Then do what my carrier already does, they only supply support for phones they specifically sold you. You want support for an iphone, but bought a flip phone? too bad, you can get support from whoever sold you the iphone, or go pay an apple "genius" to sort it out.
I don't see why the carrier should be responsible for support on any product they didn't sell you. If people really think the carrier should be on the hook for that support, then no wonder carriers hate the "bring your own handset" model!
If they call asking to connect to wifi with a phone they didn't buy from you, tell them to talk to whoever sold them the phone.
If it's that easy to see what phone they have, it should be even easier to see what phone you sold them and what plan they bought. "I see you bought an LG Flip phone, those don't have wifi, so I can't show you how to connect it."... "well it's actually an iphone"... "well sir/mam, we didn't sell you an iphone, so you should talk to whoever did. Or we can upgrade you to an iphone support plan for $X." done.
Provide support only for what the person signed up for. Don't sign them up for things they didn't want.
On the bright side, if they won't let you take it away to evaluate before signing, you have a much better case to have the contract thrown out as you obviously were not able to make an informed decision before signing (part of the basis of contract law)
No!!!! I don't want ANY page to EVER display something different on my mobile browser from on the PC. The biggest frustration I have surfing the web on mobile devices is convincing web sites that I'm not surfing on a 10 year old feature phone. Mobile displays these days have just as good resolution as laptop displays (sometimes better) I'm tired of missing 3/4 of the features of the page just because my user agent string says I'm on a mobile device. (Slashdot is bad this way, but at least it honours the "request desktop version" flag, if only I didn't have to set it every single time I visited the site, Unfortunately many sites completely ignore that flag and shovel their garbage mobile version on you anyway.)
Mobile sites were useful 10 years ago, but today they're outdated and I wish they would just die.
wow.... and the troll just will not give up... completely ignores everything I said, and wants to force his inferior system on the world. too bad the troll is too cowardly to log in.
Considering how often this troll has posted that in this article alone (let alone the million other places) I don't see him changing any time soon. Of course using a hosts file is a better solution for people who have one single computer that connects to all sorts of networks. But for my particular situation it is just not ideal, and the DNS server offers a whole bunch of advantages, and almost no disadvantages. For me, I administer one list on the DNS server, and it covers all my family's computers, all our cell phones, tablets, and any other internet connected devices. As I'm running the server for other things anyway it costs me nothing. Although I do have to do some small amount of administration myself, it beats trusting any other application to do it, especially one spamvertised on some random internet site...
Whether or not they investigate the crime is actually relatively irrelevant, I was just pointing out that the fact that you can come up with a way for someone to steal the property doesn't make it any worse than physical property which has exactly the same problem. If you report a physical CD copy of a game stolen the police may decide not to investigate too. But if this ruling is successful it would make it exactly the same crime. (and I honestly fail to see how your doom and gloom hacking scenario is any more likley than someone stealing the physical copy now.)
Sure having freedom carries risks, but in general those risks are far outnumbered by the rewards. (if everyone was locked in a padded room 24/7 most crime would diminish, that doesn't make it a good idea)
I didn't say it wasn't illegal, but I won't call patent infringment theft just as I also don't call shoplifting rape, because they are completely different and unrelated laws. The only reason anyone ever calls this stuff theft is to try to confuse people and make it sound more serious than it really is.
I wouldn't blame all anyone's ills on capitalism or communism, as I'm not aware of any place that has ever implemented either system. Some places have tried communism, or small parts of capitalism. but never has any large group ever gone all in on either one. (or are you aware of any place with no concept of personal property, where all people are treated equally (for communism) or a place with no concept of public property, and no government monopolies (like patents or copyright) (for capitalism)) Communism has been successful in many small groups, but there's no evidence that it scales well. I'm not sure if capitalism has even survived that test though, so it's hard to say which is "better"
In reality, if we are ever to find a situation that works it is likely to be a combination of the two, I'm just not convinced that the current combination is a good idea.
Actually by definition I'm not aware of any country ever being truly communist, as that would involve everyone being treated equally and all posessions distributed, if not evenly, then strictly according to need. I believe that the USSR only claimed to be working towards communism, and talking about what a utopia it would be once they got there. Of course if it makes you feel any better, nobody has ever tried true capitalism either (unless you know of a place with no government granted monopolies (eg copyright, or patent)) Both systems are said to be complete failures, though it's hard to say for sure being that I don't believe either one has ever been done on any large scale. (though communism has been used sucessfully in many small groups, it just doesn't seem to scale well)
nor does it stop you from breaking in to my house and stealing all my posessions. Doesn't make it legal.
Thing is, unlike breaking in to my house, this would be extremely easy to track where the games went, and this case is treating them the same way as physical property, so the police would be able to investingate the theft really easily.
I wasn't speaking as an American, but as a Canadian who does his best to avoid travel involving the US, and amazingly it's not even the TSA in isolation doing it, it's the whole legal framework where they have decided that neither human rights, nor due process apply to foreigners, or anyone within a few hundred miles of a border.. Let's be clear, I'm generally a law abiding person, I've never been in trouble with the law, and I don't plan to start now. But I also don't want to visit somewhere where it's considered perfectly acceptable to make up a charge with no proof, incarcerate and torture you with no due process, and have no checks and balances whatsoever. Sure it's unlikely to affect me, but being that obeying the law isn't a guarantee they won't screw you over, why would I want to risk it? There are far more interesting places in this world tov visit, and some of them actually want my business.
You also alter the device when you change the wallpaper. Nobody has suggested that that is illegal. If the phone has the feature, and all you do is enable it or disable it using a supplied user interface, it's hard to argue that this is altering the phone any more or less than turning on or off the ringer, changing the wallpaper, or even updating your contact list.
Now if you have to flash new firmware to unlock it, that might be different. but simply entering a code? I do that every time I turn on the phone.
Translation: "how can I enable a security vulnerability while disabling a security vulnerability?" The sentence just doesn't parse that way does it? There is no secure way to let any piece of software that wants to open your firewall do so. The whole concept of a firewall is disabled by the idea of UPnP.
If you need a port opened, then open the port. Letting random software do it automatically is just asking for trouble.
Depends on your countries laws. In Canada that's exactly how it works, hence downloading in Canada is legal. Uploading however is not. (You're allowed to get your content anywhere, legally, due to the blank media levy, however you still aren't allowed to give it to others)
Of course we've now completely gutted that by adding a "digital locks" provision, but that really just makes things even weirder. For example, I can no longer make a backup of my own legally aquired works as I'd have to break a digital lock to do it. But I can legally download stuff from the internet that I never paid for because it's the other person that breaks the digital lock, not me. (again, I can download, I can't legally upload. P2P is a grey area because it's both, however I believe the only court cases on that one in Canada decided that P2P was "downloading" not "uploading")
Almost all routers are not vulnerable, if you are smart enough to uncheck the UPnP box. I haven't seen many where you can't disable it. and as has been pointed out elsewhere. Running a firewall where any malware can request a gapping hole in it sort of defeats the purpose. These flaws are already a non-issue to anyone who takes security seriously. The problem is that the average user leaves things as they come from the factory, and they come from the factory vulnerable.
The fact that Canada gets screwed over on cell plans is not exactly news. Nor is the idea that despite the Canadian dollar being approximately at parity with the US dollar for years now, everything in Canada continues to cost significantly more. Unfortunately some of us don't live close enough to the border to make cross-border shopping worthwhile. But that doesn't stop me from buying as much as I can online.
Of course anyone interested at all in security should have disabled UPnP a long time ago. There's hardly a point to having a firewall if any compromised application can ask for a nice big hole in it whenever it wants.
Of course the point was that with most standard firewalls in their default setting, this automatically punches it's own holes through the firewall, it's a feature....
So it's more like "it's not like you shoud have this unprotected by a firewall that you have carefully setup yourself without any autoconfiguration options"
Slashdot Mirror
Then do what my carrier already does, they only supply support for phones they specifically sold you. You want support for an iphone, but bought a flip phone? too bad, you can get support from whoever sold you the iphone, or go pay an apple "genius" to sort it out.
I don't see why the carrier should be responsible for support on any product they didn't sell you. If people really think the carrier should be on the hook for that support, then no wonder carriers hate the "bring your own handset" model!
If they call asking to connect to wifi with a phone they didn't buy from you, tell them to talk to whoever sold them the phone.
If it's that easy to see what phone they have, it should be even easier to see what phone you sold them and what plan they bought. "I see you bought an LG Flip phone, those don't have wifi, so I can't show you how to connect it." ... "well it's actually an iphone" ... "well sir/mam, we didn't sell you an iphone, so you should talk to whoever did. Or we can upgrade you to an iphone support plan for $X." done.
Provide support only for what the person signed up for. Don't sign them up for things they didn't want.
On the bright side, if they won't let you take it away to evaluate before signing, you have a much better case to have the contract thrown out as you obviously were not able to make an informed decision before signing (part of the basis of contract law)
Canada bows quickly to US patent pressure, so no, Canada wouldn't work.
Of course that drawback is also specifically stated in the xkcd link.
I know people have an aversion to reading the articles, but if a comic is too much to read, maybe you shouldn't be commenting.
No!!!! I don't want ANY page to EVER display something different on my mobile browser from on the PC. The biggest frustration I have surfing the web on mobile devices is convincing web sites that I'm not surfing on a 10 year old feature phone. Mobile displays these days have just as good resolution as laptop displays (sometimes better) I'm tired of missing 3/4 of the features of the page just because my user agent string says I'm on a mobile device. (Slashdot is bad this way, but at least it honours the "request desktop version" flag, if only I didn't have to set it every single time I visited the site, Unfortunately many sites completely ignore that flag and shovel their garbage mobile version on you anyway.)
Mobile sites were useful 10 years ago, but today they're outdated and I wish they would just die.
wow.... and the troll just will not give up... completely ignores everything I said, and wants to force his inferior system on the world. too bad the troll is too cowardly to log in.
Considering how often this troll has posted that in this article alone (let alone the million other places) I don't see him changing any time soon. Of course using a hosts file is a better solution for people who have one single computer that connects to all sorts of networks. But for my particular situation it is just not ideal, and the DNS server offers a whole bunch of advantages, and almost no disadvantages.
For me, I administer one list on the DNS server, and it covers all my family's computers, all our cell phones, tablets, and any other internet connected devices. As I'm running the server for other things anyway it costs me nothing.
Although I do have to do some small amount of administration myself, it beats trusting any other application to do it, especially one spamvertised on some random internet site...
Whether or not they investigate the crime is actually relatively irrelevant, I was just pointing out that the fact that you can come up with a way for someone to steal the property doesn't make it any worse than physical property which has exactly the same problem. If you report a physical CD copy of a game stolen the police may decide not to investigate too. But if this ruling is successful it would make it exactly the same crime. (and I honestly fail to see how your doom and gloom hacking scenario is any more likley than someone stealing the physical copy now.)
Sure having freedom carries risks, but in general those risks are far outnumbered by the rewards. (if everyone was locked in a padded room 24/7 most crime would diminish, that doesn't make it a good idea)
I think that's pretty much exactly what I said (though you added more detail)
I didn't say it wasn't illegal, but I won't call patent infringment theft just as I also don't call shoplifting rape, because they are completely different and unrelated laws.
The only reason anyone ever calls this stuff theft is to try to confuse people and make it sound more serious than it really is.
I wouldn't blame all anyone's ills on capitalism or communism, as I'm not aware of any place that has ever implemented either system. Some places have tried communism, or small parts of capitalism. but never has any large group ever gone all in on either one. (or are you aware of any place with no concept of personal property, where all people are treated equally (for communism) or a place with no concept of public property, and no government monopolies (like patents or copyright) (for capitalism))
Communism has been successful in many small groups, but there's no evidence that it scales well. I'm not sure if capitalism has even survived that test though, so it's hard to say which is "better"
In reality, if we are ever to find a situation that works it is likely to be a combination of the two, I'm just not convinced that the current combination is a good idea.
Actually by definition I'm not aware of any country ever being truly communist, as that would involve everyone being treated equally and all posessions distributed, if not evenly, then strictly according to need. I believe that the USSR only claimed to be working towards communism, and talking about what a utopia it would be once they got there. Of course if it makes you feel any better, nobody has ever tried true capitalism either (unless you know of a place with no government granted monopolies (eg copyright, or patent))
Both systems are said to be complete failures, though it's hard to say for sure being that I don't believe either one has ever been done on any large scale. (though communism has been used sucessfully in many small groups, it just doesn't seem to scale well)
nor does it stop you from breaking in to my house and stealing all my posessions. Doesn't make it legal.
Thing is, unlike breaking in to my house, this would be extremely easy to track where the games went, and this case is treating them the same way as physical property, so the police would be able to investingate the theft really easily.
My ad blocking is accomplished by my DNS server, so it's not so much unknown domains as domains known to serve nothing but ads.
Yes, you're right, theft is theft. But theft is also completely unrelated to this case as no theft is even alleged to have happened.
This case is not about theft, it's about patent infringment. Something not in any way related to depriving someone of their physical property.
I wasn't speaking as an American, but as a Canadian who does his best to avoid travel involving the US, and amazingly it's not even the TSA in isolation doing it, it's the whole legal framework where they have decided that neither human rights, nor due process apply to foreigners, or anyone within a few hundred miles of a border.. Let's be clear, I'm generally a law abiding person, I've never been in trouble with the law, and I don't plan to start now. But I also don't want to visit somewhere where it's considered perfectly acceptable to make up a charge with no proof, incarcerate and torture you with no due process, and have no checks and balances whatsoever. Sure it's unlikely to affect me, but being that obeying the law isn't a guarantee they won't screw you over, why would I want to risk it? There are far more interesting places in this world tov visit, and some of them actually want my business.
You also alter the device when you change the wallpaper. Nobody has suggested that that is illegal.
If the phone has the feature, and all you do is enable it or disable it using a supplied user interface, it's hard to argue that this is altering the phone any more or less than turning on or off the ringer, changing the wallpaper, or even updating your contact list.
Now if you have to flash new firmware to unlock it, that might be different. but simply entering a code? I do that every time I turn on the phone.
Don't worry, the US is working hard to discourage anyone from visiting.
Translation: "how can I enable a security vulnerability while disabling a security vulnerability?"
The sentence just doesn't parse that way does it?
There is no secure way to let any piece of software that wants to open your firewall do so. The whole concept of a firewall is disabled by the idea of UPnP.
If you need a port opened, then open the port. Letting random software do it automatically is just asking for trouble.
Depends on your countries laws. In Canada that's exactly how it works, hence downloading in Canada is legal. Uploading however is not. (You're allowed to get your content anywhere, legally, due to the blank media levy, however you still aren't allowed to give it to others)
Of course we've now completely gutted that by adding a "digital locks" provision, but that really just makes things even weirder. For example, I can no longer make a backup of my own legally aquired works as I'd have to break a digital lock to do it. But I can legally download stuff from the internet that I never paid for because it's the other person that breaks the digital lock, not me. (again, I can download, I can't legally upload. P2P is a grey area because it's both, however I believe the only court cases on that one in Canada decided that P2P was "downloading" not "uploading")
Almost all routers are not vulnerable, if you are smart enough to uncheck the UPnP box. I haven't seen many where you can't disable it. and as has been pointed out elsewhere. Running a firewall where any malware can request a gapping hole in it sort of defeats the purpose.
These flaws are already a non-issue to anyone who takes security seriously. The problem is that the average user leaves things as they come from the factory, and they come from the factory vulnerable.
The fact that Canada gets screwed over on cell plans is not exactly news.
Nor is the idea that despite the Canadian dollar being approximately at parity with the US dollar for years now, everything in Canada continues to cost significantly more.
Unfortunately some of us don't live close enough to the border to make cross-border shopping worthwhile. But that doesn't stop me from buying as much as I can online.
Of course anyone interested at all in security should have disabled UPnP a long time ago. There's hardly a point to having a firewall if any compromised application can ask for a nice big hole in it whenever it wants.
Of course the point was that with most standard firewalls in their default setting, this automatically punches it's own holes through the firewall, it's a feature....
So it's more like "it's not like you shoud have this unprotected by a firewall that you have carefully setup yourself without any autoconfiguration options"