In case you didn't notice, the article isn't calling for banning of IRC, or labelling IRC as all bad. It's merely stating that, for the purposes of identity theft and related frauds, IRC is a common choice of medium
If it was actually about identity theft and fraud shouldn't it make just as must fuss about telephones, post and face to face meetings. How about systems which make identity theft easier or more damaging. Most especially abuse of such things as SSN's and driving licences. IIRC some US states have even passed laws mandating driving licence abuse.
In fact, in the UK, the whole "War on Drugs" approach is widely seen as a failure,
Hardly a UK specific viewpoint, even in the US there is plenty of evidence that prohibition/war on drugs is an expensive farce. Maybe with the possibility of a ceasefire in the "war on drugs" politicans feel they need a "war on hackers" to compensate.
DRM cannot function without restricting the consumers ability to use the program or device of their choice for playback and thus places limits on the ability of the programmers and inventors to innovate.
Even doing such things probably won't make DRM work. There will still exist many unprotected copies of the material. Let alone that the idea of making the player a complete "black box" would require the use of magic.
The most important thing for a congressman or senator to do is please the people. The Presidency is about mobilizing the party, but congressional elections can swing on the silliest things. Realize that only 50% of the registered voters vote in presidential elections, what percentage votes in Congressional elections? 30%? 45? Particularly midterm elections.
With two political parties who don't actually differ that much it's suprising that you get even that amount of turnout.
That's why you need, along with term limits, limits on the amount of money any elected official can recieve from all sources.
Wouldn't it make more sense to limit how much a candidate can spend in their election campaign? In addition limit how much a political party can spend.
Term limits are something this country needs very badly. What we have now are a mass of representatives who are 20-30 years removed from the largest age group of the population.
How about a statutory retirment age?
They don't understand the implications of technology legislation, and they are out of touch with what the majority of real people really want and need.
But at the same time they appear to be very much in touch with what big business and political extremists want. Because these groups have the resources and determination lobby 24/7.
But if, say, publicly funded elections became a reality and 3rd, 4th, or 5th party candidates were on equal ground with the two major parties, term limits might help to keep a rotation of new faces and ideas in power.
Having many political parties, especially if many of them are non national (or even actual independant candidates) would give a country like the US a much stronger democracy and make political lobbying much harder. It also makes it less likely that you will end up with the situation of all candidates taking the same line on certain issues, something which can leave voters effectivly disenfranchied.
The government granted monopoly is only a means to achieve that end. No one is entitled to make money off of "intellecutal property".
No one is entitled to make money of anything. They may be entitled to attempt to make money, but that isn't the same thing. Unfortunatly there are plenty of people, both slashdot posters and commercial entities, who believe in some mytical right to make money. Though it is possibly this may exist in certain kinds of socialism or communism.
What the media companies really need to do to protect their profit margins is offer the public something that pirated media canot . . . selection, quality, security (in relation to viruses, etc), preferably all three.
Also that they do so at a fair "market price". Which may long term make them more profit.
The Federation is democratic, and sometimes the democracy even works well. Contrast to Star Wars, where there is no recourse against tyranny except rebellion. The democracy portrayed in Episode 1 is a shambles.
I wonder if if it is deliberate or conicidental that quite a bit of the background and story of episode 1 closely resembles actual history. If it's deliberate the shambolic democracy represents the US Congress.
A lot of people could actually have DSL. You will never get it though. A LOT of phone companies spent millions on putting in fiber all over the place. They connect all of their switchs (they look like large grey refrigerators) together this way He looked at my point blank and said 'Oh i could have it hooked up in about an hour, but you will never get the work order for it.' He was right no matter whom I talked to they would not hook it up. Because my line was not 'qualified' for it, but my line would never be qualified because it is NOT hooked up! But the engeneer looked at it and said 'oh easy'
This could actually be a side effect of "local loop unbundling". The regulations require them to offer colocation, but the competition can't do this except where the hardware is actually inside a building. Since they can't afford to install a box next to the "grey refrigerator" and run cable to that.
Non-sense I have DSL out in the middle of nowhere*, and by nowhere I mean on a farm, miles away from civilization. My ISP/Telco's central office has got to be at least 20 miles away. I don't know what they are doing differently from any other telco, but it can be done!
The problem with the US term "central office" is that it implies some kind of large building. Which, whilst it was the situation a century ago, is not the case now. There is no way you have cables going 20 miles. More likely 2-3 miles to a hut, even simply a box.
For another, there is no doubt that a ton of pork went into the US interstate system, too (check out Interstate 99, or even Interstate 72). Weirdly enough, though, this didn't prevent almost all of the necessary stuff from being built, and even some of the fairly useless roads have surprised people by suddenly making some non-places into someplaces.
IIRC some of design criteria for US Interstates, e.g. height of bridges, originally came from the US military. "roads to nowhere" could actually make sense for such things as missile dispersal.
I think wireless IP will be the best thing since sliced bread within a decade. With the appropriate set-up, you *could* do voice, date, TV...you name it with a much different kind of capital outlay (look ma, no cable being laid in our street!).
But how are you going to get anything like the bandwidth you can get through cable with an RF system. You cannot make RF as accuratly point to point as a piece of cable either.
This is very forward thinking in terms of future investiment. Even if a developer cannot necessarily afford to get a T1 into a complex, the next best thing they can do is to make sure every unit is wired from the start with 2 phone and a DSL-like line,
Why do you need to mess around with DSL? You could just as easily install ethernet. DSL is intended for reusing pre-existing telephone lines, because the cost of recabling (especially across a city) is enormous.
Sure "in some ways." But that's a pretty weak statement. A few dozen hours of work by a highly-trained professional to munge through the source to figure out how something works is in no ways better than nothing to the average consumer
It is considerably more use to sysadmins who install the vast majority of software. Compared with the typical proprietary set of user notes with no technical documentation what so ever. The "average consumer" can't fix their own plumbing, service their own car engine, etc. But somehow people have gotton hold of the completly daft idea that they should be maintaining their own software.
Just remember what the goal of the CBDTPA is: trusted hardware and software. The only way to accomplish that is to hermetically seal the hardware and disallow programming in any environment TPTB don't like (home, small business, etc).
You'd get the same enforcement problems with TV smart card hacking and illegal drugs. Either than or spend literally billions on comming up with a way to "hermetically seal" things which can be used on a production line, but cannot easily be circumvented. Another environment you'd need to control would be universities.
The proof being that the DMCA did get passed, and the CDTBPA or whatever will get passed too. They simply have more money. I've got a better solution: Violence. Instead of just marching on Washington, let's start a bloody riot in front of the Senate. Violence gets noticed. The most effective thing we could do create awareness is to turn over cars, smash windows, and loot businesses.
Problem is that all that will be noticed is the violence. If you do this you can simply be labeled "terrorists" and ignored. Maybe something symbolic, like dumping a truck load of DVDs in the Potomac.
I say we should organise a "peaceful protest" on the Washington mall, but instead have something "happen" to turn it into a gigantic bloodfest.
Maybe you don't need to, it's quite likely that the RIAA/MPAA will do all they can to have a riot start anyway.
Free software isn't capitalism, at least strictly. Since no money is exchanged, producers have no incentive to produce what consumers demand,
So "capital" must be money? Someone needs to tell the world's stock exchanges that they are not "capitalist" since the entities they trade arn't money...
Have you ever noticed that free software is almost invariably a huge pain to install and comes with poor, if any documentation?
The same applies to a huge amount of proprietary software. Indeed open source is in some ways better documented, because you can find out exactly what it does.
Standard oil also gave people "what they wanted", if you did not mind only buying from one supplier. A monopoly need not produce shoddy products to be bad for both business and the market, and ultimately the consumer and the economy, although this one certainly does.
However monopolies have little incentive to either maintain quality or to innovate.
If you think about the brainpower aspect of this battle, a finite number of software professionals will have to outsmart an almost limitless number of guerilla hackers -- 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year. Every time the hackers get lucky, the "axis of evil" loses millions of dollars.
Note also that these are not always different people either... In some cases the "software professional" and the "guerilla hacker" will be the same person. Maybe this is how hidden options to switch off region coding and macrovision make it into production DVD players.
Sounds a whole lot like the "Ministry of Peace" in Babylon 5.
Which comes from the "minipax" in George Orwells 1984. I doubt he invented the idea of calling something the opposite of what it is for political reasons either. There has been plenty of imaginiative legislation in both Nort America and Europe recently.
Its much cheaper to send an email to the president of an enemy country, with an attachment thats a simulation of a few nukes being dropped on their country, then it is to actually do it. Its just a new diplomacy tool =)
Then they can send some simulations of nuclear truck bombs back. Or they show the simulation you sent to the UN general assembly to demonstrate what a nasty country you are.
plus, the engineering details, including how to make one small enough and robust enough that it can be hurled through the stratosphere in an ICBM and still detonate properly.
Probably the reason that the only two bombs used in anger were tossed out of planes on paracutes. There are other ways of delivering weapons.
How can you think that nuclear weapons are universally a deterrant, when people kill themselves strapped with grenades, C4, and yes flying airplanes, just for the sake of killing people who they see aas the enemy?
The only thing which stops these people using nukes is that they don't have any yet.
Slashdot Mirror
In case you didn't notice, the article isn't calling for banning of IRC, or labelling IRC as all bad. It's merely stating that, for the purposes of identity theft and related frauds, IRC is a common choice of medium
If it was actually about identity theft and fraud shouldn't it make just as must fuss about telephones, post and face to face meetings.
How about systems which make identity theft easier or more damaging. Most especially abuse of such things as SSN's and driving licences. IIRC some US states have even passed laws mandating driving licence abuse.
In fact, in the UK, the whole "War on Drugs" approach is widely seen as a failure,
Hardly a UK specific viewpoint, even in the US there is plenty of evidence that prohibition/war on drugs is an expensive farce.
Maybe with the possibility of a ceasefire in the "war on drugs" politicans feel they need a "war on hackers" to compensate.
DRM cannot function without restricting the consumers ability to use the program or device of their choice for playback and thus places limits on the ability of the programmers and inventors to innovate.
Even doing such things probably won't make DRM work. There will still exist many unprotected copies of the material. Let alone that the idea of making the player a complete "black box" would require the use of magic.
The most important thing for a congressman or senator to do is please the people. The Presidency is about mobilizing the party, but congressional elections can swing on the silliest things. Realize that only 50% of the registered voters vote in presidential elections, what percentage votes in Congressional elections? 30%? 45? Particularly midterm elections.
With two political parties who don't actually differ that much it's suprising that you get even that amount of turnout.
That's why you need, along with term limits, limits on the amount of money any elected official can recieve from all sources.
Wouldn't it make more sense to limit how much a candidate can spend in their election campaign? In addition limit how much a political party can spend.
Term limits are something this country needs very badly. What we have now are a mass of representatives who are 20-30 years removed from the largest age group of the population.
How about a statutory retirment age?
They don't understand the implications of technology legislation, and they are out of touch with what the majority of real people really want and need.
But at the same time they appear to be very much in touch with what big business and political extremists want. Because these groups have the resources and determination lobby 24/7.
But if, say, publicly funded elections became a reality and 3rd, 4th, or 5th party candidates were on equal ground with the two major parties, term limits might help to keep a rotation of new faces and ideas in power.
Having many political parties, especially if many of them are non national (or even actual independant candidates) would give a country like the US a much stronger democracy and make political lobbying much harder.
It also makes it less likely that you will end up with the situation of all candidates taking the same line on certain issues, something which can leave voters effectivly disenfranchied.
The government granted monopoly is only a means to achieve that end. No one is entitled to make money off of "intellecutal property".
No one is entitled to make money of anything. They may be entitled to attempt to make money, but that isn't the same thing.
Unfortunatly there are plenty of people, both slashdot posters and commercial entities, who believe in some mytical right to make money. Though it is possibly this may exist in certain kinds of socialism or communism.
What the media companies really need to do to protect their profit margins is offer the public something that pirated media canot . . . selection, quality, security (in relation to viruses, etc), preferably all three.
Also that they do so at a fair "market price". Which may long term make them more profit.
The Federation is democratic, and sometimes the democracy even works well. Contrast to Star Wars, where there is no recourse against tyranny except rebellion. The democracy portrayed in Episode 1 is a shambles.
I wonder if if it is deliberate or conicidental that quite a bit of the background and story of episode 1 closely resembles actual history. If it's deliberate the shambolic democracy represents the US Congress.
A lot of people could actually have DSL. You will never get it though. A LOT of phone companies spent millions on putting in fiber all over the place. They connect all of their switchs (they look like large grey refrigerators) together this way
He looked at my point blank and said 'Oh i could have it hooked up in about an hour, but you will never get the work order for it.' He was right no matter whom I talked to they would not hook it up. Because my line was not 'qualified' for it, but my line would never be qualified because it is NOT hooked up! But the engeneer looked at it and said 'oh easy'
This could actually be a side effect of "local loop unbundling".
The regulations require them to offer colocation, but the competition can't do this except where the hardware is actually inside a building. Since they can't afford to install a box next to the "grey refrigerator" and run cable to that.
Non-sense I have DSL out in the middle of nowhere*, and by nowhere I mean on a farm, miles away from civilization. My ISP/Telco's central office has got to be at least 20 miles away. I don't know what they are doing differently from any other telco, but it can be done!
The problem with the US term "central office" is that it implies some kind of large building. Which, whilst it was the situation a century ago, is not the case now. There is no way you have cables going 20 miles. More likely 2-3 miles to a hut, even simply a box.
For another, there is no doubt that a ton of pork went into the US interstate system, too (check out Interstate 99, or even Interstate 72). Weirdly enough, though, this didn't prevent almost all of the necessary stuff from being built, and even some of the fairly useless roads have surprised people by suddenly making some non-places into someplaces.
IIRC some of design criteria for US Interstates, e.g. height of bridges, originally came from the US military. "roads to nowhere" could actually make sense for such things as missile dispersal.
I think wireless IP will be the best thing since sliced bread within a decade. With the appropriate set-up, you *could* do voice, date, TV...you name it with a much different kind of capital outlay (look ma, no cable being laid in our street!).
But how are you going to get anything like the bandwidth you can get through cable with an RF system. You cannot make RF as accuratly point to point as a piece of cable either.
This is very forward thinking in terms of future investiment. Even if a developer cannot necessarily afford to get a T1 into a complex, the next best thing they can do is to make sure every unit is wired from the start with 2 phone and a DSL-like line,
Why do you need to mess around with DSL? You could just as easily install ethernet. DSL is intended for reusing pre-existing telephone lines, because the cost of recabling (especially across a city) is enormous.
Sure "in some ways." But that's a pretty weak statement. A few dozen hours of work by a highly-trained professional to munge through the source to figure out how something works is in no ways better than nothing to the average consumer
It is considerably more use to sysadmins who install the vast majority of software. Compared with the typical proprietary set of user notes with no technical documentation what so ever. The "average consumer" can't fix their own plumbing, service their own car engine, etc. But somehow people have gotton hold of the completly daft idea that they should be maintaining their own software.
Just remember what the goal of the CBDTPA is: trusted hardware and software. The only way to accomplish that is to hermetically seal the hardware and disallow programming in any environment TPTB don't like (home, small business, etc).
You'd get the same enforcement problems with TV smart card hacking and illegal drugs. Either than or spend literally billions on comming up with a way to "hermetically seal" things which can be used on a production line, but cannot easily be circumvented.
Another environment you'd need to control would be universities.
The proof being that the DMCA did get passed, and the CDTBPA or whatever will get passed too. They simply have more money. I've got a better solution: Violence. Instead of just marching on Washington, let's start a bloody riot in front of the Senate. Violence gets noticed. The most effective thing we could do create awareness is to turn over cars, smash windows, and loot businesses.
Problem is that all that will be noticed is the violence. If you do this you can simply be labeled "terrorists" and ignored.
Maybe something symbolic, like dumping a truck load of DVDs in the Potomac.
I say we should organise a "peaceful protest" on the Washington mall, but instead have something "happen" to turn it into a gigantic bloodfest.
Maybe you don't need to, it's quite likely that the RIAA/MPAA will do all they can to have a riot start anyway.
Free software isn't capitalism, at least strictly. Since no money is exchanged, producers have no incentive to produce what consumers demand,
So "capital" must be money? Someone needs to tell the world's stock exchanges that they are not "capitalist" since the entities they trade arn't money...
Have you ever noticed that free software is almost invariably a huge pain to install and comes with poor, if any documentation?
The same applies to a huge amount of proprietary software. Indeed open source is in some ways better documented, because you can find out exactly what it does.
Standard oil also gave people "what they wanted", if you did not mind only buying from one supplier. A monopoly need not produce shoddy products to be bad for both business and the market, and ultimately the consumer and the economy, although this one certainly does.
However monopolies have little incentive to either maintain quality or to innovate.
Free software happens to empower the buyer and enables more than one seller, hence, it is a very pro-capitalism and pro-market proposition.
There is another aspect which makes it "pro-capitalist", that is that the initial cost of entry is low.
If you think about the brainpower aspect of this battle, a finite number of software professionals will have to outsmart an almost limitless number of guerilla hackers -- 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year. Every time the hackers get lucky, the "axis of evil" loses millions of dollars.
Note also that these are not always different people either... In some cases the "software professional" and the "guerilla hacker" will be the same person. Maybe this is how hidden options to switch off region coding and macrovision make it into production DVD players.
Sounds a whole lot like the "Ministry of Peace" in Babylon 5.
Which comes from the "minipax" in George Orwells 1984. I doubt he invented the idea of calling something the opposite of what it is for political reasons either.
There has been plenty of imaginiative legislation in both Nort America and Europe recently.
Its much cheaper to send an email to the president of an enemy country, with an attachment thats a simulation of a few nukes being dropped on their country, then it is to actually do it. Its just a new diplomacy tool =)
Then they can send some simulations of nuclear truck bombs back. Or they show the simulation you sent to the UN general assembly to demonstrate what a nasty country you are.
plus, the engineering details, including how to make one small enough and robust enough that it can be hurled through the stratosphere in an ICBM and still detonate properly.
Probably the reason that the only two bombs used in anger were tossed out of planes on paracutes.
There are other ways of delivering weapons.
How can you think that nuclear weapons are universally a deterrant, when people kill themselves strapped with grenades, C4, and yes flying airplanes, just for the sake of killing people who they see aas the enemy?
The only thing which stops these people using nukes is that they don't have any yet.