The result of the Anti-Spam law will be more American jobs moving over seas or to disreputable neighbors.
That's like complaining that laws against kiddie porn mean that Americans are missing out on working in the lucrative kiddie porn industry.
Think about it. Once those jobs move over seas America will have even less power to constrain the pread of spam.
Once they go overseas, e-mail providers can just put country blocks in place (see blackholes.us) and the problem is solved. If those countries want to join in our reindeer games, then they can crack down on the spammers and the blocks will go away.
Homogenizing Linux will never be the solution. If you wankers want a single browser, go back to Microsoft. I'll be here in the Linux world where we've figured out that there are no "best" applications. Everyone likes it their own way, and I'll be damned if our "community" standardizes on a single desktop.
And it's attitudes like yours that have done so much to keep Linux from being the OS choice for homes and businesses all over the world. Right now, out of the box, Windows is a far superior choice for most users because it doesn't include four browsers, six e-mail clients, two completely different desktops, two SMTP servers, six text editors, three FTP clients, etc. That means that it can be supported -- whether by an IT department in a business or by a computer-savvy family member. It means that a user can go from one system in an office to another relatively easily. It means that a business can deploy a timekeeping web app and not have to test it on four different browsers. It means that IT doesn't have to roll out patches for four browsers, six e-mail clients, two completely different desktops, two SMTP servers, six text editors, three FTP clients, etc.
With Windows, everyone starts off with the same tools. More computer-savvy users can replace the browser, editor, FTP client, etc. when they are ready to. That's the way that it should be. If you don't know how to find, download, and install software, then you aren't ready to make choices about it.
The real world is people using computers to get their jobs done. It's not turning the question of which GUI to use into a religious discussion.
Listen, I'm sorry you have to resort to insults to try and prove your point.
Wait a second here. I admit that I called the iTunes a 'crappy all-in-one program', but it was you who resorted to personal attacks when you wrote
I'll put money on the fact that you wouldn't notice the difference either, that you just like impressing people with how many programs you use.
I have to confess that I let that little line set the tone of my reply.
All I was saying from the original is that I've had no problems using iTunes... and "all in one crap" program. No pops. No skips.
That's fine and I'm glad that it's working for you, but I urge you to try Exact Audio Copy for CD ripping. Why wait until you have problems when you can just avoid them altogether?
So now you think people should rip a CD and then listen to it end-to-end to see if the rip had problems? You're time is worth nothing, isn't it? I rip the music and then cut a CD or transfer to my Archos MP3 player. I don't want to rip ten CDs and then have to spend 9 hours listening with headphones for pops or distortion, comparing to the source CD every time I think I might have heard something. It's much smarter to rip with software that detects read errors when the rip takes place.
Thanks for using logic and points as opposed to abusive language and blanket statements in your argument.
You're welcome. By the way, abusive and vulgar are not the same. I attacked your arguments, not you.
I presented logical arguments and you refused to address them. Let's try again:
1. Why shouldn't we outlaw acts which are unethical and cost victims time and money? Should we legalize car theft and tell people that they should employ technological means to stop it?
1a. Has the fact that car theft is illegal stopped people from installing car alarms or stolen vehicle tracking systems? No. So why would outlawing certain types of spam prevent you from deploying your unspecified technical solution?
2. If technology can solve the spam problem, why hasn't it? Spam continues to get worse and you anti-government types keep telling us to believe in the technology fairy to solve the problem. Well, we've waited long enough. If you've got a solution, roll it out. Otherwise, keep quiet and let the grown-ups talk.
Yes, because the government has done so well with education,
Maybe if right-wingers weren't taking money away from schools and teachers by demanding tax cuts, public schools could perform better.
substance abuse,
Don't blame the government for the actions of people like Rush Limbaugh.
border protection, corporate abuse, and the economy.
So what are you saying? That we should legalize border crossings and corporate abuse, allowing private-sector vigilantes to deal with the problems? Are you saying that the Bush administration is responsible for the poor economy? Should we abolish the Federal Reserve? What's your point? Or do you believe that the cable television and airline industries are shining examples of how the consumer benefits when government regulation ceases?
The free market is (slowing) solving this problem more effectively than the US gub'mint.
If it is being "solved", then why does the amount of spam traffic continue to increase? Hiding the spam from the intended recipients isn't solving the problem. The problem is that spammers are stealing from you, me, and every other Internet user. ISPs pay for the unwanted spam bandwidth, storage, processing, and personnel to process complaints and maintain anti-spam filtering. Then they pass the costs on to users. At companies, it means that valuable IT staff members spend their time fighting spam rather than supporting the companies' core business functions. Employees see, read, respond to, and complain about the spam that does get through, wasting time that they could be spending on their duties. That means less profitability. Want to know one likely reason your paycheck isn't bigger? Spam.
I don't want the government in my e-mail when I can fix a problem on my own.
You didn't fix it. You're just another spam ostrich. You've buried your head in the sand so that you can't see the spam, but it's still sent to you. It's still wasting your bandwidth and your ISP's bandwidth. And that means that you are paying for it. All that you've done is decide that you are not going to be a part of the community that tracks spammers down and turns them in to get their Internet access pulled.
I am a DJ (club, not radio) and while I prefer the sound of quality vinyl,
If you prefer the sound of vinyl, then you've been exposed to loud music too much. LPs are inferior to CDs on almost any objective criteria. Their distortion is two orders of magnitude higher, their frequency response linearity is far worse, and their signal to noise ratio is horrible compared to CD. The only thing that can be said for them is that their susceptibility to microphonic pickup of low frequencies can make the bass sound more "full" on a system which has inadequate bass response.
And honestly I can't hear a difference between it and the high quality ripper out there. I'm not an Apple person, but I (being in the music industry) think it is the best out there for all us people who "don't care about quality" and want to be locked into an "all in one" program... and enjoy our music rather than worry about details.
Details like a horrible loud pops or gross distortion that results from errors during the reading process? That's what we're talking about here. Any ripper is fine as long as there aren't read errors. But what happens when there are? EAC detects them and rereads to get an error-free rip. If it can't read the track reliably, it informs you when the rip completes so that you can listen to the suspect section of music.
I'll put money on the fact that you wouldn't notice the difference either, that you just like impressing people with how many programs you use.
I'll put money on the fact that you lack the technical expertise to participate in this discussion. Try doing some reading before posting next time.
You remind me of someone who claims that airbags are an unnecessary extravagance just because you haven't had one deploy for you yet.
Technology could have solved this problem a better way. But leave it to the federal gov't to reign over another portion of our lives.
BULLSHIT, BULLSHIT, BULLSHIT! I've been listening to this anti-government crap for the past 5+ years in the discussions of spam. If technology has had the ability to solve this problem, then just when the hell was it going to happen? Are you waiting for Moses to come down from the mountain with a stone tablet proclaiming that it's time for you to deploy your technological solution? Spam has been increasing at an alarming rate and, with the exception of a tiny percentage of technically savvy users, most people have no technical solution to the problem. This law doesn't prevent you from rolling out the technical solution that you've been witholding for the past few years. Go ahead. Let me know when you've gotten every ISP, business, and individual running a mail server to adopt your heretofore secret spam solution.
It's like suggesting that we abolish laws against rape by reasoning that technology can solve that problem using chastity belts, mace, pepper spray, stun guns, and whistles.
If something is unethical and harms innocent people, then it should be illegal. The problem with the federal law is that it doesn't do nearly enough. But I'd rather that they outlaw some spam than make it all legal. Having a legitimate return address to clog with complaints is worth something to me.
Looks like you have to pay $15 to get MP3 encoding and CD burning functionality. Considering a lot of people want to rip and burn to save money (read: nicking songs!), this seems a pretty stupid idea if they want to go better than iTunes, and any other software which will do it for free.
I'm not interested in substandard, all-in-one programs. I use Exact Audio Copy for ripping because I can trust it. If it says "no errors" then there were no errors. I can feed the rip to any encoder I want. I happen to like LAME 3.93.1 for MP3, but I could just as easily feed it to Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, Monkey's Audio, Shorten, etc.
Crappy all-in-one programs that lock you into poor quality, error-blind ripping software and encoders you can't upgrade may be fine for people who don't give a damn about quality, but I'm not one of those people.
mention the fact that you can't do a lot of things (like ripping to MP3) unless you pay for the Pro version.
Why would I want to use ripping software that doesn't detect read errors? I use Exact Audio Copy because I don't want to rip a CD and then discover, by ear, that the rip had errors. So who the hell cares if iTunes, Audiograbber, Zlurp!, Musicmatch Jukebox, etc. all have ripping features that might or might not properly rip any given CD?
The burden of proof is on the one who claims we should have these lists.
In a debate, the burden of proof is on the person making a claim. Since the other poster simply stated fact (he checked the registry because he doesn't want his wife and child living near sex offenders), he had nothing to prove. NineNine, on the other hand, made a claim, by implication, that sex offenders are no more likely to commit crimes near their homes and aren't likely to cluster in specific areas. It's his job to support his claims.
If you like statistics, do you refute those that say that the majority of sex abuse is conducted by family or friends?
Absolutely true. Now wouldn't you like to know if the friendly neighbor who always says hello to your child had been convicted of molesting a child? Wouldn't you like your wife to know if your would-be friend from down the street had been convicted of rape?
Are you aware that the majority of child molestors each have multiple victims? Did you read many stories of Catholic Priests who molested just one child? Many had dozens, or even hundreds, of victims. That argues pretty strongly in favor of concern about future abuse chances.
Right. There are these buffoons who think that we should introduce these public registries for sex offenders.
You have it backwards. They are introducing sex offender registries for the public. You, and many others on here, seem to feel that these registries are intended as further punishment after the person has served their time. They are not. They are intended to provide concerned individuals with information that could keep them, or their family members, from becoming victims.
That said, I do not believe that the registries should include anyone who had consensual sex with another adult. Somoene convicted of sodomy with a willing adult partner poses no threat to you or your family. In many states, adultery is illegal, but I don't feel that someone who cheats on their spouse should be listed in a sex offender registry. Neither do I think that a grown woman convicted for prostitution should be in such a registry. The registries should be restricted to child molestation and violent sexual crimes (e.g., statutory rape, sexual battery, rape, etc.).
No, let's not. The issue here is his post. He's the one who got on here and lashed out at some innocent guy while making counter-intuitive, illogical, unsubstantiated claims about fictitious hang-gliding pedophiles.
Note that this is an unsupported claim. Where has it been shown? Where are these statistics?
The burden of proof is on NineNine. He's the one who starting roundly abusing someone who posted nothing offensive or rude. The person at whom NineNine lashed out just wrote:
I used the registry for my home state [state.al.us] when I was house-hunting. I don't want my children or wife to be anywhere near these people.
Therefore, he stated a fact and provided a link. NineNine's reply was woefully short on facts, statistics, or links.
Note that these sentences are abusive, unpleasant, and rude.
Correct. I have an ethical right to treat him in the same manner that he treats others. In other words, if he's going to be abusive, unpleasant, and rude, I've got every right to reply in kind. When his post is venom-filled, my reply doesn't need to drip honey.
Yet, as noted above, your post has no substance, and doesn't cite any studies to support your claims.
Again, it's not my job to disprove his claims. It's his job to prove them. I don't have time to dig up statistics every time some anonymous buffoon on the Internet makes absurd, unsubstantiated claims. If he wants me to do the research to provide hard statistics to back up my claims, then he can do the work to dig up some to support his first.
May I suggest you follow your own advice? That would be...
No, you may not. That was not advice. It was an imperative directed at the other poster -- not general advice to the public at large. See www.dictionary.com.
I'm sure that sex offenders A. Congregate in the same area(s) B. Do not drive, run, walk, take the bus, or hang glide to other locations C. Molest those people who are closest to them. Gee whiz, you're a smart nut.
Yes, sex offenders do molest those physically and emotionally close to them. It's been shown over and over to be true and the statistics are there to back it up. Sex offenders normally don't travel long distances to seek out unwilling victims. And, as another person pointed out, are often released to halfway houses which they share with other sex offenders.
On top of that, you bought into all of the media created hype. Congratulations on being a good, law-abiding, non-thinking citizen-drone.
You're still just another malcontent idiot with a chip on his shoulder. You're abusive, unpleasant, and rude yet your postings have no substance. You don't cite statistics or studies to support your claims. You just spew venom at people. Go away.
including the guy (22) out at a bar, meets and goes home with the girl (16) using fake id, and convicted of statutory rape.. he'll do it again, right???
So experimental drivers should not be included in the linux kernel?
Not in a released version of the kernel. Only in beta versions.
And that's a good reason why the standard binaries should include as many features as possible, regardless of whether or not those features are experimental, so long as the inclusion of those features does not affect the program when they are not used.
As the author, you don't know if it affects the program or not. All you know is whether you believe that it affects the program. That's what beta testing is for.
The code worked fine. It was the algorithm itself which was exploited.
Absolutely untrue. The algorithm was sound. The code was not.
Unless the binary is set up as setuid or setgid, that's irrelevant.
Huh? So you think that a program running at your user level presents no threat? You believe that it's okay if it can modify and delete all of the same files that you can? That you're "safe"? Wow, give me some of what you're on.
Why are there people who get moderator points and try to use them to punish those who express opinions with which the moderator does not agree? "Flamebait" and "Troll" do not mean "I disagree with the author." They refer to postings made to incite anger and start "flame wars." The posting I made was expressing a valid opinion and should not have been modded down as "troll" or "flamebait" -- as has been demonstrated by the fact that it was also modded up as "underrated" and "insightful."
If you disagree with something said, then debate like an adult instead of using mod points to try to censor those with whom you disagree.
Wrong. This has nothing to do with complexity, but with choise. It is good that there are alternatives to choose from. If there is only one option, one bug will affect everything and everybody. So having a choise is good.
Then I hope that some seldom-used "choice" in your OS turns out to have a root exploit associated with it. Then you can tell me how great choice is.
Choice is not good in encryption. Strength is. I don't want an encryption program that lets me choose between 15 types of keys, some of which are poorly tested. I want to select the key size and that's it. I want the algorithm to be tested to death. I want the implementation pounded on for man-years before I use it. I don't want to find out that the "choice" I made for a key type is something that 0.04% of people chose and that, because of its rarity, it had an undiscovered flaw.
For security to work, it has to be adopted. Make it too complex, and it doesn't get adopted. PGP is a damned good example. Had it been simpler to use, every piece of mail you got would be signed and encrypted. But because of its complexity, it was only adopted by a tiny minority of users. You can't PGP-encrypt your e-mail by default because 99% of people can't decrypt it.
This was an experimental setting to begin with, and the fact that it is included in the base GPG code doesn't affect the people using the standard settings.
Have you ever heard the term "beta"? If a feature is not well-tested, then it should not be in the base code.
As long as the experimental or rarely used code is kept separate from the rest of the program, the only problem is the extra source code you have to download and the extra binary size (if there's no option to #ifdef those sections out).
Most people don't compile their own executables. Period. They don't know how to use #ifdef switches. They don't edit source code. I don't care whether you like it, whether you think that their priorities should be the same as yours, etc. It doesn't change reality. Something as important as encryption should not be released with "experimental" code in it.
You also miss the other problem. More code is more room for exploits. What's to say that there could not be a buffer overrun exploit that's a part of some rarely used, minimally tested part of the code? That's where many such exploits originate.
Note that such keys are not generated by GnuPG's standard setup, and should be relatively rare.
This is a very good example of insecurity through complexity. Increasing the complexity of encryption software through the inclusion of multiple, unnecessary key types is a good way to increase the odds of introducing a bug. If there were only 850 of those keys, then why was that "feature" included?
This is the same thing that Microsoft does. Drastically increase the complexity of the software beyond what is necessary through the inclusion of unnecessary features and introduce bugs in the process. If this had been "MicrosoftPG" rather than "GnuPG", there would be an outcry on Slashdot about how stupid Microsoft is.
I think there's another part implied there. If we can't make enough money on ads to support this service, we'll have to shut it down.
And if they were shutting it down, that would be a different matter. Instead, the domain and web site was sold to a wealthy corporation who are choosing to remove the content. It's not being shut down at all.
Did mp3.com, in effect, form a contract with the artists? Did they say:
'We make money from website ads. In order to make our ad space valuable, we need lots of visitors. To get lots of visitors, we need music. If you give us your music, in exchange, we will promote it and provide bandwidth so that it can be heard. We realize that releasing your music this way reduces its commercial value substantially (since it can be had for free) and might make you persona non grata with some of the record labels, but you are trading that for long-term exposure and bandwidth.'
If most people used these technologies, then spam wouldnt be a problem, the problem is that many clueless isps and users don't like spam, but they haven't bothered to fight it much either.
ISPs don't want to be in court because their spam filters blocked e-mail saying "Mom's dying and this is your last chance to see her..." So they choose spam filtering that is weak, at best. Individual users are not going to install spam filters. Hell, over half of them don't even know that Windows has an update feature for patches, so how do you expect them to find, install, configure, and use spam filters?
But, on a philosophical note, why should I have to pay protection money to some company selling a spam filtering solution? Why should my ISP?
This whole anti-government crap is like saying that there should be no laws against theft and that we should rely on technology (burglar alarms, CCTV, etc.) to solve it. If something is unethical and costs innocent people money, then it should be illegal. You have people that say "but you can't catch and prosecute every spammer, so there should be no law against spam passed." Bullshit. You can't catch and prosecute every person who steals a radio out of a car, runs a stopsign, or shoplifts -- but no one wants to repeal laws against those things, do they?
I think the industry as a whole would be *MUCH* better off looking for a technical solution rather than hoping for government intervention.
I've been hearing that for over five years. Entire businesses have been built up around seeking a technical solution to spam. Fighting spam with these various half-assed "solutions" is costing every online business and Internet user money. Every person in the computer industry realizes that a practical technical solution could make the inventor rich.
Yet no universally appealing technical solution has been developed. But every time that legislation is proposed, someone goes into the anti-government rant mode.
I've got a better idea: Pass legislation now and if any of you "technical solution" gurus has a brainstorm that really solves the problem, repeal the legislation.
That said, I am strongly against an e-mail tax. I support criminalizing the sending of spam or causing the sending of spam. If Alan Ralsky wants to pay some ISP in Brazil to send spam, fine. Put Alan Ralsky in federal "pound me in the ass" prison.
The owners of those behind firewalls for one. They have a completely broken router
If it is "completely broken", then explain how thousands of consumers are successfully using it.
that randomly drops HTTP connections every 8 hours. Wonderful effect, isn't it?
If someone is so brain-dead-stupid that they can't configure their router through the web interface and can't click on a "no thanks" button, they have no place using a router. Do you really think that this would confuse you? Please. Tell me. Would turning off this behavior really baffle you?
It doesn't "randomly [drop] HTTP connections every 8 hours." A dropped connection is not the same as a redirection. Secondly, it's either random or it's every 8 hours. It can't be both.
Let's see, I don't use IE, so what do you think?
Do you use a Belkin router? You seem to be all wrapped around the axle over them.
So, did you browser come with a pre-configured home page? Did it show that homepage every time you started it? Did you have to do something to reconfigure it to a homepage of your choosing? Was doing that more complex than clicking a "no thanks" button on a web page?
These browsers are not redirecting other traffic, nor are they network hardware that has one set purpose.
Ever looked at a modern consumer router? It has far more than "one set purpose." It includes routing, NAT, PPTP and PPPoE clients, firewalls, port forwarding, and DHCP serving. It's hardly your daddy's router.
You need to get some perspective. Belkin has been offering the Parental Control feature on its Routers since February 2003, having sold tens of thousands of them since that time. Prior to this uproar in early November, the company had not received any complaints from consumers about the browser redirect.
Try looking at it from a non-geek perspective. The nervous consumer, after spending 30 minutes or more studying the documentation, installs the router. They go into their web browser and are taken to a web page that tells them that they are connected to the Internet and can now activate the filtering that they might want for their families -- or hit the "No Thanks" button. That sounds like a satisfying experience for the typical technophobic consumer who would buy a Belkin router.
If we were talking about a Cisco rack-mount router aimed at enterprises, I'd be right with you in your criticism, but this is a consumer product and it's expected to be easy to set up -- including any aftermarket filtering subscriptions that may be offered. I'm not saying that Belkin made the right choice, but neither do I see it as that unmitigated evil that you do.
Slashdot Mirror
The result of the Anti-Spam law will be more American jobs moving over seas or to disreputable neighbors.
That's like complaining that laws against kiddie porn mean that Americans are missing out on working in the lucrative kiddie porn industry.
Think about it. Once those jobs move over seas America will have even less power to constrain the pread of spam.
Once they go overseas, e-mail providers can just put country blocks in place (see blackholes.us) and the problem is solved. If those countries want to join in our reindeer games, then they can crack down on the spammers and the blocks will go away.
Homogenizing Linux will never be the solution. If you wankers want a single browser, go back to Microsoft. I'll be here in the Linux world where we've figured out that there are no "best" applications. Everyone likes it their own way, and I'll be damned if our "community" standardizes on a single desktop.
And it's attitudes like yours that have done so much to keep Linux from being the OS choice for homes and businesses all over the world. Right now, out of the box, Windows is a far superior choice for most users because it doesn't include four browsers, six e-mail clients, two completely different desktops, two SMTP servers, six text editors, three FTP clients, etc. That means that it can be supported -- whether by an IT department in a business or by a computer-savvy family member. It means that a user can go from one system in an office to another relatively easily. It means that a business can deploy a timekeeping web app and not have to test it on four different browsers. It means that IT doesn't have to roll out patches for four browsers, six e-mail clients, two completely different desktops, two SMTP servers, six text editors, three FTP clients, etc.
With Windows, everyone starts off with the same tools. More computer-savvy users can replace the browser, editor, FTP client, etc. when they are ready to. That's the way that it should be. If you don't know how to find, download, and install software, then you aren't ready to make choices about it.
The real world is people using computers to get their jobs done. It's not turning the question of which GUI to use into a religious discussion.
Wait a second here. I admit that I called the iTunes a 'crappy all-in-one program', but it was you who resorted to personal attacks when you wrote I have to confess that I let that little line set the tone of my reply.
All I was saying from the original is that I've had no problems using iTunes... and "all in one crap" program. No pops. No skips.
That's fine and I'm glad that it's working for you, but I urge you to try Exact Audio Copy for CD ripping. Why wait until you have problems when you can just avoid them altogether?
you rip it again.
So now you think people should rip a CD and then listen to it end-to-end to see if the rip had problems? You're time is worth nothing, isn't it? I rip the music and then cut a CD or transfer to my Archos MP3 player. I don't want to rip ten CDs and then have to spend 9 hours listening with headphones for pops or distortion, comparing to the source CD every time I think I might have heard something. It's much smarter to rip with software that detects read errors when the rip takes place.
Thanks for using logic and points as opposed to abusive language and blanket statements in your argument.
You're welcome. By the way, abusive and vulgar are not the same. I attacked your arguments, not you.
I presented logical arguments and you refused to address them. Let's try again:
1. Why shouldn't we outlaw acts which are unethical and cost victims time and money? Should we legalize car theft and tell people that they should employ technological means to stop it?
1a. Has the fact that car theft is illegal stopped people from installing car alarms or stolen vehicle tracking systems? No. So why would outlawing certain types of spam prevent you from deploying your unspecified technical solution?
2. If technology can solve the spam problem, why hasn't it? Spam continues to get worse and you anti-government types keep telling us to believe in the technology fairy to solve the problem. Well, we've waited long enough. If you've got a solution, roll it out. Otherwise, keep quiet and let the grown-ups talk.
Yes, because the government has done so well with education,
Maybe if right-wingers weren't taking money away from schools and teachers by demanding tax cuts, public schools could perform better.
substance abuse,
Don't blame the government for the actions of people like Rush Limbaugh.
border protection, corporate abuse, and the economy.
So what are you saying? That we should legalize border crossings and corporate abuse, allowing private-sector vigilantes to deal with the problems? Are you saying that the Bush administration is responsible for the poor economy? Should we abolish the Federal Reserve? What's your point? Or do you believe that the cable television and airline industries are shining examples of how the consumer benefits when government regulation ceases?
The free market is (slowing) solving this problem more effectively than the US gub'mint.
If it is being "solved", then why does the amount of spam traffic continue to increase? Hiding the spam from the intended recipients isn't solving the problem. The problem is that spammers are stealing from you, me, and every other Internet user. ISPs pay for the unwanted spam bandwidth, storage, processing, and personnel to process complaints and maintain anti-spam filtering. Then they pass the costs on to users. At companies, it means that valuable IT staff members spend their time fighting spam rather than supporting the companies' core business functions. Employees see, read, respond to, and complain about the spam that does get through, wasting time that they could be spending on their duties. That means less profitability. Want to know one likely reason your paycheck isn't bigger? Spam.
I don't want the government in my e-mail when I can fix a problem on my own.
You didn't fix it. You're just another spam ostrich. You've buried your head in the sand so that you can't see the spam, but it's still sent to you. It's still wasting your bandwidth and your ISP's bandwidth. And that means that you are paying for it. All that you've done is decide that you are not going to be a part of the community that tracks spammers down and turns them in to get their Internet access pulled.
I am a DJ (club, not radio) and while I prefer the sound of quality vinyl,
If you prefer the sound of vinyl, then you've been exposed to loud music too much. LPs are inferior to CDs on almost any objective criteria. Their distortion is two orders of magnitude higher, their frequency response linearity is far worse, and their signal to noise ratio is horrible compared to CD. The only thing that can be said for them is that their susceptibility to microphonic pickup of low frequencies can make the bass sound more "full" on a system which has inadequate bass response.
And honestly I can't hear a difference between it and the high quality ripper out there. I'm not an Apple person, but I (being in the music industry) think it is the best out there for all us people who "don't care about quality" and want to be locked into an "all in one" program... and enjoy our music rather than worry about details.
Details like a horrible loud pops or gross distortion that results from errors during the reading process? That's what we're talking about here. Any ripper is fine as long as there aren't read errors. But what happens when there are? EAC detects them and rereads to get an error-free rip. If it can't read the track reliably, it informs you when the rip completes so that you can listen to the suspect section of music.
I'll put money on the fact that you wouldn't notice the difference either, that you just like impressing people with how many programs you use.
I'll put money on the fact that you lack the technical expertise to participate in this discussion. Try doing some reading before posting next time.
You remind me of someone who claims that airbags are an unnecessary extravagance just because you haven't had one deploy for you yet.
Technology could have solved this problem a better way. But leave it to the federal gov't to reign over another portion of our lives.
BULLSHIT, BULLSHIT, BULLSHIT! I've been listening to this anti-government crap for the past 5+ years in the discussions of spam. If technology has had the ability to solve this problem, then just when the hell was it going to happen? Are you waiting for Moses to come down from the mountain with a stone tablet proclaiming that it's time for you to deploy your technological solution? Spam has been increasing at an alarming rate and, with the exception of a tiny percentage of technically savvy users, most people have no technical solution to the problem. This law doesn't prevent you from rolling out the technical solution that you've been witholding for the past few years. Go ahead. Let me know when you've gotten every ISP, business, and individual running a mail server to adopt your heretofore secret spam solution.
It's like suggesting that we abolish laws against rape by reasoning that technology can solve that problem using chastity belts, mace, pepper spray, stun guns, and whistles.
If something is unethical and harms innocent people, then it should be illegal. The problem with the federal law is that it doesn't do nearly enough. But I'd rather that they outlaw some spam than make it all legal. Having a legitimate return address to clog with complaints is worth something to me.
Looks like you have to pay $15 to get MP3 encoding and CD burning functionality. Considering a lot of people want to rip and burn to save money (read: nicking songs!), this seems a pretty stupid idea if they want to go better than iTunes, and any other software which will do it for free.
I'm not interested in substandard, all-in-one programs. I use Exact Audio Copy for ripping because I can trust it. If it says "no errors" then there were no errors. I can feed the rip to any encoder I want. I happen to like LAME 3.93.1 for MP3, but I could just as easily feed it to Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, Monkey's Audio, Shorten, etc.
Crappy all-in-one programs that lock you into poor quality, error-blind ripping software and encoders you can't upgrade may be fine for people who don't give a damn about quality, but I'm not one of those people.
mention the fact that you can't do a lot of things (like ripping to MP3) unless you pay for the Pro version.
Why would I want to use ripping software that doesn't detect read errors? I use Exact Audio Copy because I don't want to rip a CD and then discover, by ear, that the rip had errors. So who the hell cares if iTunes, Audiograbber, Zlurp!, Musicmatch Jukebox, etc. all have ripping features that might or might not properly rip any given CD?
The burden of proof is on the one who claims we should have these lists.
In a debate, the burden of proof is on the person making a claim. Since the other poster simply stated fact (he checked the registry because he doesn't want his wife and child living near sex offenders), he had nothing to prove. NineNine, on the other hand, made a claim, by implication, that sex offenders are no more likely to commit crimes near their homes and aren't likely to cluster in specific areas. It's his job to support his claims.
If you like statistics, do you refute those that say that the majority of sex abuse is conducted by family or friends?
Absolutely true. Now wouldn't you like to know if the friendly neighbor who always says hello to your child had been convicted of molesting a child? Wouldn't you like your wife to know if your would-be friend from down the street had been convicted of rape?
Are you aware that the majority of child molestors each have multiple victims? Did you read many stories of Catholic Priests who molested just one child? Many had dozens, or even hundreds, of victims. That argues pretty strongly in favor of concern about future abuse chances.
Right. There are these buffoons who think that we should introduce these public registries for sex offenders.
You have it backwards. They are introducing sex offender registries for the public. You, and many others on here, seem to feel that these registries are intended as further punishment after the person has served their time. They are not. They are intended to provide concerned individuals with information that could keep them, or their family members, from becoming victims.
That said, I do not believe that the registries should include anyone who had consensual sex with another adult. Somoene convicted of sodomy with a willing adult partner poses no threat to you or your family. In many states, adultery is illegal, but I don't feel that someone who cheats on their spouse should be listed in a sex offender registry. Neither do I think that a grown woman convicted for prostitution should be in such a registry. The registries should be restricted to child molestation and violent sexual crimes (e.g., statutory rape, sexual battery, rape, etc.).
No, let's not. The issue here is his post. He's the one who got on here and lashed out at some innocent guy while making counter-intuitive, illogical, unsubstantiated claims about fictitious hang-gliding pedophiles.
Note that this is an unsupported claim. Where has it been shown? Where are these statistics?
The burden of proof is on NineNine. He's the one who starting roundly abusing someone who posted nothing offensive or rude. The person at whom NineNine lashed out just wrote:Therefore, he stated a fact and provided a link. NineNine's reply was woefully short on facts, statistics, or links.
Note that these sentences are abusive, unpleasant, and rude.
Correct. I have an ethical right to treat him in the same manner that he treats others. In other words, if he's going to be abusive, unpleasant, and rude, I've got every right to reply in kind. When his post is venom-filled, my reply doesn't need to drip honey.
Yet, as noted above, your post has no substance, and doesn't cite any studies to support your claims.
Again, it's not my job to disprove his claims. It's his job to prove them. I don't have time to dig up statistics every time some anonymous buffoon on the Internet makes absurd, unsubstantiated claims. If he wants me to do the research to provide hard statistics to back up my claims, then he can do the work to dig up some to support his first.
May I suggest you follow your own advice? That would be...
No, you may not. That was not advice. It was an imperative directed at the other poster -- not general advice to the public at large. See www.dictionary.com.
That's a very wise decision.
Yes, it is.
I'm sure that sex offenders A. Congregate in the same area(s) B. Do not drive, run, walk, take the bus, or hang glide to other locations C. Molest those people who are closest to them. Gee whiz, you're a smart nut.
Yes, sex offenders do molest those physically and emotionally close to them. It's been shown over and over to be true and the statistics are there to back it up. Sex offenders normally don't travel long distances to seek out unwilling victims. And, as another person pointed out, are often released to halfway houses which they share with other sex offenders.
On top of that, you bought into all of the media created hype. Congratulations on being a good, law-abiding, non-thinking citizen-drone.
You're still just another malcontent idiot with a chip on his shoulder. You're abusive, unpleasant, and rude yet your postings have no substance. You don't cite statistics or studies to support your claims. You just spew venom at people. Go away.
including the guy (22) out at a bar, meets and goes home with the girl (16) using fake id, and convicted of statutory rape.. he'll do it again, right???
;-)
I know that I would.
So experimental drivers should not be included in the linux kernel?
Not in a released version of the kernel. Only in beta versions.
And that's a good reason why the standard binaries should include as many features as possible, regardless of whether or not those features are experimental, so long as the inclusion of those features does not affect the program when they are not used.
As the author, you don't know if it affects the program or not. All you know is whether you believe that it affects the program. That's what beta testing is for.
The code worked fine. It was the algorithm itself which was exploited.
Absolutely untrue. The algorithm was sound. The code was not.
Unless the binary is set up as setuid or setgid, that's irrelevant.
Huh? So you think that a program running at your user level presents no threat? You believe that it's okay if it can modify and delete all of the same files that you can? That you're "safe"? Wow, give me some of what you're on.
Why are there people who get moderator points and try to use them to punish those who express opinions with which the moderator does not agree? "Flamebait" and "Troll" do not mean "I disagree with the author." They refer to postings made to incite anger and start "flame wars." The posting I made was expressing a valid opinion and should not have been modded down as "troll" or "flamebait" -- as has been demonstrated by the fact that it was also modded up as "underrated" and "insightful."
If you disagree with something said, then debate like an adult instead of using mod points to try to censor those with whom you disagree.
Wrong. This has nothing to do with complexity, but with choise. It is good that there are alternatives to choose from. If there is only one option, one bug will affect everything and everybody. So having a choise is good.
Then I hope that some seldom-used "choice" in your OS turns out to have a root exploit associated with it. Then you can tell me how great choice is.
Choice is not good in encryption. Strength is. I don't want an encryption program that lets me choose between 15 types of keys, some of which are poorly tested. I want to select the key size and that's it. I want the algorithm to be tested to death. I want the implementation pounded on for man-years before I use it. I don't want to find out that the "choice" I made for a key type is something that 0.04% of people chose and that, because of its rarity, it had an undiscovered flaw.
For security to work, it has to be adopted. Make it too complex, and it doesn't get adopted. PGP is a damned good example. Had it been simpler to use, every piece of mail you got would be signed and encrypted. But because of its complexity, it was only adopted by a tiny minority of users. You can't PGP-encrypt your e-mail by default because 99% of people can't decrypt it.
This was an experimental setting to begin with, and the fact that it is included in the base GPG code doesn't affect the people using the standard settings.
Have you ever heard the term "beta"? If a feature is not well-tested, then it should not be in the base code.
As long as the experimental or rarely used code is kept separate from the rest of the program, the only problem is the extra source code you have to download and the extra binary size (if there's no option to #ifdef those sections out).
Most people don't compile their own executables. Period. They don't know how to use #ifdef switches. They don't edit source code. I don't care whether you like it, whether you think that their priorities should be the same as yours, etc. It doesn't change reality. Something as important as encryption should not be released with "experimental" code in it.
You also miss the other problem. More code is more room for exploits. What's to say that there could not be a buffer overrun exploit that's a part of some rarely used, minimally tested part of the code? That's where many such exploits originate.
Note that such keys are not generated by GnuPG's standard setup, and should be relatively rare.
This is a very good example of insecurity through complexity. Increasing the complexity of encryption software through the inclusion of multiple, unnecessary key types is a good way to increase the odds of introducing a bug. If there were only 850 of those keys, then why was that "feature" included?
This is the same thing that Microsoft does. Drastically increase the complexity of the software beyond what is necessary through the inclusion of unnecessary features and introduce bugs in the process. If this had been "MicrosoftPG" rather than "GnuPG", there would be an outcry on Slashdot about how stupid Microsoft is.
I think there's another part implied there. If we can't make enough money on ads to support this service, we'll have to shut it down.
And if they were shutting it down, that would be a different matter. Instead, the domain and web site was sold to a wealthy corporation who are choosing to remove the content. It's not being shut down at all.
Did mp3.com, in effect, form a contract with the artists? Did they say:
'We make money from website ads. In order to make our ad space valuable, we need lots of visitors. To get lots of visitors, we need music. If you give us your music, in exchange, we will promote it and provide bandwidth so that it can be heard. We realize that releasing your music this way reduces its commercial value substantially (since it can be had for free) and might make you persona non grata with some of the record labels, but you are trading that for long-term exposure and bandwidth.'
That sounds like an implied contract to me.
If most people used these technologies, then spam wouldnt be a problem, the problem is that many clueless isps and users don't like spam, but they haven't bothered to fight it much either.
ISPs don't want to be in court because their spam filters blocked e-mail saying "Mom's dying and this is your last chance to see her..." So they choose spam filtering that is weak, at best. Individual users are not going to install spam filters. Hell, over half of them don't even know that Windows has an update feature for patches, so how do you expect them to find, install, configure, and use spam filters?
But, on a philosophical note, why should I have to pay protection money to some company selling a spam filtering solution? Why should my ISP?
This whole anti-government crap is like saying that there should be no laws against theft and that we should rely on technology (burglar alarms, CCTV, etc.) to solve it. If something is unethical and costs innocent people money, then it should be illegal. You have people that say "but you can't catch and prosecute every spammer, so there should be no law against spam passed." Bullshit. You can't catch and prosecute every person who steals a radio out of a car, runs a stopsign, or shoplifts -- but no one wants to repeal laws against those things, do they?
I think the industry as a whole would be *MUCH* better off looking for a technical solution rather than hoping for government intervention.
I've been hearing that for over five years. Entire businesses have been built up around seeking a technical solution to spam. Fighting spam with these various half-assed "solutions" is costing every online business and Internet user money. Every person in the computer industry realizes that a practical technical solution could make the inventor rich.
Yet no universally appealing technical solution has been developed. But every time that legislation is proposed, someone goes into the anti-government rant mode.
I've got a better idea: Pass legislation now and if any of you "technical solution" gurus has a brainstorm that really solves the problem, repeal the legislation.
That said, I am strongly against an e-mail tax. I support criminalizing the sending of spam or causing the sending of spam. If Alan Ralsky wants to pay some ISP in Brazil to send spam, fine. Put Alan Ralsky in federal "pound me in the ass" prison.
The owners of those behind firewalls for one. They have a completely broken router
If it is "completely broken", then explain how thousands of consumers are successfully using it.
that randomly drops HTTP connections every 8 hours. Wonderful effect, isn't it?
If someone is so brain-dead-stupid that they can't configure their router through the web interface and can't click on a "no thanks" button, they have no place using a router. Do you really think that this would confuse you? Please. Tell me. Would turning off this behavior really baffle you?
It doesn't "randomly [drop] HTTP connections every 8 hours." A dropped connection is not the same as a redirection. Secondly, it's either random or it's every 8 hours. It can't be both.
Let's see, I don't use IE, so what do you think?
Do you use a Belkin router? You seem to be all wrapped around the axle over them.
So, did you browser come with a pre-configured home page? Did it show that homepage every time you started it? Did you have to do something to reconfigure it to a homepage of your choosing? Was doing that more complex than clicking a "no thanks" button on a web page?
These browsers are not redirecting other traffic, nor are they network hardware that has one set purpose.
Ever looked at a modern consumer router? It has far more than "one set purpose." It includes routing, NAT, PPTP and PPPoE clients, firewalls, port forwarding, and DHCP serving. It's hardly your daddy's router.
You need to get some perspective. Belkin has been offering the Parental Control feature on its Routers since February 2003, having sold tens of thousands of them since that time. Prior to this uproar in early November, the company had not received any complaints from consumers about the browser redirect.
Try looking at it from a non-geek perspective. The nervous consumer, after spending 30 minutes or more studying the documentation, installs the router. They go into their web browser and are taken to a web page that tells them that they are connected to the Internet and can now activate the filtering that they might want for their families -- or hit the "No Thanks" button. That sounds like a satisfying experience for the typical technophobic consumer who would buy a Belkin router.
If we were talking about a Cisco rack-mount router aimed at enterprises, I'd be right with you in your criticism, but this is a consumer product and it's expected to be easy to set up -- including any aftermarket filtering subscriptions that may be offered. I'm not saying that Belkin made the right choice, but neither do I see it as that unmitigated evil that you do.