deny services was evident.
Then read up on "trespass to chattels" as it applies to computers. You will find that several ISPs, including AOL, have filed suit under that legal concept and have won. In each case, it was a spammer accessing what you would call a "public" mail server after having been explicitly denied permission to do so.
Disgusted by this whole modus operandi, I sent the following e-mail to several addresses within Ranger Online:
---
Gentlemen,
I have the static IP address xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx (via my {ISP Name Here} business Internet service) and am officially notifying you that I will not tolerate your firm snooping around on my computer, using bandwidth that I paid for, in order to conduct your clandestine spying. I suggest that you take whatever steps are necessary to assure that Ranger Online and its affiliates never access that IP address. Any attempts by your firm to access data on my computer will be treated as a "trespass to chattels."
I do not like your self-appointed 'net police' attitude. You are not a law enforcement agency and your searches are being carried out without probable cause or a warrant. The accuracy of the information you produce is suspect and your methods have not been undergone public scrutiny and peer review. You are using huge amounts of bandwidth from consumers, businesses, and institutions that often have limited resources and bandwidth already.
Frankly, you are like spammers. You believe that you have a right to use bandwidth paid for by others for your own financial gain.
Regards,
{Name and address}
If I do not get a response from them, I will reformat the message into a printed letter and have it delivered with a signature required and a return receipt.
The story was even posted by a troll: Had someone written that in a comment, it would have been modded down to -1 as Troll and Flamebait.
Moron.
Suck me. It's damned unlikely that you have anything even approaching the sophistication of the spam filtering that I run. On my mail server, I have autoresponders telling people how to resend non-spam, blind-copied messages caught by my filters. I have IP-based filters for foreign domains. I have filters to catch HTML-only e-mail that's blind-copied to me. I have filters based on the e-mail encoding, character set, and content. I create addresses on my mail server that can only be reached from an individual domain. I have trusted sender and domain lists. I have an auto-complaint generator for Brazillian spam. I regularly track down the spam to its source, perform open relay tests, and submit open relays to open relay databases.
So what do you have? Hotmail with the spam filter box checked?
Next time don't make stupid assumptions, dick-head.
...because only kids play games right?
If that were the case, managers would not have to worry, would they? The fact that adults play games and get distracted from work by them is why so many managers are wary of things that look like game-playing devices.
Odd that the availablilty of PC games hasn't relegated them to toys.
It's not odd at all. The PC has long been accepted as a proven, valuable piece of technology in the office. Handhelds are not nearly so widely accepted and many people see no need for them. Make these people, many of whom are in management, believe that handhelds are just pocketable game machines that can also store some phone numbers, and handheld sales and adoption rates will slow.
Anyone who blocks Yahoo.com won't get any mail from me. I like Yahoo's web mail, and use it in preference to the one I actually pay for.
So we should all unblock Yahoo! and get tons of spam because Weasel Boy might want to send us e-mail?
BUT, does it match the red/blue color scheme of your dash lights?
;-)
Although not a motivating factor in the purchase, yes, it does.
Finally a Palm with a button layout that can be useful for games! This has taken too long!
That's like someone bemoaning the fact that a GameBoy does not ship with good software for organizing business contacts. The market for handhelds is business people, not kids who want to play video games. In fact, if Palm devices start to be used for video gaming, the business market may start to regard them as toys rather than useful technology for professionals.
But then Slashdot would Slashdot itself.
You laugh, but I think there's more truth to that than you know. Slashdot creates a text-only story with a couple of links. The story is what? 500 bytes? Then Slashdot readers click on the links and each one downloads several hundred K of web site and images.
For Slashdot to cache the sites that they now indiscriminately take down would require that they increase their bandwidth substantially -- maybe by an order of magnitude or more.
Plus you have to know where on the CD is the mp3 you want to listen to.
My CDs are organized as:
root
\____Artist
\_____Album Title
\Song 1
\Song n
Navigating is a simple matter of selecting the artist, album, and, if desired, song. There are buttons for next and prev directory and file. It's really pretty intuitive once you use it for a while -- although I can understand how it could be daunting at first.
That's not the point.
There is no single "point", but that's one valid point for anyone that wants to be able to resell their car, restore it to factory condition if the MP3 unit fails, etc.
Any Joe Six Pack can go to Goodguys and pay someone else to put a MP3 stereo in their car.
I installed the unit. I did a sano job creating a harness that was a plug-in, complete with soldered, shrink-wrapped connections. I also modified the unit, opening it up and removing the bundle of cables that hung out the back with RCA jacks for input and output (they plugged into connectors on the PC board internal to the unit). They interfered with the fit of the unit and got entangled with the ventilation controls.
I got a good buddy who started making a MP3 for his car in early 1997. He got about halfway done but then got distracted with other projects.
Sounds like a good argument for buying a professionally made unit and installing it. I have no desire to f*** up a 2002 model year car, leaving me with an ugly mess and no MP3 capability.
Otherwise, why would they have issues of network security, if it wasn't hooked up to their network?
Because they might believe that the consumer is lying when he claims that he will never hook the wireless equipment to their network. What possible reason would they have for believing some person who says that he's creating two home networks, one with, and one without, Internet access? Chances are that it's like the customers with three computers that swear that only one will be on the cable modem. 99% of them are lying.
Bullshit. You entered this discussion by flaming me: Then when challenged to support your claims, you turned tail and ran. If you won't engage in an intelligent debate, then don't waste my time.
I have a 2002 VW Golf TDi into which I installed an MP3 player. The player is mounted in the center console. It has an electroluminescent, multi-color display, infrared remote control, motorized, multi-angle display/control panel, and plays MP3s that I burn onto CD-R/RW media. That way I don't have to hook it up to my PC to put songs on it. And the CD-R/RW media holds probably 10 hours or more per CD, so it's a great way to have lots of music in a small space. That also freed me from having to worry about shock-mounting a hard drive, how the drive would deal with temperature extremes, etc.
To see a picture of the unit, go to this web page.
Total investment: Less than $400
Installation time: Less than two hours
Serviceability: Excellent
Permanent modifications to car: None
There's this sweet Jag that I jacked last year
You need to stop watching the BSA/SPA propaganda films.
When you take a Jaguar, someone else is missing a Jaquar.
When you pirate a copy of software, no one has fewer copies of it.
If you pirate a copy of Photoshop instead of buying it, you deprive Adobe of income.
If you pirate a copy of Photoshop instead of buying Paintshop Pro, you deprive JASC of income.
If you pirate a copy of Photoshop instead of using the GPL GIMP program, no one has been deprived of income.
Now, this being the Internet, I'll sit back and wait for the self-righteous indignation, unfounded accusations, and heavy-handed diatribes about the legality and morality of software piracy (despite the fact that I never addressed the morality or legality of it).
Anyone who believes that Anonymous Coward is a lawyer has been trolled.
"Anonymous Coward" is the name given to all persons who choose to post without a login. It's not one person.
You're just pissed off because he/she pegged you right as one of the "people that obviously have little grasp of even simple contract law pretend[ing] to be legal experts."
The new york city cable franchise agreement with TWC NYC (Southern Manhattan), section 4, paragraph 6. "Nondiscrimination"
Provide a link to it. There is no logical search on Google that reveals that document and I have no intention of wasting any more time looking for it. If you can't link to it, quote the section in full.
Most "nondiscrimination" clauses have to do with race, ethnic background, physical handicaps, etc. and nothing to do with networking hardware. "Reasonable persons" (I thought it was "reasonable contracts" in your previous post) would agree that a cable company could have legitimate concerns about network security related to wireless networking.
I just read the response posted by the lawyer. I guess it really sucks to be you right now. Of course, I expect that you'll slink off silently rather than being man/woman enough to admit that you were wrong.
So I see that your mom decided to let you use the computer again.
But, as usual, you are back to making claims with no basis in fact:
Cable companies are regulated by the FCC and cannot currently decline to provide service to paying customers who abide by reasonable contracts.
"Reasonable contracts"? Yeah, that sounds like a real solid legal definition. LOL! Show me anything -- ruling, law, etc. that demonstrates that the FCC forces cable modem companies to provide service based on how "reasonable" a contract is. Or were you just spewing more of your unsubstantiated bull****?
P.S. If being "right" is important to you, just start agreeing with me and you'll be right far more often than you are now.
They are not banning 802.11, and nor could they if they wanted.
Yes, they could. They can ban whatever they like because it's their service. As for enforcement, they can ride around in a sniffer van to detect who has 802.11a/b/g and send out letters telling them to shut it off. They don't have to prove that you were sharing the connection. They don't have to even show that the 802.11 was hooked, directly or indirectly, to the cable modem. They could simply say that they don't want you as a customer if you use wireless networking.
802.11 is a transport mechanism.. your cable modem has no IDEA what types of transport are being used downstream.
I don't think the average Slashdot reader thought that their cable modem was aware of what was using it for connectivity.
My cable modem does not have an "IDEA" about what servers I'm running either, but that has not stopped my cable company from changing their AUP to ban servers.
This kind of stupidity, along with the crackdown on "bandwidth hogs", is all due to the shortsightedness of those creating the subscriber contracts and AUPs. If the ISPs would simply provide clear policy on bandwidth usage and set something that both their customers and they could live with, this kind of witch hunt would be unnecessary. We have cable modem providers banning servers regardless of whether they are public or private (for the subscriber's use only). They are banning 802.11 because they think it might cause a bandwidth problem. They block ports for applications ranging from web servers to P2P networks.
If there is a usage limit, spell it out. If you want more money for more usage, publish a price schedule. But quit targeting early adopters who are just using their connections in new and innovative ways.