Unfortunately, the 1996 Federal Trademark Dilution Act changed this. Look here for a nice discussion of the deceit theory (IMHO the only legitimate basis for trademark enforcement) and the dilution theory (which allows the sort of ludicrous crap Pillsbury is pulling). Another law bought and paid for by Corporate America.
I wonder if anyone's considered the possibility of this creating what I hereby dub the "Napster Effect," in which "contraband" material is available and a few people are happily dealing with it below the establishment's radar. The, someone sues, or some other enforcement action is taken against this "contraband," causing it to become sought after and wildly popular. I'd sure love to see Yahoo! Auction's search statistics on the words "nazi," "hitler," "iron cross," et. al. before and after the French action and Yahoo!'s self-censorship policy!
Mine, too, installed from diskette images painstakingly downloaded from a VMS dialup account a few at a time (disk quota) and transferred over a 14.4kbps modem.
I'll never forget the first time I saw my TWM running on a 486 back in early 1994--or my disbelief that it was all free and with source. I was hooked ever since! Linux nostalgia--now there's something we have to worry about in 20 years:).
Now, I'm pretty much distribution agnostic, with Debian on one machine, Slack on an older machine, and Slack in a VMWare VM for which I assembled all the libraries and other dependencies to get Berlin running. But Slackware has a special place in my memory.
Not everyone has had a life as focused and correct as yours. A career in the Navy, followed by a sucessful academic track in Computer Science!
I don't know if I'd call my life "focused and correct," but I'll take that in the spirit it was meant. Thank you.
Unlike you, I have made many mistakes in my life. For one, I am glad my current employer has not investigated many jobs I held 15 or 20 years ago, where my performance and attitude were less than exemplary.
I think that's true for most people. I'll admit to having done zero hiring, but if recent performace of an applicant was good, I would overlook bad performace that long ago. In fact, the application for my employer only asks for ten years of history. A felony conviction involving violence or money, however, involves concerns about safety and fiduciary responsibility, and would have to be considered. Embezzlement, no matter how old, would likely disqualify someone for a trusted position in my office. A DWI, parking tickets, or a drug charge probably would not.
You may wish to consider that some people have, unlike yourself, not been born to always make the correct choices, but have sometimes had to make serious mistakes first. From these mistakes they must have the opportunity to make their lives right.
I appreciate your desire to feel that you might have been destined to make poor choices. However, it has been my experience (and I am not a counselor or anything) that admitting one's own role in one's problems is a good first step to setting things right. I reject the idea that bad choices I might have made were not my fault just as much as I reject the idea that any good ones are the result of pure luck.
If my past mistakes will continue to penalize me, then I have no incentive to make the diffcult choice to right my path. If I am arrested for a DWI, why should I make the decision to correct my behavior, when I will be unable to find employment 10 years later regardless? If I am a foolish tennager who undertakes a bad debt, why should I even bother applying to college, knowing the debt will deny me the possibility of financial aid?
Another poster addressed the "continuing penalty" part. While I'm sure it seems unfair, society's sanctions for wrongdoing don't end upon paying the fine or leaving the prison walls, as the case may be. However, with respect to financial aid, I have some first hand knowledge. The kinds of things that make someone ineligible for Federal student loans are defaulting on other Federal loans, owing educational grant repayments to the government, and, in some circumstances, drug conviction (and there is redemption there after one year). The loan program the subject of this discussion was applying for might have been being made by the school or a private entity, which is free to set its own rules. (Under certain conditions, a school may set stricter standards for Stafford loans, but I personally know of few cases where past credit problems will cause a student to be denied a Stafford loan.)
There are many, many good people around you who have at times make poor choices and managed to pull themselves out of it. People can even develop empathy, forgive other's mistakes, and give them another chance to prove themselves, if they put their minds to it.
I am under no illusion that I or any other human is perfect, and am prepared personally to forgive when it is within my right to do so and I am the only one taking risks. However, when it comes to duty to family, employer, or country (insert national anthem.WAV clip here), I don't necessarily have the authority to do so, and am entitled to full disclosure.
From your post, you seem to have an enlightened attitude--but keep in mind that there's a difference between someone knowingly giving you a chance to prove yourself and having information hidden from them to which they're entitled in making a decision. If one deceives in hiding a past mistake, one is making another one. That said, I wish you the best of luck in your endeavors.
So based on that idea of redemption, you would have no problem with the idea that a convicted child rapist could babysit your children? After all, this person's paid his debt to society, and Christianity and democracy demand that we forgive him and pretend nothing ever happened.
Extreme example, yes. But the fact is that people are entitled to consider the actions of a person in the past when making decisions about them. There are some exceptions to this (e.g. juvenile convictions) and exceptions to those exceptions (e.g. juvenile convictions for murder, an exception I agree with--old enough to kill, old enough to pay the price).
Having an entire class of people denied these opportunities, rules by people who manage to pass the required background checks, is the negation of the democratic ideal.
No, when that class of people is composed of people who joined that class by their willful actions (e.g. vandalism, not paying debts, committing felonies), what we have isn't a negation of the democratic ideal, it is accountability.
This is sort of like test scores. The College Board (SAT) and ACT say that the test scores shouldn't be used as a number that acts as the sole qualifier or disqualifier for college admission, knowing full well that much of the time they are.
Credit bureaus play the same game with credit scores (which, incidentally, the FCRA does not require be disclosed to the consumer). They know that creditors use a cutoff score, but they maintain the pleasant fiction in their written documents that this isn't done, skirting the harsher government regulation they so richly deserve. Until regulations tighten, this wink-wink, nudge-nudge arrangement will only get worse.
There's a big difference between witholding information for national security, which is what the amusing hypothetical examples you cite are, and witholding information that may merely be embarrassing to the government. The first is legal, and the second is not. What NASA is doing is a case of the latter, and their FOIA doublespeak doesn't help their credibility one bit. I hope they get some new management soon, but if not, the budget "clampdown" that the AC alluded to earlier is in order.
You're partially right... in most cases, any attempted copy protection is doomed to fail, with the only clear exception being games which must connect to a server in order to function (Q3A, UO, various Blizzard products, etc.).
I'm Dr. Righteous, and I'm here to sing
That information is poisoning.
It's a data wasteland that destroys the young.
They're overloaded on sex and drugs.
You articulated your troubles with them very well. I hope they eventually own up to their mistake and give you the apology you deserve! My thought on AMEX and its "no pre-set spending limit" is that I know there's a limit, just not what it is--however, the first time they ever decline a charge would be the last--then I could use your confetti idea:).
It does answer the question--the refund, if needed, is made to the one-time number, which is linked to your account in AMEX's database. More detailed explanation is farther down in the FAQ, but I thought you'd get it from that.
How do I contact a merchant with an inquiry about a purchase if I have used a Private Payments number?
Because the Private Payments technology enables you to make on-line purchases without revealing your actual Card account number, you will want to be careful when contacting a merchant about a purchase inquiry (e.g. returns, exchanges, back-ordered merchandise, etc.) not to reveal your actual Card account number. When contacting merchants regarding a Private Payments purchase you should always provide your Private Payments number and expiration date and not your actual Card account number or expiration date.
This incident underscores the usefulness of one-time credit card numbers, such as those provided by American Express' Private Payments service. This service allows the cardholder to generate an account number for each transaction. So if that number is stolen from a merchant's database later, it's useless. This also comes in handy for preventing unauthorized billings from the same merchant later on.
Most flash-upgradable setups allow for storing the old version before flashing it, so SDMI trojans are a pretty moot point.
I don't think the music industry will be allowing that kind of flash setup. If it fails in the middle, oh, well.
As far as copy protection, the ones who don't implement it don't get the license, and can't play the standard formats yet to come--or MP3, for that matter--this could be accomplished by the RIAA climbing into bed with Frauenhofer.
Perhaps some flash-upgradable hardware is the way to go. Throw a USB or serial connection on it and provide firmware updates for it; that's definately something that would convince *me* to buy any product.
But this is a double-edged sword. Along with some enticing new feature, there could be a Trojan horse--SDMI compliance or some other evil copy protection scheme. Once the firmware's flashed, it's too late.
Calling that software that "could be used" to spam is like calling the electric chair a device that "could be used" to kill. Did you look at the site, that caused the RBL nomination for crying out loud?
And what better deterrent to the owner of the IP block than to have them lose customers to someone with an IP block that isn't hosting spammers' websites? This is not censorship; it's providing negative feedback to people that don't play well with others on our network.
They're put on the RBL to punish them for willingly harboring spammers who advertise their sites with stolen services from other providers and clog millions of mailboxes with crap.
Those who host websites for spammers even after its brought to their attention that they're spamming deserve to be blackholed--I praise the RBL for their continued action in this regard.
Should they wish to rejoin the RBL using net, they may terminate their spammers and tighten their policies. For those who cry about "free association," remember that subscribing to the RBL is voluntary, and using an ISP that subscribes to them is voluntary. If individuals want their subscription fees to support spam and their packets to be dumped, they're free to subscribed to an RBL'd provider.
OK, you aren't trolling:). Now I'm speaking anecdotally, but wouldn't online gaming be more fraud prone than, say, an online bookstore? I just can't believe that even with the obscene merchant fees and interest collected by credit card companies that they would tolerate or could survive a 30% fraud rate in online transactions. I would think it would become impossible for all but the most enormous companies to obtain a merchant account.
That appears to be a fine troll indeed--subtle, but spitting in the face of logic.
Do you have a citation to back up your claim of a 30% fraud rate? In the U.S. or in some third world backwater? For porn sites only? That number sounds like pure, unadulterated bullshit to me, but if you're not really trolling, I'm interested in hearing where you got it.
A bandolier with that Palm, cell phone, pager, MP3 player, Leatherman, along with a MagLite and batteries (AAA & AA) filling the rest like ammo would be cool. Sort of a Nerd Rambo effect.
Just carry high liability limits (i.e. towards $1 million). It doesn't cost as much as you would think, and, trust me, your insurance company will deploy the O.J. defense team to get out of paying a claim anywhere near that. (The guy in the Lexus SUV you hit will not be happy:).) If you carry state liability requirements on the order of $50k, though, they'll pay out the $50k and let you hang out to dry. (Not speaking from experience, IANAIS (I am not an insurance salesman), yadda yadda.)
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Unfortunately, the 1996 Federal Trademark Dilution Act changed this. Look here for a nice discussion of the deceit theory (IMHO the only legitimate basis for trademark enforcement) and the dilution theory (which allows the sort of ludicrous crap Pillsbury is pulling). Another law bought and paid for by Corporate America.
I wonder if anyone's considered the possibility of this creating what I hereby dub the "Napster Effect," in which "contraband" material is available and a few people are happily dealing with it below the establishment's radar. The, someone sues, or some other enforcement action is taken against this "contraband," causing it to become sought after and wildly popular. I'd sure love to see Yahoo! Auction's search statistics on the words "nazi," "hitler," "iron cross," et. al. before and after the French action and Yahoo!'s self-censorship policy!
Sounds like an opportunty for some entrepreneurs to resell HavenCo's services in smaller bites, just as other ISP's do.
I'll never forget the first time I saw my TWM running on a 486 back in early 1994--or my disbelief that it was all free and with source. I was hooked ever since! Linux nostalgia--now there's something we have to worry about in 20 years :).
Now, I'm pretty much distribution agnostic, with Debian on one machine, Slack on an older machine, and Slack in a VMWare VM for which I assembled all the libraries and other dependencies to get Berlin running. But Slackware has a special place in my memory.
I don't know if I'd call my life "focused and correct," but I'll take that in the spirit it was meant. Thank you.
Unlike you, I have made many mistakes in my life. For one, I am glad my current employer has not investigated many jobs I held 15 or 20 years ago, where my performance and attitude were less than exemplary.
I think that's true for most people. I'll admit to having done zero hiring, but if recent performace of an applicant was good, I would overlook bad performace that long ago. In fact, the application for my employer only asks for ten years of history. A felony conviction involving violence or money, however, involves concerns about safety and fiduciary responsibility, and would have to be considered. Embezzlement, no matter how old, would likely disqualify someone for a trusted position in my office. A DWI, parking tickets, or a drug charge probably would not.
You may wish to consider that some people have, unlike yourself, not been born to always make the correct choices, but have sometimes had to make serious mistakes first. From these mistakes they must have the opportunity to make their lives right.
I appreciate your desire to feel that you might have been destined to make poor choices. However, it has been my experience (and I am not a counselor or anything) that admitting one's own role in one's problems is a good first step to setting things right. I reject the idea that bad choices I might have made were not my fault just as much as I reject the idea that any good ones are the result of pure luck.
If my past mistakes will continue to penalize me, then I have no incentive to make the diffcult choice to right my path. If I am arrested for a DWI, why should I make the decision to correct my behavior, when I will be unable to find employment 10 years later regardless? If I am a foolish tennager who undertakes a bad debt, why should I even bother applying to college, knowing the debt will deny me the possibility of financial aid?
Another poster addressed the "continuing penalty" part. While I'm sure it seems unfair, society's sanctions for wrongdoing don't end upon paying the fine or leaving the prison walls, as the case may be. However, with respect to financial aid, I have some first hand knowledge. The kinds of things that make someone ineligible for Federal student loans are defaulting on other Federal loans, owing educational grant repayments to the government, and, in some circumstances, drug conviction (and there is redemption there after one year). The loan program the subject of this discussion was applying for might have been being made by the school or a private entity, which is free to set its own rules. (Under certain conditions, a school may set stricter standards for Stafford loans, but I personally know of few cases where past credit problems will cause a student to be denied a Stafford loan.)
There are many, many good people around you who have at times make poor choices and managed to pull themselves out of it. People can even develop empathy, forgive other's mistakes, and give them another chance to prove themselves, if they put their minds to it.
I am under no illusion that I or any other human is perfect, and am prepared personally to forgive when it is within my right to do so and I am the only one taking risks. However, when it comes to duty to family, employer, or country (insert national anthem .WAV clip here), I don't necessarily have the authority to do so, and am entitled to full disclosure.
From your post, you seem to have an enlightened attitude--but keep in mind that there's a difference between someone knowingly giving you a chance to prove yourself and having information hidden from them to which they're entitled in making a decision. If one deceives in hiding a past mistake, one is making another one. That said, I wish you the best of luck in your endeavors.
Extreme example, yes. But the fact is that people are entitled to consider the actions of a person in the past when making decisions about them. There are some exceptions to this (e.g. juvenile convictions) and exceptions to those exceptions (e.g. juvenile convictions for murder, an exception I agree with--old enough to kill, old enough to pay the price).
No, when that class of people is composed of people who joined that class by their willful actions (e.g. vandalism, not paying debts, committing felonies), what we have isn't a negation of the democratic ideal, it is accountability.
Credit bureaus play the same game with credit scores (which, incidentally, the FCRA does not require be disclosed to the consumer). They know that creditors use a cutoff score, but they maintain the pleasant fiction in their written documents that this isn't done, skirting the harsher government regulation they so richly deserve. Until regulations tighten, this wink-wink, nudge-nudge arrangement will only get worse.
There's a big difference between witholding information for national security, which is what the amusing hypothetical examples you cite are, and witholding information that may merely be embarrassing to the government. The first is legal, and the second is not. What NASA is doing is a case of the latter, and their FOIA doublespeak doesn't help their credibility one bit. I hope they get some new management soon, but if not, the budget "clampdown" that the AC alluded to earlier is in order.
Two words. Dot net.
That information is poisoning.
It's a data wasteland that destroys the young.
They're overloaded on sex and drugs.
My apologies to Styx, but it seems appropriate.
You articulated your troubles with them very well. I hope they eventually own up to their mistake and give you the apology you deserve! My thought on AMEX and its "no pre-set spending limit" is that I know there's a limit, just not what it is--however, the first time they ever decline a charge would be the last--then I could use your confetti idea :).
It does answer the question--the refund, if needed, is made to the one-time number, which is linked to your account in AMEX's database. More detailed explanation is farther down in the FAQ, but I thought you'd get it from that.
How do I contact a merchant with an inquiry about a purchase if I have used a Private Payments number?
Because the Private Payments technology enables you to make on-line purchases without revealing your actual Card account number, you will want to be careful when contacting a merchant about a purchase inquiry (e.g. returns, exchanges, back-ordered merchandise, etc.) not to reveal your actual Card account number. When contacting merchants regarding a Private Payments purchase you should always provide your Private Payments number and expiration date and not your actual Card account number or expiration date.
This incident underscores the usefulness of one-time credit card numbers, such as those provided by American Express' Private Payments service. This service allows the cardholder to generate an account number for each transaction. So if that number is stolen from a merchant's database later, it's useless. This also comes in handy for preventing unauthorized billings from the same merchant later on.
I don't think the music industry will be allowing that kind of flash setup. If it fails in the middle, oh, well.
As far as copy protection, the ones who don't implement it don't get the license, and can't play the standard formats yet to come--or MP3, for that matter--this could be accomplished by the RIAA climbing into bed with Frauenhofer.
But this is a double-edged sword. Along with some enticing new feature, there could be a Trojan horse--SDMI compliance or some other evil copy protection scheme. Once the firmware's flashed, it's too late.
Calling that software that "could be used" to spam is like calling the electric chair a device that "could be used" to kill. Did you look at the site, that caused the RBL nomination for crying out loud?
And what better deterrent to the owner of the IP block than to have them lose customers to someone with an IP block that isn't hosting spammers' websites? This is not censorship; it's providing negative feedback to people that don't play well with others on our network.
Those who host websites for spammers even after its brought to their attention that they're spamming deserve to be blackholed--I praise the RBL for their continued action in this regard.
Should they wish to rejoin the RBL using net, they may terminate their spammers and tighten their policies. For those who cry about "free association," remember that subscribing to the RBL is voluntary, and using an ISP that subscribes to them is voluntary. If individuals want their subscription fees to support spam and their packets to be dumped, they're free to subscribed to an RBL'd provider.
OK, you aren't trolling :). Now I'm speaking anecdotally, but wouldn't online gaming be more fraud prone than, say, an online bookstore? I just can't believe that even with the obscene merchant fees and interest collected by credit card companies that they would tolerate or could survive a 30% fraud rate in online transactions. I would think it would become impossible for all but the most enormous companies to obtain a merchant account.
Do you have a citation to back up your claim of a 30% fraud rate? In the U.S. or in some third world backwater? For porn sites only? That number sounds like pure, unadulterated bullshit to me, but if you're not really trolling, I'm interested in hearing where you got it.
A bandolier with that Palm, cell phone, pager, MP3 player, Leatherman, along with a MagLite and batteries (AAA & AA) filling the rest like ammo would be cool. Sort of a Nerd Rambo effect.
IIRC, there was a Linux version of the CD scanning program. In fact, it was in source form except for the 31337 encryption part.
Just carry high liability limits (i.e. towards $1 million). It doesn't cost as much as you would think, and, trust me, your insurance company will deploy the O.J. defense team to get out of paying a claim anywhere near that. (The guy in the Lexus SUV you hit will not be happy :).) If you carry state liability requirements on the order of $50k, though, they'll pay out the $50k and let you hang out to dry. (Not speaking from experience, IANAIS (I am not an insurance salesman), yadda yadda.)