She's an Capricorn, a natural blond with a GSOH, and her turns ons include long moonlit walks, back rubs, and putting the fear of god into arrogant, power abusing men.
Single reply to the 4 AC replies and two moderators that completely missed the point of my post.
Are comprehension skills dropping sharply here? Note that I worried that this piece might not be satire. I didn't say that it wasn't, but it could be serious. People do think like this. Just because you don't doesn't mean nobody does.
Note further that I interpreted this as satire, but I worried that others might not. And, gosh, fifteen respondants treated this as a serious piece, which rather makes my fucking point.
Perhaps you could bear that in mind the next time that you find a piece of speculation challenging your cosy anonymous assumption that everybody thinks exactly like you and that there are no morons in the world.
Now you see, this is why we shouldn't have AC posting here. Because without previous context, I simply cannot tell if this is scarily serious or slyly satirical.
It could - really - have been written with either intent. I really hope that it's satire, because if so, it's one of the best pieces of insightful, knife edge balanced thought provoking pieces that I've ever read, and I (tentatively) applaud it.
But if it's serious, and more, if it's widely interpreted as such and applauded for that - well, god help us all.
M$ releases another revised EULA buried in some 'upgrade' which states that they now have legal rights to anything created using their OS and/or product line.
Unthinkable... until we recall that they tried to sneak a clause into Frontpage that prevented us producing anti-Microsoft content with it.
So no, I don't believe that's unthinkable in the long term. But they'll work on cutting us off from our own content first.
It's that because RC1 discs come out first, and are cheap, and have the most features, then they get bought by people outside RC1.
Why is that bad?
Because it artificially inflates the RC1 sales figures, which makes RC1 look even more important to the distributors, which makes them focus on it and keep pumping the cheap, early, heavily featured discs into it, while screaming that they have to protect markets ("won't somebody think of the artists
Don't get me wrong, my UK based DVD player is pretty much set on region 1 (rather than 0, because of RCE) and most of my DVD collection is RC1, so I'm contributing to this. I'm just aware of it, and I hate that I'm helping to make it worse for everyone in future.:(
How can you have a documentary that documents something that didn't happen? I've already read and seen this. It's called "science fiction". It's not new. Can you explain what makes this piece of science fiction more worthy of interest than any other?
when they find them, instead of telling the owners of said networks about the problem, they covertly mark the information down so that others can use that network illegally.
Nice troll. There's nothing "covert" about it. That's the whole point. You are informing the network owner the same way that you are informing everybody else. If they choose to ignore your chalk, or they're too clueless to know what it means, then they weren't going to pay any attention to your attempts to tell them directly that they've got a problem.
And that's not from speculation, that's from experience. My own employer's IT department wouldn't even listen to me (trusted peon) when I told them directly that their network was insecure. "What's the big deal?" was the gist of their response. So I warchalked it, and when management started asking what the "big butterfly thing" was outside the building, the network (as if by magic) got locked down.
Warchalking - like any tool - can be used for good and bad purposes. But don't blame the tool, and don't make assumptions about the intentions of the toolmaker.
They will only do this after they've been 0wN3d. As per usual.
Specifically, they will do it after it's been publically disclosed that they've been 0wN3d. Then they'll sic the MiBs on the white hat that told them they'd been owned. As per usual.
I mean, that's pretty much a cameo. It's not as though there's never been one shoehorned into a Trek film for any other actor before, right?
Was this decision taken by someone who actually gives a damn about what Trek fans want, who understands that we love to be thrown a little treat every so often? Or was it taken by a self important accountant-slash-IP-lawyer wearing a straggly pony tail and trying to pass himself off as one of the creative crew?
It's not as though they couldn't read the script and do some basic storyboarding to work out how long the thing was going to be. Harsh, harsh cut.
A method and system for interactively responding to queries from a remotely located user includes a computer server system configured to receiving an instant message query or request from the user over the Internet. The query or request is interpreted and appropriate action is taken, such as accessing a local or remote data resource and formulating an answer to the user's query. The answer is formatted as appropriate and returned to the user as an instant message or via another route specified by the user. A method and system of providing authenticated access to a given web page via instant messaging is also disclosed.
ftp ftp.foo.com
USER jimbob
PASS bobjim
GET default.html
Funnily enough, I can think of several types of "interactively responding" servers that respond to queries from a "remotely located user" then access a "remote or local data source" and "answer" with a web page if the "message" is "authenticated".
The only part of this farcical patent that is even remotely distinctive is that it refers to "instant message", but without going to the pesky bother of defining what that means.
With any luck, AOL will send a goon squad round to break their arrogant little venture capital funded kneecaps and we'll never hear from these parasitic scum ever again.
CONGRESS--and by extension, the government--cannot abridge your freedom of speech, aside from military or criminal reasons. And for a lot of things, not even then.
Shall we actually read the 1st Amendment?
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
What part of this says "Congress shall make no law allowing the government to abridg the freedom of speech"?
Could Congress make a law that allows me (me, not them) to beat the tar out of you because you're a Christian?
Then why is it acceptable for them to pass a law that lets Microsoft exercise prior restraint on someone pointing out how dumb they are?
This is quite apart from the issue that the DMCA contains criminal penalties. Ask Dmitri Sklyarov about the significance of that, if you're in any doubt.
Interesting point, but how would it work in practice? Remember what Matt Groening said about Fox and Futurama? That they wanted something exactly like The Simpsons, but completely new and different.
Would it be any different if they asked me and thee? I'd ask for proper hard core porn, a 24/7 Buffyverse channel, and serious history shows that don't fudge or feature glaring anachronisms. The first they can discount because of the damn moral majority, the second they already know from the Nielsons, and the third is so special interest that it's simply not worth their while (how many people really care that much about sword pommels?).
But it gets worse. Bear in mind that Slashdot posters represent the marketeers worst enemy, the informed consumer. Why should they even care what you or I think? They'd be better off asking Joe Sixpack over there. Want to bet what Joe wants? Joe wants more wrasslin', and his wife Josetta wants more Oprah.
Let's not be too hasty to ask what type of programming would be the most popular, because chances are that wouldn't lead to more shows that you and I would want to watch.
"A hacker should contact the software maker first, he said, then go to the government if the software maker does not respond soon."
Umm, really? To whom in the government? The Department of Fixing Stuff? The FBI? The FTC? The DoJ? Gosh, that'll keep (e.g.) Microsoft on their toes. Bwahahahaha!
Precedent would suggest that a more likely result will be the jailing of the hacker, and the awarding of a fat contract to the vendor.
Thanks all the same, but this is just some guy in a suit. When it's written up in law by Congress, signed by G.W.Bush, and delivered to the Library of Congress by flying pig courier, I might change my mind.
It's not that hard. The link in the story is to the explanatory notes. The actual bill is here.
On a topical note, all the griping about "Why shouldn't I be allowed to..." is just slippery slope hysterics.
If you actually want to build a 'phone from components, then you can do whatever the hell you like with it, because you're the "manufacturer". However, if you want to buy a 'phone and then screw around with the identifier on it, you're doing something no different from changing the VIN number on a car. There's only one reason why you'd have to do that: to enable fraud. You can argue "But I own it and I just wanna", but in both cases that's simply an argument that principles are always more important than pragmatics and that nothing should be illegal if there's no direct, immediate victim. The law has to strike a balance between freedom and the probability that an act has a criminal purpose. In this case, it's overwhelmingly likely that an actual crime with an actual victim is involved.
The point of this bill is to enable prosecution of workshops set up to change IMEI's on stolen 'phones. It's a real problem, and it's part of a crime with a real victim, usually on the receiving end of violence. There's actually a very reasonable clause in here that protects equipment that merely could be used to change an IMEI: "The clause makes it clear that the offences are committed only if the person intends to use the equipment or allow it to be used for the purposes of making an unauthorised change to the IMEI number, or knows that the person to whom he supplies it or offers to supply it intends to use it or allow it to be used for that purpose." The prosecution has to show intent, so don't throw a hissy fit just because you've built an IMEI programmer for your self built IMEI 'phone. Not that anyone here has or intends to build such a 'phone.
Still not seeing it? Consider your next car purchase. You inspect the car, note the VIN number, do an HPI check, and it looks clean. Two weeks later, the police turn up and tell you that you're driving a stolen car and you have to return it to the rightful owner. You're completely out of pocket. This happens all the time. Now, how would you feel if you found that the garage that sold you the car had modified the VIN number and documentation, and that this wasn't illegal? And that it wasn't illegal because of the high principled argument that once they'd bought the car, they could do anything they damn well liked to it? Would you be pissed off? I think so. So, do you think that should it be legal to modify VIN numbers? If not, why should it be legal to modify IMEI numbers?
This is a balanced, reasonable, useful bill, and all the shrieking and Chicken Littling doesn't make it otherwise.
So, it was introduced, caught and demonstrably fixed in under 24 hours, with full disclosure and openness at every step. Excuse me if I see no cause for panic.
And can anyone explain how this is even in the same ballpark as the "w3 0wnz j00r b0xen" EULA's, 'phone home's and brazenly trojan updates that Microsoft are inflicting on their customers?
Did nobody else here learn critical analysis or reasoning?
Today, due process is a lot harder to pursue, and the burden of proof increasingly is on those accused of copyright infringement. For the copyright act, in essence, makes the owner of every Internet service provider, content host, and search engine an untrained copyright cop. The default action is censorship.
There are three mostly separate ideas in that short paragraph.
That due process is "harder to pursue". Unsubstantiated. Following due process means actually taking your case to court. Publishers can do that. Most choose not to. There has been no erosion of due process. In fact, there has been a clarification of what due process is with regard to copyright.
The burden of proof is "increasingly is on those accused of copyright infringement". Why? The DMCA gives a mechanism that obviates the need for proof by either side. It does not assume guilt. In fact, it provides a well defined way for publishers (including self publishers) to robustly assert their innocence prior to entering legal wrangling. If they choose to do that, then they can follow due process. Most choose not to.
"The default action is censorship". True, but unrelated to the other two points. It forms no part of this paragraph or of a consistent argument. There's nothing in the DMCA that says "You must take down the contested material", only "If you choose not to take it down, you will be liable". The reason that the default action is censorship has nothing to do with due process or a change in the burden of proof, it has to do with a change in the burden of liability, a clarification of the process, and a choice to not defend publication.
You'll notice that I'm heavy on choice here, because that's the issue as I see it. Abuse of the DMCA could be stopped in its tracks right now if publishers chose to fight it. But most don't. They pay a lawyer money to tell them that they will have to pay lawyers lots more money to fight it, and then they cave in. Bad choice. If you believe that the DMCA is wrong then you don't need a lawyer to tell you that, or how much money he'll have to charge you to fight it. If you really believe in fair use, then you can choose to defend yourself (and the court will make allowances for that) and stick to your argument that you made fair use, and that it's up to your accusers to prove otherwise. There's nothing in the DMCA that changed the burden of proof in this regard.
I fully agree with Vaidhyanathan's sentiments, but his arguments are wooly and slipshod. C-. Could try harder.
Any chance this will backfire? I mean, any time you see an attractive (i.e. living) woman using one of these things in the next six months, you're going to ask them if they're a whore, right?
And if you do buy one, do you want people coming up to you every thirty seconds demanding to try it out?
2 women (supposedly gorgeous) playing battleships in a bar... Riiight. EricSony marketoids needs to get out more.
Heck, knowing this might make me get out more, to try and find some. They're getting paid to talk to me, right? This could do wonders for the bar industry.
"My god! XP retail is only $200, and look at all the things that aren't included that I can buy! It's only $400 for a copy of Office XP! How on earth can they make such a valuable product so cheaply? At these low, low prices, I can afford to buy another copy of everything for my laptop!"
Still, I guess that tells us what sort of people actually buy Microsoft at retail. Those with poor arithmetic skills, and the easily influenced. Poor saps.
Slashdot Mirror
She's an Capricorn, a natural blond with a GSOH, and her turns ons include long moonlit walks, back rubs, and putting the fear of god into arrogant, power abusing men.
Single reply to the 4 AC replies and two moderators that completely missed the point of my post.
Are comprehension skills dropping sharply here? Note that I worried that this piece might not be satire. I didn't say that it wasn't, but it could be serious. People do think like this. Just because you don't doesn't mean nobody does.
Note further that I interpreted this as satire, but I worried that others might not. And, gosh, fifteen respondants treated this as a serious piece, which rather makes my fucking point .
Perhaps you could bear that in mind the next time that you find a piece of speculation challenging your cosy anonymous assumption that everybody thinks exactly like you and that there are no morons in the world.
Now you see, this is why we shouldn't have AC posting here. Because without previous context, I simply cannot tell if this is scarily serious or slyly satirical.
It could - really - have been written with either intent. I really hope that it's satire, because if so, it's one of the best pieces of insightful, knife edge balanced thought provoking pieces that I've ever read, and I (tentatively) applaud it.
But if it's serious, and more, if it's widely interpreted as such and applauded for that - well, god help us all.
Unthinkable... until we recall that they tried to sneak a clause into Frontpage that prevented us producing anti-Microsoft content with it.
So no, I don't believe that's unthinkable in the long term. But they'll work on cutting us off from our own content first.
Have a look at how The Register ISP doesn't let you link to some stories on The Register.
In answer to the mealy mouthed reply from The Register that they won't enforce that policy, I can only say: then don't have that policy.
For those that don't know, this is an actual technobabble ex machina from Dr Who. Yes, the show that was conceived as "educational". ;-)
It's that because RC1 discs come out first, and are cheap, and have the most features, then they get bought by people outside RC1.
Why is that bad?
Because it artificially inflates the RC1 sales figures, which makes RC1 look even more important to the distributors, which makes them focus on it and keep pumping the cheap, early, heavily featured discs into it, while screaming that they have to protect markets ("won't somebody think of the artists
Don't get me wrong, my UK based DVD player is pretty much set on region 1 (rather than 0, because of RCE) and most of my DVD collection is RC1, so I'm contributing to this. I'm just aware of it, and I hate that I'm helping to make it worse for everyone in future. :(
How can you have a documentary that documents something that didn't happen? I've already read and seen this. It's called "science fiction". It's not new. Can you explain what makes this piece of science fiction more worthy of interest than any other?
Nice troll. There's nothing "covert" about it. That's the whole point. You are informing the network owner the same way that you are informing everybody else. If they choose to ignore your chalk, or they're too clueless to know what it means, then they weren't going to pay any attention to your attempts to tell them directly that they've got a problem.
And that's not from speculation, that's from experience. My own employer's IT department wouldn't even listen to me (trusted peon) when I told them directly that their network was insecure. "What's the big deal?" was the gist of their response. So I warchalked it, and when management started asking what the "big butterfly thing" was outside the building, the network (as if by magic) got locked down.
Warchalking - like any tool - can be used for good and bad purposes. But don't blame the tool, and don't make assumptions about the intentions of the toolmaker.
Specifically, they will do it after it's been publically disclosed that they've been 0wN3d. Then they'll sic the MiBs on the white hat that told them they'd been owned. As per usual.
The last time I linked to the Aluminum Foil Deflector Beanie. Well, who's laughing now? ;-)
He had one scene. They cut it.
I mean, that's pretty much a cameo. It's not as though there's never been one shoehorned into a Trek film for any other actor before, right?
Was this decision taken by someone who actually gives a damn about what Trek fans want, who understands that we love to be thrown a little treat every so often? Or was it taken by a self important accountant-slash-IP-lawyer wearing a straggly pony tail and trying to pass himself off as one of the creative crew?
It's not as though they couldn't read the script and do some basic storyboarding to work out how long the thing was going to be. Harsh, harsh cut.
Uh, yes. I really feel for the guy, but I kept thinking "Existential angst and epiphanies later, but keep your eyes on the road now."
But hey, no worries. It always happens to some other bozo, right?
Funnily enough, I can think of several types of "interactively responding" servers that respond to queries from a "remotely located user" then access a "remote or local data source" and "answer" with a web page if the "message" is "authenticated".
The only part of this farcical patent that is even remotely distinctive is that it refers to "instant message", but without going to the pesky bother of defining what that means.
With any luck, AOL will send a goon squad round to break their arrogant little venture capital funded kneecaps and we'll never hear from these parasitic scum ever again.
Shall we actually read the 1st Amendment?
What part of this says "Congress shall make no law allowing the government to abridg the freedom of speech"?
Could Congress make a law that allows me (me, not them) to beat the tar out of you because you're a Christian?
Then why is it acceptable for them to pass a law that lets Microsoft exercise prior restraint on someone pointing out how dumb they are?
This is quite apart from the issue that the DMCA contains criminal penalties. Ask Dmitri Sklyarov about the significance of that, if you're in any doubt.
Care to take another swing at it?
Interesting point, but how would it work in practice? Remember what Matt Groening said about Fox and Futurama? That they wanted something exactly like The Simpsons, but completely new and different.
Would it be any different if they asked me and thee? I'd ask for proper hard core porn, a 24/7 Buffyverse channel, and serious history shows that don't fudge or feature glaring anachronisms. The first they can discount because of the damn moral majority, the second they already know from the Nielsons, and the third is so special interest that it's simply not worth their while (how many people really care that much about sword pommels?).
But it gets worse. Bear in mind that Slashdot posters represent the marketeers worst enemy, the informed consumer. Why should they even care what you or I think? They'd be better off asking Joe Sixpack over there. Want to bet what Joe wants? Joe wants more wrasslin', and his wife Josetta wants more Oprah.
Let's not be too hasty to ask what type of programming would be the most popular, because chances are that wouldn't lead to more shows that you and I would want to watch.
Is that if you punch someone repeatedly in the kidneys for long enough, then it'll seem like heaven when you switch to just jabbing them in the ribs.
Since when did sucking less equate to being actually good?
Perhaps we could resurrect the House Unamerican Activities Committee.
"Are you, or have you ever been, a member of the mind control cult known as 'The Free Software Foundation'?"
A more interesting quote is in this CNN article.
Umm, really? To whom in the government? The Department of Fixing Stuff? The FBI? The FTC? The DoJ? Gosh, that'll keep (e.g.) Microsoft on their toes. Bwahahahaha!
Precedent would suggest that a more likely result will be the jailing of the hacker, and the awarding of a fat contract to the vendor.
Thanks all the same, but this is just some guy in a suit. When it's written up in law by Congress, signed by G.W.Bush, and delivered to the Library of Congress by flying pig courier, I might change my mind.
It's not that hard. The link in the story is to the explanatory notes. The actual bill is here.
On a topical note, all the griping about "Why shouldn't I be allowed to..." is just slippery slope hysterics.
If you actually want to build a 'phone from components, then you can do whatever the hell you like with it, because you're the "manufacturer". However, if you want to buy a 'phone and then screw around with the identifier on it, you're doing something no different from changing the VIN number on a car. There's only one reason why you'd have to do that: to enable fraud. You can argue "But I own it and I just wanna", but in both cases that's simply an argument that principles are always more important than pragmatics and that nothing should be illegal if there's no direct, immediate victim. The law has to strike a balance between freedom and the probability that an act has a criminal purpose. In this case, it's overwhelmingly likely that an actual crime with an actual victim is involved.
The point of this bill is to enable prosecution of workshops set up to change IMEI's on stolen 'phones. It's a real problem, and it's part of a crime with a real victim, usually on the receiving end of violence. There's actually a very reasonable clause in here that protects equipment that merely could be used to change an IMEI: "The clause makes it clear that the offences are committed only if the person intends to use the equipment or allow it to be used for the purposes of making an unauthorised change to the IMEI number, or knows that the person to whom he supplies it or offers to supply it intends to use it or allow it to be used for that purpose." The prosecution has to show intent, so don't throw a hissy fit just because you've built an IMEI programmer for your self built IMEI 'phone. Not that anyone here has or intends to build such a 'phone.
Still not seeing it? Consider your next car purchase. You inspect the car, note the VIN number, do an HPI check, and it looks clean. Two weeks later, the police turn up and tell you that you're driving a stolen car and you have to return it to the rightful owner. You're completely out of pocket. This happens all the time. Now, how would you feel if you found that the garage that sold you the car had modified the VIN number and documentation, and that this wasn't illegal? And that it wasn't illegal because of the high principled argument that once they'd bought the car, they could do anything they damn well liked to it? Would you be pissed off? I think so. So, do you think that should it be legal to modify VIN numbers? If not, why should it be legal to modify IMEI numbers?
This is a balanced, reasonable, useful bill, and all the shrieking and Chicken Littling doesn't make it otherwise.
So, it was introduced, caught and demonstrably fixed in under 24 hours, with full disclosure and openness at every step. Excuse me if I see no cause for panic.
And can anyone explain how this is even in the same ballpark as the "w3 0wnz j00r b0xen" EULA's, 'phone home's and brazenly trojan updates that Microsoft are inflicting on their customers?
Did nobody else here learn critical analysis or reasoning?
There are three mostly separate ideas in that short paragraph.
You'll notice that I'm heavy on choice here, because that's the issue as I see it. Abuse of the DMCA could be stopped in its tracks right now if publishers chose to fight it. But most don't. They pay a lawyer money to tell them that they will have to pay lawyers lots more money to fight it, and then they cave in. Bad choice. If you believe that the DMCA is wrong then you don't need a lawyer to tell you that, or how much money he'll have to charge you to fight it. If you really believe in fair use, then you can choose to defend yourself (and the court will make allowances for that) and stick to your argument that you made fair use, and that it's up to your accusers to prove otherwise. There's nothing in the DMCA that changed the burden of proof in this regard.
I fully agree with Vaidhyanathan's sentiments, but his arguments are wooly and slipshod. C-. Could try harder.
Any chance this will backfire? I mean, any time you see an attractive (i.e. living) woman using one of these things in the next six months, you're going to ask them if they're a whore, right?
And if you do buy one, do you want people coming up to you every thirty seconds demanding to try it out?
Heck, knowing this might make me get out more, to try and find some. They're getting paid to talk to me, right? This could do wonders for the bar industry.
Wow, what a great selling technique!
"My god! XP retail is only $200, and look at all the things that aren't included that I can buy! It's only $400 for a copy of Office XP! How on earth can they make such a valuable product so cheaply? At these low, low prices, I can afford to buy another copy of everything for my laptop!"
Still, I guess that tells us what sort of people actually buy Microsoft at retail. Those with poor arithmetic skills, and the easily influenced. Poor saps.