It really pisses me off that we will get tough on Ukraine for not genuflecting to the American IP cartel (RIAA/MPAA), yet just days ago, grant PERMANENT most favored nation trade status to China.
China, after all, is a country that murdered enough people in the 20th Century to make Hitler look like an amateur. It's a country that forces women to have abortions, that jails religious leaders and condems them to death, that wants to hide it's citizens from the Internet...
Not only that, but just last year, China forced down a US plane over international waters, KIDNAPPED airmen, and tried to ransom them.
China is FAR more deserving of 100% tariffs than is Ukraine. But then, Ukraine isn't home to American megacorp sweatshops, and doesn't willingly supply slave labor to man them.
When will it end? How do we fight a war against the corporate IP cartel? How far will our government let it go?
The way I see it, all the way to the world of "Demolition Man" or "Rollerball", so long as our sheepizens keep voting for the same old parties.
Bending over for corporations is a bi-partisan effort. Both parties do it almost equally.
"..lower the price of software to something other than stratospheric levels. Notice that the biggest guns in the BSA are the same software companies that charge extortionate prices for their software...Microsoft? Adobe? Macromedia? Start charging fair prices for software and piracy will dry up. Big time."
This is why unauthorized copying (I refuse to use the word "piracy" as copying software has NO moral equivalence to hijacking ships) MUST exist!
I don't advocate stealing software, but it serves a purpose... So long as it exists, there is incentive for software companies to keep prices reasonable, especially Microsoft. In the desktop world, copied versions of Microsoft OS's are the ONLY check on the power of the MS monopoly (since the government won't do it).
The best copy protection isn't useless schemes and DMCA laws, but is reasonable prices. Selling Windows bug fixes for $100+ and calling them "upgrades" is extortion. Win `98 was nothing more than a fixed `95+IE that should have been distributed for FREE or at cost to people who paid full price for `95.
You are correct, though it was the Janet Reno/Louis Freeh FBI/DOJ that not only failed to prosecute FBI agent Lou Horuchi, but they promoted him...
Proving that such things are nonpartisan, ie: BOTH parties are equally corrupt and hostile towards civil rights. The period of `92- has seen an unacceptable escalation of violence against citizens by the government.
Commercial antivirus companies have already bent over and prevented their products from showing COMMERCIAL spy-trojans on scan... (ie, the ones used to spy on employees)
What makes anyone think they won't do the same for the FBI? Simply put, they will.
The answer, of course, is free software. If we had a free software virus scanner/remover, that was completely open source, such tomfoolery would be impossible (so long as you knew how to read the code, or could get someone to do it for you, not that hard to do in the Linux community)
Open source=accountability.
This is why I'm concerned that this sort of thing will end up playing into Microsoft's hands, in getting an increasingly paranoid government, that is absolutely determined to outgun it's citizens in every aspect of life, to get free software made illegal..
Imagine it being ILLEGAL to posess a true open source operating system because it would be the legal equivalent of having a private nuclear bomb.
This is not so farfetched, as a networked computer that the government cannot monitor nor break into is as great a threat to our ever paranoid government AS a nuclear bomb in the hands of a private citizen. The precedent proof is in the fact that the government has made the ownership of weapons that would allow resistance to it illegal (had the same been true in 1776 the revolution would never have suceeded).
I think all who value freedom should oppose a government from being able to impose restrictions on citizens that it will never place on itself, IE, the fact that the GOVERNMENT is allowed to have strong encryption, unhackable (or so they think) computers, networks, etc, to hide information, but that private citizens should not.
How many crimes comitted by our government are hidden in encrypted files on government computers that will never EVER be discovered? Why should we trust a "justice system" that in the past decade has massacred more people without cause (Waco, Ruby Ridge) than at any point since the civil war?
Unlike the days of Woodward and Bernstein, it's likely our government's worst crimes aren't written on paper to find, they are stored encrypted in a computer somewhere. Which means, unless the citizens are allowed to install trojans to go on "fishing" expeditions through our government computers, we will never know.
But, as our government is saying to us, I'll say to them "if you've done nothing wrong, you have NOTHING to fear, right?"
In this, the government is non-partisan. Janet Reno presided over those aforementioned massacres, and John Ashcroft is pushing the current horror. All the more reason to abandon our one-party Demopublicans and vote Libertarian.
Not true. The USPS has been made to "try" to live within it's own revenue, but it's still very much a federal agency, with the same hired-for-life government employees who can't be fired even for the most gross incompetence.
Which is why I can't EVER see any large government network even meeting the average standards for "hackerproof" and "security" that exist in the private world.
Our govenrment again shows it's ignorance of technology.
There is not, and never WILL be such a thing as a network that is absolutely private and secure, particularly when the government (which can't even deliver mail across town on time) is running it. No amount of billions or trillions of dollars spent on it can change that fact.
A "secure" network works like a secret. So long as only one person knows the secret, it's secure. But the instant a second knows it, it's not, and becomes less secure the more people (computers) are "connected" to the network.
What scares me is the draconian police-state laws that will have to be passed to even make this at all workable. Soon as some hacker breaks the "perfect secure private network" (which will happen within days if not minutes of it being established), some group of mornons (Congress) will propose and pass such legislation.
Also, doesn't anyone find it interesting that the govenrment now wants to secure public information systems, yet deny strong crypto to private industry?
I've posted this opinion before in response to other such stories, about interstitials etc, and it is thus:
I hope the large commercial sites JUMP right into this. Instead of forcing people away from ad-blocking (and I see no reason that Mozilla can't be modified to make their system think that the image has been loaded, without displaying it), what they will do is force people AWAY from such sites.
No reasonable person should submit to allowing ads to drop tracker cookies on your system, that continue to track even WHEN you aren't using their site.
In my opinion, tracker cookies taking information for free without compensating the user, is just as much stealing as is viewing a site that uses such obnoxious means without viewing the ads. As a matter of fact, by doing this, they've more or less ASKED for this to happen to them.
What this will accomplish is to drive traffic away from commercial sites and back to enthusiast sites that contain most of the Internet's best content anyway.
This is but the next escalation. I expect the next thing these sites will do is start blocking Konqueror and Mozilla. However, Konqueror allows you to spoof to a site what your OS/Browser, etc is, and I expect this is a feature easily added to Mozilla as well.
As a curious aside, I use Hotmail occasionally. On the MSN home page, afer you've logged in to Hotmail, it will show your local news and weather... I noticed the other day that it doesn't show this when I'm using Konqueror, but does on my `Doze machine running IE at work... Just for curiosity, I set Konqueror to say that it's IE 5.5 to the site, and voila! it shows my local news and weather... So it looks like MS is discriminating against browsers other than IE to discourage you to use any other...
What will come next after Mozilla/Konqueror start downloading but not displaying these ads, and after they try to block them (followed by people setting Mozilla/Konqueror to "spoof" their ID to IE), will be the replacement of the simple ASCII identifier with something encrypted, so that it's difficult for OSS browsers to emulate. This would invoke the DMCA, and it's only a matter of time before MS starts using that club.
I'm sure good `ole Microsoft, who has made IE the browser of choice for marketers everywhere (including their own), is already thinking of this.
Via's argument against Intel is based on a license agreement between Intel and S3 (which Via now owns) to cross-license certain technology.
Intel used certain S3 technology in the design of the P4 and chipsets (what I don't know), and in exchange, S3 got rights to make P4 chipsets.
Intel is trying to have it BOTH WAYS in claiming that Via, thru it's purchase of S3, does not have the right to make P4 chipsets, while still claiming to have a license for the S3 tech they are using.
I honestly don't see how that argument will fly, Intel clearly filed their lawsuit purely for harassment purposes, to harm Via's product release and name, and to delay it reaching the market (at a time Intel is apparently unprepared to release a DDR chipset of their own).
And the stupid thing is, having a DDR chipset for the P4 out now can only HELP Intel. Looks like the people who have been in charge over there in Santa Clara thru the Caminogate and RAMBUS fiasco are still in charge.
Intel's action can only help AMD further erode their marketshare.
"It's called the two-party system, and our laws are specifically designed to encourage it and raise the bar for anyone outside the two established parties. Overall, it's a slight improvement over the Soviet-style one-party system. But not much..."
Great points... Especially given that the two parties are SO similar in stance, that the differences can be broken down to this: Republicans want the government to grow by 7% and the Democrats by 10%... Any growth in the size of government is an infringement of freedom, so obviously neither party is your friend if you are for civil liberties, as evidenced by the unanimous quasi-secret whitewash that both conspired to pass the DMCA.
Which is why we need a third party. The Libertarians are closest to my actual philosophy, though I don't really favor taking the hands off the corps as they would (though the Libertarians DO oppose laws like the DMCA, which empowers corps at the expense of the Constitution).
The two major parties are so entrenched though, that there is little chance that any third party can seriously threaten the monopoly, especially when you consider that barely HALF the registered (which itself is barely more than HALF the ELIGIBLE voters) will get off their asses and vote.
And of those who do vote (which is roughly 25-33% of the population), the Demopublican machine keeps third parties off the ballots by throwing down HARD requirements that make third parties spend a LOT of their $$$ raised just to get on the ballot, so they may not even SEE another party... Also, there is a convienient "straight ticket" button in many states, further cheapening the process.
It's a bad process, but it's one that exists because the American masses accept it. Unfortunately, things are ultimately up to THEM, not us, so if we are ever going to change things, we need to get busy educating Joe-6-pack.
Generally speaking, it's Joe-6-pack who gets his way, when the masses get upset about something, no matter HOW bad an idea it is (such as medicare perscription drug coverage, something that will throw an already teetering on the edge of bankruptcy system over the edge), they will JUMP all over it...
Why do you think there have been some in Congress who have proposed compulsary licensing, that would force the RIAA to license Napster? It's because a lot of Joe-6-Packs out there are upset that Napster is gone and they can't steal music anymore.
It won't happen, of course, because of the strength of the corporate lobby, but a number of politicos DID jump out there to make themselves look like they "care about this" to placate the restless masses.
"I believe Ron Paul of Texas and a few others didn't vote for it."
The only ones who didn't vote for it would have been Congressmen who either weren't in office in 1998, or else were absent from the vote. It was done by "acclimation" (or voice vote), ie: All those in favor say Yea, etc. No record of individual votes were made (which is why they did it that way), so oficially it's unanimous.
The DMCA was passed by a conspiracy of BOTH political parties, and President Clinton, all of whom supported it and passed it.
"Widespread civil disobedience will not solve the problem. It must be legal, otherwise it just gives the government good press and support of the people. If bills like this actually become law, all is lost and the United States (and soon all the WTO affiliated countries) will become worse places to live than the U.S.S.R. was under Stalin. This affects EVERYONE, not just people using computers."
While civil disobedience isn't a great thing to do, once we get to the point of this thing becoming law, it's the ONLY option that might work to get it repealed...
The ONLY way to get the masses out of their sheeplike slumber is to show them GRAPHIC examples of injustice.... The Sklyarov case is starting to do this with respect to the DMCA.
Civil disobedience will be absolutely necessary to accomplish this. The media, though heavily corporate, is not monolithic. Reporters and producers lust after ratings, and covering computer geeks getting put down for building a Linux computer for someone by government stormtroopers WOULD tempt them into covering it.
"I live in California, and I voted for the Boxer/Feinstein combo. I will not again. They both voted for DMCA and I will vote for ANYONE before them."
I live in North Carolina and will vote against anyone who voted for the DMCA as well, which means ANYONE who was in Congress in 1998, they ALL voted for it.
"Individuals can be sued for violating other?s constitutional rights; I wonder if this could be applied to a legislator after their law was declared unconstitutional."
I doubt it, becuase of the doctrine of "congressional immunity".
Also, the government is virtually immune to lawsuits. Hence, the hypocricy of the congress voting to allow private HMO's to be sued, while leaving Medicare (the worst HMO there is) exempt.
Hollings was one of Frank Zappa's biggest attackers, and Senator Algore's biggest supporters in the PMRC hearings, so his hostility towards the Constitution should be no surpise to anyone.
"That won't work, if it passes in the US and consumers are stupid enough to buy hardware like that, well, we'll all move to russia because freedom and choice there will still mean something. Plus, we won't get arrested for having files that looks like 10010101010 instead of j2m2lm3947udh:)"
At this point, I'm willing TO move to Russia.. If someone were to make me an offer, and teach me how to speak Russian, I'd do it. Russia's IP laws are far more palatable than the US's.
"Well we can't leave the planet (yet), so what are the alternatives? New Zealand? Chile?
I've heard they are just improved from their socialist past, but not quite the libertarian utopia or even close. Any other possibities?
Any place with harsh winters or summers would probably not fly, so that eliminates much of the world right off... "
Maybe we geeks should pool our money and buy an island somewhere in the ocean... And set up our own government..
Certainly we could lead the WORLD in information services, especially if we had the people, enough to staff a top 5 PC company, who are being eliminated from HPCOMPAQ.
The dirty little secret is that even if the USA passed such a law (at the behest of the Mouse or any other corp), other US corps will happily pay people to violate it to their own advantage, so getting investment to build chip and computer manufacturing facilities would not be a problem.
All we'd need to stop the US or another IP crazy country (like France) from invading our little island of free IP would be some sort of nuclear device. Which is easily enough built (any computer person could build one given having fissionable material).
What would it take to buy a little plutonium from Russia, and a rocket to deliver it? Probably not much, considering.
Crazy idea? Yes. Extremely. But necessary? Could be.
"Remove these government regulations, and you remove almost all incentive for organized crime."
Excellent point... The existance of organized crime, and the fact that it IS sustained by government regulation and musguided law (such as your examples of Prohibition or the "War" on Drugs) proves that the Capitalistic law of "Supply and Demand" are valid.
Simply put, where there is demand, there will be a supply. The more harder to obtain the supply (such as by making something illegal), the more enrichment will be gained by supplying the demand.
What is a VIOLATION of the capitalistic theroy is by using the government to control supply and demand. Corporations, though bound by the laws of capitalism, are no more REQUIRED to obey them than any other natural law, always seek to use the government to control supply and demand FOR their own advantage.
I applaud your well written letter. Unforunately, it's going to John McCain-McCain, who is probably more in the pockets of the media (IP cartels) than anyone in the Senate.
I hope it makes a difference, but his main platform is in supporing laws that allow employees of Time-Warner/Fox/Disney/Viacom to have the "last say" in the mass media, 60 days prior to any election.
He is actively the MOST hostile member of the Senate, to the 1st Amendment.
But, it's good that you do this. After all, the sinners are the one who MOST need education.
"Here's why it will not pass: by *requiring* "certified security technologies", it violates the First Amendment to the Constitution, which specifically *forbids* Congress from limiting free speech rights. The Courts have *repeatedly* held that the government -- Federal or State -- *cannot* exercise control over the *content* of speech *before* it is published. This bill appears to do exactly that. Let's state what it really is: a bill to require all communication instruments to contain a back-door for the use of the No Svch Ag3ncy."
You are eminently correct in your point. VERY well stated. However, you leave out one thing. The fact is, under our current legal system, there is no reprecussion for any member of our government, be it legislator, executive, or judge, for proposing, passing, or implimenting law that is Unconstitutional.
Until complicity and conspiracy to violate the Constitution becomes a criminal act, laws like this will continue to be proposed, passed, and implimented.
Becuase there is nothing save personal or moral honor restraining Congress, the President, or the Courts from passing and implimenting such law, the natural corruptive influence of power will continue to eat away at our freedoms, like acid.
One way or another, the ONLY corrective force is that of the People. Until the masses, who are prefectly happy to buy NSync and go see the latest Disney corruption of history on the screen, rise up and start throwning those who erode their freedom from office out, the United States is locked irrevocably on the course to tyrrany.
"We have to make it clear that that under this regulation, a computer would be a worthless hunk of junk. It would be useless to industry, researchers, and to home users."
That's the whole point. They WANT computers to cease to exist, at least, as common things "common" inividuals can afford to have. In the world of this law, computers would be replaced with an appliance "information access" device, that would be much like a DVD player in how little "fair use" you have.
No doubt there will be exceptions allowing the corps, and academia to have computers (which will once again become big huge mainframe things) for their own uses.
In other words, with a stroke of a pen, the IP cartel plans to turn back the clock to 1960.
My GOD this is scary stuff! This is nothing less than the proposal of the creation of the world of Bradbury's "Fareinheight 451" and "Demolition Man" in one BROAD stroke... How long before we stand to sing the "Corporate Hymn" as happened before government-held gladitorial games to placate the ignorant, easily distracted masses (who allow the government to pass laws such as the DMCA and this) as in "Rollerball"?
If they are making a mistake, it is in going for so much so quickly. But, the ease in wich they got the DMCA must have emboldened them.
We have GOT to protest this one, NOW, in every city. We have to start sending LETTERS (not e-mails) to our Congressmen.
This proposed law is so horrible, so BLATATLY in defiance of the Constitution, that our government is even discussing it is telling of how little regard for the rule of law and due process they have.
If this one passes, it would be no less than declaration of corporate IP sovereignty over citizens.
This law would criminalize the production, or even INVENTION of any device that has ROOT access (to the true system/hardware level) for the OWNER of the hardware. It would instantly make any OSS operating system illegal.
Richard Stallman's "Right to Read" (http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html) would truly become reality under this law.
And, given that the courts are INFESTED with dishonorable scum like "judge" Lewis Kaplan, we cannot look to the courts for relief. The corps are well aware that the courts have been their greatest enemy, which is why they spend LOTS and LOTS of money wining and dining and greasing the prominent lawyers who become judges.
The judiciary will soon become (if it hasn't alredy), as much a corporate fief as is the Congress and Presidency.
I dont' want to sound like a kook, but if this one DOES make it into law (and given how the DMCA passed, in unanimous fashion, I'd rate it at over 90%, and I might be overly optimistic in thinking even 10% might oppose it), then it may become necessary for widespread civil disobedience, and preparations for being able to deal with the expected governmental violence in response to such disobedience.
I'm speaking of what the Founders was speaking of in the document that begins "In the course of Human Events".
Let's hope it doesn't come to that. The only hope we have is to organize NOW, get the word out NOW. WE have to try. The "system" is broken, it will not reject this law on it's own. We HAVE to act.
" took nearly two MONTHS. Why the delay? Because H-P wouldn't honor the warranty unless/until it was submitted by an engineer who was certified on *that particular server*. Compaq never played that kind of shenanigans. "
Yep. I'm a holder of several HP repair certifications, for several lines of NetServers and their Vectra workstations. To get a replacement part for something, someone on our staff would have to pass a test (taken online). They didn't even require that you have the A+ to take their tests either...
I've probably forefited all my HP certs now that I work at IBM (even as a contractor).
Compaq has a cert called ACT that certifies you as a tech on most of their stuff.
IBM is simpler, they require you to have an A+, then take their tests to familiarize you with their servers, workstations, and warranty procedures, and you are in.
Slashdot Mirror
"there are over 1,000,000,000 Chinese PPL who havent had a McDonalds, Dont Wear Nike's, and Havent heard of the Backstreet boys"
That is one of the biggest myths there is. China buys very little from the US compared to what they import, and what they do buy is low level stuff.
The "untapped market of over a billion" argument to justify trade with China is just cover for the real purpose of the "free traders": Cheap labor.
It really pisses me off that we will get tough on Ukraine for not genuflecting to the American IP cartel (RIAA/MPAA), yet just days ago, grant PERMANENT most favored nation trade status to China.
China, after all, is a country that murdered enough people in the 20th Century to make Hitler look like an amateur. It's a country that forces women to have abortions, that jails religious leaders and condems them to death, that wants to hide it's citizens from the Internet...
Not only that, but just last year, China forced down a US plane over international waters, KIDNAPPED airmen, and tried to ransom them.
China is FAR more deserving of 100% tariffs than is Ukraine. But then, Ukraine isn't home to American megacorp sweatshops, and doesn't willingly supply slave labor to man them.
When will it end? How do we fight a war against the corporate IP cartel? How far will our government let it go?
The way I see it, all the way to the world of "Demolition Man" or "Rollerball", so long as our sheepizens keep voting for the same old parties.
Bending over for corporations is a bi-partisan effort. Both parties do it almost equally.
"..lower the price of software to something other than stratospheric levels. Notice that the biggest guns in the BSA are the same software companies that charge extortionate prices for their software...Microsoft? Adobe? Macromedia? Start charging fair prices for software and piracy will dry up. Big time."
This is why unauthorized copying (I refuse to use the word "piracy" as copying software has NO moral equivalence to hijacking ships) MUST exist!
I don't advocate stealing software, but it serves a purpose... So long as it exists, there is incentive for software companies to keep prices reasonable, especially Microsoft. In the desktop world, copied versions of Microsoft OS's are the ONLY check on the power of the MS monopoly (since the government won't do it).
The best copy protection isn't useless schemes and DMCA laws, but is reasonable prices. Selling Windows bug fixes for $100+ and calling them "upgrades" is extortion. Win `98 was nothing more than a fixed `95+IE that should have been distributed for FREE or at cost to people who paid full price for `95.
You are correct, though it was the Janet Reno/Louis Freeh FBI/DOJ that not only failed to prosecute FBI agent Lou Horuchi, but they promoted him...
Proving that such things are nonpartisan, ie: BOTH parties are equally corrupt and hostile towards civil rights. The period of `92- has seen an unacceptable escalation of violence against citizens by the government.
Commercial antivirus companies have already bent over and prevented their products from showing COMMERCIAL spy-trojans on scan... (ie, the ones used to spy on employees)
What makes anyone think they won't do the same for the FBI? Simply put, they will.
The answer, of course, is free software. If we had a free software virus scanner/remover, that was completely open source, such tomfoolery would be impossible (so long as you knew how to read the code, or could get someone to do it for you, not that hard to do in the Linux community)
Open source=accountability.
This is why I'm concerned that this sort of thing will end up playing into Microsoft's hands, in getting an increasingly paranoid government, that is absolutely determined to outgun it's citizens in every aspect of life, to get free software made illegal..
Imagine it being ILLEGAL to posess a true open source operating system because it would be the legal equivalent of having a private nuclear bomb.
This is not so farfetched, as a networked computer that the government cannot monitor nor break into is as great a threat to our ever paranoid government AS a nuclear bomb in the hands of a private citizen. The precedent proof is in the fact that the government has made the ownership of weapons that would allow resistance to it illegal (had the same been true in 1776 the revolution would never have suceeded).
I think all who value freedom should oppose a government from being able to impose restrictions on citizens that it will never place on itself, IE, the fact that the GOVERNMENT is allowed to have strong encryption, unhackable (or so they think) computers, networks, etc, to hide information, but that private citizens should not.
How many crimes comitted by our government are hidden in encrypted files on government computers that will never EVER be discovered? Why should we trust a "justice system" that in the past decade has massacred more people without cause (Waco, Ruby Ridge) than at any point since the civil war?
Unlike the days of Woodward and Bernstein, it's likely our government's worst crimes aren't written on paper to find, they are stored encrypted in a computer somewhere. Which means, unless the citizens are allowed to install trojans to go on "fishing" expeditions through our government computers, we will never know.
But, as our government is saying to us, I'll say to them "if you've done nothing wrong, you have NOTHING to fear, right?"
In this, the government is non-partisan. Janet Reno presided over those aforementioned massacres, and John Ashcroft is pushing the current horror. All the more reason to abandon our one-party Demopublicans and vote Libertarian.
Not true. The USPS has been made to "try" to live within it's own revenue, but it's still very much a federal agency, with the same hired-for-life government employees who can't be fired even for the most gross incompetence.
Which is why I can't EVER see any large government network even meeting the average standards for "hackerproof" and "security" that exist in the private world.
Our govenrment again shows it's ignorance of technology.
There is not, and never WILL be such a thing as a network that is absolutely private and secure, particularly when the government (which can't even deliver mail across town on time) is running it. No amount of billions or trillions of dollars spent on it can change that fact.
A "secure" network works like a secret. So long as only one person knows the secret, it's secure. But the instant a second knows it, it's not, and becomes less secure the more people (computers) are "connected" to the network.
What scares me is the draconian police-state laws that will have to be passed to even make this at all workable. Soon as some hacker breaks the "perfect secure private network" (which will happen within days if not minutes of it being established), some group of mornons (Congress) will propose and pass such legislation.
Also, doesn't anyone find it interesting that the govenrment now wants to secure public information systems, yet deny strong crypto to private industry?
I've posted this opinion before in response to other such stories, about interstitials etc, and it is thus:
I hope the large commercial sites JUMP right into this. Instead of forcing people away from ad-blocking (and I see no reason that Mozilla can't be modified to make their system think that the image has been loaded, without displaying it), what they will do is force people AWAY from such sites.
No reasonable person should submit to allowing ads to drop tracker cookies on your system, that continue to track even WHEN you aren't using their site.
In my opinion, tracker cookies taking information for free without compensating the user, is just as much stealing as is viewing a site that uses such obnoxious means without viewing the ads. As a matter of fact, by doing this, they've more or less ASKED for this to happen to them.
What this will accomplish is to drive traffic away from commercial sites and back to enthusiast sites that contain most of the Internet's best content anyway.
This is but the next escalation. I expect the next thing these sites will do is start blocking Konqueror and Mozilla. However, Konqueror allows you to spoof to a site what your OS/Browser, etc is, and I expect this is a feature easily added to Mozilla as well.
As a curious aside, I use Hotmail occasionally. On the MSN home page, afer you've logged in to Hotmail, it will show your local news and weather... I noticed the other day that it doesn't show this when I'm using Konqueror, but does on my `Doze machine running IE at work... Just for curiosity, I set Konqueror to say that it's IE 5.5 to the site, and voila! it shows my local news and weather... So it looks like MS is discriminating against browsers other than IE to discourage you to use any other...
What will come next after Mozilla/Konqueror start downloading but not displaying these ads, and after they try to block them (followed by people setting Mozilla/Konqueror to "spoof" their ID to IE), will be the replacement of the simple ASCII identifier with something encrypted, so that it's difficult for OSS browsers to emulate. This would invoke the DMCA, and it's only a matter of time before MS starts using that club.
I'm sure good `ole Microsoft, who has made IE the browser of choice for marketers everywhere (including their own), is already thinking of this.
Via's argument against Intel is based on a license agreement between Intel and S3 (which Via now owns) to cross-license certain technology.
Intel used certain S3 technology in the design of the P4 and chipsets (what I don't know), and in exchange, S3 got rights to make P4 chipsets.
Intel is trying to have it BOTH WAYS in claiming that Via, thru it's purchase of S3, does not have the right to make P4 chipsets, while still claiming to have a license for the S3 tech they are using.
I honestly don't see how that argument will fly, Intel clearly filed their lawsuit purely for harassment purposes, to harm Via's product release and name, and to delay it reaching the market (at a time Intel is apparently unprepared to release a DDR chipset of their own).
And the stupid thing is, having a DDR chipset for the P4 out now can only HELP Intel. Looks like the people who have been in charge over there in Santa Clara thru the Caminogate and RAMBUS fiasco are still in charge.
Intel's action can only help AMD further erode their marketshare.
"It's called the two-party system, and our laws are specifically designed to encourage it and raise the bar for anyone outside the two established parties. Overall, it's a slight improvement over the Soviet-style one-party system. But not much..."
Great points... Especially given that the two parties are SO similar in stance, that the differences can be broken down to this: Republicans want the government to grow by 7% and the Democrats by 10%... Any growth in the size of government is an infringement of freedom, so obviously neither party is your friend if you are for civil liberties, as evidenced by the unanimous quasi-secret whitewash that both conspired to pass the DMCA.
Which is why we need a third party. The Libertarians are closest to my actual philosophy, though I don't really favor taking the hands off the corps as they would (though the Libertarians DO oppose laws like the DMCA, which empowers corps at the expense of the Constitution).
The two major parties are so entrenched though, that there is little chance that any third party can seriously threaten the monopoly, especially when you consider that barely HALF the registered (which itself is barely more than HALF the ELIGIBLE voters) will get off their asses and vote.
And of those who do vote (which is roughly 25-33% of the population), the Demopublican machine keeps third parties off the ballots by throwing down HARD requirements that make third parties spend a LOT of their $$$ raised just to get on the ballot, so they may not even SEE another party... Also, there is a convienient "straight ticket" button in many states, further cheapening the process.
It's a bad process, but it's one that exists because the American masses accept it. Unfortunately, things are ultimately up to THEM, not us, so if we are ever going to change things, we need to get busy educating Joe-6-pack.
Generally speaking, it's Joe-6-pack who gets his way, when the masses get upset about something, no matter HOW bad an idea it is (such as medicare perscription drug coverage, something that will throw an already teetering on the edge of bankruptcy system over the edge), they will JUMP all over it...
Why do you think there have been some in Congress who have proposed compulsary licensing, that would force the RIAA to license Napster? It's because a lot of Joe-6-Packs out there are upset that Napster is gone and they can't steal music anymore.
It won't happen, of course, because of the strength of the corporate lobby, but a number of politicos DID jump out there to make themselves look like they "care about this" to placate the restless masses.
"I believe Ron Paul of Texas and a few others didn't vote for it."
The only ones who didn't vote for it would have been Congressmen who either weren't in office in 1998, or else were absent from the vote. It was done by "acclimation" (or voice vote), ie: All those in favor say Yea, etc. No record of individual votes were made (which is why they did it that way), so oficially it's unanimous.
The DMCA was passed by a conspiracy of BOTH political parties, and President Clinton, all of whom supported it and passed it.
"Widespread civil disobedience will not solve the problem. It must be legal, otherwise it just gives the government good press and support of the people. If bills like this actually become law, all is lost and the United States (and soon all the WTO affiliated countries) will become worse places to live than the U.S.S.R. was under Stalin. This affects EVERYONE, not just people using computers."
While civil disobedience isn't a great thing to do, once we get to the point of this thing becoming law, it's the ONLY option that might work to get it repealed...
The ONLY way to get the masses out of their sheeplike slumber is to show them GRAPHIC examples of injustice.... The Sklyarov case is starting to do this with respect to the DMCA.
Civil disobedience will be absolutely necessary to accomplish this. The media, though heavily corporate, is not monolithic. Reporters and producers lust after ratings, and covering computer geeks getting put down for building a Linux computer for someone by government stormtroopers WOULD tempt them into covering it.
That more bad things should happen to judges. That way, they'd be more in touch and would make better decisions....
If only a judge would have the DMCA affect him...
"I live in California, and I voted for the Boxer/Feinstein combo. I will not again. They both voted for DMCA and I will vote for ANYONE before them."
I live in North Carolina and will vote against anyone who voted for the DMCA as well, which means ANYONE who was in Congress in 1998, they ALL voted for it.
"How convenient. I knew they thought of themselves as virtually unaccountable; I didn?t know they actually had that codified."
More so than you ever knew... Untill 1995 (and this is one of the few good things Newt Gingrich did), the Congress had exempted itself from:
The Social Security Act
The Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Equal Opportunity Employment Act
The Americans With Disabilities Act.
Congress ROUTINUELY exempts itself from it's own laws. It's far easier to get laws passed by those for whom they have no threat.
I'd not be shocked to find that the Congress has exempted itself from the DMCA as well.
"Individuals can be sued for violating other?s constitutional rights; I wonder if this could be applied to a legislator after their law was declared unconstitutional."
I doubt it, becuase of the doctrine of "congressional immunity".
Also, the government is virtually immune to lawsuits. Hence, the hypocricy of the congress voting to allow private HMO's to be sued, while leaving Medicare (the worst HMO there is) exempt.
Hollings was one of Frank Zappa's biggest attackers, and Senator Algore's biggest supporters in the PMRC hearings, so his hostility towards the Constitution should be no surpise to anyone.
"That won't work, if it passes in the US and consumers are stupid enough to buy hardware like that, well, we'll all move to russia because freedom and choice there will still mean something. Plus, we won't get arrested for having files that looks like 10010101010 instead of j2m2lm3947udh :)"
At this point, I'm willing TO move to Russia.. If someone were to make me an offer, and teach me how to speak Russian, I'd do it. Russia's IP laws are far more palatable than the US's.
"Well we can't leave the planet (yet), so what are the alternatives? New Zealand? Chile?
I've heard they are just improved from their socialist past, but not quite the libertarian utopia or even close. Any other possibities?
Any place with harsh winters or summers would probably not fly, so that eliminates much of the world right off... "
Maybe we geeks should pool our money and buy an island somewhere in the ocean... And set up our own government..
Certainly we could lead the WORLD in information services, especially if we had the people, enough to staff a top 5 PC company, who are being eliminated from HPCOMPAQ.
The dirty little secret is that even if the USA passed such a law (at the behest of the Mouse or any other corp), other US corps will happily pay people to violate it to their own advantage, so getting investment to build chip and computer manufacturing facilities would not be a problem.
All we'd need to stop the US or another IP crazy country (like France) from invading our little island of free IP would be some sort of nuclear device. Which is easily enough built (any computer person could build one given having fissionable material).
What would it take to buy a little plutonium from Russia, and a rocket to deliver it? Probably not much, considering.
Crazy idea? Yes. Extremely. But necessary? Could be.
"Remove these government regulations, and you remove almost all incentive for organized crime."
Excellent point... The existance of organized crime, and the fact that it IS sustained by government regulation and musguided law (such as your examples of Prohibition or the "War" on Drugs) proves that the Capitalistic law of "Supply and Demand" are valid.
Simply put, where there is demand, there will be a supply. The more harder to obtain the supply (such as by making something illegal), the more enrichment will be gained by supplying the demand.
What is a VIOLATION of the capitalistic theroy is by using the government to control supply and demand. Corporations, though bound by the laws of capitalism, are no more REQUIRED to obey them than any other natural law, always seek to use the government to control supply and demand FOR their own advantage.
I applaud your well written letter. Unforunately, it's going to John McCain-McCain, who is probably more in the pockets of the media (IP cartels) than anyone in the Senate.
I hope it makes a difference, but his main platform is in supporing laws that allow employees of Time-Warner/Fox/Disney/Viacom to have the "last say" in the mass media, 60 days prior to any election.
He is actively the MOST hostile member of the Senate, to the 1st Amendment.
But, it's good that you do this. After all, the sinners are the one who MOST need education.
"Here's why it will not pass: by *requiring* "certified security technologies", it violates the First Amendment to the Constitution, which specifically *forbids* Congress from limiting free speech rights. The Courts have *repeatedly* held that the government -- Federal or State -- *cannot* exercise control over the *content* of speech *before* it is published. This bill appears to do exactly that. Let's state what it really is: a bill to require all communication instruments to contain a back-door for the use of the No Svch Ag3ncy."
You are eminently correct in your point. VERY well stated. However, you leave out one thing. The fact is, under our current legal system, there is no reprecussion for any member of our government, be it legislator, executive, or judge, for proposing, passing, or implimenting law that is Unconstitutional.
Until complicity and conspiracy to violate the Constitution becomes a criminal act, laws like this will continue to be proposed, passed, and implimented.
Becuase there is nothing save personal or moral honor restraining Congress, the President, or the Courts from passing and implimenting such law, the natural corruptive influence of power will continue to eat away at our freedoms, like acid.
One way or another, the ONLY corrective force is that of the People. Until the masses, who are prefectly happy to buy NSync and go see the latest Disney corruption of history on the screen, rise up and start throwning those who erode their freedom from office out, the United States is locked irrevocably on the course to tyrrany.
"We have to make it clear that that under this regulation, a computer would be a worthless hunk of junk. It would be useless to industry, researchers, and to home users."
That's the whole point. They WANT computers to cease to exist, at least, as common things "common" inividuals can afford to have. In the world of this law, computers would be replaced with an appliance "information access" device, that would be much like a DVD player in how little "fair use" you have.
No doubt there will be exceptions allowing the corps, and academia to have computers (which will once again become big huge mainframe things) for their own uses.
In other words, with a stroke of a pen, the IP cartel plans to turn back the clock to 1960.
My GOD this is scary stuff! This is nothing less than the proposal of the creation of the world of Bradbury's "Fareinheight 451" and "Demolition Man" in one BROAD stroke... How long before we stand to sing the "Corporate Hymn" as happened before government-held gladitorial games to placate the ignorant, easily distracted masses (who allow the government to pass laws such as the DMCA and this) as in "Rollerball"?
If they are making a mistake, it is in going for so much so quickly. But, the ease in wich they got the DMCA must have emboldened them.
We have GOT to protest this one, NOW, in every city. We have to start sending LETTERS (not e-mails) to our Congressmen.
) would truly become reality under this law.
This proposed law is so horrible, so BLATATLY in defiance of the Constitution, that our government is even discussing it is telling of how little regard for the rule of law and due process they have.
If this one passes, it would be no less than declaration of corporate IP sovereignty over citizens.
This law would criminalize the production, or even INVENTION of any device that has ROOT access (to the true system/hardware level) for the OWNER of the hardware. It would instantly make any OSS operating system illegal.
Richard Stallman's "Right to Read" (http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
And, given that the courts are INFESTED with dishonorable scum like "judge" Lewis Kaplan, we cannot look to the courts for relief. The corps are well aware that the courts have been their greatest enemy, which is why they spend LOTS and LOTS of money wining and dining and greasing the prominent lawyers who become judges.
The judiciary will soon become (if it hasn't alredy), as much a corporate fief as is the Congress and Presidency.
I dont' want to sound like a kook, but if this one DOES make it into law (and given how the DMCA passed, in unanimous fashion, I'd rate it at over 90%, and I might be overly optimistic in thinking even 10% might oppose it), then it may become necessary for widespread civil disobedience, and preparations for being able to deal with the expected governmental violence in response to such disobedience.
I'm speaking of what the Founders was speaking of in the document that begins "In the course of Human Events".
Let's hope it doesn't come to that. The only hope we have is to organize NOW, get the word out NOW. WE have to try. The "system" is broken, it will not reject this law on it's own. We HAVE to act.
" took nearly two MONTHS. Why the delay? Because H-P wouldn't honor the warranty unless/until it was submitted by an engineer who was certified on *that particular server*. Compaq never played that kind of shenanigans. "
Yep. I'm a holder of several HP repair certifications, for several lines of NetServers and their Vectra workstations. To get a replacement part for something, someone on our staff would have to pass a test (taken online). They didn't even require that you have the A+ to take their tests either...
I've probably forefited all my HP certs now that I work at IBM (even as a contractor).
Compaq has a cert called ACT that certifies you as a tech on most of their stuff.
IBM is simpler, they require you to have an A+, then take their tests to familiarize you with their servers, workstations, and warranty procedures, and you are in.
At one time, I had certs for all three companies.