Except, if any laws get changed as a result of their pressure, then you're in the situation where religious groups are getting laws changed on theological grounds (which some, like me, find shaky at best) instead of the because of the real issues involved.
I don't want to stand up next to a religious group claiming a particular technology is the tool of the devil, even if I don't like it.
This whole thing is now actually a good way to subvert the marketing campaigns of your competition - just start spreading rumours that their marketing campaigns involve paying people to say nice things about their products on forums. Any positive feedback, as you say, will then have a shadow of doubt cast over its authenticity.
Someone posted about the Jinke ebook reader in the last Slashdot thread that regurgitated this same sort of information that we've been seeing for a while; I thought the Jinke one was particularly interesting as it looked like it was going to be somewhat more respectably priced, but (more importantly for me) would read.txt files.
I'm sure the Sony Reader will be as crippled as the Librie is in terms of hyper-restrictive DRM. Until they have an online library that has a wide variety of books, gives me permanent unlimited access to works I've bought, and gives me some faith that I'll be able to use my books if I buy a new reader, I'm going to hold off.
There was a great post I saw on slashdot once in response to a similar topic - it was a point-list format look at how software differed from every other product on earth that you could buy. From the looks of it I got the feeling that it was one of those oft-quoted lists that are just pasted in response to common topics but unfortunately I haven't seen it since.
It was an excellent summary of some of your points and included a few others that were really interesting to consider about how the software industry tries to hold the user over a barrel.
I don't know, yet, if I agree that paying for sending is the best solution. Its certainly _a_ solution that would do a lot to kill spam.
I do however completely agree with your statement that it is an economic problem for the same reasons you've outlined. I wish I hadn't used my mod points already, because I don't think the GP post is very accurate and it is modded pretty highly.
Asking people not to do something would probably just draw more attention to it. If the president got up and talked about spam encouraging people not to do it, people'd be all like "wow, I can get cheaper viagra off the Internets!"
Phishing is easy to recognize, well at least for us the leet slashdot geeks.
Sadly, we're not the target demographic for phishing attempts. If we were, my inbox probably would have stopped filling up with these emails long ago as they would have almost immediately ceased to become profitable!
I still wonder why legitimate emails from places like PayPal aren't digitally signed. It probably wouldn't make a difference for the end user as I still feel most digital signing stuff for email isn't anywhere near the level of ease of use and 'apparentness' as it needs to be, but for people like me it'd be a godsend - anything with "paypal" in it that doesn't have their digital signature I can immediately identify as spam and throw it away. (I have suggested this to Paypal and got a response, seemingly from a human, that gives me some hope that it might actually happen One Day.)
I probably get around 5-6 Paypal phishmails _per day_. Unfortunately my spam filter is over-trained on these and I've had to fish, haha, a few false positives for actual, real PayPal emails out of my trash.
Of all the interesting scenes that could be in a Cryptonomicon movie, I'd rate this as one of the lowest priorities to get right.
You couldn't make a Cryptonomicon movie and keep stuff like this in it. It just couldn't be done. It has practically no relevance to the plot, gives only tiny insights into non-plot-relevant nuances in Randy's character and, to anyone else that hasn't memorised the entire book, is probably completely uninteresting.
Cryptonomicon is packed with scenes like this. They're a delight to read, because (to use the GPs words) of the expository language. Even thinking about putting them in a movie to me reeks of madness!
I suspect that was more the GPs point, rather than pointing out the difficulties of filming someone eating cereal.
That is a really interesting post; as an Australian I (like I'm sure many others) are continually weired out about American politics.
I guess the big question from me is, would it be better for the Democrats to just pick someone who can compete on charisma? Or should they keep using people that are actually _going to be a good President and act in the interests of Americans, and hopefully other people in the world_?
From our (limited) perspective it seems that Bush just keeps making mistakes (no WMDs, spying on Americans, retarded policies on science, how dumb he is - though as you point out it might just be an act). What is the saturation point for Bad Things a president can do before people will stop voting for guys that just have charisma?
I'd rather people wake up and vote for the best candidate over the guy they like the most, than the opposing parties just put in some charismatic loser.
Copyright holder makes a web page available *FOR FREE* to the general public. Google caches it. Please explain how Google's cache financially hurts the copyright holder. Providing something *FOR FREE* that is available *FOR FREE* would seem to have a "nil financial effect on the copyright holders", no?
This is a really interesting topic, for me at least. I mirror a lot of files for Australian users on various websites over here. One thing I've found is that the vast majority of sites (at least the big ones) have a standard Terms and Conditions page, that generally say something along the lines of "you are not allowed to reproduce any of the content on this page".
I always respect this and don't mirror anything from any sites that have this in their T&Cs (without asking for permission first). Unfortunately this means that any Australian that wants to download something has to go through the international site and can't use a local mirror.
Now, my reckoning is that it definitely doesn't cost these companies anything if I mirror their files and make them available. If anything, it is a) saving them money on bandwidth costs and b) increasing exposure of their products and services, as we always link back to the parent site.
However, I assume that from their perspective, they don't want people mirroring distributing awesome_application.exe because a malicious website owner could put up a trojaned, virused or otherwise bad version of their file. Users then cry and go to them for support and they have to try and clean up the mess. We approached Microsoft to mirror their files for our users but were denied; while they never said this was the reason I think it is a safe assumption.
There are ways to limit these problems, like md5 checking, PGP signing, but I assume these are way out of the reach of regular users who just want to Click Download And Run.
Anyway, a little off-topic for your post, but I thought it might be relevant as one of the downsides to allowing people wholesale access to mirror/reproduce/redistribute/copy your works.
For me, I guess the argument is - what would be better for the Chinese people - to have a censored Google, or to have no Google because they took a stand and refused to censor their results?
I agree that the second outcome was probably never going to happen as they're now a public company and are acting in the interests of their shareholders (ie, profit is king) - which I think is what you're saying at the start. But maybe the second option is better for the Chinese people if it gives them more cause to think about the disadvantages of their goverment style.
Of course, I've never been to China and, I admit, am woefully ignorant as to how happy the population is. Maybe they all love it over there, not having to worry about all the stuff the government is protecting them from!:)
This new policy would effectively keep anyone from inventing any new type of media device without the RIAA/MPAA's say-so."
Umm, how many countries are there that are out there aren't owned by the RIAA yet? I can't imagine China (or stacks of those other Asian nations that have been cranking out mp3 players for years before the ipod became cool) suddenly stopping. In fact, surely the opposite will happen - they'll produce more of them.
The big issue for people living in RIAA-ruled countries (ie, where the RIAA have spent enough money to buy the politicians that are helping shape the laws) will surely be import laws on items like this (ie, no importing of items that don't enforce some sort of DRM). Then we're really fucked.
This app shows why platform-optimized code will _always_ beat generic XP frameworks (Java/Python). There is no earthly reason a BitTorrent client has to be big and slow.
I wholeheartedly agree - there's no reason most applications ever need to be big and slow. Its awesome to see that there are a few developers out there that still take the time to write lean, mean code that isn't going to consume tens of megabytes of memory to do simple tasks
Try TripleJ. 128 kbit mp3 stream, non-commercial, massive variety. Lots of Australian stuff, obviously, but it is basically the only thing I listen to these days to find new music!
I spend at least $300 or $400 on books a year. For me, that sort of investment in a reader - if it means I can get a copy of the book that is DRM free, will last permanently, and is cheaper than the paperback (here in.au paperbacks are now AU$20-25 - some new hardcovers now go for $50+!) - is well worth it.
I can carry a big collection with me, I can read in any lighting conditions (assuming good backlight), I don't have to heft heavy books around in bed - if the only negative is a $300-400 price tag on the reader unit then that's nothing to me.
The article says it supports BBeB/PDF/JPEG/MP3. I bought an MS Reader ebook a couple years ago (just to see how it all worked) for my ipaq, so I obviously can't use that - I have to buy my book again.
I'd like to see.txt format (for extra points, let me zip them up!) available for ebooks so as I change and upgrade my handheld reader, I don't have to keep buying the books.
What, because I don't approve of services that allow for mass copyright infringement, I'm a tool of the RIAA?!@#
The RIAA/MPAA are jerks because they've spent the last few years refusing to get with the times and acknowledge that their model is out of date. They're not jerks because they're trying to shut down places like suprnova, which are essentially giant hubs for providing people with the means to copyright infringe/steal/pirate/whatever the Slashdotically-correct term is these days.
This has been a huge pressure on me and I think it left some permanent marks on me. I hope none of you will ever have to go through something like this.
I hope I can remember not to facilitate piracy on a massive scale so something like this doesn't happen to me!
I wholeheartedly agree with your post, with the following comment:
How much do you trust your kids? How much CAN you trust your kids?
I'd say, how much do you trust other people to be around your kids?
You'd have to be a bit of an idiot to let your kids hang out with strangers that you didn't know, or had only just met. Every time anyone goes near the Internet, that's pretty much what they're doing.
All the firewalls and filtering proxies in the world aren't going to stop parents being jerks and raising their kids poorly. I'd rather see parent filtering to decide who can and can't have kids, because its obvious some people aren't up to the task.
Yeh, but if it doesn't do what it is supposed to do, should the intial default action be:
a) return the unit for a replacement with a unit that works b) sue
I can understand b) if a) had been tried repeatedly and all avenues of negotiation with the retailer and manufacturer had been exhausted, but this seems like a bit of a kneejerk reaction to me!
Yes, but how can cops be expected to defend themselves, armed or not, when faced with people that have TRAINED to become EXPERT COP KILLERS in high tech TERRORIST SIMULATORS like Grand Theft Auto?!
Slashdot Mirror
Except, if any laws get changed as a result of their pressure, then you're in the situation where religious groups are getting laws changed on theological grounds (which some, like me, find shaky at best) instead of the because of the real issues involved.
I don't want to stand up next to a religious group claiming a particular technology is the tool of the devil, even if I don't like it.
This whole thing is now actually a good way to subvert the marketing campaigns of your competition - just start spreading rumours that their marketing campaigns involve paying people to say nice things about their products on forums. Any positive feedback, as you say, will then have a shadow of doubt cast over its authenticity.
Someone posted about the Jinke ebook reader in the last Slashdot thread that regurgitated this same sort of information that we've been seeing for a while; I thought the Jinke one was particularly interesting as it looked like it was going to be somewhat more respectably priced, but (more importantly for me) would read .txt files.
I'm sure the Sony Reader will be as crippled as the Librie is in terms of hyper-restrictive DRM. Until they have an online library that has a wide variety of books, gives me permanent unlimited access to works I've bought, and gives me some faith that I'll be able to use my books if I buy a new reader, I'm going to hold off.
There was a great post I saw on slashdot once in response to a similar topic - it was a point-list format look at how software differed from every other product on earth that you could buy. From the looks of it I got the feeling that it was one of those oft-quoted lists that are just pasted in response to common topics but unfortunately I haven't seen it since.
It was an excellent summary of some of your points and included a few others that were really interesting to consider about how the software industry tries to hold the user over a barrel.
I don't know, yet, if I agree that paying for sending is the best solution. Its certainly _a_ solution that would do a lot to kill spam.
I do however completely agree with your statement that it is an economic problem for the same reasons you've outlined. I wish I hadn't used my mod points already, because I don't think the GP post is very accurate and it is modded pretty highly.
Asking people not to do something would probably just draw more attention to it. If the president got up and talked about spam encouraging people not to do it, people'd be all like "wow, I can get cheaper viagra off the Internets!"
I still wonder why legitimate emails from places like PayPal aren't digitally signed. It probably wouldn't make a difference for the end user as I still feel most digital signing stuff for email isn't anywhere near the level of ease of use and 'apparentness' as it needs to be, but for people like me it'd be a godsend - anything with "paypal" in it that doesn't have their digital signature I can immediately identify as spam and throw it away. (I have suggested this to Paypal and got a response, seemingly from a human, that gives me some hope that it might actually happen One Day.)
I probably get around 5-6 Paypal phishmails _per day_. Unfortunately my spam filter is over-trained on these and I've had to fish, haha, a few false positives for actual, real PayPal emails out of my trash.
Of all the interesting scenes that could be in a Cryptonomicon movie, I'd rate this as one of the lowest priorities to get right.
You couldn't make a Cryptonomicon movie and keep stuff like this in it. It just couldn't be done. It has practically no relevance to the plot, gives only tiny insights into non-plot-relevant nuances in Randy's character and, to anyone else that hasn't memorised the entire book, is probably completely uninteresting.
Cryptonomicon is packed with scenes like this. They're a delight to read, because (to use the GPs words) of the expository language. Even thinking about putting them in a movie to me reeks of madness!
I suspect that was more the GPs point, rather than pointing out the difficulties of filming someone eating cereal.
That is a really interesting post; as an Australian I (like I'm sure many others) are continually weired out about American politics.
I guess the big question from me is, would it be better for the Democrats to just pick someone who can compete on charisma? Or should they keep using people that are actually _going to be a good President and act in the interests of Americans, and hopefully other people in the world_?
From our (limited) perspective it seems that Bush just keeps making mistakes (no WMDs, spying on Americans, retarded policies on science, how dumb he is - though as you point out it might just be an act). What is the saturation point for Bad Things a president can do before people will stop voting for guys that just have charisma?
I'd rather people wake up and vote for the best candidate over the guy they like the most, than the opposing parties just put in some charismatic loser.
This is a really interesting topic, for me at least. I mirror a lot of files for Australian users on various websites over here. One thing I've found is that the vast majority of sites (at least the big ones) have a standard Terms and Conditions page, that generally say something along the lines of "you are not allowed to reproduce any of the content on this page".
I always respect this and don't mirror anything from any sites that have this in their T&Cs (without asking for permission first). Unfortunately this means that any Australian that wants to download something has to go through the international site and can't use a local mirror.
Now, my reckoning is that it definitely doesn't cost these companies anything if I mirror their files and make them available. If anything, it is a) saving them money on bandwidth costs and b) increasing exposure of their products and services, as we always link back to the parent site.
However, I assume that from their perspective, they don't want people mirroring distributing awesome_application.exe because a malicious website owner could put up a trojaned, virused or otherwise bad version of their file. Users then cry and go to them for support and they have to try and clean up the mess. We approached Microsoft to mirror their files for our users but were denied; while they never said this was the reason I think it is a safe assumption.
There are ways to limit these problems, like md5 checking, PGP signing, but I assume these are way out of the reach of regular users who just want to Click Download And Run.
Anyway, a little off-topic for your post, but I thought it might be relevant as one of the downsides to allowing people wholesale access to mirror/reproduce/redistribute/copy your works.
For me, I guess the argument is - what would be better for the Chinese people - to have a censored Google, or to have no Google because they took a stand and refused to censor their results?
:)
I agree that the second outcome was probably never going to happen as they're now a public company and are acting in the interests of their shareholders (ie, profit is king) - which I think is what you're saying at the start. But maybe the second option is better for the Chinese people if it gives them more cause to think about the disadvantages of their goverment style.
Of course, I've never been to China and, I admit, am woefully ignorant as to how happy the population is. Maybe they all love it over there, not having to worry about all the stuff the government is protecting them from!
The big issue for people living in RIAA-ruled countries (ie, where the RIAA have spent enough money to buy the politicians that are helping shape the laws) will surely be import laws on items like this (ie, no importing of items that don't enforce some sort of DRM). Then we're really fucked.
Try TripleJ. 128 kbit mp3 stream, non-commercial, massive variety. Lots of Australian stuff, obviously, but it is basically the only thing I listen to these days to find new music!
I spend at least $300 or $400 on books a year. For me, that sort of investment in a reader - if it means I can get a copy of the book that is DRM free, will last permanently, and is cheaper than the paperback (here in .au paperbacks are now AU$20-25 - some new hardcovers now go for $50+!) - is well worth it.
I can carry a big collection with me, I can read in any lighting conditions (assuming good backlight), I don't have to heft heavy books around in bed - if the only negative is a $300-400 price tag on the reader unit then that's nothing to me.
The article says it supports BBeB/PDF/JPEG/MP3. I bought an MS Reader ebook a couple years ago (just to see how it all worked) for my ipaq, so I obviously can't use that - I have to buy my book again.
.txt format (for extra points, let me zip them up!) available for ebooks so as I change and upgrade my handheld reader, I don't have to keep buying the books.
I'd like to see
DRM sure is grand.
Sheesh, please don't tell Jack Thompson this story or we'll never hear the end of it!
What, because I don't approve of services that allow for mass copyright infringement, I'm a tool of the RIAA?!@#
The RIAA/MPAA are jerks because they've spent the last few years refusing to get with the times and acknowledge that their model is out of date. They're not jerks because they're trying to shut down places like suprnova, which are essentially giant hubs for providing people with the means to copyright infringe/steal/pirate/whatever the Slashdotically-correct term is these days.
You'd have to be a bit of an idiot to let your kids hang out with strangers that you didn't know, or had only just met. Every time anyone goes near the Internet, that's pretty much what they're doing.
All the firewalls and filtering proxies in the world aren't going to stop parents being jerks and raising their kids poorly. I'd rather see parent filtering to decide who can and can't have kids, because its obvious some people aren't up to the task.
Yeh, but if it doesn't do what it is supposed to do, should the intial default action be:
a) return the unit for a replacement with a unit that works
b) sue
I can understand b) if a) had been tried repeatedly and all avenues of negotiation with the retailer and manufacturer had been exhausted, but this seems like a bit of a kneejerk reaction to me!
...has a release date! Australia is still being told "early 2006".
someone mod parent up!
...in a way that means the RIAA don't get any!
I assume that using their 'contribute' link is probably the best way to do this, but does anyone know if they'd prefer people to just buy the album?
And, it seems, a flashlight