There's a server side fix for this too, isn't there? I mean, you can control the headers in asp and php, can't you just... well, you'd have to rewrite all the links to aol to an 'image server' page on the LiveJournal site that requests images/pages from aol and returns them to the calling document (the livejournal user). Your image/document retrieval script would request the image/document from AOL with a custom-crafted header that tells AOL the request is coming from... wherever (AOL might be nice...).
You'd have to run some kind of find/replace on all the LiveJournal pages for links referencing aol but....
Range. I've been looking into using RFID tags, the range is horrible. With a -=large=- (1-2cm) ID tag, in good conditions (metal, in particular, seems to reduce the range), a $2,000 reader can read an RFID tag at 1 meter.
Now if you presume that readers range will increase dramatically and the costs will plummet then it's an issue. I'm not sure that's going to happen, though... from what I understand getting an RFID reader that could read a tiny tag on your stereo through your walls is, at this moment, more science-fiction than the space elevator.
heh, my favorite, an AD&D type game on the C64 that greeted you with a phrase in some old-elvish language which they, conveniently, gave you a 3 piece wheel-over-wheel-over-wheel decoder that let you translate the passphrase into english to start the game. we, of course, had a photocopied thumbtacked-in-the-middle wheel...
Meanwhile SCOX will plumment and leave a lot of angry investors.
But you know who walks away rich? Not just the SCO execs who dumped stock already, but the lawyers. For example, SCO's main law firm and especially their Partner-In-Bed (is that an official term?) w/ SCO, Mark Heise, partner in the Miami office.
Since you meantioned MUDs - what I miss most about on-line games since MUDs was the opportunity to become a god. On the MUD I played, after level x (40?) your in-game character died and was reborn in Admin Heaven. You, and the other high level players then functioned as in-game admins, like channel ops in IRC or moderators on slashdot (kinda...). And all of a sudden you could invisibly haunt rooms, spy on characters, create god weapons and have god battles, etc. it was great!
Just wondering, how/where/why did 'nerf' come to mean 'massive downgrade'? I first saw nerf used in a game-context a few weeks ago and still can't figure it out. I mean, spam, I get. But nerf makes lovely, soft objects to throw at people without hurting them. Oh, is that it? turning the weapon into a nerf-weapon that merely tickles opponents?
Providing cash incentives to pursue exploits is one reason why this is a bad idea. You'd get much more hacking/cheating in a game if people were not only profiting in game-world but real-world also (and it would be 'legal', well, I doubt anyone would go to jail over it at least, just get their game account banned).
As someone points out down-thread, what little role playing goes on would be further reduced as people focused on the game-as-gateway-to-real-world-(money) as opposed to game-as-gateway-to-fantasy-world.
However. If you had a nearly hack-proof game (impossible?) and if you had some kind of (nearly magic) game balancing that rewards role playing in terms that could come out as cash (some kind of role playing moderation points system?) then, well, how @#%(*&)! exciting would it be if you finally kill that boss mob you've been working on for a week and low and behold, he drops a diamond worth $50 on ebay (presuming it's not so 1337 you just want to keep it for your character). This would add some of the gambling-adrenaline rush and would be really, really fun. PVP that could cost you cash? I mean, if and when video games combine with the fun/(addictive) elements of gambling god save me and my kind.
But mostly it's a bad idea. Imagine, if you will, what would happen to slashdot if karma points could be traded for cash on ebay?
I have a suggestion I posted on the poll yesterday: Linux users can bring SCO to the ground with a massive call-in program! 1-800-726-8649. Everyone call and talk to the nice people at SCO about giving them money. They'll love all the time you spend on their 800 line. They'll love the time you spend with their sales staff. Request information be mailed. Request callbacks. Suggest you may want to pay in cash and ask if you can bring it by their office. I welcome other fun ideas, anyone?
I, of course, called. They put your name in a queue for a sales call-back. I said I had a couple linux boxes, and they haven't called back, so I think, in order to be effective, you need to front like a big linux shop (or at least medium-sized one). I'm calling back under a different name and call-back number as the head of a subcontractor to Industrial Light and Magic or something...
I have a weird case - a project for a local government agency is being stonewalled by the 'official' IT department/subcontractors who want to control all software used anywhere in the govt. I'm told we can get around thier clutches (I'll leave the reasons why out for now) by buying some software we can use for internal operations, then, once that's in the door, we can try to get the software exposed to the internet so our 'customers' can use it as well. But I have to buy it. If I develop it (using open source) then the whole thing falls apart. Must be bought.
It's a Content Management project, so I'm hoping to pick an open source solution and offer the developers some cash if they give us a bill of sale.
Silly reason, but it's one that I've come across for why you might have to buy free software. Buy=product. Free software = custom development. We can buy products but we aren't alowed to develop solutions. Go figure.
How's the load handling (how many users per box, how big are the boxes?) Had any network/server problems that made the users scream when they suddenly couldn't do work even though the computer on their desk was working fine?
Just curious, I did a big NT 4 terminal server install once and it was one of the more challenging times in my life. Hard, it was, and long. Win2k is supposed to be much better, but is it really worthy (stable, etc.) of a thin client environment?
that would be kind of cool - does consumer reports to Software/OS evaluation and testing? I mean, they drop shit, step on it, flick it on and off a million times, then, well, they end up recommending the thing that looks most like it was designed in soviet russia but manufactured in Japan, a little boring and tank-like but, so long as you compensate for their prediliction towards the utterly boring and banal they're not so bad. I'd read them before buying a car, for example. So I wonder what they'd do with software?
Office XP - While this product did all but open a frozen diner for us while it took off our shoes and asked us if we had a hard day at work, it systematically failed to either reliably edit documents or process e-mail without infecting our lab computers....
If only Consumer reports was that fun to read. still, I'd buy an issue that offered their staid take on sofware/OSs.
how to get password hashes - I forget the challenge-response login that MS uses but I thought it sent password hashes - maybe it sends encrypted password hashes? If you have to dump the SAM then this is no different than the venerable old l0phtCrack. If you can sniff the password hashes and break them then that's an exciting new reason to build a Dreamcast Data Sniffer Appliance!
well, if the odds of carbon forming, grouping into neat proto-protiens and then making some early form of DNA is around 1 in 35 thousand million million and if only one in a million stars has planets that have even remotely life-sustaining (as we know it) properties then odds are we are the only ones in this mess. Those numbers are purely made-up, I'm just saying, you know, I'd like there to be life out there, but I'm not sure that the overwhelming number of stars really makes it more or less likely. It depends on how likely life is.
Actually, it will until the first Media Center virus comes out (these things will have some virus vector, right?) - then the ONLY channel you will get is the happy-little-tree-painter-guy (with the afro-like hair) or, maybe, to the aljezera network (that would be kinda funny). Maybe a virus that just, occasionally, changes the channel to Pat Robertsons Christian Crusade, then back again. A playful virus.
Actually, I'm getting kind of excited. This could be fun, exposing someone's TV to an IRC based chanel changer and let other people channel-surf for them.
God I wish I didn't have to choose between replying and moderating...
Anyway, the parent is only part of the truth. I can say from extensive experience with Word in a legal environment that yes, in fact Word documents do blow up when opened in Word. Number formatting is a big problem, but really any time you have a document stretching over 100 pages or so you're asking for all sorts of weird problems. Not every one, but maybe 1 in a couple hundred or so. Take a library with several million documents and you realize that's a @#*)! load of *&*)@!# up documents.
MS intentionally obfuscated and otherwise complicated their binary document format (need I explain why?) and they have suffered almost as much as those trying to interoperate with it. Of course, since the world is locked in to Word it doesn't matter that their anti-competitive-driven technology decisions led to a fucked up product.
I've tried to sort out deep-seeded Word document problems with high-level (like, the ones you pay millions in support contracts to get to call) MS folks and even they couldn't sort out the document on a binary level. Ghost in the machine is about as far as they could say whenever I called with a completely impossible-but-it's-happening problem. Save document as plain text and reformat is the mantra for anyone working with large Word documents for a living.
For a small sample of Word-related issues see annoyances dot org Woody's Office Watch (amazing resource but you have to search through a lot of junk to find it).
And, just as a foot note, VBA is the most buggy, slow, impossible to use programming language I've ever had the horror to use. I'm not just throwing the Buggy word around either, it's unpredictable, awkward, ass-backwards and slow slow slow.
Me, I do web development now and use Edit Plus for all my document needs. I'm much, much, much happier now:)
Anyone out there know how much CPU overhead these DVD Burners use? I've seen CD Burners run underspeed on about a PIII 400 and will max out a PIII 600. Could I put two DVD Burners in a single box? If so, what kind of CPU do you think I'd need to do simultaneous burning?
yea, but the post above (linking to technical info on the exploit, but not an actual exploit) was based on a paper from last November. I wonder how long this one has been just under the radar?
This particular failure affects an underlying Distributed Component Object Model (DCOM) interface, which listens on TCP/IP port 135.
In a related story, the US Dept. of Defense today announced that since 'repeated threats to national security' have been associated with Ports 135-137 the Army has launched Operation Port Closure. Citing the same 'support for terrorists' clause they used on Afganistan, they are terminating with 'extreme predjudice' anyone who harbors this nefarious port and the terrorists it breeds. Once locations are found, cruise missles will be sent to ensure 'permenate port closure'.
The president told the nation 'these ports are used by terrorists who hate freedom.' When he was informed the first cruise missles fired hit the Department of Homeland Security he simply nodded his head knowingly. 'even here, we must forever be on guard against freedom-hating port 135 lovers. Even here...'
...it happened to textile workers... it's happening to us now
Well, think about textile workers for a second - what are the characteristics of their job - medium capital investment for the plant, light skill set for the workers, culturally independent job description (a worker from africa works a loom the same way one from america does).
What does that have to do with high-tech? You need to compare apples to apples. The high-tech jobs that can be easily commotified, which have a clear project scope and easily definable deliverables will be outsourced to the cheapest places. But if you have a company, say, in Germany, and you need someone to come in, understand your business and design some peice of technology to help you integrate better into your customers supply chain, a) wtf does that have to do with textile production and b) how are you going to outsource that to anyone other than a german with knowledge of your industry?
There are many places in IT where someone from a distant country might try compete with local talent, but they'll get their butts kicked every time because business sees an advantage to hiring more expensive, local, knowledgeable workers. Who wants to trust their business to someone they've never met, 3,000 miles away, who barely shares their language?
Outsourcing will effect programmers and other IT workers but there is a huge part of IT that at least partially relies on interpersonal factors that simply can not be packaged and sent to India for processing. It might be a good idea to make sure your skill set fits in the latter category now, because I do think it's going to get worse...
Adding to the list of ways to avoid the Real player, I use Winamp with the Tara audio/video plug-in which allows me to stream realaudio through Winamp. You still need some version of Real Audio installed though.
Why not use the Real player? The old Real Audio tied the audio slider directly into the sound mixer in Windows (so if you turn down the player it turns down ALL wave audio on the PC). The new realOne seems to be nothing but annoying attempts to get me to buy it. I'll follow some of the above links and see if I can find a decent free copy. At least they stopped that trick during registration where they subscribe you to mailings by putting the prechecked selections below the scroll window.
All in all I don't trust Real Audio, the company, due to their persistent tricks with their player and try to avoid them whenever possible.
I know you're kinda kidding but for the part that isn't, um, vigillante justice is about as reliable as a lynch mob. I was once accused of sending spam - I was NOT. No, it wasn't that I admin'd an open relay either, a customer on a mailing list we kept from website signups complained the email was spam and the spamcops didn't check their facts before they complained to our ISP, who didn't check their facts before they shut off our service for a day.
So, um, yea, let's kill spammers and have active firewalls that attack any host that portscans us and maybe even get some mafia types to go beat up the convicted rapist that megans law (USA) told us moved in down the block. And blow up a few middle easter countries that looked threatening. Then we can sleep safely at night.
Well, um, that is, I was just talking that half that wasn't kidding. It IS a funny idea. S'just that justice, that the Right to Attack someone, has to be treated seriously. You can't just let people go attacking others without some kinda system in place. right?
I think because smtp is too easy to forge. You know how you see it the headers '(may be forged)'? But I don't really understand protocols (IANANE) so maybe it's just the implementation of smtp that doesn't allow any kind of sender-authentication and the protocol itself is fine.
They'd better give some kickass router with bandwidth monitoring and a good firewall, otherwise, why, on god's green earth, would I agree to admin for a bunch of strangers who can get my service shut off if they spam, or don't pay their bill, or whatever.
Q - As the Admin, it is your responsibility to provide support for:
* Customer support: for initial setup, signup and troubleshooting. Speakeasy will work with you to resolve issues related to circuit connectivity, and will forward any technical issue communicated by a NetShare Customer to you. You can then work with the Customer to resolve the issue in a diligent fashion.
* You are also responsible for the security and integrity of their shared network. Speakeasy may recommend, but is not responsible for enforcing specific network security measures.
AND
Q - I don't use WiFi but still want to share my connection (Ethernet, carrier pigeons, free-space optics, whatever). What's your policy?
A - Speakeasy believes that shared wireless networks are in keeping with our core values of disseminating knowledge, access to information and fostering community, provided this usage does not have an adverse impact on the services of other customers, does not involve any illegal activity and is not otherwise in violation of any aspect of our existing Terms Of Service. Please remember that the Speakeasy account-holder is responsible for all activity originating from their DSL line, even if it is the result of other users on a shared wireless connection.
I'm hoping that having an open access point will allow me the same defense. I can't say for sure it was my neighbors but I can say there's a reasonable doubt.
'course, that's only if I was stupid enough to go to trial.
and if you've ever admin'd an exchange box it would become clear that those 100 developers were from 50 countries, spoke 70 different languages and, since they hadn't developed their collaboration server yet, had no way to communicate. Plus 10 of them were from a country at war with 5 others and 1/3rd didn't have any computers to test with so they wrote code on paper and mailed it to MS. I'm pretty sure the guys who wrote the brick backup did it on paper, certain they never tested it.
And and and OH jesus don't get me started. Exchange=evil-come-to-earth.
Slashdot Mirror
There's a server side fix for this too, isn't there? I mean, you can control the headers in asp and php, can't you just ... well, you'd have to rewrite all the links to aol to an 'image server' page on the LiveJournal site that requests images/pages from aol and returns them to the calling document (the livejournal user). Your image/document retrieval script would request the image/document from AOL with a custom-crafted header that tells AOL the request is coming from ... wherever (AOL might be nice...).
....
You'd have to run some kind of find/replace on all the LiveJournal pages for links referencing aol but
Range. I've been looking into using RFID tags, the range is horrible. With a -=large=- (1-2cm) ID tag, in good conditions (metal, in particular, seems to reduce the range), a $2,000 reader can read an RFID tag at 1 meter.
Now if you presume that readers range will increase dramatically and the costs will plummet then it's an issue. I'm not sure that's going to happen, though... from what I understand getting an RFID reader that could read a tiny tag on your stereo through your walls is, at this moment, more science-fiction than the space elevator.
heh, my favorite, an AD&D type game on the C64 that greeted you with a phrase in some old-elvish language which they, conveniently, gave you a 3 piece wheel-over-wheel-over-wheel decoder that let you translate the passphrase into english to start the game. we, of course, had a photocopied thumbtacked-in-the-middle wheel...
Meanwhile SCOX will plumment and leave a lot of angry investors.
But you know who walks away rich? Not just the SCO execs who dumped stock already, but the lawyers. For example, SCO's main law firm and especially their Partner-In-Bed (is that an official term?) w/ SCO, Mark Heise, partner in the Miami office.
Since you meantioned MUDs - what I miss most about on-line games since MUDs was the opportunity to become a god. On the MUD I played, after level x (40?) your in-game character died and was reborn in Admin Heaven. You, and the other high level players then functioned as in-game admins, like channel ops in IRC or moderators on slashdot (kinda...). And all of a sudden you could invisibly haunt rooms, spy on characters, create god weapons and have god battles, etc. it was great!
Bring back god-promotions, screw the rest.
Just wondering, how/where/why did 'nerf' come to mean 'massive downgrade'? I first saw nerf used in a game-context a few weeks ago and still can't figure it out. I mean, spam, I get. But nerf makes lovely, soft objects to throw at people without hurting them. Oh, is that it? turning the weapon into a nerf-weapon that merely tickles opponents?
Providing cash incentives to pursue exploits is one reason why this is a bad idea. You'd get much more hacking/cheating in a game if people were not only profiting in game-world but real-world also (and it would be 'legal', well, I doubt anyone would go to jail over it at least, just get their game account banned).
As someone points out down-thread, what little role playing goes on would be further reduced as people focused on the game-as-gateway-to-real-world-(money) as opposed to game-as-gateway-to-fantasy-world.
However. If you had a nearly hack-proof game (impossible?) and if you had some kind of (nearly magic) game balancing that rewards role playing in terms that could come out as cash (some kind of role playing moderation points system?) then, well, how @#%(*&)! exciting would it be if you finally kill that boss mob you've been working on for a week and low and behold, he drops a diamond worth $50 on ebay (presuming it's not so 1337 you just want to keep it for your character). This would add some of the gambling-adrenaline rush and would be really, really fun. PVP that could cost you cash? I mean, if and when video games combine with the fun/(addictive) elements of gambling god save me and my kind.
But mostly it's a bad idea. Imagine, if you will, what would happen to slashdot if karma points could be traded for cash on ebay?
I have a suggestion I posted on the poll yesterday: Linux users can bring SCO to the ground with a massive call-in program! 1-800-726-8649. Everyone call and talk to the nice people at SCO about giving them money. They'll love all the time you spend on their 800 line. They'll love the time you spend with their sales staff. Request information be mailed. Request callbacks. Suggest you may want to pay in cash and ask if you can bring it by their office. I welcome other fun ideas, anyone?
I, of course, called. They put your name in a queue for a sales call-back. I said I had a couple linux boxes, and they haven't called back, so I think, in order to be effective, you need to front like a big linux shop (or at least medium-sized one). I'm calling back under a different name and call-back number as the head of a subcontractor to Industrial Light and Magic or something...
I have a weird case - a project for a local government agency is being stonewalled by the 'official' IT department/subcontractors who want to control all software used anywhere in the govt. I'm told we can get around thier clutches (I'll leave the reasons why out for now) by buying some software we can use for internal operations, then, once that's in the door, we can try to get the software exposed to the internet so our 'customers' can use it as well. But I have to buy it. If I develop it (using open source) then the whole thing falls apart. Must be bought.
It's a Content Management project, so I'm hoping to pick an open source solution and offer the developers some cash if they give us a bill of sale.
Silly reason, but it's one that I've come across for why you might have to buy free software. Buy=product. Free software = custom development. We can buy products but we aren't alowed to develop solutions. Go figure.
How's the load handling (how many users per box, how big are the boxes?) Had any network/server problems that made the users scream when they suddenly couldn't do work even though the computer on their desk was working fine?
Just curious, I did a big NT 4 terminal server install once and it was one of the more challenging times in my life. Hard, it was, and long. Win2k is supposed to be much better, but is it really worthy (stable, etc.) of a thin client environment?
that would be kind of cool - does consumer reports to Software/OS evaluation and testing? I mean, they drop shit, step on it, flick it on and off a million times, then, well, they end up recommending the thing that looks most like it was designed in soviet russia but manufactured in Japan, a little boring and tank-like but, so long as you compensate for their prediliction towards the utterly boring and banal they're not so bad. I'd read them before buying a car, for example. So I wonder what they'd do with software?
Office XP - While this product did all but open a frozen diner for us while it took off our shoes and asked us if we had a hard day at work, it systematically failed to either reliably edit documents or process e-mail without infecting our lab computers....
If only Consumer reports was that fun to read. still, I'd buy an issue that offered their staid take on sofware/OSs.
how to get password hashes - I forget the challenge-response login that MS uses but I thought it sent password hashes - maybe it sends encrypted password hashes? If you have to dump the SAM then this is no different than the venerable old l0phtCrack. If you can sniff the password hashes and break them then that's an exciting new reason to build a Dreamcast Data Sniffer Appliance!
well, if the odds of carbon forming, grouping into neat proto-protiens and then making some early form of DNA is around 1 in 35 thousand million million and if only one in a million stars has planets that have even remotely life-sustaining (as we know it) properties then odds are we are the only ones in this mess. Those numbers are purely made-up, I'm just saying, you know, I'd like there to be life out there, but I'm not sure that the overwhelming number of stars really makes it more or less likely. It depends on how likely life is.
Actually, it will until the first Media Center virus comes out (these things will have some virus vector, right?) - then the ONLY channel you will get is the happy-little-tree-painter-guy (with the afro-like hair) or, maybe, to the aljezera network (that would be kinda funny). Maybe a virus that just, occasionally, changes the channel to Pat Robertsons Christian Crusade, then back again. A playful virus.
Actually, I'm getting kind of excited. This could be fun, exposing someone's TV to an IRC based chanel changer and let other people channel-surf for them.
God I wish I didn't have to choose between replying and moderating...
:)
Anyway, the parent is only part of the truth. I can say from extensive experience with Word in a legal environment that yes, in fact Word documents do blow up when opened in Word. Number formatting is a big problem, but really any time you have a document stretching over 100 pages or so you're asking for all sorts of weird problems. Not every one, but maybe 1 in a couple hundred or so. Take a library with several million documents and you realize that's a @#*)! load of *&*)@!# up documents.
MS intentionally obfuscated and otherwise complicated their binary document format (need I explain why?) and they have suffered almost as much as those trying to interoperate with it. Of course, since the world is locked in to Word it doesn't matter that their anti-competitive-driven technology decisions led to a fucked up product.
I've tried to sort out deep-seeded Word document problems with high-level (like, the ones you pay millions in support contracts to get to call) MS folks and even they couldn't sort out the document on a binary level. Ghost in the machine is about as far as they could say whenever I called with a completely impossible-but-it's-happening problem. Save document as plain text and reformat is the mantra for anyone working with large Word documents for a living.
For a small sample of Word-related issues see
annoyances dot org
Woody's Office Watch (amazing resource but you have to search through a lot of junk to find it).
And, just as a foot note, VBA is the most buggy, slow, impossible to use programming language I've ever had the horror to use. I'm not just throwing the Buggy word around either, it's unpredictable, awkward, ass-backwards and slow slow slow.
Me, I do web development now and use Edit Plus for all my document needs. I'm much, much, much happier now
Anyone out there know how much CPU overhead these DVD Burners use? I've seen CD Burners run underspeed on about a PIII 400 and will max out a PIII 600. Could I put two DVD Burners in a single box? If so, what kind of CPU do you think I'd need to do simultaneous burning?
yea, but the post above (linking to technical info on the exploit, but not an actual exploit) was based on a paper from last November. I wonder how long this one has been just under the radar?
This particular failure affects an underlying Distributed Component Object Model (DCOM) interface, which listens on TCP/IP port 135.
In a related story, the US Dept. of Defense today announced that since 'repeated threats to national security' have been associated with Ports 135-137 the Army has launched Operation Port Closure. Citing the same 'support for terrorists' clause they used on Afganistan, they are terminating with 'extreme predjudice' anyone who harbors this nefarious port and the terrorists it breeds. Once locations are found, cruise missles will be sent to ensure 'permenate port closure'.
The president told the nation 'these ports are used by terrorists who hate freedom.' When he was informed the first cruise missles fired hit the Department of Homeland Security he simply nodded his head knowingly. 'even here, we must forever be on guard against freedom-hating port 135 lovers. Even here...'
Well, think about textile workers for a second - what are the characteristics of their job - medium capital investment for the plant, light skill set for the workers, culturally independent job description (a worker from africa works a loom the same way one from america does).
What does that have to do with high-tech? You need to compare apples to apples. The high-tech jobs that can be easily commotified, which have a clear project scope and easily definable deliverables will be outsourced to the cheapest places. But if you have a company, say, in Germany, and you need someone to come in, understand your business and design some peice of technology to help you integrate better into your customers supply chain, a) wtf does that have to do with textile production and b) how are you going to outsource that to anyone other than a german with knowledge of your industry?
There are many places in IT where someone from a distant country might try compete with local talent, but they'll get their butts kicked every time because business sees an advantage to hiring more expensive, local, knowledgeable workers. Who wants to trust their business to someone they've never met, 3,000 miles away, who barely shares their language?
Outsourcing will effect programmers and other IT workers but there is a huge part of IT that at least partially relies on interpersonal factors that simply can not be packaged and sent to India for processing. It might be a good idea to make sure your skill set fits in the latter category now, because I do think it's going to get worse...
Adding to the list of ways to avoid the Real player, I use Winamp with the Tara audio/video plug-in which allows me to stream realaudio through Winamp. You still need some version of Real Audio installed though.
Why not use the Real player? The old Real Audio tied the audio slider directly into the sound mixer in Windows (so if you turn down the player it turns down ALL wave audio on the PC). The new realOne seems to be nothing but annoying attempts to get me to buy it. I'll follow some of the above links and see if I can find a decent free copy. At least they stopped that trick during registration where they subscribe you to mailings by putting the prechecked selections below the scroll window.
All in all I don't trust Real Audio, the company, due to their persistent tricks with their player and try to avoid them whenever possible.
I know you're kinda kidding but for the part that isn't, um, vigillante justice is about as reliable as a lynch mob. I was once accused of sending spam - I was NOT. No, it wasn't that I admin'd an open relay either, a customer on a mailing list we kept from website signups complained the email was spam and the spamcops didn't check their facts before they complained to our ISP, who didn't check their facts before they shut off our service for a day.
So, um, yea, let's kill spammers and have active firewalls that attack any host that portscans us and maybe even get some mafia types to go beat up the convicted rapist that megans law (USA) told us moved in down the block. And blow up a few middle easter countries that looked threatening. Then we can sleep safely at night.
Well, um, that is, I was just talking that half that wasn't kidding. It IS a funny idea. S'just that justice, that the Right to Attack someone, has to be treated seriously. You can't just let people go attacking others without some kinda system in place. right?
I think because smtp is too easy to forge. You know how you see it the headers '(may be forged)'? But I don't really understand protocols (IANANE) so maybe it's just the implementation of smtp that doesn't allow any kind of sender-authentication and the protocol itself is fine.
They'd better give some kickass router with bandwidth monitoring and a good firewall, otherwise, why, on god's green earth, would I agree to admin for a bunch of strangers who can get my service shut off if they spam, or don't pay their bill, or whatever.
the FAQ is here . or some highlights below:
Q - As the Admin, it is your responsibility to provide support for:
* Customer support: for initial setup, signup and troubleshooting. Speakeasy will work with you to resolve issues related to circuit connectivity, and will forward any technical issue communicated by a NetShare Customer to you. You can then work with the Customer to resolve the issue in a diligent fashion.
* You are also responsible for the security and integrity of their shared network. Speakeasy may recommend, but is not responsible for enforcing specific network security measures.
AND
Q - I don't use WiFi but still want to share my connection (Ethernet, carrier pigeons, free-space optics, whatever). What's your policy?
A - Speakeasy believes that shared wireless networks are in keeping with our core values of disseminating knowledge, access to information and fostering community, provided this usage does not have an adverse impact on the services of other customers, does not involve any illegal activity and is not otherwise in violation of any aspect of our existing Terms Of Service. Please remember that the Speakeasy account-holder is responsible for all activity originating from their DSL line, even if it is the result of other users on a shared wireless connection.
I'm hoping that having an open access point will allow me the same defense. I can't say for sure it was my neighbors but I can say there's a reasonable doubt.
'course, that's only if I was stupid enough to go to trial.
and if you've ever admin'd an exchange box it would become clear that those 100 developers were from 50 countries, spoke 70 different languages and, since they hadn't developed their collaboration server yet, had no way to communicate. Plus 10 of them were from a country at war with 5 others and 1/3rd didn't have any computers to test with so they wrote code on paper and mailed it to MS. I'm pretty sure the guys who wrote the brick backup did it on paper, certain they never tested it.
And and and OH jesus don't get me started. Exchange=evil-come-to-earth.