You fail to realize that as an ISP, you "buy" into the Internet mail infrastructure since you too accept mail from AOL users via your own servers. It's a wash since mail is standardized and everyone flips the bill.
With AOL's AIM network only AOL flips the bill.
As someone said in a previous post, it's not like AIM servers are run by a bunch of different ISP's like IRC servers are. AOL is paying the bill for ALL AIM TRAFFIC, and when a client does not display thier ad, AOL still has to pay for it.
The main difference is your mail client (Outlook, Netscape, Eudora, whatever) is not directly linked to a competing service and simply leeching off the existing market leader's users and network resources to gain share.
Ok, let's take it a step further. All people who use MS-DUN (millions!) are giving their ISP username and password away to Microsoft every time. The difference is, MS-DUN isn't
a) leeching off someone elses resources without their approval b) competing against another "dun" service which generates revenue from it's grown user base
One step further would be that everyone is giving out their username/password to their phone company everytime they dialup.
If you're downloading an AIM client from anywhere but AOL, you run a much greater risk of getting a trojan anyway. This is true with ANY software but this type could be even more destructive since not only can it "touch" your machine, it can assume your identity as well by scarfing up your AOL account. And we all know how easy it is for law enforcement to get information from AOL. Someone takes your name/password, sends a death threat to the pres and BAM, 2 days later you're eating bread and cheese in a federal lock up while they "evaluate" the situation and your "claims" that you didn't send the message. All of this because a friend told you about a cool new AIM clone with no ads and free porno that you just had to download and try.
Let me restate that I *AM* for open IM standards and interoperability between the different IM clients and networks, but the way MS has done it leaves a lot to be desired in my opinion.
I think what set off AOL with the MSN client is that it's a competitor. You can use MSN WITHOUT AIM support since they have their own IM network as well based of their hotmail userbase.
I think AOL was trying to do the right thing by opening up their protocols so Linux users could use the service, but then a commercial competitor took this "good faith" act and is trying to leech market share from it.
Open IM standards are the way to go, but hijacking other IM networks is not the way to do it.
I'm not saying it's wrong completely, I'm just saying that AOL has a valid argument based on their well known and publicized security policy regarding giving names and passwords to 3rd parties.
Yes, but it's AOL's own AIM client asking for the password.
What happens when some script kiddie hacks up a visual basic dialog box to look like an instant message client and gets people to download it. All it will do is gather AOL names and passwords while giving the user an error when trying to connect.
It's a security policy issue in my opinion. If MSN could find a way to jack into the network without asking for their AIM username and password, I'd be all for it. Open messaging standards would allow all IM networks to talk to one another so no one ever gives out their username/password to a client not provided by their network. MS is simply hacking into AOL's IM infrastructure to make a product marketable.
While I completely agree that it's time for open instant messaging standards, AOL's security reasoning behind blocking MSN's messenger makes sense since MSN's messenger asks for your AOL screename and password.
AOL has been trying for years to educate their 400 ba-zillion "newbies" to never ever give out their name and password to anyone, ever. Now Microsoft wants it. Should AOL now go against this policy and allow MSN to ask for user's names and passwords? I don't see the value in that.
I have to say that this distribution (6.1) is one of the best I've bought yet. As a current RH 4, RH 5.2, and Caldera 1.3 owner as well, SuSE 6.1 tops them all. The package is WELL WORTH the $30 when you get 5 CD's jam packed with goodies and a nice book.
I have installed it 4 times (just for practice *grin*) and I have yet to be able to get enough time to actually go through all the available packages. My most recent install, I simply choose EVERY PACKAGE which is over 400!
A great value for anyone looking to add SuSE to their distro collection.
I expect my Caldera 2.2 in the mail sometime soon and I'll get RH 6.0 at the expo this week so we'll see how they compare.
I emailed the people at chooseyourmail.com asking why they sell addresses and such and here is the response I got:
We do not sell email addresses nor are we a "front" for email gathering.
Yes we are majority owned by IBL Inc. IBL is a database marketing company that builds large scale databases for many Fortune 500 companies. IBL deals mostly with business data, not consumer, and has absolutely no data sharing with ChooseYourMail.com. We are two separate companies and we share office space and data center facilities in their Chicago headquarters.
I can see how this could raise an eyebrow. If we did what you acuse, ISP associations, anti-spam groups, even the FTC, wouldn't support us.
If you'd like to talk, please give me a call at your convenience.
** Contact Information Withheld by DaBuzz **
I may give him a call and talk a bit about it to see what kind of "feel" I get from him. I guess we'll see in the long run.
When I complained to Internic about spam I was receiving due to their database being mined and sold, I was told that there was nothing that could be done because the information was in the public domain.
Now when their monopoly is threatened, they take ownership of the data and how it's used... how convenient.
We will be glad to conduct this Open Benchmark at any mutually agreeable test site. As one option, Microsoft has volunteered their test lab where Mindcraft conducted its previous tests.
So not only did MS pay for this study and offer their highest level NT gurus for tweaking, they gave them their LAB to do it in. I can see the proposal now:
TO: Mindcraft FROM: Bill Gates SUBJECT: We need NT vs Linux test results
Hello, I'm writing because we are taking a lot of heat over this "Linux" thing and we'd like to shed some light on the fact that NT is still the best choice for file sharing and web serving. Here is what we propose:
- We will pay for your time and "trouble" to produce this study - We will give you unfetter access to our best NT setup and config experts - We will give you full and total access to our testing lab for your testing
All we ask in return are favorable results for NT which should not be too hard considering what we offer above.
Regards,
Bill Gates
Personally, I think ANY testing lab that 1- takes money from the publisher of the product they are testing and 2- utilizes resources of that company (both personnel AND hardware/lab) is FAR from unbiased. Give me a friggin break!
There were warning signs ... and no one cared
on
Why Kids Kill
·
· Score: 1
I've been following the coverage of this pretty close and am amazed at the number of warning signs these kids displayed before this final act of violence. Here's the list off the top of my head:
- In "video" class, they made a movie where they walked down the halls shooting the "jocks" that would show their faces (played by their friends). - Numerous reports of threats to kill other students were made to both police and school officials - The oldest had moved from NY 3 years earlier and confided in a friend that he was having trouble adjusting and fitting in. While in NY he was a "jock" himself talking about baseball most of the time. - The father of the oldest killer called police (through proxy) during the first few hours of the incident before ANY names were released. He told them that he felt his child may be one of the killers and he wanted to help them stop the tragedy. - The "quote of the day" for the students that day was "I bet you wish you weren't here today. 4-20, 4-20, 4-20". No one knows who submitted this quote. - A few weeks before, the "jocks" and the "trench coat mafia" scheduled a fight on the baseball field after school. When TCM showed up with brass knuckles and swords, the jocks refused to fight and left. - Bombs were heard going off a few days before the incident behind one of the kids houses.
To me, these are OBVIOUS signs that there was something wrong, VERY wrong. One of the killers fathers even knew and only addressed it AFTER his son had started killing people!
Teachers, school officials, and police ALL turned a blind eye to these problems. Teachers KNOW what kids are popular and what kids are abused, the see it EVERY day. They know MUCH more about what goes on with the kids than they want to admit because then they become implicated in the whole ordeal.
The teacher who saw the video of the mock shooting did not report this disturbing incident to anyone.
The quote of the day where Hitler's birthday is repeated 3 times shows an ugly resemblance to Nazi chants.
Who doesn't hear their kid BLOWING UP BOMBS IN THE BACKYARD?!
These kids also played paintball often, will that be blamed as a "training tool" just as Doom is being blamed? No.
To top this whole thing off, MGM has RECALLED all copies of The Basketball Diaries which some have blamed for this as well. This recall only adds credence to the unfounded claims that entertainment media drives people's actions! It's absurd and a terrible example portrayed by a company too afraid of a multi-million dollar lawsuit.
While the whole ordeal is tragic, I find the aftermath of unfounded blame more sickening.
I'm glad to see ZDNet look at these results objectively (well, as objectively as possible, this *IS* ZDNet after all!) and point out the obvious flaws in the testbed design. They do make a very valid point though, high end NT server tweaking info is MUCH more readily available than high end Linux server tweaking info.
I think the most VALID test bed design would be do this whole test again, but with OUT OF THE BOX configurations of both systems. This would set the constant to compare by. Then have both system's *tweaked* to the max and test them again.
This would do two things, one it would not create falsified results due to an uneven playing field, and it would also let IT management see what can be gained by hiring talented Linux admins and TRAINING their own admins. The more they know, the better off the company's servers will run!
Altavista has been getting steadily worse over the last year or so. It is a wasteland of irrelevant query results due to porn spamming and other placement tactics.
My question is, will AV mandate that the buyer of a "keyword" have a relevent site? I mean, will they let Hustler.com buy the rights to first placement when someone searches for "football"?
I think hiding advertising in with legitimate content is a bad trend... although I don't see it getting any better.
This all reminds me of listening to talk radio, when the person doing the show starts talking casually about something... and it turns out to be a paid advertisement. Man that's annoying.
Microsoft Corporation sponsored the testing reported herein.
When Bill Gates wanted 85% of IE uses/developers to favor OS integration, a Microsoft sponsored a survey which produced this result. After further investigation by the court, it was found that MS PR felt the questions were very leading and invalidated the results.
When Bill Gates wanted to show how "easy" it was to install Netscape, a testing lab was commissioned to test and video tape the results which showed it took just minutes to install Netscape. After further investigation by the court, it was shown that the film was doctored to eliminate a large, time consuming step.
When Bill Gates wanted to show that an IE removal program slowed down Windows 95/98 and broke windowsupdate.microsoft.com, a film was produced showing exactly that. After further investigation by the court, it was shown that this film was doctored as well and actual parts of the test showing poor performance were actually from machines WITH IE installed. When MS tried to replicate these "authentic" tests, they could not reproduce any system slowdown after IE was uninstalled.
Microsoft's record speaks for itself. Their testing credibility is worse than OJ Simpson holding a bloody steak knife.
I long for a world of Open Source orbits and a non-monopolistic galaxy where I am free to live on the planet of MY choice, not the planet I was pre-installed on!
An example would be Microsoft and Cascading Style Sheets. Surely it would be an interesting court battle but the fact remains, Microsoft owns the patent on the technology.
Another example is "Windows" itself. That word has been in the English language for thousands of years and prior use of it is well documented throughout that time. Who owns that trademark? Microsoft.
There was prior use of the term "window" in pre-Windows GUI's long before MS trademarked it.
You are placing WAY too much faith in the USPTO, they are notorious for giving patents/trademarks to even the most unworthy people.
Slashdot Mirror
You fail to realize that as an ISP, you "buy" into the Internet mail infrastructure since you too accept mail from AOL users via your own servers. It's a wash since mail is standardized and everyone flips the bill.
With AOL's AIM network only AOL flips the bill.
As someone said in a previous post, it's not like AIM servers are run by a bunch of different ISP's like IRC servers are. AOL is paying the bill for ALL AIM TRAFFIC, and when a client does not display thier ad, AOL still has to pay for it.
The main difference is your mail client (Outlook, Netscape, Eudora, whatever) is not directly linked to a competing service and simply leeching off the existing market leader's users and network resources to gain share.
Ok, let's take it a step further. All people who use MS-DUN (millions!) are giving their ISP username and password away to Microsoft every time. The difference is, MS-DUN isn't
a) leeching off someone elses resources without their approval
b) competing against another "dun" service which generates revenue from it's grown user base
One step further would be that everyone is giving out their username/password to their phone company everytime they dialup.
If you're downloading an AIM client from anywhere but AOL, you run a much greater risk of getting a trojan anyway. This is true with ANY software but this type could be even more destructive since not only can it "touch" your machine, it can assume your identity as well by scarfing up your AOL account. And we all know how easy it is for law enforcement to get information from AOL. Someone takes your name/password, sends a death threat to the pres and BAM, 2 days later you're eating bread and cheese in a federal lock up while they "evaluate" the situation and your "claims" that you didn't send the message. All of this because a friend told you about a cool new AIM clone with no ads and free porno that you just had to download and try.
Let me restate that I *AM* for open IM standards and interoperability between the different IM clients and networks, but the way MS has done it leaves a lot to be desired in my opinion.
I think what set off AOL with the MSN client is that it's a competitor. You can use MSN WITHOUT AIM support since they have their own IM network as well based of their hotmail userbase.
I think AOL was trying to do the right thing by opening up their protocols so Linux users could use the service, but then a commercial competitor took this "good faith" act and is trying to leech market share from it.
Open IM standards are the way to go, but hijacking other IM networks is not the way to do it.
I'm not saying it's wrong completely, I'm just saying that AOL has a valid argument based on their well known and publicized security policy regarding giving names and passwords to 3rd parties.
Yes, but it's AOL's own AIM client asking for the password.
What happens when some script kiddie hacks up a visual basic dialog box to look like an instant message client and gets people to download it. All it will do is gather AOL names and passwords while giving the user an error when trying to connect.
It's a security policy issue in my opinion. If MSN could find a way to jack into the network without asking for their AIM username and password, I'd be all for it. Open messaging standards would allow all IM networks to talk to one another so no one ever gives out their username/password to a client not provided by their network. MS is simply hacking into AOL's IM infrastructure to make a product marketable.
While I completely agree that it's time for open instant messaging standards, AOL's security reasoning behind blocking MSN's messenger makes sense since MSN's messenger asks for your AOL screename and password.
.02, no change will be given.
AOL has been trying for years to educate their 400 ba-zillion "newbies" to never ever give out their name and password to anyone, ever. Now Microsoft wants it. Should AOL now go against this policy and allow MSN to ask for user's names and passwords? I don't see the value in that.
My
|DaBuzz|
PDABuzz.com
Go here to get the article in english.
I was completely guessing at the number of packages available. The SuSE site says the 5 CD's have over 900 packages.
I have to say that this distribution (6.1) is one of the best I've bought yet. As a current RH 4, RH 5.2, and Caldera 1.3 owner as well, SuSE 6.1 tops them all. The package is WELL WORTH the $30 when you get 5 CD's jam packed with goodies and a nice book.
I have installed it 4 times (just for practice *grin*) and I have yet to be able to get enough time to actually go through all the available packages. My most recent install, I simply choose EVERY PACKAGE which is over 400!
A great value for anyone looking to add SuSE to their distro collection.
I expect my Caldera 2.2 in the mail sometime soon and I'll get RH 6.0 at the expo this week so we'll see how they compare.
I emailed the people at chooseyourmail.com asking why they sell addresses and such and here is the response I got:
We do not sell email addresses nor are we a "front" for email gathering.
Yes we are majority owned by IBL Inc. IBL is a database marketing company that builds large scale databases for many Fortune 500 companies. IBL deals mostly with business data, not consumer, and has absolutely no data sharing with ChooseYourMail.com. We are two separate companies and we share office space and data center facilities in their Chicago headquarters.
I can see how this could raise an eyebrow. If we did what you acuse, ISP associations, anti-spam groups, even the FTC, wouldn't support us.
If you'd like to talk, please give me a call at your convenience.
** Contact Information Withheld by DaBuzz **
I may give him a call and talk a bit about it to see what kind of "feel" I get from him. I guess we'll see in the long run.
13.1 Million Business Locations
11 Million Unique Business Phone Numbers
120,000 New Business Incorporations Each Month
1 Million Cottage Industry "At Home" Businesses
1.4 Million Executives At Home Addresses
13 Million Executive Contact Names
I hate spam in ALL it's forms, not just email.
When I complained to Internic about spam I was receiving due to their database being mined and sold, I was told that there was nothing that could be done because the information was in the public domain.
... how convenient.
Now when their monopoly is threatened, they take ownership of the data and how it's used
While I still don't think the Mindcraft testing was unbiased or accurate, I do think there is some validity to some of MS's claims about NT.
If you haven't read the PC Week NOS feature yet, run, don't walk there now and read it.
I liked this little snippet:
We will be glad to conduct this Open Benchmark at any mutually agreeable test site. As one option, Microsoft has volunteered their test lab where Mindcraft conducted its previous tests.
So not only did MS pay for this study and offer their highest level NT gurus for tweaking, they gave them their LAB to do it in. I can see the proposal now:
TO: Mindcraft
FROM: Bill Gates
SUBJECT: We need NT vs Linux test results
Hello, I'm writing because we are taking a lot of heat over this "Linux" thing and we'd like to shed some light on the fact that NT is still the best choice for file sharing and web serving. Here is what we propose:
- We will pay for your time and "trouble" to produce this study
- We will give you unfetter access to our best NT setup and config experts
- We will give you full and total access to our testing lab for your testing
All we ask in return are favorable results for NT which should not be too hard considering what we offer above.
Regards,
Bill Gates
Personally, I think ANY testing lab that 1- takes money from the publisher of the product they are testing and 2- utilizes resources of that company (both personnel AND hardware/lab) is FAR from unbiased. Give me a friggin break!
I've been following the coverage of this pretty close and am amazed at the number of warning signs these kids displayed before this final act of violence. Here's the list off the top of my head:
- In "video" class, they made a movie where they walked down the halls shooting the "jocks" that would show their faces (played by their friends).
- Numerous reports of threats to kill other students were made to both police and school officials
- The oldest had moved from NY 3 years earlier and confided in a friend that he was having trouble adjusting and fitting in. While in NY he was a "jock" himself talking about baseball most of the time.
- The father of the oldest killer called police (through proxy) during the first few hours of the incident before ANY names were released. He told them that he felt his child may be one of the killers and he wanted to help them stop the tragedy.
- The "quote of the day" for the students that day was "I bet you wish you weren't here today. 4-20, 4-20, 4-20". No one knows who submitted this quote.
- A few weeks before, the "jocks" and the "trench coat mafia" scheduled a fight on the baseball field after school. When TCM showed up with brass knuckles and swords, the jocks refused to fight and left.
- Bombs were heard going off a few days before the incident behind one of the kids houses.
To me, these are OBVIOUS signs that there was something wrong, VERY wrong. One of the killers fathers even knew and only addressed it AFTER his son had started killing people!
Teachers, school officials, and police ALL turned a blind eye to these problems. Teachers KNOW what kids are popular and what kids are abused, the see it EVERY day. They know MUCH more about what goes on with the kids than they want to admit because then they become implicated in the whole ordeal.
The teacher who saw the video of the mock shooting did not report this disturbing incident to anyone.
The quote of the day where Hitler's birthday is repeated 3 times shows an ugly resemblance to Nazi chants.
Who doesn't hear their kid BLOWING UP BOMBS IN THE BACKYARD?!
These kids also played paintball often, will that be blamed as a "training tool" just as Doom is being blamed? No.
To top this whole thing off, MGM has RECALLED all copies of The Basketball Diaries which some have blamed for this as well. This recall only adds credence to the unfounded claims that entertainment media drives people's actions! It's absurd and a terrible example portrayed by a company too afraid of a multi-million dollar lawsuit.
While the whole ordeal is tragic, I find the aftermath of unfounded blame more sickening.
I'm glad to see ZDNet look at these results objectively (well, as objectively as possible, this *IS* ZDNet after all!) and point out the obvious flaws in the testbed design. They do make a very valid point though, high end NT server tweaking info is MUCH more readily available than high end Linux server tweaking info.
I think the most VALID test bed design would be do this whole test again, but with OUT OF THE BOX configurations of both systems. This would set the constant to compare by. Then have both system's *tweaked* to the max and test them again.
This would do two things, one it would not create falsified results due to an uneven playing field, and it would also let IT management see what can be gained by hiring talented Linux admins and TRAINING their own admins. The more they know, the better off the company's servers will run!
Altavista has been getting steadily worse over the last year or so. It is a wasteland of irrelevant query results due to porn spamming and other placement tactics.
... although I don't see it getting any better.
... and it turns out to be a paid advertisement. Man that's annoying.
My question is, will AV mandate that the buyer of a "keyword" have a relevent site? I mean, will they let Hustler.com buy the rights to first placement when someone searches for "football"?
I think hiding advertising in with legitimate content is a bad trend
This all reminds me of listening to talk radio, when the person doing the show starts talking casually about something
Anyways, no more Altavista for me.
Microsoft Corporation sponsored the testing reported herein.
When Bill Gates wanted 85% of IE uses/developers to favor OS integration, a Microsoft sponsored a survey which produced this result. After further investigation by the court, it was found that MS PR felt the questions were very leading and invalidated the results.
When Bill Gates wanted to show how "easy" it was to install Netscape, a testing lab was commissioned to test and video tape the results which showed it took just minutes to install Netscape. After further investigation by the court, it was shown that the film was doctored to eliminate a large, time consuming step.
When Bill Gates wanted to show that an IE removal program slowed down Windows 95/98 and broke windowsupdate.microsoft.com, a film was produced showing exactly that. After further investigation by the court, it was shown that this film was doctored as well and actual parts of the test showing poor performance were actually from machines WITH IE installed. When MS tried to replicate these "authentic" tests, they could not reproduce any system slowdown after IE was uninstalled.
Microsoft's record speaks for itself. Their testing credibility is worse than OJ Simpson holding a bloody steak knife.
I long for a world of Open Source orbits and a non-monopolistic galaxy where I am free to live on the planet of MY choice, not the planet I was pre-installed on!
very few people get to be hackers by hanging out in a dojo
... in my part of the country, they are BOOMING! *grin*
I guess there aren't many cyber-dojos where you live
A "public" forum does not mean my comments are public domain.
... it's mostly a joke anyway!
Damn this sig is ruffling some feathers
Hehe well, ZDNet was just one of the most recent rags I've seen scarf up comments from here and post them in a story, many uncredited.
My sig is in jest for the most part. *grin*
An example would be Microsoft and Cascading Style Sheets. Surely it would be an interesting court battle but the fact remains, Microsoft owns the patent on the technology.
Another example is "Windows" itself. That word has been in the English language for thousands of years and prior use of it is well documented throughout that time. Who owns that trademark? Microsoft.
There was prior use of the term "window" in pre-Windows GUI's long before MS trademarked it.
You are placing WAY too much faith in the USPTO, they are notorious for giving patents/trademarks to even the most unworthy people.