Adopting block-lists is nothing more than exercising the right to disassociate from a known group of people.
Block-lists promote the idea that an external authority should decide what is and is not acceptable. That's what I meant by contrary to the spirit of the internet.
The ends do not justify the means. Since there are better means to this particular end, then we should promote those. Block-lists are better than nothing, but not better than the alternatives.
-- What I really hate is people who ask you to give up your freedom to stop spam.
but i'd rather hit delete a few times per day (i don't get more than 10 spam mails a day) and know the internet is still relatively free. yes, they're sleaze, but if you're going to start blocking them, it's not that hard for a few other domains to be slipped in there. the potential for censorship seems too great to me *shrug* so i'll continue deleting my 10 mails per day. Kraada
At some point, maybe it's 100 spams a day, maybe 1,000, or even 10,000 one takes action against spam. Spam will continue to grow until enough people take action against it. Since the only way to stop it is to take action, you might as well take action now, instead of waiting for it to be a problem big enough for you to care about.
-- What really makes me mad is people who ask you to give up your freedom to stop spam.
It is profitable, but only to the people selling the SPAM tools and SPAM lists.
Bullshit. Spam is almost certainly profitable, even for the stupid products. Even if you only got 1 response per 100,000 you'd only have to make one dollar on the sale to make money. I've seen estimates of 1-5 responses per 10,000. Email is mind boggling cheap to send, even if you actually pay for the bandwidth, and many spammers don't pay for their accounts at all. Hell, a spammer wouldn't even last 30 minutes, much less the 30 free days AOL used to offer.
-- What I really hate is people who ask you to surrender your freedom to stop spam.
The reason spam exists in such vast quantity is because it's so cheap to send.
Suppose that every time someone wanted to send you an email, they had to "buy" a password token. Then, after you read the message, you could "return" the token if you think it's not spam. If tokens were a penny, it would stop most of the really annoying spam, but if you really hated spam, you could sell your tokens for a dollar.
-- What I really hate is people who ask you to surrender your freedom to stop spam.
IMNSHO, the problem with spam block lists are 1.) They have a lot of false positives (blocking people they shouldn't), 2.) a lot of false negatives, (they don't block very many spammers), 3.) they are a lot of trouble to maintain, and 4.) they don't mesh well with the general spirit of the internet.
The bottom line is, they cause damage and don't work well.
-- If there's one thing I hate more than spam, it's the people who are willing to surrender their freedom to stop it.
...but I don't think it's unreasonable to ask that the organization that doles out.US domains to give trademark holders a brief time to buy their domains.
I think it's completely unreasonable to expect the holder of a trademark to pay for the right to exclude other people from using it. That particular scam is called "protection" and it's not any more legal because it's cheap.
It has not been alleged that Neustar acted illegal in obtaining the contract. The complaint made by the SBA is against the NTIA improperly requesting certain things be in the contract.
Of course, that doesn't mean you should trust Neustar - just that they have been accused of anything illegal yet.
Registration of SLD under the TLD.us is not free.
The fees charged are registrar are $5.50 per name per year, more for the first year. This is explained in schedule f)
This is about the same amount that Network Solutions charges ($6.00 a year) so you can expect to pay approximately the same amount for a SLD under.us as you do currently for one under.com.
P.S. Network Solutions took in over $600,000,000 last year, about 1/5 of which was from external registrars, the rest being from their own registration service.
I like the idea of third party protection for windows apps, but not for networking - I want protection for the file system. Imagine something like Zone alarm that pops up a dialog box asking if it's ok to let $app [read/write] files in $directory [never|once|today|always]?
Egads, are you a socialist or something? The government's power of eminent domain is already being abused far too much for the advantage of an elite few. Private property is a fundamental right. Government can not and should not run roughshod over it.
Hmm... I'm advocating the use of government wealth to fund public works projects. If you say that's socialist, I won't argue the point.
I agree that property shouldn't be run roughshod over, but there is a big difference between/shouldn't/ and/doesn't/ The governments of the world can and do it all the time. Hell, government routinely deprives convicted criminals of their lives, confiscating stolen property isn't even blinked at these days.
Buying existing intellectual property with the consent of the owner is hardly "running roughshod" over property rights. Neither is forcing the sale of property that was obtained illegally or improperly. It sure beats taking that property with no compensation for the owner.
-- Just because there are shades of gray, it doesn't mean we can't tell black from white.
I'm all for the government using open source, funding it's development, and all the other things that are mentioned in the article, but I think it should go farther than that.
The government should start buying things that have already been produced and put them in the public domain. And in the more egregious cases, it could use its power of eminent domain to buy the source whether the company wants to sell it or not.
-- where's that "-1 didn't read article" moderator choice when you need it?
Push media (spam, web banners, tv commericals, etc.) isn't as useful as pull media (google) but it does have some uses. To take an extreme example, if there's a fire in the next room, tell me about it now! Don't wait for me to ask.
Just because I've never seen a spam with information of more value than the value of the time it takes to delete it, doesn't mean there can't be one.
The problem with spam is that is mostly useless. If spammers refined their targeting strategies users would not complain.
Yes, but...
"Refined" targeting would need to include things like other offers I've received, both from the spammer, and from other spammers. I don't care if you can give me a 6.75% loan if someone else can give me 6.25%. That level of refinement seems unlikely in the extreme.
Consider the spammers point of view on targeting. 100,000 Spams cost less than a dollar to email. If he's sending 10,000,000 emails, that's less than $100. Now imagine that there was a way to remove 99% of the list that just took a few hours of his time.
Savings: $99
Cost: a few hours.
Hmm... Doesn't sound like a good idea to me, but maybe spammers value their time at under $30 an hour.
Spam/users is a predator/prey relationship.
The fox does not care how the rabbit feels about the hunt.
Spammers do not care what their spam cost you.
While the work is commercial in nature, it's also satirical in nature. Satire is specifically mentioned as allowable, therefore the count should stand at 3:1 not 2:2.
-- I have a zero tolerance policy for zero tolerance policies.
You're not completely wrong - it is faster and cheaper to use wires than wireless, ignoring the cost of running the wires. Current "cheap" UWB claims 40-60Mbps, and is considerably more expensive than 100baseT (100Mbps) Ethernet. Gigabit UWB may happen in the future, but gigabit-over-wire exists today. The only reason people don't use it (much) is gigabit over fiber optic is cheaper still.
The key point you're missing is the cost of running the wires, which can be extremely high. I've seen estimates over $500,000 a mile in cities, and even in rural areas it's over $15,000 per mile. And that's ignoring state and local laws which can and do tax almost anything that makes money.
--- "He's making money and I'm not getting any" - far too many people.
Verisign does not have good service. But anyone with a.com gives money to Verisign because they have no choice. (You might think that registering with someone like Domainsnext.com means you aren't supporting Verisign, but you'd be wrong - any accredited registrar pays Verisign $6 per year for every domain they register.)
By buying.tv, Verisign has reduced consumer options. Maybe not much, but every little bit makes their strangle hold that much tighter.
If you want to replace parents with government, then just say so and call the modern family a failure.
If the government actually admitted that their goal was to take control away from parents, then most people would be upset. No, they will continue to leech away our liberties by picking on unpopular groups first. The announcement that families are no longer to be tolerated will come far in the future.
When they came for the drug dealers I didn't speak up because I didn't take drugs. When they came for the gangs, I didn't speak up, because I didn't belong to a gang. When they came for the children, I didn't speak up because I'm not a child. When they came for me, there was no one left to speak up.
My question is, why did it take so long to break a 40bit key?
Clearly they didn't ask the EFF, since as you pointed out, their des cracker can crack a 40 bit key in under 5 minutes.
While it's tempting to think that this is due to some conspiracy on the part of law enforcement to conceal the weakness of 40 bit crypto, I think it's more likely due to ignorance on the part of the people trying to break it. Apparently terrorists aren't the only one unaware of recent advances in cryptography
Sound bytes for industry!
The principle use of encryption today is to prevent theft.
There are millions of credit card transactions every day protected by encryption.
Asking for a ban on strong encryption is like asking a hacker to steal your credit card.
The cost to society of not having strong encryption would be billions of dollars.
This post brought to you Credit card hackers for weak encryption.
Attributed to osiris@halcyon.halcyon.com (J.David Ruggiero)
Dear Mr. Architect:
Please design and build me a house. I am not quite sure of what I need, so you should use your discretion.
My house should have between two and forty-five bedrooms. Just make sure the plans are such that the bedrooms can be easily added or deleted. When you bring the blueprints to me, I will make the final decision of what I want. Also, bring me the cost breakdown for each configuration so that I can arbitrarily pick one.
Keep in mind that the house I ultimately choose must cost less than the one I am currently living in. Make sure, however, that you correct all the deficiencies that exist in my current house (the floor of my kitchen vibrates when I walk across it, and the walls don't have nearly enough insulation in them).
As you design, also keep in mind that I want to keep yearly maintenance costs as low as possible. This should mean the incorporation of extra-cost features like aluminum, vinyl, or composite siding. (If you choose not to specify aluminum, be prepared to explain your decision in detail.)
Please take care that modern design practices and the latest materials are used in construction of the house, as I want it to be a showplace for the most up-to-date ideas and methods. Be alerted, however, that kitchen should be designed to accommodate, among other things, my 1952 Gibson refrigerator.
To insure that you are building the correct house for our entire family, make certain that you contact each of our children, and also our in-laws. My mother-in-law will have very strong feelings about how the house should be designed, since she visits us at least once a year. Make sure that you weigh all of thses options carefully and come to the right decision. I, however, retain the right to overrule any choices that you make.
Please don't bother me with small details right now. Your job is to develop the overall plans for the house: get the big picture. At this time, for example, it is not appropriate to be choosing the color of the carpet. However, keep in mind that my wife likes blue.
Also, do not worry at this time about acquiring the resources to build the house itself. Your first priority is to develop detailed plans and specifications. Once I approve these plans, however, I would expect the house to be under roof within 48 hours.
While you are designing this house specifically for me, keep in mind that sooner or later I will have to sell it to someone else. It therefore should have appeal to a wide variety of potential buyers. Please make sure before you finalize the plans that there is a consensus of the population in my area that they like the features this house has.
I advise you to run up and look at my neighbor's house he constructed last year. We like it a great deal. It has many features that we would also like in our new home, particularily the 75-foot swimming pool. With careful engineering, I believe that you can design this into our new house without impacting the final cost.
Please prepare a complete set of blueprints. It is not necessary at this time to do the real design, since they will be used only for construction bids. Be advised, however, that you will be held accountable for any increase of construction costs as a result of later design changes.
You must be thrilled to be working on as an interesting project as this! To be able to use the latest techniques and materials and to be given such freedom in your designs is something that can't happen very often. Contact me as soon as possible with your complete ideas and plans.
PS: My wife has just told me that she disagrees with many of the instructions I've given you in this letter. As architect, it is your responsibility to resolve these differences. I have tried in the past and have been unable to accomplish this. If you can't handle this responsibility, I will have to find another architect.
PPS: Perhaps what I need is not a house at all, but a travel trailer. Please advise me as soon as possible if this is the case.
No one accuses the teacher of cheating when they copy the assignment straight from the textbook. Yet if the student does exactly the same thing with the answer, then suddenly it's bad.
If I assigned the classic "Hello world" program, I wouldn't expect or want something like;
main(){char *p=&13["\0\n!dlrow olleH"];while(*p) {putchar(*p--);}}
I'd expect the student to copy the program exactly. If I was worried about students not learning the material, I'd just assign a problem that hasn't been solved - preferably something actually useful, like "change this open source program to accept '--word' style options as well as the current set, or "change this to work with IPv6"
The question shouldn't be "did you copy?", the question should be "did you learn?".
We don't need to automatically accept patents, we just need the review part. How about this:
Patents are first checked by the patent office for validity. If the patent passes that phase, then it goes on public display as a provisional patent. The person attempting to get the patent must post a bond of, say, $5000. Anyone can submit a challenge to the patent by paying a fee equal to the difficulty in reviewing their challenge. The first person to invalidate the patent by showing prior art, or any other method approved by the patent office, gets paid the $5000. If no one comes forward for a year, then the patent is presumed valid and non obvious, and the money is returned.
Each of us is an individual. And the name of that individual is Clancy Jones - Clancy Jones #185
Slashdot Mirror
Block-lists promote the idea that an external authority should decide what is and is not acceptable. That's what I meant by contrary to the spirit of the internet.
The ends do not justify the means. Since there are better means to this particular end, then we should promote those. Block-lists are better than nothing, but not better than the alternatives.
-- What I really hate is people who ask you to give up your freedom to stop spam.
At some point, maybe it's 100 spams a day, maybe 1,000, or even 10,000 one takes action against spam. Spam will continue to grow until enough people take action against it. Since the only way to stop it is to take action, you might as well take action now, instead of waiting for it to be a problem big enough for you to care about.
-- What really makes me mad is people who ask you to give up your freedom to stop spam.
Bullshit. Spam is almost certainly profitable, even for the stupid products. Even if you only got 1 response per 100,000 you'd only have to make one dollar on the sale to make money. I've seen estimates of 1-5 responses per 10,000. Email is mind boggling cheap to send, even if you actually pay for the bandwidth, and many spammers don't pay for their accounts at all. Hell, a spammer wouldn't even last 30 minutes, much less the 30 free days AOL used to offer.
-- What I really hate is people who ask you to surrender your freedom to stop spam.
The reason spam exists in such vast quantity is because it's so cheap to send.
Suppose that every time someone wanted to send you an email, they had to "buy" a password token. Then, after you read the message, you could "return" the token if you think it's not spam. If tokens were a penny, it would stop most of the really annoying spam, but if you really hated spam, you could sell your tokens for a dollar.
-- What I really hate is people who ask you to surrender your freedom to stop spam.
IMNSHO, the problem with spam block lists are
1.) They have a lot of false positives (blocking people they shouldn't),
2.) a lot of false negatives, (they don't block very many spammers),
3.) they are a lot of trouble to maintain, and
4.) they don't mesh well with the general spirit of the internet.
The bottom line is, they cause damage and don't work well.
-- If there's one thing I hate more than spam, it's the people who are willing to surrender their freedom to stop it.
I think it's completely unreasonable to expect the holder of a trademark to pay for the right to exclude other people from using it. That particular scam is called "protection" and it's not any more legal because it's cheap.
-- Is posting a "no solicitors" sign spam?
It has not been alleged that Neustar acted illegal in obtaining the contract. The complaint made by the SBA is against the NTIA improperly requesting certain things be in the contract.
Of course, that doesn't mean you should trust Neustar - just that they have been accused of anything illegal yet.
-- Is a sign that says "no solicitors" spam?
Registration of SLD under the TLD .us is not free.
.us as you do currently for one under .com.
The fees charged are registrar are $5.50 per name per year, more for the first year. This is explained in schedule f)
This is about the same amount that Network Solutions charges ($6.00 a year) so you can expect to pay approximately the same amount for a SLD under
P.S. Network Solutions took in over $600,000,000 last year, about 1/5 of which was from external registrars, the rest being from their own registration service.
I like the idea of third party protection for windows apps, but not for networking - I want protection for the file system. Imagine something like Zone alarm that pops up a dialog box asking if it's ok to let $app [read/write] files in $directory [never|once|today|always]?
-- Our bits are better, they're gold plated.
Hmm... I'm advocating the use of government wealth to fund public works projects. If you say that's socialist, I won't argue the point.
I agree that property shouldn't be run roughshod over, but there is a big difference between
Buying existing intellectual property with the consent of the owner is hardly "running roughshod" over property rights. Neither is forcing the sale of property that was obtained illegally or improperly. It sure beats taking that property with no compensation for the owner.
-- Just because there are shades of gray, it doesn't mean we can't tell black from white.
I'm all for the government using open source, funding it's development, and all the other things that are mentioned in the article, but I think it should go farther than that.
The government should start buying things that have already been produced and put them in the public domain. And in the more egregious cases, it could use its power of eminent domain to buy the source whether the company wants to sell it or not.
-- where's that "-1 didn't read article" moderator choice when you need it?
Gosh, maybe we should have an advocacy program for open source then, just like it talks about in the article.
-- Where is that "-1 didn't read article" moderator choice when you need it?
Push media (spam, web banners, tv commericals, etc.) isn't as useful as pull media (google) but it does have some uses. To take an extreme example, if there's a fire in the next room, tell me about it now! Don't wait for me to ask.
Just because I've never seen a spam with information of more value than the value of the time it takes to delete it, doesn't mean there can't be one.
Yes, but...
"Refined" targeting would need to include things like other offers I've received, both from the spammer, and from other spammers. I don't care if you can give me a 6.75% loan if someone else can give me 6.25%. That level of refinement seems unlikely in the extreme.
Consider the spammers point of view on targeting. 100,000 Spams cost less than a dollar to email. If he's sending 10,000,000 emails, that's less than $100. Now imagine that there was a way to remove 99% of the list that just took a few hours of his time.
Savings: $99
Cost: a few hours.
Hmm... Doesn't sound like a good idea to me, but maybe spammers value their time at under $30 an hour.
Spam/users is a predator/prey relationship.
The fox does not care how the rabbit feels about the hunt.
Spammers do not care what their spam cost you.
... heaven forbid Microsoft acts in it's own interests in complete accordance with the law.
I don't think heaven forbids Microsoft acting in accordance with the law, that's probably just an internal policy.
I choose Microsoft - why settle for a lesser evil?
While the work is commercial in nature, it's also satirical in nature. Satire is specifically mentioned as allowable, therefore the count should stand at 3:1 not 2:2.
-- I have a zero tolerance policy for zero tolerance policies.
You're not completely wrong - it is faster and cheaper to use wires than wireless, ignoring the cost of running the wires. Current "cheap" UWB claims 40-60Mbps, and is considerably more expensive than 100baseT (100Mbps) Ethernet. Gigabit UWB may happen in the future, but gigabit-over-wire exists today. The only reason people don't use it (much) is gigabit over fiber optic is cheaper still.
The key point you're missing is the cost of running the wires, which can be extremely high. I've seen estimates over $500,000 a mile in cities, and even in rural areas it's over $15,000 per mile. And that's ignoring state and local laws which can and do tax almost anything that makes money.
--- "He's making money and I'm not getting any" - far too many people.
Yes it does really matter.
.com gives money to Verisign because they have no choice. (You might think that registering with someone like Domainsnext.com means you aren't supporting Verisign, but you'd be wrong - any accredited registrar pays Verisign $6 per year for every domain they register.)
.tv, Verisign has reduced consumer options. Maybe not much, but every little bit makes their strangle hold that much tighter.
Verisign does not have good service. But anyone with a
By buying
If the government actually admitted that their goal was to take control away from parents, then most people would be upset. No, they will continue to leech away our liberties by picking on unpopular groups first. The announcement that families are no longer to be tolerated will come far in the future.
When they came for the drug dealers I didn't speak up because I didn't take drugs. When they came for the gangs, I didn't speak up, because I didn't belong to a gang. When they came for the children, I didn't speak up because I'm not a child. When they came for me, there was no one left to speak up.
No, the policy is just as stated, never comment on them. Hence the saying, I can neither confirm nor deny ...
Well, what would you call someone who was using MS software?
Clearly they didn't ask the EFF, since as you pointed out, their des cracker can crack a 40 bit key in under 5 minutes.
While it's tempting to think that this is due to some conspiracy on the part of law enforcement to conceal the weakness of 40 bit crypto, I think it's more likely due to ignorance on the part of the people trying to break it. Apparently terrorists aren't the only one unaware of recent advances in cryptography
Sound bytes for industry!
The principle use of encryption today is to prevent theft.
There are millions of credit card transactions every day protected by encryption.
Asking for a ban on strong encryption is like asking a hacker to steal your credit card.
The cost to society of not having strong encryption would be billions of dollars.
This post brought to you Credit card hackers for weak encryption.
Attributed to osiris@halcyon.halcyon.com (J.David Ruggiero)
Dear Mr. Architect:
Please design and build me a house. I am not quite sure of what I need, so you should use your discretion.
My house should have between two and forty-five bedrooms. Just make sure the plans are such that the bedrooms can be easily added or deleted. When you bring the blueprints to me, I will make the final decision of what I want. Also, bring me the cost breakdown for each configuration so that I can arbitrarily pick one.
Keep in mind that the house I ultimately choose must cost less than the one I am currently living in. Make sure, however, that you correct all the deficiencies that exist in my current house (the floor of my kitchen vibrates when I walk across it, and the walls don't have nearly enough insulation in them).
As you design, also keep in mind that I want to keep yearly maintenance costs as low as possible. This should mean the incorporation of extra-cost features like aluminum, vinyl, or composite siding. (If you choose not to specify aluminum, be prepared to explain your decision in detail.)
Please take care that modern design practices and the latest materials are used in construction of the house, as I want it to be a showplace for the most up-to-date ideas and methods. Be alerted, however, that kitchen should be designed to accommodate, among other things, my 1952 Gibson refrigerator.
To insure that you are building the correct house for our entire family, make certain that you contact each of our children, and also our in-laws. My mother-in-law will have very strong feelings about how the house should be designed, since she visits us at least once a year. Make sure that you weigh all of thses options carefully and come to the right decision. I, however, retain the right to overrule any choices that you make.
Please don't bother me with small details right now. Your job is to develop the overall plans for the house: get the big picture. At this time, for example, it is not appropriate to be choosing the color of the carpet. However, keep in mind that my wife likes blue.
Also, do not worry at this time about acquiring the resources to build the house itself. Your first priority is to develop detailed plans and specifications. Once I approve these plans, however, I would expect the house to be under roof within 48 hours.
While you are designing this house specifically for me, keep in mind that sooner or later I will have to sell it to someone else. It therefore should have appeal to a wide variety of potential buyers. Please make sure before you finalize the plans that there is a consensus of the population in my area that they like the features this house has.
I advise you to run up and look at my neighbor's house he constructed last year. We like it a great deal. It has many features that we would also like in our new home, particularily the 75-foot swimming pool. With careful engineering, I believe that you can design this into our new house without impacting the final cost.
Please prepare a complete set of blueprints. It is not necessary at this time to do the real design, since they will be used only for construction bids. Be advised, however, that you will be held accountable for any increase of construction costs as a result of later design changes.
You must be thrilled to be working on as an interesting project as this! To be able to use the latest techniques and materials and to be given such freedom in your designs is something that can't happen very often. Contact me as soon as possible with your complete ideas and plans.
PS: My wife has just told me that she disagrees with many of the instructions I've given you in this letter. As architect, it is your responsibility to resolve these differences. I have tried in the past and have been unable to accomplish this. If you can't handle this responsibility, I will have to find another architect.
PPS: Perhaps what I need is not a house at all, but a travel trailer. Please advise me as soon as possible if this is the case.
No one accuses the teacher of cheating when they copy the assignment straight from the textbook. Yet if the student does exactly the same thing with the answer, then suddenly it's bad.
If I assigned the classic "Hello world" program, I wouldn't expect or want something like;
main(){char *p=&13["\0\n!dlrow olleH"];while(*p) {putchar(*p--);}}
I'd expect the student to copy the program exactly. If I was worried about students not learning the material, I'd just assign a problem that hasn't been solved - preferably something actually useful, like "change this open source program to accept '--word' style options as well as the current set, or "change this to work with IPv6"
The question shouldn't be "did you copy?", the question should be "did you learn?".
We don't need to automatically accept patents, we just need the review part. How about this:
Patents are first checked by the patent office for validity. If the patent passes that phase, then it goes on public display as a provisional patent. The person attempting to get the patent must post a bond of, say, $5000. Anyone can submit a challenge to the patent by paying a fee equal to the difficulty in reviewing their challenge. The first person to invalidate the patent by showing prior art, or any other method approved by the patent office, gets paid the $5000. If no one comes forward for a year, then the patent is presumed valid and non obvious, and the money is returned.
Each of us is an individual. And the name of that individual is Clancy Jones - Clancy Jones #185