And from my contacts with VSO volunteers, they do in fact do IT-related work. The VSO was instrumental in getting Belize its first e-mail link back in the mid-'90s, before BTL got into the picture.
Yep, I remember when CDs came out. LPs were selling for about $8-$10, and CDs were priced at around $15. I thought that was a little high, and I figured the price would come down as production was ramped up. How wrong I was. Now, you find many discs in the $18 range. So I figure that the new formats will remain more expensive than CDs. After all, there are helicopter payments that have to be made.
What I simply can't fathom is how the music industry can be so blind to all the hostility they're generating. I mean, people hate these companies, at least the people I talk to do. And these aren't folks who ever used Napster, so they aren't angry about that specifically. They see these companies and the people who run them as greedy, arrogant, and out to screw everyone they deal with in any way they can. Can the people who run them not see that this environment is generating piracy? The only alternative I can think of is that they know perfectly well that people hate them, but they're taking a scorched-earth attitude, figuring they can steamroll over their critics and absorb all the damage. If that's the case, I'll patiently await the day when they file for bankruptcy.
This last part is a bit off-topic, but speaking of enhanced CDs, I have Enya's original disc, Watermark, and I recall it having a sticker on it that said it contained images that could be viewed with a CD+G player. I assume this was a short-lived format, but I'd be curious to know if there's any software out there that can read this disc and display the images. I did a search at one point, but I didn't find anything. Just curious.
Copy-protected CDs are, IMO, only a stopgap measure until DVD-Audio and Super Audio CD get into the market in a big way. These formats are, by their nature, copy-protected, so digital copying will be more difficult than with CDs. As for electronics makers suing over copy-protection, the ones affiliated with the media companies certainly won't, for obvious reasons. The others would only do so if this bacame a major problem, and if it were that big of a deal, the record companies would already be rethinking their strategy. These people may be greedy, soulless bastards, but they aren't stupid. Music sales are already in a slump. They seem to be blaming the Internet, and they obviously want to dry up music swapping so they'll be able to market MusicNet and Pressplay, but if this thing turns into something that really shakes people's confidence in their product, the record companies will have a major problem on their hands. They can argue that the emerging formats are superior, and audibly, they are, but will people be willing to pay $22.95 for them, which is the current price at Best Buy? I've bought some DVD-Audio discs, but the price is going to have to come down before I buy more.
Whatever analogy you use, the problem is that creating a product that can be used for an unlawful activity is not the same as using it for that activity. And if this software was illegal to use here, why was it sold here? Had its sale been legally barred? And the fact remains that writing such software, AFAIK, is not illegal in Russia. But getting back to the analogy, if this prosecution is completely on the up-and-up, then why is it legal to sell any of the following:
Guns: They're used to do all manner of illegal things, such as shoot people, rob banks, hunt animals out of season, and threaten people in a general way.
Alcohol: People who drink tend to get drunk. This leads to all kinds of illegal activities, such as driving while intoxicated, speeding, driving recklessly, getting into bar fights, andassaulting one's spouse.
CD burners: Yep, CD burners. I know they can be used to make backups and all manner of other totally legal things, but we all know that they can crank out perfect copies of commercial music and software faster than Bill Gates can bribe the Dept. of Justice.
My point is this. Everything out there can be used to perform both legal and illegal activities. And yes, the software in question is perfectly capable of doing so. If I want to decode an e-book in my own home and use it as such in my own home, that's my fair use right, and this software allows me to exercise that right.
And just to touch on DVDs for a moment, since I know t's not far from this discussion. As a purchaser of DVDs, I have never agreed that I will not play them on, say, Linux. The only thing that I am prohibited from doing is showing them in a commercial setting or selling copies. If I can hack a toaster to play them, that's my business, and if someone tells me how to hack my toaster to do so, that's also my business, as long as I don't do anything illegal with the toaster's output.
I doubt it would happen that way. Chances are, the "virus" wouldn't be self-replicating, at least the government's version wouldn't. If it were, there'd be no effective way to control it. So, if the only people who are sent this thing are people the feds want to bug, the AV companies most likely wouldn't see it.
However, all this goes out the window if someone gets hold of this thing somehow and modifies it. They could do several things. First, they could attempt to decompile it and then post the source for all to see. If they wanted to get more, um, creative, they could modify it so it becomes a truly self-replicating virus. Not only would this turn the thing loose on the Net at large, it'd also have the possible effect of taking out whatever computer the original virus was supposed to "phone home" to. How long could a machine set up to handle data from several thousand of these things last when it's getting bombarded with data from a few million? Finally, there's the possibility that it could be modified to seek out and attack computers owned by the government. Once it got in, it would sit there and spy on whoever was using that machine. Results could be sent anywhere. Protecting all those government computers would be a massive undertaking. Even if the feds had custom software to do it, distributing it in any meaningful way to locations around the country would almost guarantee that it'd leak out within a few days. But the truth is that federal computers are running the same software that everyone else is, and the people using them can be just as easily deceived as the average home user. All it'll take is for one programmer with talent, a chip on his shoulder, a good deal of free time, and access to the right tools to decide to fight code with code. If he gets hold of the feds' virus, he could use that. If not, well, he'd most likely roll his own.
This is a superbly stupid idea the feds are pursuing. If they write crappy code, only the truly moronic will allow this to get installed. If they write a really sophisticated piece of software, they could very well end up creating a monster that will turn around and bite them in the ass.
And let's not forget the veiled threats the RIAA made if the SDMI's flaws were presented in public. Add to that the aborted prosecution of Phil Zimmerman a few years ago. Oh yeah, and Dmitri, as I recall, wrote his software in Russia, not the U.S. He just had the bad luck to be visiting this country when he was arrested. That would be like being arrested in a foreign country while you're on vacation for having written a book in the United States that was illegal in the country you were vacationing in.
And I don't think I've ever seen any strong opinion of any kind expressed on CNN. Bruce Morton sometimes has pieces that approach something that might resemble an editorial, but he always stops short of taking a position. I always get the feeling that he wants to, but he never does. I wonder if management forbids him from doing so. Wouldn't surprise me. I long for the days when we at least had John Chancellor doing his commentary on NBC. It wasn't much, but it was better than the bland crap people are getting these days. Thank God we have sites like Slashdot. Even if I don't agree with all the posters here, at least I know that most of them are using their brains. If there is any time we need more of that, it's now. We don't have to agree all the time, or even most of the time. It's the debates that matter, and a willingness to listen to alternative viewpoints and to be open to the possibility that those with opposing views have valid points and something constructive to say.
Re:A PS2 with different games
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XBox Released
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· Score: 2
Illegal practices may have had something to do with it, but Netscape 4.0, 4.01, and 4.02 blew chunks, and they happened to blow chunks at just about the same time that IE 4 was coming out. I liked Netscape, really, and I hated IE, after having tried each new release of it. Hell, I even have one of the IE 3 t-shirts that MS sent out on the night of the release, but I still disliked the browser enough to uninstall it within a week. Point being, as the Netscape 4 bugs were eating me alive, along came IE 4, so I switched. And it didn't help that AOL soon bought Netscape and almost single-handedly destroyed it. People waited years for a new release of the browser, and when 6 came along, it sucked. Yeah, MS may have cut some legal corners, but Netscape was its own worst enemy.
If this guy has sucked up so many domains, he's probably pissed off some folks along the way. Perhaps you should attempt to locate some of them and concentrate on filing coordinated UDRP complaints against him. In many of the judgements I've read about, the defendant loses because he doesn't bother replying.
Um, and it might help if folks don't visit this site anymore. My guess is that this guy is getting paid per ad view, so the more hits he gets, the more money he makes. Would one of the admins consider updating the original post to point this out to folks just finding this thread?
...is that they aren't widely available. It's the same with traditional DSL. There is a certain percentage of people who want it, but they're scattered over the whole country, many in small towns and rural areas. The buildout costs are high enough that it's expensive to reach these people, but without a sufficient subscriber base, your service will fail. I've dealt with people in areas where getting anything over 33.6 kbps is damn near impossible. For them, ISDN is still high-speed access, and many can't even get that. Satellite? Yeah, it's there, but it's still too costly, and the latency is a huge drawback. Cable? Yeah, when it works, and assuming you have a local staff competent enough to maintain it properly. Wireless? Possibly, but the cost of the radios is way too high for consumers.
There's been talk here about public-access 802.11b networks in cities. That's fine, but small towns could benefit more, assuming you could find a way to get the data out to the Net affordably. These people may not see broadband for a long time unless someone gets really creative.
And as for ION, I would have gotten it if it was available, and I know other folks who would have as well. Perhaps they just couldn't afford to have expanded the service, but expanding into new areas is the only way to succeed. And where was their marketing? I haven't seen an ION ad in years.
Not to jump into a huge debate here, but any expansion of what is defined as terrorism has nothing to do with ex post facto laws, unless it is specifically applied to acts committed before such a law was passed. Removing a statute of limitations might, but once again, is it retroactively removing them or only for acts committed from that point on?
As for Supreme Court justices, they almost always take great pains to never discuss an issue that may reach them. It would be unwise to take their silence as an indication of how they'd rule. The only time you'll get a clue is during arguments before them, and even then you can never tell for sure. In any case, Congress can pass any bad laws it wants, as it often does, and the courts have to sort things out, as they will in this case, as they have in many others.
Yeah, but do you speak Icelandic? Tough language. And the more tech savvy the country is, the better they'll be at seeing through the BS and fixing the problem themselves. Oh well, it still might be worth emigrating there.
No, I think a better solution is to hack the U.S. media and give people some useful information for a change. You know, pirate radio and TV broadcasts, with content passed around the Net. Companies have figured out ways to make cell phones out of paper, why not radio transmitters and receivers? OK, it ain't quite that easy, but... Actually, if you broadcast on the 2.4 GHz band, you wouldn't even need a license, but then no one could hear you. Anyone know how to build a cheap 2.4 GHz receiver for digitized audio?
OK, OK, enough of the B.S. The theme here in this thread seems to be the fact that geeks and other people with more than two or three brain cells to rub together don't get any representation. We can argue all day about the reasons for that, but it seems to come down to a lack of organization. One thing that might help, if you want to borrow a page from old media, is Internet-based talk radio. One of the things that exemplifies the power of the media is the talk show. If you're a conservative, who do you listen to? The person that comes to mind is Rush Limbaugh. Even if you aren't a conservative, you know who he is, and you can't ignore him completely. Why? Because he's interesting and entertaining. And even in his interviews, he's always said that he is an entertainer first and foremost, and he understands very well that, if you want people to pay attention to you, you have to make them want to listen to you. Now, think about the Internet. A great many of the intellectuals in this country and the world are on it, and so are a great many of the less-enlightened among us. No one here has to convince anyone else here about the grave situation we're in as a nation--we all know, and we're more or less on the same page as to what we think about it. So who do you have to convince? The rest of the population. And since many of these people are online, you can reach them. However, they aren't going to come to places like/. to get educated. Hell, of all the people I know, many of whom are computer geeks, only a few come here, and none post, at least that I know of. So, again, how to you reach these people? Take the message to them using a medium they understand: radio. You've got the Internet, you've got streaming services like SHOUTcast, Live365, Icecast, etc., you've got a variety of players that can decode the audio streams. All you need is interesting and entertaining content. Anyone care to be the Rush Limbaugh of the geek community? Just think, if you succeed, you'll have a cult following who'll bring you pizza and Jolt Cola on command, you'll have groupies throwing themselves at you wherever you go, you'll have photo ops all over the country, and, oh yeah, you might change some minds in the process. And since it's radio, you can wear a pocket protector, and no one would be the wiser.
...and speaking of things that have got to go, what about that damn black bar on TNN? Who's the genius that cooked that up? I'd actually like that channel if that thing weren't there, especially since TNG looks better than it has in years, but I just can't stomach that bar, cutting off the bottom of the picture.
And to lump a totally unrelated topic into this post, did anyone catch the season premiere of Andromeda last weekend? I think my local station accidentally ran it a week early. I really want to like that show (as someone here said once, it's all about the ladies, and yes, it is), and I keep waiting for it to improve, but it never seems to get better. Too many implausible plot twists to keep the story on the right track. If you saw the season opener, you'll recall a huge one, but I won't post that big of a spoiler.
It's like they're trying to drag in a younger audience by making the show's theme song sound like one of those WB Teeny Bopper shows (Dawson's Creek and the like).
That's exactly what I was thinking when I saw the opening. Not that I think it's that bad of a song, but for Star Trek, it just doesn't fit at all, and it has to go.
Which leads me to wonder who Paramount is after as far as viewers. I suppose that UPN and The WB are geared toward "Generation X" or whatever the marketing idiots have dubbed the generation after that (Gen Y?). But of all the people I know, I can't think of one who watches these networks on a regular basis, except for those who tune to UPN for Star Trek. Most of the programming seems...dumb. Or am I just over the hill at 31 and too old to "get it"? That must be it, since I find much more interesting stuff on TV Land.
Re:They know where you are at all times ...
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GPS Meets PCS
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· Score: 2
I agree that this can be a pain, but the alternative--requiring anyone connected to the Net to pass all traffic--would be worse. Doing this would effectively outlaw:
Filtered ISPs (I don't use them, but I can see where some folks want that.)
ISP-created blacklists (Spammers could say their traffic is being blocked and they have a right to delivery.)
Booting spammers (If all content has to be passed, then you can't discriminate against one kind.)
Turning ISPs into common carriers is a scary thing. Customers get disconnected for all kinds of reasons, and allowing the government to step in and make the rules is, IMHO, a bad idea. Now, if you have a monopoly situation created by statute or regulatory policy, there may be some room for consideration, but otherwise, providers should be free to do what they want. If enough people walk, their policies will change.
Not really. It's been known to happen that spammers will list someone else's number or e-mail in their domain registration, usually someone who's reported them in the past.
You're funny. Too bad you have no idea how blacklists work. But I'll explain it to you.
You claim it should be illegal for a third party to block traffic from one domain to another. I assume you're referring to the blacklists. FYI, the blacklists aren't doing any blocking. None whatsoever. Individual ISPs do the blocking. When a message arrives at their incoming mail server, the server checks the blacklist to see if the connecting machine is on it. If it is, the ISP's mail server rejects the message. If not, the mail goes through. The ISP can use a blacklist like MAPS, SPEWS, etc., they can create their own, they can do both, or they can use no blacklist at all. It's their choice. If your ISP uses a blacklist, and you don't want that, get another ISP. If you can't find one that you like, set up your own. Can't afford that? Can't find a backbone that will let you do what you please with your connection to them? Too bad. There is no right to connectivity. And that little point, my friend, is what makes the blacklists so cool. No one has a right to guaranteed delivery of their mail. If you want a network where no one can block anything, build your own. Just don't expect anyone else to want to connect to it.
But to get back to your claim that third-party blocking should be illegal, if I own a network segment that traffic passes through, I can let it pass or block it. It's my part of the network, not yours. If you don't like that, find another route for your data packets to take. Just don't expect to be treated differently by anyone else.
Who gets to decide what's spam and who gets blocked? For me, I do. If I don't like what someone on the network is doing, who they're hosting, what color their hair is, or anything else, I can blacklist them. If they value having connectivity to my little corner of the network, then they can change whatever it is I don't like. If they don't care that I'm blocking them, they're free to go on doing whatever they want, and they'll never get off my blacklist. You can call it blackmail all you want, but there ain't a thing you can do about it. There is no right to connectivity. If you don't like that, tough. Build your own network, and you can do whatever you want. Just don't piss in my pool and expect me not to do something.
I agree with you completely on the age issue. If someone is going to put a computer on the Internet, it is incombent upon them to know something about how that computer and the Internet work. They don't have to have a technician's level of knowledge, but they do need to know enough to keep their machine working properly and to fix simple problems.
In many cases, the elderly person didn't get on the Net themselves; a younger person, often a son, daughter, grandson, or granddaughter, got them online. In that case, the person who set things up bears the responsibility of keeping things running smoothly, at least for a time. I can recall an incident at work where an elderly lady called a co-worker of mine with technical problems. Not only had she reached the wrong department, but in talking with her, he found that she thought that we were responsible for turning her computer on and off for her. She didn't have a clue that there was a button that she needed to push to turn it on. She explained that her kids had gotten the computer for her and set up an Internet account, but she said they never showed her how to use it. If anyone thinks this is uncommon, they should go to work for an ISP's tech support department for a week or two. Point is, whoever convinced these folks they need to be online needs to follow through with the proper training and support.
And I agree completely with the ISPs who are booting infected users. These computers are actively looking for other machines to infect, and they're degrading service for everyone else. As soon as the users patch their computers, they can get back online. As for losing connectivity before they can get the patch, well, they'll learn a little resourcefulness, and they'll learn not to put these things off next time. And if they can't or won't patch, then they don't need to be online in the first place.
First, are you sure your sister saw what she thinks she saw? And even if she did, then that gives us no right to stereotype a group of people based on the actions of a few individuals. The only thing stereotyping does is make it easier for us to hate, and hating makes it easier for us to kill. We must respond decisively to this act of unmitigated evil, but we must respond intelligently and not follow these madmen down the road to blind hatred and barbarism.
I'm going to be writing my congressmen and senators, and I'm also going to attempt to give the good Sen. Hollings a clue. It may be a futile effort to try to educate him, but it's worth a shot.
If you write your reps, remember to do a few things.
Use snail mail, not e-mail. E-mail will be ignored.
Get the title of the proposed legislation right, and make sure you point out that it's still a draft bill.
Include a copy of the draft with your letter.
Make clear arguments in language your mother can understand. Very few politicians will know what Open Source, OSS, Linux, or DRM mean, but they most likely will know about fair use, economic impact, and most importantly, votes.
Point out, in very clear language, and using examples, if necessary, how this will harm average, law-abiding, voting Americans.
For God's sake, write professionally, and proofread.
Doing a few other things will also help.
Make sure any news-oriented Web sites know about this. Write them a clear, concise, informative e-mail, and provide relevant links. Don't mass-mail them. One message for each site.
Make sure potentially supportive activist groups also know. Don't just limit yourself to the big national groups. In fact, if you're at a college or university, approach the College Democrats and/or Young Republicans. That may sound absurd, but it could have an interesting effect if, say, a chapter of the College Democrats in South Carolina wrote to Sen. Hollings denouncing his bill.
Write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper. When you do this, keep it short and to the point, and use language that someone with an eighth-grade education can understand. Make them care about this, and tell them what to do.
Tell your friends who aren't up to date on tech news about it. Don't bug them if they don't want to listen right then, but try to give them a glimmer of an idea.
And for anyone who is going to respond saying that nothing will help... If you take your own advice and do nothing, you'll prove yourself absolutely right. Take the time you were going to spend bemoaning this monstrosity here and use it to do something that will matter.
It wouldn't matter how you built the computer. The technology would be included in the core components. You wouldn't even be able to get clean components legally in the U.S.
True, but it comes down to what's reasonable and what isn't. For example, murder is illegal, no matter where it's committed, and one could argue that it's the worst form of crime out there, but, as bad as it is, the police can't search your house just to make sure you haven't killed anyone there recently.
The problem with this technology is that it represents a warrantless search of every driver of every car equipped with it, whether they're drunk or not. Remember, you're still scanned, even if you come up sober. It's true that the police don't need a warrant to stop a drunk driver, but we expect that a certain level of probable cause, such as weaving or some other form of behavior that indicates intoxication, will be used. With this system, you're searched no matter what, and if you're thought to be drunk, the police are alerted. Essentially, the police get the power to search everyone, without any form of probable cause. And who's accountable when the thing screws up? The police? They'll argue that they were just responding to the signal? The automaker? Where does the buck stop?
And I think there are two other problems people have with this. First, is it desirable for law enforcement to be too efficient at stopping crime? Suppose that I told you that anything illegal that you might do, no matter what is is, where it is, or who is around, will be immediately noted by the police, and you would have to account for it. Even without changing one law, society has just become a lot less free, at least it will be perceived that way. For an interesting take on this, watch a movie called "The Monitors", assuming you can find a copy. It's a black comedy about aliens who take over Earth. They're benevolent and try to keep people honest, stamp out crime, etc., but humans find their infulence stifling and rebel.
Second, with this scheme in particular, we're looking at something that could be done with no public input at all. Does our society really want this? Do we approve of it? The automakers are not required to even ask those questions before implementing such a system. And once it's out there, it's much easier from a public policy standpoint for the police to buy their radio receivers and start listening. Essentially, this makes an end run around any form of public debate of the issue, and that's troubling.
I wonder if this would be a Fourth Amendment violation (unreasonable search). Essentially, your car would be bugged without a warrant. One could argue that this is different because the police didn't plant the bug, but they did listen in. If that's legal, then would it not also be legal for the police to use your cell phone and cordless phone communications against you, so long as they could grab the signal out of the air and decrypt it, if necessary, without a warrant? Would searches like this not fall under the Supreme Court's recent ruling involving the police using sensors to look inside people's houses for heat sources related to drugs?
If this scheme did go forward, and we must remember that this is just something that a university is playing around with, I can't wait to see the lawsuits fly when the sensor either malfunctions or it activates because a passenger and not the driver is drunk. It'll also be interesting to see what would happen if someone gets prosecuted for disabling the system. If they're prosecuted, then that means the system would be required by law, which would mean that the police would then be allowed to conduct warrantless searches on everyone with a car with no probable cause (remember, the sensor is doing the search). If the prosecution fails, then you'd probably see lots of people disabling it. But what would happen if the automakers rigged things so the car wouldn't run without the system being active? Could they set things up so the system would provide an encrypted message to the starter so it will work, then sue anyone who circumvented it under the DMCA's anti-circumvention provisions? And no, I'm not making a joke here.
But thank you so very much for being so polite when pointing out my error. I mean, not all of us are as perfect as you are, but we somehow manage to muddle through.
Slashdot Mirror
And from my contacts with VSO volunteers, they do in fact do IT-related work. The VSO was instrumental in getting Belize its first e-mail link back in the mid-'90s, before BTL got into the picture.
Yep, I remember when CDs came out. LPs were selling for about $8-$10, and CDs were priced at around $15. I thought that was a little high, and I figured the price would come down as production was ramped up. How wrong I was. Now, you find many discs in the $18 range. So I figure that the new formats will remain more expensive than CDs. After all, there are helicopter payments that have to be made.
What I simply can't fathom is how the music industry can be so blind to all the hostility they're generating. I mean, people hate these companies, at least the people I talk to do. And these aren't folks who ever used Napster, so they aren't angry about that specifically. They see these companies and the people who run them as greedy, arrogant, and out to screw everyone they deal with in any way they can. Can the people who run them not see that this environment is generating piracy? The only alternative I can think of is that they know perfectly well that people hate them, but they're taking a scorched-earth attitude, figuring they can steamroll over their critics and absorb all the damage. If that's the case, I'll patiently await the day when they file for bankruptcy.
This last part is a bit off-topic, but speaking of enhanced CDs, I have Enya's original disc, Watermark, and I recall it having a sticker on it that said it contained images that could be viewed with a CD+G player. I assume this was a short-lived format, but I'd be curious to know if there's any software out there that can read this disc and display the images. I did a search at one point, but I didn't find anything. Just curious.
Copy-protected CDs are, IMO, only a stopgap measure until DVD-Audio and Super Audio CD get into the market in a big way. These formats are, by their nature, copy-protected, so digital copying will be more difficult than with CDs. As for electronics makers suing over copy-protection, the ones affiliated with the media companies certainly won't, for obvious reasons. The others would only do so if this bacame a major problem, and if it were that big of a deal, the record companies would already be rethinking their strategy. These people may be greedy, soulless bastards, but they aren't stupid. Music sales are already in a slump. They seem to be blaming the Internet, and they obviously want to dry up music swapping so they'll be able to market MusicNet and Pressplay, but if this thing turns into something that really shakes people's confidence in their product, the record companies will have a major problem on their hands. They can argue that the emerging formats are superior, and audibly, they are, but will people be willing to pay $22.95 for them, which is the current price at Best Buy? I've bought some DVD-Audio discs, but the price is going to have to come down before I buy more.
Whatever analogy you use, the problem is that creating a product that can be used for an unlawful activity is not the same as using it for that activity. And if this software was illegal to use here, why was it sold here? Had its sale been legally barred? And the fact remains that writing such software, AFAIK, is not illegal in Russia. But getting back to the analogy, if this prosecution is completely on the up-and-up, then why is it legal to sell any of the following:
Guns: They're used to do all manner of illegal things, such as shoot people, rob banks, hunt animals out of season, and threaten people in a general way.Alcohol: People who drink tend to get drunk. This leads to all kinds of illegal activities, such as driving while intoxicated, speeding, driving recklessly, getting into bar fights, andassaulting one's spouse.
CD burners: Yep, CD burners. I know they can be used to make backups and all manner of other totally legal things, but we all know that they can crank out perfect copies of commercial music and software faster than Bill Gates can bribe the Dept. of Justice.
My point is this. Everything out there can be used to perform both legal and illegal activities. And yes, the software in question is perfectly capable of doing so. If I want to decode an e-book in my own home and use it as such in my own home, that's my fair use right, and this software allows me to exercise that right.
And just to touch on DVDs for a moment, since I know t's not far from this discussion. As a purchaser of DVDs, I have never agreed that I will not play them on, say, Linux. The only thing that I am prohibited from doing is showing them in a commercial setting or selling copies. If I can hack a toaster to play them, that's my business, and if someone tells me how to hack my toaster to do so, that's also my business, as long as I don't do anything illegal with the toaster's output.
I doubt it would happen that way. Chances are, the "virus" wouldn't be self-replicating, at least the government's version wouldn't. If it were, there'd be no effective way to control it. So, if the only people who are sent this thing are people the feds want to bug, the AV companies most likely wouldn't see it.
However, all this goes out the window if someone gets hold of this thing somehow and modifies it. They could do several things. First, they could attempt to decompile it and then post the source for all to see. If they wanted to get more, um, creative, they could modify it so it becomes a truly self-replicating virus. Not only would this turn the thing loose on the Net at large, it'd also have the possible effect of taking out whatever computer the original virus was supposed to "phone home" to. How long could a machine set up to handle data from several thousand of these things last when it's getting bombarded with data from a few million? Finally, there's the possibility that it could be modified to seek out and attack computers owned by the government. Once it got in, it would sit there and spy on whoever was using that machine. Results could be sent anywhere. Protecting all those government computers would be a massive undertaking. Even if the feds had custom software to do it, distributing it in any meaningful way to locations around the country would almost guarantee that it'd leak out within a few days. But the truth is that federal computers are running the same software that everyone else is, and the people using them can be just as easily deceived as the average home user. All it'll take is for one programmer with talent, a chip on his shoulder, a good deal of free time, and access to the right tools to decide to fight code with code. If he gets hold of the feds' virus, he could use that. If not, well, he'd most likely roll his own.
This is a superbly stupid idea the feds are pursuing. If they write crappy code, only the truly moronic will allow this to get installed. If they write a really sophisticated piece of software, they could very well end up creating a monster that will turn around and bite them in the ass.
And let's not forget the veiled threats the RIAA made if the SDMI's flaws were presented in public. Add to that the aborted prosecution of Phil Zimmerman a few years ago. Oh yeah, and Dmitri, as I recall, wrote his software in Russia, not the U.S. He just had the bad luck to be visiting this country when he was arrested. That would be like being arrested in a foreign country while you're on vacation for having written a book in the United States that was illegal in the country you were vacationing in.
And I don't think I've ever seen any strong opinion of any kind expressed on CNN. Bruce Morton sometimes has pieces that approach something that might resemble an editorial, but he always stops short of taking a position. I always get the feeling that he wants to, but he never does. I wonder if management forbids him from doing so. Wouldn't surprise me. I long for the days when we at least had John Chancellor doing his commentary on NBC. It wasn't much, but it was better than the bland crap people are getting these days. Thank God we have sites like Slashdot. Even if I don't agree with all the posters here, at least I know that most of them are using their brains. If there is any time we need more of that, it's now. We don't have to agree all the time, or even most of the time. It's the debates that matter, and a willingness to listen to alternative viewpoints and to be open to the possibility that those with opposing views have valid points and something constructive to say.
Illegal practices may have had something to do with it, but Netscape 4.0, 4.01, and 4.02 blew chunks, and they happened to blow chunks at just about the same time that IE 4 was coming out. I liked Netscape, really, and I hated IE, after having tried each new release of it. Hell, I even have one of the IE 3 t-shirts that MS sent out on the night of the release, but I still disliked the browser enough to uninstall it within a week. Point being, as the Netscape 4 bugs were eating me alive, along came IE 4, so I switched. And it didn't help that AOL soon bought Netscape and almost single-handedly destroyed it. People waited years for a new release of the browser, and when 6 came along, it sucked. Yeah, MS may have cut some legal corners, but Netscape was its own worst enemy.
If this guy has sucked up so many domains, he's probably pissed off some folks along the way. Perhaps you should attempt to locate some of them and concentrate on filing coordinated UDRP complaints against him. In many of the judgements I've read about, the defendant loses because he doesn't bother replying.
Um, and it might help if folks don't visit this site anymore. My guess is that this guy is getting paid per ad view, so the more hits he gets, the more money he makes. Would one of the admins consider updating the original post to point this out to folks just finding this thread?
...is that they aren't widely available. It's the same with traditional DSL. There is a certain percentage of people who want it, but they're scattered over the whole country, many in small towns and rural areas. The buildout costs are high enough that it's expensive to reach these people, but without a sufficient subscriber base, your service will fail. I've dealt with people in areas where getting anything over 33.6 kbps is damn near impossible. For them, ISDN is still high-speed access, and many can't even get that. Satellite? Yeah, it's there, but it's still too costly, and the latency is a huge drawback. Cable? Yeah, when it works, and assuming you have a local staff competent enough to maintain it properly. Wireless? Possibly, but the cost of the radios is way too high for consumers.
There's been talk here about public-access 802.11b networks in cities. That's fine, but small towns could benefit more, assuming you could find a way to get the data out to the Net affordably. These people may not see broadband for a long time unless someone gets really creative.
And as for ION, I would have gotten it if it was available, and I know other folks who would have as well. Perhaps they just couldn't afford to have expanded the service, but expanding into new areas is the only way to succeed. And where was their marketing? I haven't seen an ION ad in years.
Not to jump into a huge debate here, but any expansion of what is defined as terrorism has nothing to do with ex post facto laws, unless it is specifically applied to acts committed before such a law was passed. Removing a statute of limitations might, but once again, is it retroactively removing them or only for acts committed from that point on?
As for Supreme Court justices, they almost always take great pains to never discuss an issue that may reach them. It would be unwise to take their silence as an indication of how they'd rule. The only time you'll get a clue is during arguments before them, and even then you can never tell for sure. In any case, Congress can pass any bad laws it wants, as it often does, and the courts have to sort things out, as they will in this case, as they have in many others.
Yeah, but do you speak Icelandic? Tough language. And the more tech savvy the country is, the better they'll be at seeing through the BS and fixing the problem themselves. Oh well, it still might be worth emigrating there.
No, I think a better solution is to hack the U.S. media and give people some useful information for a change. You know, pirate radio and TV broadcasts, with content passed around the Net. Companies have figured out ways to make cell phones out of paper, why not radio transmitters and receivers? OK, it ain't quite that easy, but... Actually, if you broadcast on the 2.4 GHz band, you wouldn't even need a license, but then no one could hear you. Anyone know how to build a cheap 2.4 GHz receiver for digitized audio?
OK, OK, enough of the B.S. The theme here in this thread seems to be the fact that geeks and other people with more than two or three brain cells to rub together don't get any representation. We can argue all day about the reasons for that, but it seems to come down to a lack of organization. One thing that might help, if you want to borrow a page from old media, is Internet-based talk radio. One of the things that exemplifies the power of the media is the talk show. If you're a conservative, who do you listen to? The person that comes to mind is Rush Limbaugh. Even if you aren't a conservative, you know who he is, and you can't ignore him completely. Why? Because he's interesting and entertaining. And even in his interviews, he's always said that he is an entertainer first and foremost, and he understands very well that, if you want people to pay attention to you, you have to make them want to listen to you. Now, think about the Internet. A great many of the intellectuals in this country and the world are on it, and so are a great many of the less-enlightened among us. No one here has to convince anyone else here about the grave situation we're in as a nation--we all know, and we're more or less on the same page as to what we think about it. So who do you have to convince? The rest of the population. And since many of these people are online, you can reach them. However, they aren't going to come to places like /. to get educated. Hell, of all the people I know, many of whom are computer geeks, only a few come here, and none post, at least that I know of. So, again, how to you reach these people? Take the message to them using a medium they understand: radio. You've got the Internet, you've got streaming services like SHOUTcast, Live365, Icecast, etc., you've got a variety of players that can decode the audio streams. All you need is interesting and entertaining content. Anyone care to be the Rush Limbaugh of the geek community? Just think, if you succeed, you'll have a cult following who'll bring you pizza and Jolt Cola on command, you'll have groupies throwing themselves at you wherever you go, you'll have photo ops all over the country, and, oh yeah, you might change some minds in the process. And since it's radio, you can wear a pocket protector, and no one would be the wiser.
...and speaking of things that have got to go, what about that damn black bar on TNN? Who's the genius that cooked that up? I'd actually like that channel if that thing weren't there, especially since TNG looks better than it has in years, but I just can't stomach that bar, cutting off the bottom of the picture.
And to lump a totally unrelated topic into this post, did anyone catch the season premiere of Andromeda last weekend? I think my local station accidentally ran it a week early. I really want to like that show (as someone here said once, it's all about the ladies, and yes, it is), and I keep waiting for it to improve, but it never seems to get better. Too many implausible plot twists to keep the story on the right track. If you saw the season opener, you'll recall a huge one, but I won't post that big of a spoiler.
It's like they're trying to drag in a younger audience by making the show's theme song sound like one of those WB Teeny Bopper shows (Dawson's Creek and the like).
That's exactly what I was thinking when I saw the opening. Not that I think it's that bad of a song, but for Star Trek, it just doesn't fit at all, and it has to go.
Which leads me to wonder who Paramount is after as far as viewers. I suppose that UPN and The WB are geared toward "Generation X" or whatever the marketing idiots have dubbed the generation after that (Gen Y?). But of all the people I know, I can't think of one who watches these networks on a regular basis, except for those who tune to UPN for Star Trek. Most of the programming seems...dumb. Or am I just over the hill at 31 and too old to "get it"? That must be it, since I find much more interesting stuff on TV Land.
It's off if I yank the damn battery out! :)
I agree that this can be a pain, but the alternative--requiring anyone connected to the Net to pass all traffic--would be worse. Doing this would effectively outlaw:
Turning ISPs into common carriers is a scary thing. Customers get disconnected for all kinds of reasons, and allowing the government to step in and make the rules is, IMHO, a bad idea. Now, if you have a monopoly situation created by statute or regulatory policy, there may be some room for consideration, but otherwise, providers should be free to do what they want. If enough people walk, their policies will change.
Not really. It's been known to happen that spammers will list someone else's number or e-mail in their domain registration, usually someone who's reported them in the past.
You're funny. Too bad you have no idea how blacklists work. But I'll explain it to you.
You claim it should be illegal for a third party to block traffic from one domain to another. I assume you're referring to the blacklists. FYI, the blacklists aren't doing any blocking. None whatsoever. Individual ISPs do the blocking. When a message arrives at their incoming mail server, the server checks the blacklist to see if the connecting machine is on it. If it is, the ISP's mail server rejects the message. If not, the mail goes through. The ISP can use a blacklist like MAPS, SPEWS, etc., they can create their own, they can do both, or they can use no blacklist at all. It's their choice. If your ISP uses a blacklist, and you don't want that, get another ISP. If you can't find one that you like, set up your own. Can't afford that? Can't find a backbone that will let you do what you please with your connection to them? Too bad. There is no right to connectivity. And that little point, my friend, is what makes the blacklists so cool. No one has a right to guaranteed delivery of their mail. If you want a network where no one can block anything, build your own. Just don't expect anyone else to want to connect to it.
But to get back to your claim that third-party blocking should be illegal, if I own a network segment that traffic passes through, I can let it pass or block it. It's my part of the network, not yours. If you don't like that, find another route for your data packets to take. Just don't expect to be treated differently by anyone else.
Who gets to decide what's spam and who gets blocked? For me, I do. If I don't like what someone on the network is doing, who they're hosting, what color their hair is, or anything else, I can blacklist them. If they value having connectivity to my little corner of the network, then they can change whatever it is I don't like. If they don't care that I'm blocking them, they're free to go on doing whatever they want, and they'll never get off my blacklist. You can call it blackmail all you want, but there ain't a thing you can do about it. There is no right to connectivity. If you don't like that, tough. Build your own network, and you can do whatever you want. Just don't piss in my pool and expect me not to do something.
I agree with you completely on the age issue. If someone is going to put a computer on the Internet, it is incombent upon them to know something about how that computer and the Internet work. They don't have to have a technician's level of knowledge, but they do need to know enough to keep their machine working properly and to fix simple problems.
In many cases, the elderly person didn't get on the Net themselves; a younger person, often a son, daughter, grandson, or granddaughter, got them online. In that case, the person who set things up bears the responsibility of keeping things running smoothly, at least for a time. I can recall an incident at work where an elderly lady called a co-worker of mine with technical problems. Not only had she reached the wrong department, but in talking with her, he found that she thought that we were responsible for turning her computer on and off for her. She didn't have a clue that there was a button that she needed to push to turn it on. She explained that her kids had gotten the computer for her and set up an Internet account, but she said they never showed her how to use it. If anyone thinks this is uncommon, they should go to work for an ISP's tech support department for a week or two. Point is, whoever convinced these folks they need to be online needs to follow through with the proper training and support.
And I agree completely with the ISPs who are booting infected users. These computers are actively looking for other machines to infect, and they're degrading service for everyone else. As soon as the users patch their computers, they can get back online. As for losing connectivity before they can get the patch, well, they'll learn a little resourcefulness, and they'll learn not to put these things off next time. And if they can't or won't patch, then they don't need to be online in the first place.
I would like to respond to this.
First, are you sure your sister saw what she thinks she saw? And even if she did, then that gives us no right to stereotype a group of people based on the actions of a few individuals. The only thing stereotyping does is make it easier for us to hate, and hating makes it easier for us to kill. We must respond decisively to this act of unmitigated evil, but we must respond intelligently and not follow these madmen down the road to blind hatred and barbarism.
Yes! Agreed 100%!
I'm going to be writing my congressmen and senators, and I'm also going to attempt to give the good Sen. Hollings a clue. It may be a futile effort to try to educate him, but it's worth a shot.
If you write your reps, remember to do a few things.
Doing a few other things will also help.
And for anyone who is going to respond saying that nothing will help... If you take your own advice and do nothing, you'll prove yourself absolutely right. Take the time you were going to spend bemoaning this monstrosity here and use it to do something that will matter.
It wouldn't matter how you built the computer. The technology would be included in the core components. You wouldn't even be able to get clean components legally in the U.S.
True, but it comes down to what's reasonable and what isn't. For example, murder is illegal, no matter where it's committed, and one could argue that it's the worst form of crime out there, but, as bad as it is, the police can't search your house just to make sure you haven't killed anyone there recently.
The problem with this technology is that it represents a warrantless search of every driver of every car equipped with it, whether they're drunk or not. Remember, you're still scanned, even if you come up sober. It's true that the police don't need a warrant to stop a drunk driver, but we expect that a certain level of probable cause, such as weaving or some other form of behavior that indicates intoxication, will be used. With this system, you're searched no matter what, and if you're thought to be drunk, the police are alerted. Essentially, the police get the power to search everyone, without any form of probable cause. And who's accountable when the thing screws up? The police? They'll argue that they were just responding to the signal? The automaker? Where does the buck stop?
And I think there are two other problems people have with this. First, is it desirable for law enforcement to be too efficient at stopping crime? Suppose that I told you that anything illegal that you might do, no matter what is is, where it is, or who is around, will be immediately noted by the police, and you would have to account for it. Even without changing one law, society has just become a lot less free, at least it will be perceived that way. For an interesting take on this, watch a movie called "The Monitors", assuming you can find a copy. It's a black comedy about aliens who take over Earth. They're benevolent and try to keep people honest, stamp out crime, etc., but humans find their infulence stifling and rebel.
Second, with this scheme in particular, we're looking at something that could be done with no public input at all. Does our society really want this? Do we approve of it? The automakers are not required to even ask those questions before implementing such a system. And once it's out there, it's much easier from a public policy standpoint for the police to buy their radio receivers and start listening. Essentially, this makes an end run around any form of public debate of the issue, and that's troubling.
I wonder if this would be a Fourth Amendment violation (unreasonable search). Essentially, your car would be bugged without a warrant. One could argue that this is different because the police didn't plant the bug, but they did listen in. If that's legal, then would it not also be legal for the police to use your cell phone and cordless phone communications against you, so long as they could grab the signal out of the air and decrypt it, if necessary, without a warrant? Would searches like this not fall under the Supreme Court's recent ruling involving the police using sensors to look inside people's houses for heat sources related to drugs?
If this scheme did go forward, and we must remember that this is just something that a university is playing around with, I can't wait to see the lawsuits fly when the sensor either malfunctions or it activates because a passenger and not the driver is drunk. It'll also be interesting to see what would happen if someone gets prosecuted for disabling the system. If they're prosecuted, then that means the system would be required by law, which would mean that the police would then be allowed to conduct warrantless searches on everyone with a car with no probable cause (remember, the sensor is doing the search). If the prosecution fails, then you'd probably see lots of people disabling it. But what would happen if the automakers rigged things so the car wouldn't run without the system being active? Could they set things up so the system would provide an encrypted message to the starter so it will work, then sue anyone who circumvented it under the DMCA's anti-circumvention provisions? And no, I'm not making a joke here.
I missed the callsign in his sig.
But thank you so very much for being so polite when pointing out my error. I mean, not all of us are as perfect as you are, but we somehow manage to muddle through.