There's a very simple expedient to hammer home the idiocy of virus autoresponders.
Bounce virus notification messages you receive to the vendor responsible for the product. The next time a SoBig.F rolls around, and the AV vendors find that they have to deal with 1,235,000,000 additional daily emails[1], they might reconsider the merits of spewing warnings indescriminately.
Some might take this a step further, and include a courtesy notice to Microsoft suggesting that they address security issues with their OS and application products.
Indescriminate AV warnings aren't merely a hassle. I received ~1000 SoBig.F mails, and almost 200 warnings or bounces. Combined, this was over 35 MB of mail (my primary Internet access is over 56k dialup). A local large research university, during summer recess, received over 500,000 SoBig.F mails in one three day period.
What's worse is companies whose nontechnical staff receive these warnings, then waste both their time and that of their IT staff chasing down false alarms. This wastes significant real resources, and dilutes the significance of genuine alerts.
What I strongly suspect is that we're rapidly approproaching the time when all mail will need to be subjected to both virus and spam filtering, at SMTP time. Handling bounces at this stage would greatly reduce the current false notification problem.
Notes:
1. With 600 million email accounts, typical daily receipt being 35 messages and SoBig.F generating 1 in 17 mails, daily viral mail traffic works out to over one billion messages.
...page, I can unequivocably say I've had more direct support and contact from Caldera/SCO (whose actions I vigorously oppose) than I have had from IBM. Hell, I can't get IBM or Red Hat to talk to me officially, and frankly don't want them to other than providing publicly available materials. While Blake Stowell and his office have sent several audio files of Caldera/SCO's press conferences in personal email.
http://sco.iwethey.org/ is a fully self-funded and volunteer effort. We've had no external funding or support (not that we'd mind, you know).
As Eric Raymond says, there's a lot of contact and communication between those who oppose Caldera/SCO in this case. This is motivated largely by self interest, not external funding or manipulation. I certainly haven't talked to anyone who'se owned up to this. Journalists, hackers, and companies legitimately concerned and outraged? Absolutely. Vast, right-minded conspiracy? Hardly.
We might be far better advised to ask who is backing Caldera/SCO in its efforts. There are people and companies who have been suspicously involved in pimping and making direct payments to Caldera/SCO. Some very close analysis of involvment and motive is called for.
That is, if you don't get in the habit of first deleting anything already existing where you plan to paste, click in the dialog box, hit ^A^K, then paste with a middle mouse click. ^A is "position pointer at start of line", ^K is "kill like". Clears the buffer.
I realized I really didn't want that big hulking box taking up and dictating how my living room was to be furnished
Hear!
When I was looking for LR furniture I was shocked that there's virtually nothing that isn't implicitly or explicitly built to encase, showcase, or hide, a television. Doubly ironic that a piece of bedroom furniture (the armoir) is being revived as...a TV hideaway box. Finally found something which could have the Box Hole halved and stashed with stereo HW and CDs plausibly.
TV? Ain't had one where I live since 1999, and ain't never owned one m'self. Period.
I'm a big Galeon fan, have been since early days, but am currently running 1.2.5, so I haven't seen the 1.3 problems. I also keep a fairly popular Nix Browser Reviews page.
I'm not much of a GNOME fan, and note the extensive GNOME deps as a misfeature of Galeon -- recently rediscovered as it turns out that some user.js prefs are ignored and need to be set through gconf instead (user-agent). Though I can see some benefits in principle, the results of GNOME in terms of the actual desktop are not to my personal liking. Fortunately, this doesn't get in the way of running WindowMaker instead.
There's a lot of assumed knowledge about the 1.3 issues in the interview. Could someone point to where this has been discussed?
Pitching my own $0.02: I've got lightweightbrowsers. I'm not looking for that in the niche Galeon currently fills. I'm also not looking for the fscking kitchen sink (browser, mail, news, composer...). A browser, but a solid browser, with user-friendly preferences, giving solid user control over presentation, privacy, security, with stability and decent performance. But wait, I already covered that rant....
If Galeon's seriously fscked up (and its slavish devotion to GNOME has always been more a detraction than a benefit), I'll be happy to move on. Pity losing a few years of accomodation, configuration, and utility.
Strongly recommend the core team listen to its users.
GNU/Linux desktops with VMWare for virtualized access to other systems
-- be they legacy MS Windows, GNU/Linux, or other, makes tons
of sense.
First, you've kicked the monkey off your back, er, desktop. The
principle system is Linux, and the end-user application space is more
than adequate for general business computing. Depending on the services
SuSE and IBM can offer, the flexibility and management of this solution
will be worlds above what a Microsoft environment could offer. And
running VMWare on GNU/Linux to serve legacy MS Windows makes far more
sense than hosting it the other way around given the stability,
configurability, and performance of GNU/Linux.
Second, VMWare is a great product -- words I'm not prone to utter
about proprietary software in general. The high-performance general
system virtualization niche is one that VMWare has fully locked up.
I've used the product since first public betas in 1999, and none of the
other alternatives I've tried -- Bochs, Plex86, UML, WINE, or dosemu --
hold a candle to it for ease of configuration, versatility, stability,
or performance.
Third, VMWare provides an awesome way to manage a large number of
desktops. Within the virtual machine, the hardware configuration is
identical for all systems. The only differences are processor
speed, memory, and availability of specific peripherals which don't
exist on the host system. However, all devices -- disks, network cards,
sound, monitor, etc. -- are the same for any VMWare virtual machine.
Any system-specific drivers and related configuration is a non-issue.
Fourth, VMWare allows access to multiple configurations, which may
be accessed simultaneously. In part this is a box Microsoft has
launched itself into with gusto. A trivial example is browsers: one
side-effect of the tying, er, integration of MSIE with the legacy MS
Windows product is that it's not possible to run multiple variants of an
MSIE browser since version 6.mumble. With VMWare, it's possible to run
different configurations of, say, Win2K and MSIE. It's also possible to
run different legacy MS Windows OSs entirely: Win3.1, 95, NT, 2K, XP,
and their variants. Simultaneously (a respectable system should be able
to support 3-4 concurrent virtual machines if necessary). Support desks
worldwide already find this invaluable. It's likely that Munich's
aquired a motley mix of applications which run in a number of specific
environments -- VMWare is likely one of the best ways to make these
conveniently available to workers.
Fifth, the virtual system images themselves are nothing more than
file snapshots. These can be stored and served centrally (again
reducing maintenance issues), and eliminating again the overhead of
creating and installing thousands of systems -- rather, a few standard
file images are served centrally. User-specific files can be served
over the network from your GNU/Linux Samba server.
Sixth, VMWare's rollback and checkpointing means that for a given
image, it's possible to run a system either with no commits (all changes
to the running VMWare image are lost on exit, great for highly specific
tasked workstations), or can be committed or discarded as an option, on
system exit (useful for development). In either case. backing up the
image file prior to use allows for recovery later.
Seventh, once you've kicked that Redmond jones, "deinstalling" the now-worthless virtual system is a snap.
I'd say Munich's going to have an excellent, flexible, configurable,
stable, and useful system.
And WTF's so great about gratuitous animated content?
I've got all that crap disabled -- Java, Javascript, Flash, animated gifs. If I need to use it on a page, I'll selectively enable it. And when in a blue moon I have to use the 95% solution, I'm stunned at what a pile of sh*t MSIE is.
There's some good Flash art out there. Macromedia needs to provide a cross-platform standalone player for it.
Otherwise. Yes, in many ways, commercialization and exploitation of the Web's been a huge waste. The amateur and informational uses have been pretty slick though.
...given that the question comes up periodically, the folks at IWeThey have created a TWiki page on Why Debian Rocks, answering most command (and many uncommon) questions and myths.
...restricting the recipient of a BSD-licensed work, concerning losses or damages which might arise from use of the work. It is not a restriction on the copyright owner(s) to seek copyright protections or remedies.
Dimensions are about the same -- the Mocha's slightly taller, but shorter in depth and width, 2.4 lb. Max RAM is 1GB, and current CPUs run to 2.4 GHz. It's loud unless placed behind other HW. Tons of ports (serial, parallel, 4x USB, firewire, audio in & out, S/video, 2xPS2, PCMCIA).
The BSD license stipulates nothing other than a copyright notice (required), mention of UC in endorsements (prohibited), and warranties and liabilities (disclaimed).
Nothing like a userContent.css local stylesheet to override broken preferences imposed by other sites. I see everything at the font point, face, and color of my choosing.
Most common single-server mail transports can sustain ~10k-100k deliveries per hour under ideal conditions, with this delivery rate frequently saturating available bandwidth. Issues such as MX and DNS resolution become significant at these volumes. Thus, 100m mails is 1,000 server-hours of time.
Sending more mail requires multiple servers and mulitple pipes. Both of these are resources which are only available to the spamhaus at additional cost or reduced control.
The mitigating issue is that multiple drops (cramming hundreds or thousands of local deliveries to a receiving MTA at once) can reduce the total outbound time. Again, anything that reduces this capability (allowing, say, no more than 10 local deliveries on a single connection) increases the spamhaus's need for resources: servers, time, or specialized software.
used knowledge of their software to write RFP...
on
Settling SCOres
·
· Score: 1
What was the basis for judgement? Contract law or copyright? If the latter, your lawyer stunk. If the prior, I could believe it, though I tend to disagree with the thinking, the law supports the decision.
20 years is an awfully long time for a secret to stick.
Caldera was (is?) funded by The Canopy Group, which was founded by Ray
Noorda, preferences former Novell CEO. Caldera purchased the Santa Cruz
Operation, owners of some UNIX (exactly which bits is a matter of some
debate). FWIW, Caldera has now officially changed its name to The SCO
Group.
The Canopy Group is the majority stockholder in Caldera Corp, dba
(that's "doing business as") "The SCO Group".
What Caldera bought was not "SCO" (the company formerly known as The
Santa Cruz Operation), but that company's "Unix Business". While I
haven't seen the documents, there's basically a bundle of rights,
contracts, and licenses (the 30,000
contracts, though most are quite historical, we've heard so much
about). The original SCO continues as a going concern under the name
Tarentella. Rather quietly, I might add.
Though Caldera voted at its stockholder's meeting this past May to
officially change its name to "The SCO Group", the name change has not
yet taken legal effect.
Oh, and Caldera is the company which co-developed the RPM packaging
format with Red Hat, distributed GNU/Linux (under the GNU GPL) for nine
years, and which, for the past three years, has distributed the very 2.4
Linux Kernel (downloaded my own copy last week). Um. Under the GPL,
last I checked.
...which is problematic for many users, as they don't have effective ways of regularly updating their systems.
Of course, Debian GNU/Linux shines in this regard, and several of the RPM-based distros are starting to address the need, though IMO poorly.
Windows users are SOL until someone decides to offer a service specifically of providing SpamAssassin updates. This tends to make the proxy solution more appealing, however it's the crucial last bit of fine-tuning of SA rules which is the golden touch, and running through a proxy makes this more difficult.
Glancing quickly through the links for the SW Ascimiation, I see no license for copying, modifying, or distributing code.
While independent derivations of similar projects would not be an infringement of copyright, taking and modifying this work without explicit permission, or license, by the author, is.
FSF Free Software and OSI Open Source are not labels applied to any code whose source happens to be available. They are terms which apply to specific works, for which specific reserved rights under copyright and other laws have been granted. Visit the Free Software Foundation's annotated list of licenses or OSI's approved licenses page for examples of Free Software and Open Source licenses. Links from these pages discuss terms and concepts underlying these licenses.
The RFC violations come from the specific mode in which the message is being refused, and in the rejection of mail to postmaster@aol.com. Yes, I attempted to contact AOL prior to submitting this story. No, I was not able to.
The general issue is that AOL is acting on behalf of millions of users (and affects hundreds of millions of others on the Internet), but did not publicize this policy. That's not an RFC violation, but it's a poor way to keep your customers, or the general public at large, happy.
...other factors come into play. Cf: Microsoft and a little dispute (which came to no account) they had with the US DoJ.
AOL is in the role of a common carrier. If AOL starts discriminating against classes of users for no clear reason, they can be called to account for it.
If AOL, which has been losing customers to broadband, takes an action which directly reduces the benefits of broadband connections, they are opening themselves up for investigation.
Mind that I've got decidedly mixed feelings on AOL. I find their product insulting. However it provides access to the Internet for millions of users. They've funded the Mozilla project, and my own preferred browser (Galeon) indirectly as well. And as a balance in the consumer / ISP space against Microsoft, they've been a valuable strategic partner. But when they act in a directly anticompetitive manner, they must be called on it.
Slashdot Mirror
There's a very simple expedient to hammer home the idiocy of virus autoresponders.
Bounce virus notification messages you receive to the vendor responsible for the product. The next time a SoBig.F rolls around, and the AV vendors find that they have to deal with 1,235,000,000 additional daily emails[1], they might reconsider the merits of spewing warnings indescriminately.
Some might take this a step further, and include a courtesy notice to Microsoft suggesting that they address security issues with their OS and application products.
Indescriminate AV warnings aren't merely a hassle. I received ~1000 SoBig.F mails, and almost 200 warnings or bounces. Combined, this was over 35 MB of mail (my primary Internet access is over 56k dialup). A local large research university, during summer recess, received over 500,000 SoBig.F mails in one three day period.
What's worse is companies whose nontechnical staff receive these warnings, then waste both their time and that of their IT staff chasing down false alarms. This wastes significant real resources, and dilutes the significance of genuine alerts.
What I strongly suspect is that we're rapidly approproaching the time when all mail will need to be subjected to both virus and spam filtering, at SMTP time. Handling bounces at this stage would greatly reduce the current false notification problem.
Notes:
1. With 600 million email accounts, typical daily receipt being 35 messages and SoBig.F generating 1 in 17 mails, daily viral mail traffic works out to over one billion messages.
...page, I can unequivocably say I've had more direct support and contact from Caldera/SCO (whose actions I vigorously oppose) than I have had from IBM. Hell, I can't get IBM or Red Hat to talk to me officially, and frankly don't want them to other than providing publicly available materials. While Blake Stowell and his office have sent several audio files of Caldera/SCO's press conferences in personal email.
http://sco.iwethey.org/ is a fully self-funded and volunteer effort. We've had no external funding or support (not that we'd mind, you know).
As Eric Raymond says, there's a lot of contact and communication between those who oppose Caldera/SCO in this case. This is motivated largely by self interest, not external funding or manipulation. I certainly haven't talked to anyone who'se owned up to this. Journalists, hackers, and companies legitimately concerned and outraged? Absolutely. Vast, right-minded conspiracy? Hardly.
We might be far better advised to ask who is backing Caldera/SCO in its efforts. There are people and companies who have been suspicously involved in pimping and making direct payments to Caldera/SCO. Some very close analysis of involvment and motive is called for.
More Caldera/SCO lies....
That is, if you don't get in the habit of first deleting anything already existing where you plan to paste, click in the dialog box, hit ^A^K, then paste with a middle mouse click. ^A is "position pointer at start of line", ^K is "kill like". Clears the buffer.
VMWare on Debian is best accomplished with alien to convert VMWare's RPM to a .deb, and installing this via dpkg.
As for sane defaults -- Debian tends strongly toward this in my experience.
Hear!
When I was looking for LR furniture I was shocked that there's virtually nothing that isn't implicitly or explicitly built to encase, showcase, or hide, a television. Doubly ironic that a piece of bedroom furniture (the armoir) is being revived as...a TV hideaway box. Finally found something which could have the Box Hole halved and stashed with stereo HW and CDs plausibly.
TV? Ain't had one where I live since 1999, and ain't never owned one m'self. Period.
I'm a big Galeon fan, have been since early days, but am currently running 1.2.5, so I haven't seen the 1.3 problems. I also keep a fairly popular Nix Browser Reviews page.
I'm not much of a GNOME fan, and note the extensive GNOME deps as a misfeature of Galeon -- recently rediscovered as it turns out that some user.js prefs are ignored and need to be set through gconf instead (user-agent). Though I can see some benefits in principle, the results of GNOME in terms of the actual desktop are not to my personal liking. Fortunately, this doesn't get in the way of running WindowMaker instead.
There's a lot of assumed knowledge about the 1.3 issues in the interview. Could someone point to where this has been discussed?
Pitching my own $0.02: I've got lightweight browsers. I'm not looking for that in the niche Galeon currently fills. I'm also not looking for the fscking kitchen sink (browser, mail, news, composer...). A browser, but a solid browser, with user-friendly preferences, giving solid user control over presentation, privacy, security, with stability and decent performance. But wait, I already covered that rant....
If Galeon's seriously fscked up (and its slavish devotion to GNOME has always been more a detraction than a benefit), I'll be happy to move on. Pity losing a few years of accomodation, configuration, and utility.
Strongly recommend the core team listen to its users.
GNU/Linux desktops with VMWare for virtualized access to other systems -- be they legacy MS Windows, GNU/Linux, or other, makes tons of sense.
First, you've kicked the monkey off your back, er, desktop. The principle system is Linux, and the end-user application space is more than adequate for general business computing. Depending on the services SuSE and IBM can offer, the flexibility and management of this solution will be worlds above what a Microsoft environment could offer. And running VMWare on GNU/Linux to serve legacy MS Windows makes far more sense than hosting it the other way around given the stability, configurability, and performance of GNU/Linux.
Second, VMWare is a great product -- words I'm not prone to utter about proprietary software in general. The high-performance general system virtualization niche is one that VMWare has fully locked up. I've used the product since first public betas in 1999, and none of the other alternatives I've tried -- Bochs, Plex86, UML, WINE, or dosemu -- hold a candle to it for ease of configuration, versatility, stability, or performance.
Third, VMWare provides an awesome way to manage a large number of desktops. Within the virtual machine, the hardware configuration is identical for all systems. The only differences are processor speed, memory, and availability of specific peripherals which don't exist on the host system. However, all devices -- disks, network cards, sound, monitor, etc. -- are the same for any VMWare virtual machine. Any system-specific drivers and related configuration is a non-issue.
Fourth, VMWare allows access to multiple configurations, which may be accessed simultaneously. In part this is a box Microsoft has launched itself into with gusto. A trivial example is browsers: one side-effect of the tying, er, integration of MSIE with the legacy MS Windows product is that it's not possible to run multiple variants of an MSIE browser since version 6.mumble. With VMWare, it's possible to run different configurations of, say, Win2K and MSIE. It's also possible to run different legacy MS Windows OSs entirely: Win3.1, 95, NT, 2K, XP, and their variants. Simultaneously (a respectable system should be able to support 3-4 concurrent virtual machines if necessary). Support desks worldwide already find this invaluable. It's likely that Munich's aquired a motley mix of applications which run in a number of specific environments -- VMWare is likely one of the best ways to make these conveniently available to workers.
Fifth, the virtual system images themselves are nothing more than file snapshots. These can be stored and served centrally (again reducing maintenance issues), and eliminating again the overhead of creating and installing thousands of systems -- rather, a few standard file images are served centrally. User-specific files can be served over the network from your GNU/Linux Samba server.
Sixth, VMWare's rollback and checkpointing means that for a given image, it's possible to run a system either with no commits (all changes to the running VMWare image are lost on exit, great for highly specific tasked workstations), or can be committed or discarded as an option, on system exit (useful for development). In either case. backing up the image file prior to use allows for recovery later.
Seventh, once you've kicked that Redmond jones, "deinstalling" the now-worthless virtual system is a snap.
I'd say Munich's going to have an excellent, flexible, configurable, stable, and useful system.
And WTF's so great about gratuitous animated content?
I've got all that crap disabled -- Java, Javascript, Flash, animated gifs. If I need to use it on a page, I'll selectively enable it. And when in a blue moon I have to use the 95% solution, I'm stunned at what a pile of sh*t MSIE is.
There's some good Flash art out there. Macromedia needs to provide a cross-platform standalone player for it.
Otherwise. Yes, in many ways, commercialization and exploitation of the Web's been a huge waste. The amateur and informational uses have been pretty slick though.
SCO
...given that the question comes up periodically, the folks at IWeThey have created a TWiki page on Why Debian Rocks, answering most command (and many uncommon) questions and myths.
...restricting the recipient of a BSD-licensed work, concerning losses or damages which might arise from use of the work. It is not a restriction on the copyright owner(s) to seek copyright protections or remedies.
IANAL, TINLA, YADA.
Dimensions are about the same -- the Mocha's slightly taller, but shorter in depth and width, 2.4 lb. Max RAM is 1GB, and current CPUs run to 2.4 GHz. It's loud unless placed behind other HW. Tons of ports (serial, parallel, 4x USB, firewire, audio in & out, S/video, 2xPS2, PCMCIA).
And it runs Debian GNU/Linux. Well.
Why, you ask? Portable desktop, fewer parts to break than a laptop. Fits in my book bag. $1300 as configured (1.7GHz, 512MB, 20 GB).
RTFL: BSD License.
The BSD license stipulates nothing other than a copyright notice (required), mention of UC in endorsements (prohibited), and warranties and liabilities (disclaimed).
Don't post FUD.
Nothing like a userContent.css local stylesheet to override broken preferences imposed by other sites. I see everything at the font point, face, and color of my choosing.
On the web, the reader vetos all display options.
Most common single-server mail transports can sustain ~10k-100k deliveries per hour under ideal conditions, with this delivery rate frequently saturating available bandwidth. Issues such as MX and DNS resolution become significant at these volumes. Thus, 100m mails is 1,000 server-hours of time.
Sending more mail requires multiple servers and mulitple pipes. Both of these are resources which are only available to the spamhaus at additional cost or reduced control.
The mitigating issue is that multiple drops (cramming hundreds or thousands of local deliveries to a receiving MTA at once) can reduce the total outbound time. Again, anything that reduces this capability (allowing, say, no more than 10 local deliveries on a single connection) increases the spamhaus's need for resources: servers, time, or specialized software.
See:
What was the basis for judgement? Contract law or copyright? If the latter, your lawyer stunk. If the prior, I could believe it, though I tend to disagree with the thinking, the law supports the decision.
20 years is an awfully long time for a secret to stick.
That's still not quite the full picture.
The Canopy Group is the majority stockholder in Caldera Corp, dba (that's "doing business as") "The SCO Group".
What Caldera bought was not "SCO" (the company formerly known as The Santa Cruz Operation), but that company's "Unix Business". While I haven't seen the documents, there's basically a bundle of rights, contracts, and licenses (the 30,000 contracts, though most are quite historical, we've heard so much about). The original SCO continues as a going concern under the name Tarentella. Rather quietly, I might add.
Though Caldera voted at its stockholder's meeting this past May to officially change its name to "The SCO Group", the name change has not yet taken legal effect.
Oh, and Caldera is the company which co-developed the RPM packaging format with Red Hat, distributed GNU/Linux (under the GNU GPL) for nine years, and which, for the past three years, has distributed the very 2.4 Linux Kernel (downloaded my own copy last week). Um. Under the GPL, last I checked.
I'd recommend The OSI's Position Paper and a compilation site I've had some involvment with, SCOvsIBM.
In the spirit of parody (and some shameless Self promotion, but then, that's my name), I offer a little Guilbert and SCOllivan.
There's also a somewhat more seriously minded SCO vs. IBM page.
...which is problematic for many users, as they don't have effective ways of regularly updating their systems.
Of course, Debian GNU/Linux shines in this regard, and several of the RPM-based distros are starting to address the need, though IMO poorly.
Windows users are SOL until someone decides to offer a service specifically of providing SpamAssassin updates. This tends to make the proxy solution more appealing, however it's the crucial last bit of fine-tuning of SA rules which is the golden touch, and running through a proxy makes this more difficult.
Glancing quickly through the links for the SW Ascimiation, I see no license for copying, modifying, or distributing code.
While independent derivations of similar projects would not be an infringement of copyright, taking and modifying this work without explicit permission, or license, by the author, is.
FSF Free Software and OSI Open Source are not labels applied to any code whose source happens to be available. They are terms which apply to specific works, for which specific reserved rights under copyright and other laws have been granted. Visit the Free Software Foundation's annotated list of licenses or OSI's approved licenses page for examples of Free Software and Open Source licenses. Links from these pages discuss terms and concepts underlying these licenses.
IANAL, TINLA.
Hmm... Nice twist. I like it.
Of course, all of those AOLers who're GPG-signing their mail will get royally pissed at you for invalidating their signatures ;-)
Check it yourself. 81.108.149.163, here: http://postmaster.info.aol.com/duls.html
So AOL's being inconsistent in stating why they're blocking, and in showing you why they've blocked it.
The RFC violations come from the specific mode in which the message is being refused, and in the rejection of mail to postmaster@aol.com. Yes, I attempted to contact AOL prior to submitting this story. No, I was not able to.
The general issue is that AOL is acting on behalf of millions of users (and affects hundreds of millions of others on the Internet), but did not publicize this policy. That's not an RFC violation, but it's a poor way to keep your customers, or the general public at large, happy.
You mean like AOL just did?
Turnabout's fair play. You can't respond anyway, in many cases.
I hadn't considered that, but they've got a $1 billion interest in just that area.
...other factors come into play. Cf: Microsoft and a little dispute (which came to no account) they had with the US DoJ.
AOL is in the role of a common carrier. If AOL starts discriminating against classes of users for no clear reason, they can be called to account for it.
If AOL, which has been losing customers to broadband, takes an action which directly reduces the benefits of broadband connections, they are opening themselves up for investigation.
Mind that I've got decidedly mixed feelings on AOL. I find their product insulting. However it provides access to the Internet for millions of users. They've funded the Mozilla project, and my own preferred browser (Galeon) indirectly as well. And as a balance in the consumer / ISP space against Microsoft, they've been a valuable strategic partner. But when they act in a directly anticompetitive manner, they must be called on it.