I use the term "reasonable" because we all know its not possible to test for every possible circumstance (e.g., obscure/unknown hardware platforms/configurations, etc.), but it is perfectly feasable to test against a given, well-defined set of parameters and tell the end-user
However the criteria of what is "reasonable" can vary. Allowing open relaying might have been low risk before spam came along, then it becomes high risk.
You are so wrong! Think about what you are saying for a second. You are saying that software vendors should be held liable for producing faulty software. What does this apply to? Only Lotus, Microsoft, and the big guys? What about holding Alan Cox and Linus liable for bugs in the Linux kernel?
There is the important distinction that with closed source software (including that which is "free") only the original producer can do anything about faults...
Do you have any idea how it would cripple the software industry if they operated under the constant threat of product liability suits?
So exactly what makes the "software industry" so different from any other industry. Do you hear Boeing saying "well it is just so difficult to make a flying machine which works perfectly"?
What about old software? Really old versions of Sendmail were set to open relay by default.
Being an open relay was never a requirment in the first place. Indeed there was never any requirment to support relaying in RFC821 in the first place. The original assumption was that TCP connections would be made on the basis of A records and RFC 974 introduced the context of MX records. Is this software more than 15 years old?
Certainly it's not the fault of the programmers that they didn't protect against spam, BEFORE SPAM EXISTED.
It wasn't the fault of De Havelland for putting square windows into a jet airliner, when they did it. But we know better now...
This is clearly a case where the free market already solves these problems, and your foolish solution would only serve to artificially disable an industry.
The only part of the software industry which can even operate as a "free market" is that using open source. The proprietary software market relys upon using artificial monopoly.
This is the whole point behind it: The commercial software industry is a service industry masquerading as a manufacturing industry. If they want to be a manufacturing industry, then they should have to play by the rules of the manufacturing industry, which includes liability for their "product"
They actually appear to change their mind on what they are supplying in such a way to minimise responsibility. Including having software as a licence which is not a "good" and not a "service". Since actual services are typically subject to the same kind of regulation as material goods. Or you have industrys where the goods and the services aspects are closely intertwined.
What if the newer version is not a free upgrade? Are you obliged to provide fixes for every version of the software you have ever released?
There is a difference between providing a "upgrade" and fixing what was wrong with your original product.
Re:Not such a great loss as made out
on
ORBZ Shuts Down
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· Score: 2
Basically if an IP was verified clean then it could not be resubmitted within 30 days, fair enough I guess, but this really fell apart with spam originating from what appeared to be dynamically allocated pools of DSL users.
The real source of the problem here is the ISP doing something stupid. Since this kind of IP assignment makes little sense with semi-permenant virtual circult connections. There isn't a good solution any third party can apply here.
Mail servers need to be configured to relay mail from the localhost (themselves). Otherwise, things just don't work. What using the 127.0.0.1 does is attempt to fool the mail server into thinking that the mail is coming from itself.
Actually it dosn't, Since most mail software uses some other form of IPC for local deliveries.
Actually, even the intelligence agencies get a lot of their information from civilian agencies. For example, one NIMA installation I know of used to have/has televisions mounted out in the halls tuned to things like CNN so people can get quick updates to things going on in the world.
Just having the information isn't sufficent though. People in The Pentagon undoubtedly had access to CNN as well as radar plots...Conspiracy theories aside, the intelligence agencies don't know everything that is going on in the world (or else the planes wouldn't have hit the Towers in the first place).
The organisations who should have been responsible for stopping them would be the FAA, NORAD, UASF, etc. who certainly don't qualify as "intelligence agencies".
The best information distribution would be if there was a way to send a message to every phone in the country - to make them all ring at the same time - but that isn't possible with the way switches work.
There are such features built into telephone systems...
Those phones on the plane are NOT cell phones - they do not operate on the cellular network - the reson they dont want you using a cell phone is because in an airplane traveling so high and so fast your phone would switch base stations so quickly it has the posibillity of overloading the network.
Actually the problem is the the aircraft systems arn't certified to handle the RF energy from the phones. Otherwise the simplest solution would be to install a pico cell in the aircraft cabin. Which wouldn't need handsets, credit card readers and loads of extra cable. (It would also actually mean less problems with RF, since the power you need to send a signal 10-20 metres is rather less than the power you need to send a signal 10,000 metres.)
sounds like they should just build their own damn secure network. considering this is a resource (not yet) 'owned' by one person, why the hell should they get priority?
The US government already has plenty of private voice and data networks, with various level's of security. The problem, on September 11th, was tha lack of appropriate use of the communication systems available. In other words a failure of people rather than technology. Better technology won't do much when the problem is relevent information not being communicated when it needs communicating. Technology is only an issue when lack or failure of the technology is preventing communication. AFAIK the entire telephone system in the US was working perfectly. A further example of such failure was someone calling the "all clear" in WTC2.
but I have seen employment contracts in which the employer claimed rights to all creative work of the employee, whether or not directly related to the employment task
However this can be used against the employer, e.g. they could have a tough time defending against libel suits if they have too many disgruntled employees. As well as all the porn and viruses they might be producting.
I've always had a feeling that's the case, and when I read your comment, it made me think that there should be a law that basically invalidates an entire contract if it has two many unenforceable clauses in it. The idea is to prevent this sort of abuse that comes from trying to "slip in" clauses that many employees would not realize are not legal.
IIRC this is the default case now. What you'd need would be a statute to void clauses of the form "if any of this is void by law then the rest of it still stands".
Every small company I've seen requires employees to "waive" this right as a condition of employment.
Except that you can't use a contract to get around a statute. It's not impossible that attempting to do so will both void the entire contract and render the party who tried to do it liable to prosecution.
But what I would like to have is a complete independant party to verify that the blocking is legit.
Where would you find such an individual or corporate entity? Who would have to be "uncoruptable" both from viewing all this nasty material and from any lobbying groups. Then even if you could find such an entity would they actually want the job...
I'm not sure if you realize this, but all "child porn", or the sexual explotation of children, is illegal in almost ever nation on the planet.
However the exact definition of "child porn" differs between countries (even possibly within federal republics such as the US.) Even the definition of "child" and "age of majority" differs widely between different places.
Umm because what passes for child porn in Penn may not in other places??? I mean the age of consent in Spain is 12, if a kid can legally have sex with an adult at 12 then how can pictures of the act which is legal be illegal there?
It is actually possible to have a situation where the minimum age for a porn model is higher than the age of consent. (Other laws may also come into play in the case of commercial pornography.) Laws are not always logical and sometimes laws, especially in combination, can lead to utterly daft results. With governmenst not always recognising that this is a problem.
The internet is global and not all the world is as hung up on sex as the US is.
Many people, in the US, like to see the US as being more "liberal" than the rest of the world. In some cases, e.g. Belize, it isn't even an issue of "liberal" or "conservative" so much as a completly different paradigm.
are you telling me that you can distinguish between a 17 year old and an 18 year old?
You even have cases of 13 yo's having to produce ID to get discounted bus and rail tickets or people in their 20's having to produce ID to prove they are "adult". Or situations where someone "underage" gets into somewhere like a nightclub...
CG tries to look like a human. (See also Final Fantasy VII.) Cel animated cartoons don't. Perhaps I was unclear in referring to cel animation rather than photorealistic animation.
CGI can attempt to be photo realistic, but it can just as well look similar to any animation technique. It's simply a tool, which an artist can use any way he or she sees fit.
And what about when the local culture has no such concept as child exploitation? I once met a guy (friend of a friend) who spent a couple years in Belize, and he told of how any adult male who was perceived to have money (ie. pretty much any foreigner) was constantly pursued by a gaggle of 8 to 12 year old girls, all offering their bodies in exchange for money, food, protection, status among their peers, etc.
If you even want to say their is exploitation going on here. It would make more sense to say it's the "girls" (or possibly "young women", since ideas of "majority" are also culturally dependant) and doing the exploiting. Though no doubt there are people who attempt to apply American values in both their "traditionalist" and "feminist" forms to what is going on.
I really think that child-molestation laws are unneeded. They are redundant with rape laws. The standard in rape law is, "could/did the person give informed consent". Obviously, a 6-year old child can't give informed consent, as that person doesn't even know what sex is. Obviously, a woman who says "no" can't give informed consent. Obviously, a woman passed out drunk can't give any kind of consent.
Actually this paragraph demonstrates what is wrong with many "rape" laws. Half way through the definition suddenly becomes sexist.
But there are some sticky situations where its a little vague. What about when the person is 16-18? When can they give informed consent? Obviously, some people make better sexual decisions at 16 than others do at 30. Well, maybe you can have a "sex license" sort of like a drivers license, which verifies that you know about basic sexual issues. Sounds kinda stupid, huh, a "license to have sex"?
What about where someone presents forged documents? Which becomes more important protecting the victim of forgery or protecting the victim of "statutory rape"?
What about a case where a woman is drunk and is the sexual aggressor?
Why not charge her with "rape"?
Should the man be charged with rape if he has sex with her? I don't think so.
Would you change someone who is mugged with being a mugger. Charging the victim of a crime is even more unjust than charging no-one. Let alone that there is no reason for believing that rapists are exclusivly heterosexual.
Another consideration is, "who was the initiator"? Was it the man, the woman, or both? I think that if there is an "initiator" and the other person accepts the advances, it should never be considered rape
You end up with similar issues surrounding "statutory rape" in cases where either all the parties are "too young" (commonly handled now by being sexist and/or agist) or where the "minor" is the "initiator" (currently only likely to be even considered where the adult is a woman).
(unless the other person was purposefully stoned to make them "easy")
Still a potentially tricky situation. Since people routinely get themselves intoxicated in the hope of being seduced. Or where you have such things as spiking of drinks by a third party.
It is clear to me that this society has not thought enough about sex; all of our answers the a complicated issue are black/white, clearly goaded on by Christian humbug.
The idea appears to be to activly dissuade thinking about the issues, let alone rationally discussing them. But I don't think you can lay the blame entirely on Christianity. (Or for that matter Jewdeism or Islam.)
The problem is not whether or not YOU find the material offensive or what. Who cares! Think of the children. If child pornography is suddenly inaccessible to those sick perverts then there is no market for it.
Assuming that these measures will actually do much about distribution and that production is "market driven". Both of these assumptions are suspect.
Problem is that there are some crimes where someone being accused can be seriously harmful. (Especially if the press trumpet their arrest and charge, but ignore their either being found not guilty or the judge tossing the case out.) Especially with "sexual offences" a "no smoke without a fire" attitude is commonly seen. Especially not helped by people who make malicious accusations often not even being tried with anything.
and even in scientific newsgroups, at times questionable binaries come though, because of cross posting advertising or such. If they want to really control kiddy porn, then the usenet needs to be moderated.
Even moderation isn't foolproof, sinc moderated newsgroups occasionally get hit by spams. Indeed if you shutdown all of the obvious newsgroups no doubt those posting such material would either find an unused newsgroup (of which there are thousands) or as some kind of "protest" spam Disney newsgroups.
Slashdot Mirror
When mixed with water it turns into Slaked Lime and heat. So the waste problem goes from recycling cans to recycling cans full of Slaked Lime!
But probably not enough slaked lime to make up a useful quantity of lime morter.
I use the term "reasonable" because we all know its not possible to test for every possible circumstance (e.g., obscure/unknown hardware platforms/configurations, etc.), but it is perfectly feasable to test against a given, well-defined set of parameters and tell the end-user
However the criteria of what is "reasonable" can vary. Allowing open relaying might have been low risk before spam came along, then it becomes high risk.
You are so wrong! Think about what you are saying for a second. You are saying that software vendors should be held liable for producing faulty software. What does this apply to? Only Lotus, Microsoft, and the big guys? What about holding Alan Cox and Linus liable for bugs in the Linux kernel?
There is the important distinction that with closed source software (including that which is "free") only the original producer can do anything about faults...
Do you have any idea how it would cripple the software industry if they operated under the constant threat of product liability suits?
So exactly what makes the "software industry" so different from any other industry. Do you hear Boeing saying "well it is just so difficult to make a flying machine which works perfectly"?
What about old software? Really old versions of Sendmail were set to open relay by default.
Being an open relay was never a requirment in the first place. Indeed there was never any requirment to support relaying in RFC821 in the first place. The original assumption was that TCP connections would be made on the basis of A records and RFC 974 introduced the context of MX records. Is this software more than 15 years old?
Certainly it's not the fault of the programmers that they didn't protect against spam, BEFORE SPAM EXISTED.
It wasn't the fault of De Havelland for putting square windows into a jet airliner, when they did it. But we know better now...
This is clearly a case where the free market already solves these problems, and your foolish solution would only serve to artificially disable an industry.
The only part of the software industry which can even operate as a "free market" is that using open source.
The proprietary software market relys upon using artificial monopoly.
Attempt to determine if the receiver is a Lotus Domino server. If so, don't do the @[127.0.0.1] test that causes the loop.
Now this is out in the open such requests are more likely to come from vandals than anyone attempting to find open relays (for whatever reason)
This is the whole point behind it: The commercial software industry is a service industry masquerading as a manufacturing industry. If they want to be a manufacturing industry, then they should have to play by the rules of the manufacturing industry, which includes liability for their "product"
They actually appear to change their mind on what they are supplying in such a way to minimise responsibility. Including having software as a licence which is not a "good" and not a "service". Since actual services are typically subject to the same kind of regulation as material goods. Or you have industrys where the goods and the services aspects are closely intertwined.
What if the newer version is not a free upgrade? Are you obliged to provide fixes for every version of the software you have ever released?
There is a difference between providing a "upgrade" and fixing what was wrong with your original product.
Basically if an IP was verified clean then it could not be resubmitted within 30 days, fair enough I guess, but this really fell apart with spam originating from what appeared to be dynamically allocated pools of DSL users.
The real source of the problem here is the ISP doing something stupid. Since this kind of IP assignment makes little sense with semi-permenant virtual circult connections.
There isn't a good solution any third party can apply here.
Mail servers need to be configured to relay mail from the localhost (themselves). Otherwise, things just don't work. What using the 127.0.0.1 does is attempt to fool the mail server into thinking that the mail is coming from itself.
Actually it dosn't, Since most mail software uses some other form of IPC for local deliveries.
Actually, even the intelligence agencies get a lot of their information from civilian agencies. For example, one NIMA installation I know of used to have/has televisions mounted out in the halls tuned to things like CNN so people can get quick updates to things going on in the world.
Just having the information isn't sufficent though. People in The Pentagon undoubtedly had access to CNN as well as radar plots...Conspiracy theories aside, the intelligence agencies don't know everything that is going on in the world (or else the planes wouldn't have hit the Towers in the first place).
The organisations who should have been responsible for stopping them would be the FAA, NORAD, UASF, etc. who certainly don't qualify as "intelligence agencies".
The best information distribution would be if there was a way to send a message to every phone in the country - to make them all ring at the same time - but that isn't possible with the way switches work.
There are such features built into telephone systems...
Those phones on the plane are NOT cell phones - they do not operate on the cellular network - the reson they dont want you using a cell phone is because in an airplane traveling so high and so fast your phone would switch base stations so quickly it has the posibillity of overloading the network.
Actually the problem is the the aircraft systems arn't certified to handle the RF energy from the phones. Otherwise the simplest solution would be to install a pico cell in the aircraft cabin. Which wouldn't need handsets, credit card readers and loads of extra cable. (It would also actually mean less problems with RF, since the power you need to send a signal 10-20 metres is rather less than the power you need to send a signal 10,000 metres.)
sounds like they should just build their own damn secure network. considering this is a resource (not yet) 'owned' by one person, why the hell should they get priority?
The US government already has plenty of private voice and data networks, with various level's of security.
The problem, on September 11th, was tha lack of appropriate use of the communication systems available. In other words a failure of people rather than technology. Better technology won't do much when the problem is relevent information not being communicated when it needs communicating. Technology is only an issue when lack or failure of the technology is preventing communication. AFAIK the entire telephone system in the US was working perfectly. A further example of such failure was someone calling the "all clear" in WTC2.
but I have seen employment contracts in which the employer claimed rights to all creative work of the employee, whether or not directly related to the employment task
However this can be used against the employer, e.g. they could have a tough time defending against libel suits if they have too many disgruntled employees. As well as all the porn and viruses they might be producting.
I've always had a feeling that's the case, and when I read your comment, it made me think that there should be a law that basically invalidates an entire contract if it has two many unenforceable clauses in it. The idea is to prevent this sort of abuse that comes from trying to "slip in" clauses that many employees would not realize are not legal.
IIRC this is the default case now. What you'd need would be a statute to void clauses of the form "if any of this is void by law then the rest of it still stands".
Every small company I've seen requires employees to "waive" this right as a condition of employment.
Except that you can't use a contract to get around a statute. It's not impossible that attempting to do so will both void the entire contract and render the party who tried to do it liable to prosecution.
But what I would like to have is a complete independant party to verify that the blocking is legit.
Where would you find such an individual or corporate entity? Who would have to be "uncoruptable" both from viewing all this nasty material and from any lobbying groups. Then even if you could find such an entity would they actually want the job...
I'm not sure if you realize this, but all "child porn", or the sexual explotation of children, is illegal in almost ever nation on the planet.
However the exact definition of "child porn" differs between countries (even possibly within federal republics such as the US.)
Even the definition of "child" and "age of majority" differs widely between different places.
Umm because what passes for child porn in Penn may not in other places??? I mean the age of consent in Spain is 12, if a kid can legally have sex with an adult at 12 then how can pictures of the act which is legal be illegal there?
It is actually possible to have a situation where the minimum age for a porn model is higher than the age of consent. (Other laws may also come into play in the case of commercial pornography.) Laws are not always logical and sometimes laws, especially in combination, can lead to utterly daft results.
With governmenst not always recognising that this is a problem.
The internet is global and not all the world is as hung up on sex as the US is.
Many people, in the US, like to see the US as being more "liberal" than the rest of the world. In some cases, e.g. Belize, it isn't even an issue of "liberal" or "conservative" so much as a completly different paradigm.
are you telling me that you can distinguish between a 17 year old and an 18 year old?
You even have cases of 13 yo's having to produce ID to get discounted bus and rail tickets or people in their 20's having to produce ID to prove they are "adult". Or situations where someone "underage" gets into somewhere like a nightclub...
CG tries to look like a human. (See also Final Fantasy VII.) Cel animated cartoons don't. Perhaps I was unclear in referring to cel animation rather than photorealistic animation.
CGI can attempt to be photo realistic, but it can just as well look similar to any animation technique. It's simply a tool, which an artist can use any way he or she sees fit.
And what about when the local culture has no such concept as child exploitation? I once met a guy (friend of a friend) who spent a couple years in Belize, and he told of how any adult male who was perceived to have money (ie. pretty much any foreigner) was constantly pursued by a gaggle of 8 to 12 year old girls, all offering their bodies in exchange for money, food, protection, status among their peers, etc.
If you even want to say their is exploitation going on here. It would make more sense to say it's the "girls" (or possibly "young women", since ideas of "majority" are also culturally dependant) and doing the exploiting. Though no doubt there are people who attempt to apply American values in both their "traditionalist" and "feminist" forms to what is going on.
I really think that child-molestation laws are unneeded. They are redundant with rape laws. The standard in rape law is, "could/did the person give informed consent". Obviously, a 6-year old child can't give informed consent, as that person doesn't even know what sex is. Obviously, a woman who says "no" can't give informed consent. Obviously, a woman passed out drunk can't give any kind of consent.
Actually this paragraph demonstrates what is wrong with many "rape" laws. Half way through the definition suddenly becomes sexist.
But there are some sticky situations where its a little vague. What about when the person is 16-18? When can they give informed consent? Obviously, some people make better sexual decisions at 16 than others do at 30. Well, maybe you can have a "sex license" sort of like a drivers license, which verifies that you know about basic sexual issues. Sounds kinda stupid, huh, a "license to have sex"?
What about where someone presents forged documents? Which becomes more important protecting the victim of forgery or protecting the victim of "statutory rape"?
What about a case where a woman is drunk and is the sexual aggressor?
Why not charge her with "rape"?
Should the man be charged with rape if he has sex with her? I don't think so.
Would you change someone who is mugged with being a mugger. Charging the victim of a crime is even more unjust than charging no-one. Let alone that there is no reason for believing that rapists are exclusivly heterosexual.
Another consideration is, "who was the initiator"? Was it the man, the woman, or both? I think that if there is an "initiator" and the other person accepts the advances, it should never be considered rape
You end up with similar issues surrounding "statutory rape" in cases where either all the parties are "too young" (commonly handled now by being sexist and/or agist) or where the "minor" is the "initiator" (currently only likely to be even considered where the adult is a woman).
(unless the other person was purposefully stoned to make them "easy")
Still a potentially tricky situation. Since people routinely get themselves intoxicated in the hope of being seduced. Or where you have such things as spiking of drinks by a third party.
It is clear to me that this society has not thought enough about sex; all of our answers the a complicated issue are black/white, clearly goaded on by Christian humbug.
The idea appears to be to activly dissuade thinking about the issues, let alone rationally discussing them. But I don't think you can lay the blame entirely on Christianity. (Or for that matter Jewdeism or Islam.)
The problem is not whether or not YOU find the material offensive or what. Who cares! Think of the children. If child pornography is suddenly inaccessible to those sick perverts then there is no market for it.
Assuming that these measures will actually do much about distribution and that production is "market driven". Both of these assumptions are suspect.
Cops don't find people guilty of laws, juries do
Problem is that there are some crimes where someone being accused can be seriously harmful. (Especially if the press trumpet their arrest and charge, but ignore their either being found not guilty or the judge tossing the case out.) Especially with "sexual offences" a "no smoke without a fire" attitude is commonly seen. Especially not helped by people who make malicious accusations often not even being tried with anything.
and even in scientific newsgroups, at times questionable binaries come though, because of cross posting advertising or such. If they want to really control kiddy porn, then the usenet needs to be moderated.
Even moderation isn't foolproof, sinc moderated newsgroups occasionally get hit by spams.
Indeed if you shutdown all of the obvious newsgroups no doubt those posting such material would either find an unused newsgroup (of which there are thousands) or as some kind of "protest" spam Disney newsgroups.