Dave and I go over the site, and make a few changes to the design to make it less of an overt copy of Paul Martin's official site.
Then later when the C&D letter is quoted:
As you are no doubt aware, not only have you utilized LPC's art and graphics but, as well, you have, without alteration, made use of its style sheet.
and
Even your logo is an exact copy of that found at www.paulmartintimes.ca.
So, don't compare what is on the sites now. I'd like to see some screenshots before passing judgement. I just peeked at the stylesheet, and while its not comprehensive (the page is still laid out in tables) like any other code, whoever wrote it owns the copyright.
It sounds to me like these guys bit off a little more than they could chew and are now using the same sensationalism they use on their site, to rally others to their defense.
Sorry fellas, I'm not taking the bait. I'm not going to come to the aid of some listless hacks who were too lazy to do their own work for their own website. If anyone is the "SCO" in this case it is these guys. They are the ones who stole the material and claimed it as their own. Poor form, gentlemen.
I'm no liberal fanboy, but I have to take exception at some of the things the submitter said:
...the new unelected Canadian Prime Minister...
and
...opens a whole can of worms in regards to copyright and fair use of web content...
...then a bunch of inane questions after that.
Firstly, we don't elect our Prime Ministers; ever. We elect our local Members of Parliment, who from their ranks elect a leader. So by the logic of the submitee, all of our Prime Ministers have been un-elected. Therefore the point is moot, and should not have been mentioned.
Second; there is no can of worms here. Either they stole copyrighted material or they didn't. Sure, we might need a judge to figure that out, but that's what they're for. Given that they are posting the C&D letter in public I'm guessing they are trying to make themselves heard. Yet, they make no effort to rebut the claims made in the letter. Though we don't know conclusively without screenshots or archives (Google Cache looks new, and Way Back Machine comes up empty.) it seems as though there was an infringement.
Lastly, for the same reason there isn't a can of worms, it really doesn't matter that the party is the plaintiff. This is a civil case, and really has shit all to do with who's in charge. I mean, it's not like they are the prosecution in a criminal case, nor is the goverment suing anyone. How do we draw the line between infringement and parody? The same way we always have; with that section of copyright law pertaining to fair use and parody
People should really get their facts straight before flying off the handle. It's like insurance against looking like an idiot.
It has to do with the rods and cones on your retinas. The periphery of your vision is made up with a greater proportion of rods to cones than the middle. Rods have a faster response time to changes in luminance than do cones. Whereas cones can better define colour than rods.
So that's why you can see screen flicker better from the side of your field of view. There are more rods there.
Unlike itanium it actually performs very well on 32 bit applications, in fact better than any other processor currently in existance, including the G5.
Re:Forced password changes
on
Real Security?
·
· Score: 1
You raise a good point.
This is where a good time-out/ban policy comes in handy:
3 Tries
5 Minute Time-Out
2 Tries
10 Minute Time-Out
1 Try
Ban
...or something to that effect.
Re:Not to worry you or anything, but...
on
Watching You
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
If you want more, National Geographic want you to pay for it.
...and it is worth every penny.
Every month those guys send me a magazine filled with the "pornography" of the natural and human world. (Bare-chested females from tribal and agrarian societies notwithstanding.) Interspliced, you find stories from every corner of the globe, the infinitesimal, the infinite and of the soul.
They're coverage of "Gulf War PART DEUX!!" was excellent, as is they're continuing series on Afganistan. Also of note was the article on modern slavery.
So yeah, I may be a National Geographic fanboy. However... Objectively speaking, they send me a magazine on ultra-high quality stock; printed on to which are some of the most stunning images and amazing stories. This is a service I am happy to pay for. Nevermind that I'm funding research (to a limited extent) by doing so. I'm not sure if you were implicating that one shouldn't have to pay for such a service. I posted this more to quell the extremists who take the notion of "free" a bit too far.
Hmm... I was going to mod you up for what appears to be factually correct. But then I noticed that you mentioned that your submission was rejected. The page appears to redirect right now; and I remembered the troubles that/. and the Mozilla project have had as it relates to announcing ftp availability before the mirrors have had a chance to grab it. So, thank you very much for the info; I'm grabbing it now. (Yes, I know; I'm a hypocritical leech.) I just thought I'd mention this to everybody, before some idiot editor sees all the submissions and posts one of them. Just silently grab your copy and everyone else will find out soon enough. =P
Thank you all for pointing out the details of Apple's standards activities. I'm much better educated for it, without having to exact the effort to check the facts myself.(/SINCERITY)
The reason I didn't check them is because they are completely tertiary to the point. Perhaps I should have written more hypothetically, but I figured that might have been evident when I mentioned brain implants.
Do any of you have friends (insert obligatory slashdot joke here) that can only respond to one point of a multi-facted email or letter? I do, and I'm reminded of them here. For those who have trouble following, I'll condense my post into a list of points: (with bullets!)
Standards and specifications are good.
The Open Group should stop being IP nazis.
Notwithstanding, Apple are hypocritical assholes for wanting to invalidate the Unix trademark and consequently the specification.
If you will, allow me to clarify a few things. Unfortunately, I didn't state explcitly that whether the standards are, free, open, closed or proprietary, I don't care. When it comes to standards I care about two things:
The quality of the spec, or the implementation of the standard.
The documentation of said standard or spec.
I apologize to the IP bigots who had to waste their time screaming, "WHAT ABOUT OPEN STANDARDS!?!?" Your cause was never meant to be a part of this discussion. But since you brought it up, I might say a few things. As I mentioned before, IP isn't inherently evil. It just seems that way because it is often times wielded for the wrong reasons. Just as the GPL is a copyright licence, IP can often times work in your favor. The trick is to leverage it effectively and not get caught up in utopian visions of software without ownership. Please, allow me to get all Nash-like on you: What's best for both the group and the individual is what's best for both. Now some Darwinism as paraphrased from Ghost in the Shell: Overspecialize, and you breed in weakness. That is to say homogeneous groups or individuals are more susceptible to failure than a heterogenous group. Applied the world of IP the solution for success becomes quite clear: One must use IP to benefit not only one's self, but others to a proportionate degree. By the same token, if one behaves with only the group in mind; failure is inevitable, as the individual has not paid enough attention to it's own needs to remain viable. I await the responses of both your neighbourhood PHB and Mr. Stallman.:)
Getting back to the point, I think I just gave a good reason why The Open Group might be best to stop hoarding their IP.;)
As it relates to Apple, whatever they might be doing elsewhere is irrelevant. Similarly, the hypocritical bit is self-evident. What matters is that they are intent on destroying the IP of others for no one's benefit but their own. How would your life, or the life of any given slashdotter improve without a Unix trademark? It wouldn't. In fact, it might get irrevocably worse. This is perhaps the fault of The Open Group, because it seems to me that the Unix specification means very little without the Unix trademark; and vice-versa. I simply don't see the benefit of everyone and his dog being able to call their software "Unix". I do however, see a problem with the loss of the definition of exactly what is Unix and what isn't. Yes, I'm aware that they'd probably just come up with another name/trademark; But that then begs the question, "Why bother?"
Everyone here needs to take a pill and get a fucking clue. Apple and The Open Group included. I'll deal with each individually.
Slashdot Readers:
You guys are fucking unbelieveable. "Go Apple!" and all this shit. You've gotta be fucking kidding me. Learn something about what "UNIX" means, reflect upon it, then think about how destroying the Unix trademark might be a bad thing. For the unenlightened; You're only allowed to use the Unix trademark if you conform to the Unix specification. Why does this matter, and who cares? YOU care because you're posting to Slashdot only because of any number of specifications, a Unix spec probably being one of them. HTML being another. TCP/IP, C, Perl, SQL, 3-Phase Power at 110 or 220 volts, whatever. The point is that standards and specifications are the only way to provide reliable infrastructure. Let me bring it down to earth for your Slashdotted minds: You know that "United Linux" thing (or whatever the fuck they're calling it this week) where a bunch of distribution vendors are getting together to make a Linux specification? It's the same fucking thing as The Open Group! Supporting one but not the other is not only inconsistent, its hypocritical. The only way that Linux will ever be able to rival Microsoft is by providing a common specification for which to program and support. Similarly, this is one of the main reasons the Unix specification and it's accompanying trademark has been around for 20 years or so. This is why big iron almost always runs an implementation of the one true Unix specification. If Linux ever wants to move out of the closet and onto the production floor, it would be wise to follow suit.
So stop being such short-sighted pricks. Yes, trademarks and other IP are misused on a regular basis. However, that doesn't make them inherently evil.
The Open Group:
I can understand that you guys are upset that Apple has been using the word "UNIX" in it's marketing literature; because you probably feel like it diminishes your trademark. Realistically though, Apple has made a reasonable effort to say things like "Unix based..." and crap like that. You couldn't possibly have come to some sort of agreement? I mean, they're only part of the fucking group.
Apple:
I like what you're doing these days, but...
Stop being such hypocritical jackasses. You throw your IP around like Mike Tyson does women. Then when you step on someone's toes, instead of removing your foot; you press down harder so that you can knee them in the balls with your other leg. What an asinine thing to do. Don't forget that you own IP on standards and specs too. I mean shit, if you'd have started "The Firewire Group" as an off-shoot of the IEEE1394 working group, you'd probably be selling more iPods because I could use them as storage for my Sony DV Recorder. By the same token, if you ever want Rendevous to be at all useful to people in the real world, it has to be cross-platform. So either submit it to a standards body, or better yet, make "The Rendevous Group" and licence it out. Then, in 20 years you might understand The Open Group's position when someone else is selling "Rendevous Based" brain implants.
It's good to know that Microsoft can hold AOL hostage any time they like:
4.)Microsoft reserves the right to discontinue any Internet-based services provided to you or made available to you through the use of the Product.
This statement is too vague to get worked up about, but could entitle Microsoft to block access to Internet-based services which it does not agree with.
I'm not sure everyone knows how big this is. It seems to me that Microsoft is betting the farm here. But realistically, it is a good bet; for Microsoft of course.
Either they are granted the patent, or they are not. The decision has to be made. With what kind of granularity I don't know. But even if they are able to patent only parts.NET, the plan still works well in their favor. The more modules of the software they patent, the more interoperability we loose.
However, given the government Microsoft finds itself under; (both politically, and in the patent office) Microsoft will likely get the entire standard under their control.
How much of this is a good thing?
Realistically, if they mark-out their corner of sandbox again, will they be able to survive? Open Source solutions are gaining momentum, especially in the server space. Generally, it seems people are impressed with the results. Even though it costs a bit more to manage. A slim few are doing desktop installations, but we're just begining to get information on how Open Source solutions are performing. I might note that I'm talking about real businesses, corporations and the like. As we get more feedback from business installations, we'll be able to improve what we're doing. But will we be able to make up the gap between system management costs, versus licensing costs?
Unfortunately, I'm afraid Microsoft has too much inertia with their installation base. It's really hard to switch when everyone else is using the same thing. So how much of.NET does Microsoft need to seal in their market share again? Probably none at all. What companies have to ask themselve is,
"Is it worth being tied into a proprietary system again, for the next ten years?"
People are beginning to realize that monopolistic markets are costly from a consumer standpoint; And with software, business is the largest consumer. Perhpas companies will start switching over. Either way, we're in for an interesting few years. So, at the very least, we'll have a few interesting years here. In general as well, it seems.
Hopefully this makes sense to someone... but probably not. =P
As mentioned, spoofing prevention and security of the authority infrastructure would have to be taken into consideration in design of the method.
As it pertains to the trust of a CA, anonimity is beside the point. The idea is to provide an infrastructure which allows you to decide what is trustworthy based upon an open, robust evaluation function resistant to corruption. What that funtion is, and what it entails, I don't know. But that isn't to say it doesn't exist.
Yeah, I figured someone else would come up with it too. So I typed as fast as I could. =) Just lucky timing on my part I suppose.
About evaluation schemes though: The system has to be self serving. It can't rely upon the user to do much of anything. Much less take the initiative to visit the authority website and 'vote'. Opposingly, the raw number of user approved certificates is absolutely useless. This is because:
Most people say "Yes" to whatever dialog they are presented with, regardless of the content.
A lot of clueless people download a lot of useless crap without worrying the least about security.
All the raw number of downloads would tell us is how many idiots got trojaned. While effective at informing us about the security awareness of the average web user, it doesn't make for a good measure of trust.
I guess that's what we have to do here, is come up with a "trust quantifying feedback loop (for the internet)". You may all consider this prior art if some asshole tries to patent such an idea. And I hereby bequoth it to the public domain.
Slashdot Mirror
You're welcome.
I said "No Text".
"It didn't say who it came from. I just deleted it."
Actually, he ckicked the "OK" button underneath:
That was my first question about the new design:
"So, where exactly does the missle-defense system go?"
This is a joke. I realize such systems would probably be best by the water. =P
I dunnot about that, but this one looks like the lander caught fire. =P
Wait, maybe that's why the probe is "silent"...
They found oil!
...From the article:
...the new unelected Canadian Prime Minister...
...opens a whole can of worms in regards to copyright and fair use of web content...
...then a bunch of inane questions after that.
Dave and I go over the site, and make a few changes to the design to make it less of an overt copy of Paul Martin's official site.
Then later when the C&D letter is quoted:
As you are no doubt aware, not only have you utilized LPC's art and graphics but, as well, you have, without alteration, made use of its style sheet.
and
Even your logo is an exact copy of that found at www.paulmartintimes.ca.
So, don't compare what is on the sites now. I'd like to see some screenshots before passing judgement. I just peeked at the stylesheet, and while its not comprehensive (the page is still laid out in tables) like any other code, whoever wrote it owns the copyright.
It sounds to me like these guys bit off a little more than they could chew and are now using the same sensationalism they use on their site, to rally others to their defense.
Sorry fellas, I'm not taking the bait. I'm not going to come to the aid of some listless hacks who were too lazy to do their own work for their own website. If anyone is the "SCO" in this case it is these guys. They are the ones who stole the material and claimed it as their own. Poor form, gentlemen.
I'm no liberal fanboy, but I have to take exception at some of the things the submitter said:
and
Firstly, we don't elect our Prime Ministers; ever. We elect our local Members of Parliment, who from their ranks elect a leader. So by the logic of the submitee, all of our Prime Ministers have been un-elected. Therefore the point is moot, and should not have been mentioned.
Second; there is no can of worms here. Either they stole copyrighted material or they didn't. Sure, we might need a judge to figure that out, but that's what they're for. Given that they are posting the C&D letter in public I'm guessing they are trying to make themselves heard. Yet, they make no effort to rebut the claims made in the letter. Though we don't know conclusively without screenshots or archives (Google Cache looks new, and Way Back Machine comes up empty.) it seems as though there was an infringement.
Lastly, for the same reason there isn't a can of worms, it really doesn't matter that the party is the plaintiff. This is a civil case, and really has shit all to do with who's in charge. I mean, it's not like they are the prosecution in a criminal case, nor is the goverment suing anyone. How do we draw the line between infringement and parody? The same way we always have; with that section of copyright law pertaining to fair use and parody
People should really get their facts straight before flying off the handle. It's like insurance against looking like an idiot.
It has to do with the rods and cones on your retinas. The periphery of your vision is made up with a greater proportion of rods to cones than the middle. Rods have a faster response time to changes in luminance than do cones. Whereas cones can better define colour than rods.
So that's why you can see screen flicker better from the side of your field of view. There are more rods there.
Perhaps their online world needs police? =P
Unlike itanium it actually performs very well on 32 bit applications, in fact better than any other processor currently in existance, including the G5.
Astute.
...and the democrats.
Here's your cookie, bitch.
I defy someone to find a whole in my logic!
You're right, it doesn't completely make sense.You raise a good point.
This is where a good time-out/ban policy comes in handy:
...or something to that effect.
If you want more, National Geographic want you to pay for it.
...and it is worth every penny.
Every month those guys send me a magazine filled with the "pornography" of the natural and human world. (Bare-chested females from tribal and agrarian societies notwithstanding.) Interspliced, you find stories from every corner of the globe, the infinitesimal, the infinite and of the soul.
They're coverage of "Gulf War PART DEUX!!" was excellent, as is they're continuing series on Afganistan. Also of note was the article on modern slavery.
So yeah, I may be a National Geographic fanboy. However... Objectively speaking, they send me a magazine on ultra-high quality stock; printed on to which are some of the most stunning images and amazing stories. This is a service I am happy to pay for. Nevermind that I'm funding research (to a limited extent) by doing so. I'm not sure if you were implicating that one shouldn't have to pay for such a service. I posted this more to quell the extremists who take the notion of "free" a bit too far.
Hmm... I was going to mod you up for what appears to be factually correct. But then I noticed that you mentioned that your submission was rejected. The page appears to redirect right now; and I remembered the troubles that /. and the Mozilla project have had as it relates to announcing ftp availability before the mirrors have had a chance to grab it. So, thank you very much for the info; I'm grabbing it now. (Yes, I know; I'm a hypocritical leech.) I just thought I'd mention this to everybody, before some idiot editor sees all the submissions and posts one of them. Just silently grab your copy and everyone else will find out soon enough. =P
Thank you all for pointing out the details of Apple's standards activities. I'm much better educated for it, without having to exact the effort to check the facts myself.(/SINCERITY)
The reason I didn't check them is because they are completely tertiary to the point. Perhaps I should have written more hypothetically, but I figured that might have been evident when I mentioned brain implants.
Do any of you have friends (insert obligatory slashdot joke here) that can only respond to one point of a multi-facted email or letter? I do, and I'm reminded of them here. For those who have trouble following, I'll condense my post into a list of points: (with bullets!)
- Standards and specifications are good.
- The Open Group should stop being IP nazis.
- Notwithstanding, Apple are hypocritical assholes for wanting to invalidate the Unix trademark and consequently the specification.
If you will, allow me to clarify a few things. Unfortunately, I didn't state explcitly that whether the standards are, free, open, closed or proprietary, I don't care. When it comes to standards I care about two things:- The quality of the spec, or the implementation of the standard.
- The documentation of said standard or spec.
I apologize to the IP bigots who had to waste their time screaming, "WHAT ABOUT OPEN STANDARDS!?!?" Your cause was never meant to be a part of this discussion. But since you brought it up, I might say a few things. As I mentioned before, IP isn't inherently evil. It just seems that way because it is often times wielded for the wrong reasons. Just as the GPL is a copyright licence, IP can often times work in your favor. The trick is to leverage it effectively and not get caught up in utopian visions of software without ownership. Please, allow me to get all Nash-like on you: What's best for both the group and the individual is what's best for both. Now some Darwinism as paraphrased from Ghost in the Shell: Overspecialize, and you breed in weakness. That is to say homogeneous groups or individuals are more susceptible to failure than a heterogenous group. Applied the world of IP the solution for success becomes quite clear: One must use IP to benefit not only one's self, but others to a proportionate degree. By the same token, if one behaves with only the group in mind; failure is inevitable, as the individual has not paid enough attention to it's own needs to remain viable. I await the responses of both your neighbourhood PHB and Mr. Stallman.Getting back to the point, I think I just gave a good reason why The Open Group might be best to stop hoarding their IP. ;)
As it relates to Apple, whatever they might be doing elsewhere is irrelevant. Similarly, the hypocritical bit is self-evident. What matters is that they are intent on destroying the IP of others for no one's benefit but their own. How would your life, or the life of any given slashdotter improve without a Unix trademark? It wouldn't. In fact, it might get irrevocably worse. This is perhaps the fault of The Open Group, because it seems to me that the Unix specification means very little without the Unix trademark; and vice-versa. I simply don't see the benefit of everyone and his dog being able to call their software "Unix". I do however, see a problem with the loss of the definition of exactly what is Unix and what isn't. Yes, I'm aware that they'd probably just come up with another name/trademark; But that then begs the question, "Why bother?"
Everyone here needs to take a pill and get a fucking clue. Apple and The Open Group included. I'll deal with each individually.
Slashdot Readers:
You guys are fucking unbelieveable. "Go Apple!" and all this shit. You've gotta be fucking kidding me. Learn something about what "UNIX" means, reflect upon it, then think about how destroying the Unix trademark might be a bad thing. For the unenlightened; You're only allowed to use the Unix trademark if you conform to the Unix specification. Why does this matter, and who cares? YOU care because you're posting to Slashdot only because of any number of specifications, a Unix spec probably being one of them. HTML being another. TCP/IP, C, Perl, SQL, 3-Phase Power at 110 or 220 volts, whatever. The point is that standards and specifications are the only way to provide reliable infrastructure. Let me bring it down to earth for your Slashdotted minds: You know that "United Linux" thing (or whatever the fuck they're calling it this week) where a bunch of distribution vendors are getting together to make a Linux specification? It's the same fucking thing as The Open Group! Supporting one but not the other is not only inconsistent, its hypocritical. The only way that Linux will ever be able to rival Microsoft is by providing a common specification for which to program and support. Similarly, this is one of the main reasons the Unix specification and it's accompanying trademark has been around for 20 years or so. This is why big iron almost always runs an implementation of the one true Unix specification. If Linux ever wants to move out of the closet and onto the production floor, it would be wise to follow suit.
So stop being such short-sighted pricks. Yes, trademarks and other IP are misused on a regular basis. However, that doesn't make them inherently evil.
The Open Group:
I can understand that you guys are upset that Apple has been using the word "UNIX" in it's marketing literature; because you probably feel like it diminishes your trademark. Realistically though, Apple has made a reasonable effort to say things like "Unix based..." and crap like that. You couldn't possibly have come to some sort of agreement? I mean, they're only part of the fucking group.
Apple:
I like what you're doing these days, but...
Stop being such hypocritical jackasses. You throw your IP around like Mike Tyson does women. Then when you step on someone's toes, instead of removing your foot; you press down harder so that you can knee them in the balls with your other leg. What an asinine thing to do. Don't forget that you own IP on standards and specs too. I mean shit, if you'd have started "The Firewire Group" as an off-shoot of the IEEE1394 working group, you'd probably be selling more iPods because I could use them as storage for my Sony DV Recorder. By the same token, if you ever want Rendevous to be at all useful to people in the real world, it has to be cross-platform. So either submit it to a standards body, or better yet, make "The Rendevous Group" and licence it out. Then, in 20 years you might understand The Open Group's position when someone else is selling "Rendevous Based" brain implants.
Okay, I think I'm done ranting now.
Yes, the article takess some rather large liberties with interpretation of the text.
I was just helping the FUD along. =P
It's good to know that Microsoft can hold AOL hostage any time they like:
I'm not sure everyone knows how big this is. It seems to me that Microsoft is betting the farm here. But realistically, it is a good bet; for Microsoft of course.
Either they are granted the patent, or they are not. The decision has to be made. With what kind of granularity I don't know. But even if they are able to patent only parts .NET, the plan still works well in their favor. The more modules of the software they patent, the more interoperability we loose.
However, given the government Microsoft finds itself under; (both politically, and in the patent office) Microsoft will likely get the entire standard under their control.
How much of this is a good thing?
Realistically, if they mark-out their corner of sandbox again, will they be able to survive? Open Source solutions are gaining momentum, especially in the server space. Generally, it seems people are impressed with the results. Even though it costs a bit more to manage. A slim few are doing desktop installations, but we're just begining to get information on how Open Source solutions are performing. I might note that I'm talking about real businesses, corporations and the like. As we get more feedback from business installations, we'll be able to improve what we're doing. But will we be able to make up the gap between system management costs, versus licensing costs?Unfortunately, I'm afraid Microsoft has too much inertia with their installation base. It's really hard to switch when everyone else is using the same thing. So how much of .NET does Microsoft need to seal in their market share again? Probably none at all. What companies have to ask themselve is,
People are beginning to realize that monopolistic markets are costly from a consumer standpoint; And with software, business is the largest consumer. Perhpas companies will start switching over. Either way, we're in for an interesting few years. So, at the very least, we'll have a few interesting years here. In general as well, it seems.Hopefully this makes sense to someone... but probably not. =P
like i always say, the only thing funnier than a good joke is someone disecting and murdering it for everyone else around
Thanks, you made my day! It always makes me happy to piss off assholes.
Warmest regards,
jungleboy
Touché! You ACs never cease to amaze me. =)
For those of you playing the home game, he quoted Spaceballs.
As mentioned, spoofing prevention and security of the authority infrastructure would have to be taken into consideration in design of the method.
As it pertains to the trust of a CA, anonimity is beside the point. The idea is to provide an infrastructure which allows you to decide what is trustworthy based upon an open, robust evaluation function resistant to corruption. What that funtion is, and what it entails, I don't know. But that isn't to say it doesn't exist.
Yes, I was aware of that. I'm not a complete idiot.
Yeah, I figured someone else would come up with it too. So I typed as fast as I could. =) Just lucky timing on my part I suppose.
About evaluation schemes though: The system has to be self serving. It can't rely upon the user to do much of anything. Much less take the initiative to visit the authority website and 'vote'. Opposingly, the raw number of user approved certificates is absolutely useless. This is because:
All the raw number of downloads would tell us is how many idiots got trojaned. While effective at informing us about the security awareness of the average web user, it doesn't make for a good measure of trust.
I guess that's what we have to do here, is come up with a "trust quantifying feedback loop (for the internet)". You may all consider this prior art if some asshole tries to patent such an idea. And I hereby bequoth it to the public domain.