You can't communicate the same sense of irrelevance on TV that you can in a book
Do you mean irrelevance or irreverance? For those who haven't read it, the training regime in Forever War involves trainees responding to orders with "Fuck you, sir!" to promote independent thinking.;-)
I know, you do mean irrelevance, the whole futile Vietnam in Space feel. To be fair, "Space: Above and Beyond" had a good stab at that. It very nearly succeeded, but then it got canned after two series because the viewing figures were tanking. Complex morality plays don't generally go down well with Joe Sixpack. And right now, doing the story of a war based on a cultural misunderstanding might be particulary unpopular. It took a 20 year break for the Klingons to become the good guys, remember?
This is just cover for the real agenda: to convince people that they don't own what they just paid for, and must have the RIAA's permission to use it
Why would they need to convince us, when the real agenda is to strongarm the CBDTPA through (by showing that schemes like this are trivially breakable) and change the game forever?
In case you missed it, the CBDTPA recognises the digital-analog-digital weakness, and intends to address it. That means no more analog inputs or outputs. Yes, we're talking no more 3.5mm jacks, we're talking expensive digital microphones that are deliberately crippled so it's not even worth recording speaker-to-microphone. It's appalling, it's unthinkable, and it's coming to a democracy near you real soon now.:(
Despite what the lawyers want you to think, almost anything you do still has to pass a "reasonable person" test.
True, but bear in mind that if it comes to court, you have a civil case against them for damages, but they can ask what you were doing trying to circument a copy protection device, which (thanks to the DMCA) is a criminal offence. Nice piece of blackmail the gubmint's handed them there.
The answer, then, is to not buy OR listen to music from the RIAA
Uh, I thought you'd spotted the pattern after your first two excellent points. If RIAA member revenue drops off, that too will be used to strongarm the CBDTPA (not SSSCA, dammit) through, because how the hell are independent bands going to be able to demonstrate that the revenue has moved to them? As far as the RIAA / Congress / Senate / mainstream press would be concerned, the only story would be "RIAA revenues plummet! End of civilisation as we know it!" We're damned if we do, damned if we don't, and damned if we don't care.
How thick are the recording companies? What they don't realize is that instead of buying legal CDs and making "fair use" backups for their own use, people will now find it far more attractive to simply wait until someone else either rips the disk
Yes, it's very funny, until you realise that they need to demonstrate that they can't stop sharing, so that they can strongarm the CBDTPA through and change the rules. Don't you get it? These guys might be stone cold greedy motherfuckers, but that doesn't make them idiots.
This is a form of madness. They are creating demand for P2P networks and filesharing with this policy
Yes, and follow that through. These guys aren't idiots. The more they can demonstrate that Evil Hackers are ripping their stuff, damaging the economy and destabilising the Free World, the easier it gets to shove the CBDTPA through. When that happens, all bets are off.
What you were buying [on CD]
was not the right to listen to it, but the convenience of listening to it whenever and wherever you want
Uh, mistaken belief. You do buy the right to listen to it, and in a restricted way. For example, you can't listen to it where more than six people might hear it, because that's a public performance, which the license you bought doesn't cover. Neither does it allow you to make copies of any sort. Case law - not copyright law - has decided that courts will probably not convict you for breaching the license terms if you do this, but it's always going to be a defence, and not a right. And (here we go again) there is no clause in Fair Use that covers making copies for personal use. That's case law again, and case law is just an opinion until it reaches the Supremes.
So you'd better be sure that the exact case you're interested in has been heard in the Supremes. For example, the Rio was let off in Appeals, and on the technicality that it didn't perform the copy from a CD, it was only a PC peripheral, and the infringement (if any) was done on the PC. AFAIK, no case has yet been heard that covers ripping from CD to a hard drive. We really need the RIAA to prosecute Microsoft over Media Player. My god, who do you cheer for in that fight?
Incidentally, I completely agree with your other statements. If the publisher makes buying a license or playing media so inconvenient that we'd rather not do so, then they've already lost the sale, and they can quit whining about "lost" revenue. They never had it in the first place, nor do they have any right to demand it. If we then choose to obtain an unlicensed copy, then that's a separate issue.
Specifically, we're talking about Section 296 which says:
"296.--(1) This section applies where copies of a copyright work are issued to the public, by or with the licence of the copyright owner, in an electronic form which is copy-protected.
(2) The person issuing the copies to the public has the same rights against a person who, knowing or having reason to believe that it will be used to make infringing copies--
(a) makes, imports, sells or lets for hire, offers or exposes for sale or hire, or advertises for sale or hire, any device or means specifically designed or adapted to circumvent the form of copy-protection employed, or
(b) publishes information intended to enable or assist persons to circumvent that form of copy-protection, as a copyright owner has in respect of an infringement of copyright."
The CDPA is a little more reasonable than the DMCA, as it basically says that contributory copyright infringment can be prosecuted by the copyright owner under the same terms as primary infringement, i.e. a civil action. What it doesn't do is make secondary infringement a criminal offence, which is the really nasty bit of the DMCA.
How could a product that existed in time before this method of copy prevention become illegal?
The DMCA doesn't make possession of a circumvention device illegal, nor does it even prevent you from using it (that's copyright law). What the DMCA makes illegal is the act of creating the device, or obtaining or providing a copy of it, or telling anyone how to obtain it. It's exactly like making it legal to own and to use lockpicks (on your own lock or with invitation), but making it illegal to make, sell, buy or talk about lockpicks. No, it does't make sense, but, hey, this is a bought bill, not one arrived at through debate and consensus.
RMS knows [about FUD and propaganda], he may seem like a 'broken' record to "us", but he is spreading his meme well
Oh, I understand the reasons, I'm just questioning whether the methodology has become more important than the goal. When you start to turn off friendly developers by over politicising your cause, perhaps it's time to ask whether the cost of gaining mindshare in the user environment is really worth it. It might be, I'm certain RMS has thought about it, I'm just pointing out that I'm getting a bit tired of hearing that I'm fighting for the Freedom Army, when I'm really just a developer who's more interested in producing apps that get used on their own merit rather than winning a propaganda and marketing war.
I'm expressing reservations about picking one word as a slogan and wielding it as a weapon until you lose sight of the fact that the word isn't as important as the rich plethora of ideas behind it.
If I have a complaint, it's that people draw a distinction between FSF and OSI based on nitpicking over why "free" is different to "open", when the basic concepts are pretty much interchangeable.
Uh, I count 31 instances of "free" or "freedom" in that interview. Is anyone else getting a strange blind spot in their brain when they hear or read those words? The word means so many things to so many people that we're in serious danger of it losing all meaning, and simply becoming a synonym for "good", which is pretty much the way politicians and industry use it already.
Perhaps the FSF could consider coming up with a new angle. I mean, I'm marching firmly behind the Freedom Flag, but it seems like we're slipping into a weird Braveheart parallel universe when two sides rush headlong into battle, both screaming "Freeeeeedom!" at the top of their lungs.
There are other words, and other concepts that represent the FSF's ideals. Open. Shared. Community. Perhaps we could embroider some of those words onto our flag for a while, just until the Freedom Fad blows over.
Re:Slashdot != Professional Journalism
on
KDE 3.0 is Out
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· Score: 2
I never read their 'editorials' or Jon Katz because it's amateurish bunk
Who? Oh, I remember, the guy who was picked on a lot in high school, and now gets paid money to troll. I heartily recommend a two-click process to purge your system of his venom. First, click here: http://slashdot.org/users.pl?op=edithome then scroll down and click on Exclude Stories from the Homepage / Authors / JonKatz
What's the point of even clicking the "remove" link?
What's the point of behaving like a civilised being when you're dealing with barbarians? Uh, because you're a civilised being, not a barbarian. I think that applies at any level of human interaction.
Sure, I've read all the warning about doing it, and how it makes your address more valuable, but I'm inclined to think that's a load of moo poo. I mean, if you're a spammer, buying email addresses from another spammer by the millions, are you really going to believe (i.e. pay more for) an assurance that ten thousand of them are "recently verified"? I simply don't give spammers enough credit to believe that there's any mechanism for elevating the value of an address up through the feeding chain.
Don't get me wrong, I also Spamcop every piece of spam immediately, before waiting for the non-response. I'm not a saint. But I don't believe that you can make it worse by demonstrating (to yourself if nobody else) that you're a civilised being.
Back in 1997, I started forwarding every piece of fraudulent spam that I received to the ftc. By that, I mean stuff about pyramid schemes, tax evasion and all the "send me your bank details so I can deposit $100 beelyeeon dollars", clearly labelled with a stock header that identified it as a consumer complaint. Can you guess the result?
The FTC told my ISP to disconnect me for spamming them.
Not once did they respond to my emails personally. If they'd provided (at that time) decent online contact details, I would gladly have used them. If they'd told me to stop - once - I would. They didn't. They just ignored me for a few months, then went crying to my online momma. Fortunately, the techie at my ISP who informed me of their complaint saw the funny side, and told them to get lost, but I stopped sending the emails out of courtesy.
So, OK, give them the benefit of the doubt, but bear in mind that they might be soliciting, but it doesn't necessarily follow that they're listening. Quite apart from the resource problem, unless they've been beaten hard with a hell of a big clue-by-four in the tech section, this might turn out to be no more than a PR exercise, just collecting metrics that will get filed away until their next budget pitch. Just a thought.
it seems that they're also targetting spammers that don't offer a way to opt-out; those with 'remove' links in their emails that are dead, for instance
I feel that I have to point out that everything after the semicolon is redundant.;-)
Incidentally, I actually do click on the remove links (yes, I know I shouldn't, but I won't lower myself to their level, and really, how much worse could it get), but it's been at least five years since I actually saw one that worked. Serious question: has anyone here received spam (in the past three years, say) with a "remove" link that actually did anything but attract more spam?
In addition, the stock lie "This is a one off mailing. You are not on a distribution list." (insert your own typos) is also trivially disprovable, once you get the second spam.
Seems to me like the FTC could bitchslap just about any spammer they liked simply on the grounds of flat out deception - what we old folks used to call lying, before we all started speaking like weas^H^H^H^H lawyers.
I know it's a small point, but I actually detest honest spam slightly less: just pitch the product, tell me how to give you money (you delusional retard), and then shut up. Don't compound the insult by pretending to give a damn about opt-ins, opt-outs or privacy. That's just insulting. That makes it personal.
So if the only thing the FTC does is to stop the insulting lies, that will at least drop my blood pressure by about five points. Go for it, G Men.
OK, we're getting the idea. Thing is, this is the web. It's all cached somewhere. Maybe an idea to acknowledge the correction when you screw up, rather than trying to cover it up. You're writing for the record here, guys.
To compare video games to things that are really addictive like smoking or crack is silly
Especially as crack cocaine isn't physiologically addicting. Don't take my word for it, ask Uncle Sam.
Actually, you've just provided a very useful demonstration of how easy it is to demonise a substance (or activity) by popular and sustained propaganda, when the problem is binge abuse of it by sad people with no hope or life to start with. It's so tempting to cry "Can't something be done!"... and then take the easy way out by banning the substance or activity and pretending that this solves the problem with the person.
Jay Parker, a chemical dependency counselor and co-founder of Internet/Computer Addiction Services [says] "The manufacturer of EverQuest purposely made it in such a way that it is more intriguing to the addict," Parker said. "It could be created in a less addictive way, but (that) would be the difference between powdered cocaine and crack cocaine." One client - a 21-year-old college student - stopped going to class within eight weeks after he started playing EverQuest his senior year. After playing the game for 36 hours straight, he had a psychotic break because of sleep deprivation, Parker said. "He thought the characters had come out of the game and were chasing him," Parker said. "He was running through his neighborhood having hallucinations. I can't think of a drug he could have taken where he would have disintegrated in 15 weeks."
Then Jay is a pretty ignorant chemical dependency councellor, because you can fuck yourself up in a lot fewer than 15 weeks by binge abuse of anything. The Government actually says that cocaine isn't actually that big a deal. The problem - as with any addiction - is binge abuse and the associated screwing up of your life and that of those around you. Yes kids, doing anything for 36 hours straight can fuck you up. Cocaine, alcohol, EverQuest, hacking, screwing, car mechanics, drinking water, praying.
At some point we have got to stop making arbitrary decisions to slap "good" and "bad" labels on various substances and activities. Because - with a few noticable exceptions - the problem is generally the abusive behaviour and not the substance or activity being abused.
OK, let's look at the cocaine analogy, because it keeps getting raked up. Cocaine (a non physiologically addicting substance, as used by the President of the United States) was used widely and legally for fifty years by perfectly ordinary average people, until a series of frenzied newspaper stories in the 1910's stirred up an irrational campaign to have it banned because of all the "Negro Cocaine Fiends" running around raping white women (the police also increased the standard caliber of their guns from.32 to.38 because "The cocaine nigger sure is hard to kill," if you want to know where that scene in Alien Nation came from). This, of course, does not form part of standard drug education in schools, because drugs are bad, and we can't give any context that might dilute that message, like "Drugs are bad (when abused by people with abusive personalities)".
Similarly, there is a very real danger of games going the same way. It only takes a few genuine and tragic reports of binge abuse to trigger a frenzy of supposition and speculation that leads to knee jerk legislation that will never, ever be taken off the books, because black markets and Wars on Whatever are great for incumbent governments looking for a long term unwinnable but popular crusade. Remember, circa 1900, the vast majority of the population enjoyed cocaine, in small, dilute quantities, just as now, the vast majority of the population enjoys playing games, computer or otherwise, with no ill effects. If we don't learn the lessons of the past, then in eighty years, we might be in a world where Disney games are the only legal ones and people gather in dirty back rooms to share virus ridden copies of Quake 13 in huge debilitating weekend binges. It's unthinkable? Ask anyone from 1900 about the possibility of cocaine being viewed as more dangerous than a rabid pit bull with a flick-knife, and they'd laugh in your face.
Let's have some consistency. If EverQuest really is dangerous when abused in binges by sad, desperate people with no life or hope, then let's ban it outright, because god knows that's worked in the War on Drugs, right? If not, legalise cocaine and put a warning on it to only buy approved, over the counter non-cut (virussed) versions, and not to binge abuse it, especially if you have a medical condition that makes you very succeptible (like epilepsy or schizophrenia with games).
And while we're at it, if I go on a 36 hour prayer binge and start having hallucinations, do we put a warning label on rosary beads? If not, why not? Because paranoid solipsistic visions are "good" when they feature commands from Baby Jesus, whereas the same messages coming from EverQuest Eric are "bad"? Hmmm.
Bermeister said the company had been testing the technology along with ad giants DoubleClick as a way to serve ordinary Web ads more quickly. Under this plan, an ad that a person sees on a Web site might be hosted by a nearby computer running Brilliant's Altnet instead of on a central ad server, as now typically happens with DoubleClick.
"Quickly" is mendatious. The majority of end users will have port 80 traffic cached by their ISP, and you can bet that cache will be juicy-full of DoubleClick stuff. My ISP routes all traffic via my local access point, even traffic to other people under that access point, and they run a cache at the access point. So even if I were to get ads from the guy next door, it would still be slower than getting them from the cache. All this would do would be to cut down DoubleClick's bills for uncached accesses, and (interestingly) stop me blocking DoubleClick using my hosts file. If this latter reason is actually material, then it's a sad indicator that the ad market has given up any pretence that ads are in any way connected to revenue. If I've gone out of my way to actively block your adverts, and you force them on me anyway, what exactly are your chances of gaining one red cent in revenue from me? Farcical.
Bermeister said. "This will be an opt-in program..." [...] the software would show a pop-up box explaining the network's function and giving people a chance to turn it off
Hey, opt-in, opt-out, what's the difference, eh? To apply an equally muddled metaphor, they'll probably burn that bridge when they come to it.
People who allow their computers to be used will be compensated somehow, possibly with gift certificates or free videos, the company's filing said.
Ah. Anybody with a typical residential DSL/cable connection should check their contracts. There will almost certainly be a clause in there that prohibits providing services to third parties, and especially selling services to third parties. Most ISP's have tolerated filesharing up to now because it's (generally) an active use thing. And CETI@home is low bandwidth, fully opt-in from the user side, and non-commercial. But this might be different. It's a commercial company using ISP bandwidth to make profit, and pass some of that (a very, very little) back to residential users, who have only agreed in general to provide services, not on an active case by case basis. This might be where ISP's start to draw the line.
Take it up with the White House. "[The mujahideen, from whence sprange the taliban] are the moral equivalents of our founding fathers," by a Mr R. Reagan.
Your quote is from 1982-83. My quote is from last October
Bingo, sparky. My point is that making a judgement on someone often looks idiotic with the benefit of hindsight, which is why news agencies are so keen to blandify everything, even when the situation seems crystal clear at the time.
Which brings us back to why exactly Reuters chose to give this a clear anti-piracy slant. Any ideas?
Slashdot Mirror
Do you mean irrelevance or irreverance? For those who haven't read it, the training regime in Forever War involves trainees responding to orders with "Fuck you, sir!" to promote independent thinking. ;-)
I know, you do mean irrelevance, the whole futile Vietnam in Space feel. To be fair, "Space: Above and Beyond" had a good stab at that. It very nearly succeeded, but then it got canned after two series because the viewing figures were tanking. Complex morality plays don't generally go down well with Joe Sixpack. And right now, doing the story of a war based on a cultural misunderstanding might be particulary unpopular. It took a 20 year break for the Klingons to become the good guys, remember?
Why would they need to convince us, when the real agenda is to strongarm the CBDTPA through (by showing that schemes like this are trivially breakable) and change the game forever?
In case you missed it, the CBDTPA recognises the digital-analog-digital weakness, and intends to address it. That means no more analog inputs or outputs. Yes, we're talking no more 3.5mm jacks, we're talking expensive digital microphones that are deliberately crippled so it's not even worth recording speaker-to-microphone. It's appalling, it's unthinkable, and it's coming to a democracy near you real soon now. :(
True, but bear in mind that if it comes to court, you have a civil case against them for damages, but they can ask what you were doing trying to circument a copy protection device, which (thanks to the DMCA) is a criminal offence. Nice piece of blackmail the gubmint's handed them there.
Uh, I thought you'd spotted the pattern after your first two excellent points. If RIAA member revenue drops off, that too will be used to strongarm the CBDTPA (not SSSCA, dammit) through, because how the hell are independent bands going to be able to demonstrate that the revenue has moved to them? As far as the RIAA / Congress / Senate / mainstream press would be concerned, the only story would be "RIAA revenues plummet! End of civilisation as we know it!" We're damned if we do, damned if we don't, and damned if we don't care.
Yes, it's very funny, until you realise that they need to demonstrate that they can't stop sharing, so that they can strongarm the CBDTPA through and change the rules. Don't you get it? These guys might be stone cold greedy motherfuckers, but that doesn't make them idiots.
Yes, and follow that through. These guys aren't idiots. The more they can demonstrate that Evil Hackers are ripping their stuff, damaging the economy and destabilising the Free World, the easier it gets to shove the CBDTPA through. When that happens, all bets are off.
Uh, mistaken belief. You do buy the right to listen to it, and in a restricted way. For example, you can't listen to it where more than six people might hear it, because that's a public performance, which the license you bought doesn't cover. Neither does it allow you to make copies of any sort. Case law - not copyright law - has decided that courts will probably not convict you for breaching the license terms if you do this, but it's always going to be a defence, and not a right. And (here we go again) there is no clause in Fair Use that covers making copies for personal use. That's case law again, and case law is just an opinion until it reaches the Supremes.
So you'd better be sure that the exact case you're interested in has been heard in the Supremes. For example, the Rio was let off in Appeals, and on the technicality that it didn't perform the copy from a CD, it was only a PC peripheral, and the infringement (if any) was done on the PC. AFAIK, no case has yet been heard that covers ripping from CD to a hard drive. We really need the RIAA to prosecute Microsoft over Media Player. My god, who do you cheer for in that fight?
Incidentally, I completely agree with your other statements. If the publisher makes buying a license or playing media so inconvenient that we'd rather not do so, then they've already lost the sale, and they can quit whining about "lost" revenue. They never had it in the first place, nor do they have any right to demand it. If we then choose to obtain an unlicensed copy, then that's a separate issue.
The Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988 was around in the UK ten years before the DMCA.
Specifically, we're talking about Section 296 which says:
"296.--(1) This section applies where copies of a copyright work are issued to the public, by or with the licence of the copyright owner, in an electronic form which is copy-protected.
(2) The person issuing the copies to the public has the same rights against a person who, knowing or having reason to believe that it will be used to make infringing copies--
(a) makes, imports, sells or lets for hire, offers or exposes for sale or hire, or advertises for sale or hire, any device or means specifically designed or adapted to circumvent the form of copy-protection employed, or
(b) publishes information intended to enable or assist persons to circumvent that form of copy-protection, as a copyright owner has in respect of an infringement of copyright."
The CDPA is a little more reasonable than the DMCA, as it basically says that contributory copyright infringment can be prosecuted by the copyright owner under the same terms as primary infringement, i.e. a civil action. What it doesn't do is make secondary infringement a criminal offence, which is the really nasty bit of the DMCA.
The DMCA doesn't make possession of a circumvention device illegal, nor does it even prevent you from using it (that's copyright law). What the DMCA makes illegal is the act of creating the device, or obtaining or providing a copy of it, or telling anyone how to obtain it. It's exactly like making it legal to own and to use lockpicks (on your own lock or with invitation), but making it illegal to make, sell, buy or talk about lockpicks. No, it does't make sense, but, hey, this is a bought bill, not one arrived at through debate and consensus.
Oh, I understand the reasons, I'm just questioning whether the methodology has become more important than the goal. When you start to turn off friendly developers by over politicising your cause, perhaps it's time to ask whether the cost of gaining mindshare in the user environment is really worth it. It might be, I'm certain RMS has thought about it, I'm just pointing out that I'm getting a bit tired of hearing that I'm fighting for the Freedom Army, when I'm really just a developer who's more interested in producing apps that get used on their own merit rather than winning a propaganda and marketing war.
I'm expressing reservations about picking one word as a slogan and wielding it as a weapon until you lose sight of the fact that the word isn't as important as the rich plethora of ideas behind it.
If I have a complaint, it's that people draw a distinction between FSF and OSI based on nitpicking over why "free" is different to "open", when the basic concepts are pretty much interchangeable.
And on the day when advocating behaving like a civilised being was labelled a "troll", the foundations of society shook unto their very core. Oh yes.
Q: Could a Pen Replace the Keyboard?
A: No.
Perhaps the keyboard is so efficient that it makes it a little too easy to produce a lot of words when one would do. ;-)
Uh, I count 31 instances of "free" or "freedom" in that interview. Is anyone else getting a strange blind spot in their brain when they hear or read those words? The word means so many things to so many people that we're in serious danger of it losing all meaning, and simply becoming a synonym for "good", which is pretty much the way politicians and industry use it already.
Perhaps the FSF could consider coming up with a new angle. I mean, I'm marching firmly behind the Freedom Flag, but it seems like we're slipping into a weird Braveheart parallel universe when two sides rush headlong into battle, both screaming "Freeeeeedom!" at the top of their lungs.
There are other words, and other concepts that represent the FSF's ideals. Open. Shared. Community. Perhaps we could embroider some of those words onto our flag for a while, just until the Freedom Fad blows over.
Who? Oh, I remember, the guy who was picked on a lot in high school, and now gets paid money to troll. I heartily recommend a two-click process to purge your system of his venom. First, click here: http://slashdot.org/users.pl?op=edithome then scroll down and click on Exclude Stories from the Homepage / Authors / JonKatz
You'll find that you detox fairly quickly.
What's the point of behaving like a civilised being when you're dealing with barbarians? Uh, because you're a civilised being, not a barbarian. I think that applies at any level of human interaction.
Sure, I've read all the warning about doing it, and how it makes your address more valuable, but I'm inclined to think that's a load of moo poo. I mean, if you're a spammer, buying email addresses from another spammer by the millions, are you really going to believe (i.e. pay more for) an assurance that ten thousand of them are "recently verified"? I simply don't give spammers enough credit to believe that there's any mechanism for elevating the value of an address up through the feeding chain.
Don't get me wrong, I also Spamcop every piece of spam immediately, before waiting for the non-response. I'm not a saint. But I don't believe that you can make it worse by demonstrating (to yourself if nobody else) that you're a civilised being.
Back in 1997, I started forwarding every piece of fraudulent spam that I received to the ftc. By that, I mean stuff about pyramid schemes, tax evasion and all the "send me your bank details so I can deposit $100 beelyeeon dollars", clearly labelled with a stock header that identified it as a consumer complaint. Can you guess the result?
The FTC told my ISP to disconnect me for spamming them.
Not once did they respond to my emails personally. If they'd provided (at that time) decent online contact details, I would gladly have used them. If they'd told me to stop - once - I would. They didn't. They just ignored me for a few months, then went crying to my online momma. Fortunately, the techie at my ISP who informed me of their complaint saw the funny side, and told them to get lost, but I stopped sending the emails out of courtesy.
So, OK, give them the benefit of the doubt, but bear in mind that they might be soliciting, but it doesn't necessarily follow that they're listening. Quite apart from the resource problem, unless they've been beaten hard with a hell of a big clue-by-four in the tech section, this might turn out to be no more than a PR exercise, just collecting metrics that will get filed away until their next budget pitch. Just a thought.
I feel that I have to point out that everything after the semicolon is redundant. ;-)
Incidentally, I actually do click on the remove links (yes, I know I shouldn't, but I won't lower myself to their level, and really, how much worse could it get), but it's been at least five years since I actually saw one that worked. Serious question: has anyone here received spam (in the past three years, say) with a "remove" link that actually did anything but attract more spam?
In addition, the stock lie "This is a one off mailing. You are not on a distribution list." (insert your own typos) is also trivially disprovable, once you get the second spam.
Seems to me like the FTC could bitchslap just about any spammer they liked simply on the grounds of flat out deception - what we old folks used to call lying, before we all started speaking like weas^H^H^H^H lawyers.
I know it's a small point, but I actually detest honest spam slightly less: just pitch the product, tell me how to give you money (you delusional retard), and then shut up. Don't compound the insult by pretending to give a damn about opt-ins, opt-outs or privacy. That's just insulting. That makes it personal.
So if the only thing the FTC does is to stop the insulting lies, that will at least drop my blood pressure by about five points. Go for it, G Men.
My, oh my. The title did read:
And now, as if by magic, it reads:
OK, we're getting the idea. Thing is, this is the web. It's all cached somewhere. Maybe an idea to acknowledge the correction when you screw up, rather than trying to cover it up. You're writing for the record here, guys.
Especially as crack cocaine isn't physiologically addicting. Don't take my word for it, ask Uncle Sam.
Actually, you've just provided a very useful demonstration of how easy it is to demonise a substance (or activity) by popular and sustained propaganda, when the problem is binge abuse of it by sad people with no hope or life to start with. It's so tempting to cry "Can't something be done!"... and then take the easy way out by banning the substance or activity and pretending that this solves the problem with the person.
Then Jay is a pretty ignorant chemical dependency councellor, because you can fuck yourself up in a lot fewer than 15 weeks by binge abuse of anything. The Government actually says that cocaine isn't actually that big a deal. The problem - as with any addiction - is binge abuse and the associated screwing up of your life and that of those around you. Yes kids, doing anything for 36 hours straight can fuck you up. Cocaine, alcohol, EverQuest, hacking, screwing, car mechanics, drinking water, praying.
At some point we have got to stop making arbitrary decisions to slap "good" and "bad" labels on various substances and activities. Because - with a few noticable exceptions - the problem is generally the abusive behaviour and not the substance or activity being abused.
OK, let's look at the cocaine analogy, because it keeps getting raked up. Cocaine (a non physiologically addicting substance, as used by the President of the United States) was used widely and legally for fifty years by perfectly ordinary average people, until a series of frenzied newspaper stories in the 1910's stirred up an irrational campaign to have it banned because of all the "Negro Cocaine Fiends" running around raping white women (the police also increased the standard caliber of their guns from .32 to .38 because "The cocaine nigger sure is hard to kill," if you want to know where that scene in Alien Nation came from). This, of course, does not form part of standard drug education in schools, because drugs are bad, and we can't give any context that might dilute that message, like "Drugs are bad (when abused by people with abusive personalities)".
Similarly, there is a very real danger of games going the same way. It only takes a few genuine and tragic reports of binge abuse to trigger a frenzy of supposition and speculation that leads to knee jerk legislation that will never, ever be taken off the books, because black markets and Wars on Whatever are great for incumbent governments looking for a long term unwinnable but popular crusade. Remember, circa 1900, the vast majority of the population enjoyed cocaine, in small, dilute quantities, just as now, the vast majority of the population enjoys playing games, computer or otherwise, with no ill effects. If we don't learn the lessons of the past, then in eighty years, we might be in a world where Disney games are the only legal ones and people gather in dirty back rooms to share virus ridden copies of Quake 13 in huge debilitating weekend binges. It's unthinkable? Ask anyone from 1900 about the possibility of cocaine being viewed as more dangerous than a rabid pit bull with a flick-knife, and they'd laugh in your face.
Let's have some consistency. If EverQuest really is dangerous when abused in binges by sad, desperate people with no life or hope, then let's ban it outright, because god knows that's worked in the War on Drugs, right? If not, legalise cocaine and put a warning on it to only buy approved, over the counter non-cut (virussed) versions, and not to binge abuse it, especially if you have a medical condition that makes you very succeptible (like epilepsy or schizophrenia with games).
And while we're at it, if I go on a 36 hour prayer binge and start having hallucinations, do we put a warning label on rosary beads? If not, why not? Because paranoid solipsistic visions are "good" when they feature commands from Baby Jesus, whereas the same messages coming from EverQuest Eric are "bad"? Hmmm.
Slashdot editors chose to run a story with the title: "Sony Sued for Everquest Related Suicide"
If you take ten seconds to scan the story, you'll find that it's actually:
Whole world of difference, I think you'll find. Sooner or later, Slashdot is going to get bitchslapped for its sloppy reporting.
"Quickly" is mendatious. The majority of end users will have port 80 traffic cached by their ISP, and you can bet that cache will be juicy-full of DoubleClick stuff. My ISP routes all traffic via my local access point, even traffic to other people under that access point, and they run a cache at the access point. So even if I were to get ads from the guy next door, it would still be slower than getting them from the cache. All this would do would be to cut down DoubleClick's bills for uncached accesses, and (interestingly) stop me blocking DoubleClick using my hosts file. If this latter reason is actually material, then it's a sad indicator that the ad market has given up any pretence that ads are in any way connected to revenue. If I've gone out of my way to actively block your adverts, and you force them on me anyway, what exactly are your chances of gaining one red cent in revenue from me? Farcical.
Hey, opt-in, opt-out, what's the difference, eh? To apply an equally muddled metaphor, they'll probably burn that bridge when they come to it.
Ah. Anybody with a typical residential DSL/cable connection should check their contracts. There will almost certainly be a clause in there that prohibits providing services to third parties, and especially selling services to third parties. Most ISP's have tolerated filesharing up to now because it's (generally) an active use thing. And CETI@home is low bandwidth, fully opt-in from the user side, and non-commercial. But this might be different. It's a commercial company using ISP bandwidth to make profit, and pass some of that (a very, very little) back to residential users, who have only agreed in general to provide services, not on an active case by case basis. This might be where ISP's start to draw the line.
- Take it up with the White House. "[The mujahideen, from whence sprange the taliban] are the moral equivalents of our founding fathers," by a Mr R. Reagan.
Your quote is from 1982-83. My quote is from last OctoberBingo, sparky. My point is that making a judgement on someone often looks idiotic with the benefit of hindsight, which is why news agencies are so keen to blandify everything, even when the situation seems crystal clear at the time.
Which brings us back to why exactly Reuters chose to give this a clear anti-piracy slant. Any ideas?
Hey! Hollings is an honest politician. When he's bought, he stays bought.