The thing is, it is illegal to make telemarketing calls to cell phones (since it costs the recipient money). My theory is that the telemarketers have a "block list" of area code/exchanges that are used by the cell companies.
I believe this is correct; that one call you did get was probably from a small company that wasn't big enough to have a list like that (they probably have one by now).
Unfortunately, as much as I wish it were otherwise, a lot of the people saying "Macs are more expensive" are actually right. Yes, Apple's laptops are price-competetive, but their desktops really aren't, especially when you're looking at speed.
Case in point: it sure would be nice if I could play Unreal Tournament 2003. My 700MHz eMac will sort of attempt to run it, but at the lowest settings it's too slow to be playable. I'm told this is largely due to the video card (32MB GeForce2 MX) rather than the processor, although I don't really know.
A 1GHz eMac with a 32MB Radeon 7500 is $999. A 1GHz iMac with a 32MB GeForce4 MX is $1799. A 1GHz PowerMac with 64MB GeForce4 MX is $1499 (plus monitor). A dual 1.25GHz PowerMac with a 64MB Radeon 9000 Pro is $1999 (plus monitor).
Would the $1499 PowerMac be fast enough to make me happy playing that game? Maybe, I'm not sure. I bet the $999 eMac wouldn't be. I can build a 2.4GHz Athlon system with a nice video card for a hell of a lot less than that, even if you add the cost of Windows.
Of course this has nothing to do with iTunes, which works beautifully.
One of the things I've been wondering is, if an indie label wants to make their own songs available without DRM, will Apple let them do so on the iTunes Music Store, or is DRM absolutely required? What if the band wants to sell unrestricted AAC files? What about MP3?
Of course I expect most of them to want the DRM, but some may not.
I think the reason it may be be big deal is that this is in the mainstream press.
I was replying to the submitter's comment about it having been done before. The fact that it's been done before (not in the mainstream press) doesn't detract from the fact that it is now being done in the mainstream press, which is indeed interesting.
And this could show people how to write a virus...
It may offer tips to people who are already capable of writing a virus, but those aren't Wired's typical readers. Those not already capable of writing a virus won't suddenly be able to do so after reading how this one worked.
But the fact is, the disassembly of Slammer (aka Sapphire) has been available on the Net since late January -- just hours after the worm started to spread.
Ummm...
So?
Of course people started looking at the code as soon as it was unleashed, and of course they wrote their own descriptions of how it worked. Maybe Wired could do a better job of explaining it to their readers? Besides, I'd bet most of the people who read the magazine didn't read that disassembly you referenced.
Wired thinks they have a story that will interest people. They're probably right. If you're suggesting that Wired must have stolen it, I think you're being silly, and if not, then what's the issue here?
You got a +5 funny mod, but I'm not sure you weren't being serious. I can only think of three in either house who have come out in favor of this sort of thing: Lofgren (BALANCE act), Boucher (DMCRA), and now this guy.
I know this may be out of left field, but could I not copyright my identity?
You can't copyright it, but you can register it as a trademark, like Billy Joel® did.
Before suing someone for infringing on your trademark, you must first give them notice that they're doing so, and give them a chance to stop. Adding the registered trademark symbol after his name everywhere it appears serves as notice of the trademark.
I don't think this will help you either, though.;-)
So if your phone company is your ISP, they aren't allowed to give out your information unless a court says they have to -- or if they have your EXPLICIT consent to do so.
Isn't a subpoena a kind of court order? Isn't that what we're talking about here?
Having sat on the receiving end of an abuse mailbox, I can tell you it's not THAT expensive to police.
I have too; we had a full-time employee dedicated just to handling spam complaints, and several of the rest of us would help out as needed. It was about all we could do to stay caught up with it enough that large ISPs like AOL and RoadRunner didn't blacklist our IP blocks (which would have resulted in many of our customers being unable to send mail to customers of those ISPs) - if somebody was out sick and we fell behind, we could usually expect to receive another threatening e-mail from AOL's abuse department.
So, yeah, it cost us money (dedicated employees) just to stay on top of it enough to satisfy AOL. Actually processing every complaint in a timely manner to the satisfaction of all parties involved would have required more staff.
We weren't as efficient as we would have liked to have been, but we were constrained by company policy and our unresponsive legal department. If we'd been able to set our own rules, it would have gone a little more smoothly, but we would still have had to deal with the volume of issues.
Admittedly, an interesting thing about spam complaints is, the faster you handle it, the less work you have to do; the volume would have gone down if we'd been able to get on top of it better - but that would have required taking more time per issue.
Re:why C&W is leaveing the states
on
C&W Bails Out
·
· Score: 1
They are loosing money for one simple reason... POOR MANAGEMENT AND BULLHEADEDNESS
Funny, that was half the reason my last employer went out of business too.
(For the other half, I blame the FCC and the economy.)
Re:Infrastructure
on
C&W Bails Out
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· Score: 5, Interesting
Those data centers have nothing to worry about. Some company is going to buy all of that infrastructure & equipment for pennies on the dollar. It makes sense for them to leave it as is and transfer the existing customer base. Why would they reinvent the wheel if everything is already in place? No need to panic.
That's what I thought when my last place of empoyment went out of business - somebody would buy us and merge our network with theirs, or they'd just buy our 160,000 residential broadband customers, transition them to their network, and then dump us. Neither happened; the customers got screwed.
Between the porn sites, open relays and unresponsiveness re spam/TOS, I'm not surprised these folks are getting out of the business. Hopefully whoever buys the pieces knows what to do with them.
Are you kidding? You actually think they're significantly worse than their competition? Policing abuse is expensive, and for a large company strictly enforcing their policies doesn't result in a signficant measurable increase in revenues or decrease in costs. Sure, if everybody did it, everybody's bandwidth costs would go down, but bandwidth is probably cheaper than manpower anyway.
Pulling out completely?
on
C&W Bails Out
·
· Score: 4, Informative
C&W does a wide range of things in the US, including operating colocation facilities, providing connectivity to businesses, operating dialup POPs, and running a major backbone. As a whole, these operations are losing $1 million a day (according to the article), but is it possible that one or two of them might actually be profitable? Will C&W completely pull out of the US, or will they keep a much more limited presense?
Another thing: will some operations be sold to other companies (and their customers transferred without loss of service), or will everything be turned off and each piece of equipment sold to the highest bidder?
I doubt anyone has the answers, but these are my questions.:-)
Do I remember that Slashdot is/was hosted by Exodus? I'm too lazy to investigate.
The pirate culture is totally different. They're not that bad anyway since the majority of pirate sites are adwhores, unreliable, and clones of each other.
I don't know anyone who gets their pirated copies of Windows from sites like that. It's just passed around among friends (either online or offline); there are no "pirate sites" or "pirate culture" involved. Most of my computer-savvy friends have a copy; why would I go through all that hassle when I could just get it from one of them?
I think somehow the beancounters make it look better to buy something for $2 million than to increase headcount by a dozen people. I'll never understand how that works.
Slashdot Mirror
The thing is, it is illegal to make telemarketing calls to cell phones (since it costs the recipient money). My theory is that the telemarketers have a "block list" of area code/exchanges that are used by the cell companies.
I believe this is correct; that one call you did get was probably from a small company that wasn't big enough to have a list like that (they probably have one by now).
Unfortunately, as much as I wish it were otherwise, a lot of the people saying "Macs are more expensive" are actually right. Yes, Apple's laptops are price-competetive, but their desktops really aren't, especially when you're looking at speed.
Case in point: it sure would be nice if I could play Unreal Tournament 2003. My 700MHz eMac will sort of attempt to run it, but at the lowest settings it's too slow to be playable. I'm told this is largely due to the video card (32MB GeForce2 MX) rather than the processor, although I don't really know.
A 1GHz eMac with a 32MB Radeon 7500 is $999.
A 1GHz iMac with a 32MB GeForce4 MX is $1799.
A 1GHz PowerMac with 64MB GeForce4 MX is $1499 (plus monitor).
A dual 1.25GHz PowerMac with a 64MB Radeon 9000 Pro is $1999 (plus monitor).
Would the $1499 PowerMac be fast enough to make me happy playing that game? Maybe, I'm not sure. I bet the $999 eMac wouldn't be. I can build a 2.4GHz Athlon system with a nice video card for a hell of a lot less than that, even if you add the cost of Windows.
Of course this has nothing to do with iTunes, which works beautifully.
Firesign Theatre's "Don't Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers" is a two-track album. $1.98 for the entire thing.
Sorry, it's sold album-only for $9.99, not $1.98. I'm sure Tubular Bells would be sold the same way.
One of the things I've been wondering is, if an indie label wants to make their own songs available without DRM, will Apple let them do so on the iTunes Music Store, or is DRM absolutely required? What if the band wants to sell unrestricted AAC files? What about MP3?
Of course I expect most of them to want the DRM, but some may not.
I think the reason it may be be big deal is that this is in the mainstream press.
I was replying to the submitter's comment about it having been done before. The fact that it's been done before (not in the mainstream press) doesn't detract from the fact that it is now being done in the mainstream press, which is indeed interesting.
And this could show people how to write a virus...
It may offer tips to people who are already capable of writing a virus, but those aren't Wired's typical readers. Those not already capable of writing a virus won't suddenly be able to do so after reading how this one worked.
You are apparently too lazy to click the links provided in the submitter's posting, also.
;-)
This is Slashdot! You should be ashamed of yourself for suggesting such a thing.
Better than eeye?
Perhaps better for Wired's readers, which are different than eEye's readers.
Nope, that analysis is probably what Wired has based their analysis on.
You don't think Wired is capable of doing their own analysis on source code they've had access to for six months?
But the fact is, the disassembly of Slammer (aka Sapphire) has been available on the Net since late January -- just hours after the worm started to spread.
Ummm...
So?
Of course people started looking at the code as soon as it was unleashed, and of course they wrote their own descriptions of how it worked. Maybe Wired could do a better job of explaining it to their readers? Besides, I'd bet most of the people who read the magazine didn't read that disassembly you referenced.
Wired thinks they have a story that will interest people. They're probably right. If you're suggesting that Wired must have stolen it, I think you're being silly, and if not, then what's the issue here?
You got a +5 funny mod, but I'm not sure you weren't being serious. I can only think of three in either house who have come out in favor of this sort of thing: Lofgren (BALANCE act), Boucher (DMCRA), and now this guy.
Ron Wyden (D-Oregon).
I know this may be out of left field, but could I not copyright my identity?
;-)
You can't copyright it, but you can register it as a trademark, like Billy Joel® did.
Before suing someone for infringing on your trademark, you must first give them notice that they're doing so, and give them a chance to stop. Adding the registered trademark symbol after his name everywhere it appears serves as notice of the trademark.
I don't think this will help you either, though.
Methinks Verizon will lose many a customer over this.
Methinks you underestimate the power of monopoly.
Curiously, the penalty for swiping a CD is leagues lower than trading a song on the internet.
;-)
Hmm, maybe we should start doing that instead. Less risky.
Back up all data to stranger's off site secure data storage center.
You could use Exodus!
How could this be a big blow to those who are file swapping legit? ...so the legit uses will suffer because of it.
Unless I'm missing something, it looks like you've answered your own question.
So if your phone company is your ISP, they aren't allowed to give out your information unless a court says they have to -- or if they have your EXPLICIT consent to do so.
Isn't a subpoena a kind of court order? Isn't that what we're talking about here?
Having sat on the receiving end of an abuse mailbox, I can tell you it's not THAT expensive to police.
I have too; we had a full-time employee dedicated just to handling spam complaints, and several of the rest of us would help out as needed. It was about all we could do to stay caught up with it enough that large ISPs like AOL and RoadRunner didn't blacklist our IP blocks (which would have resulted in many of our customers being unable to send mail to customers of those ISPs) - if somebody was out sick and we fell behind, we could usually expect to receive another threatening e-mail from AOL's abuse department.
So, yeah, it cost us money (dedicated employees) just to stay on top of it enough to satisfy AOL. Actually processing every complaint in a timely manner to the satisfaction of all parties involved would have required more staff.
We weren't as efficient as we would have liked to have been, but we were constrained by company policy and our unresponsive legal department. If we'd been able to set our own rules, it would have gone a little more smoothly, but we would still have had to deal with the volume of issues.
Admittedly, an interesting thing about spam complaints is, the faster you handle it, the less work you have to do; the volume would have gone down if we'd been able to get on top of it better - but that would have required taking more time per issue.
They are loosing money for one simple reason... POOR MANAGEMENT AND BULLHEADEDNESS
Funny, that was half the reason my last employer went out of business too.
(For the other half, I blame the FCC and the economy.)
Those data centers have nothing to worry about. Some company is going to buy all of that infrastructure & equipment for pennies on the dollar. It makes sense for them to leave it as is and transfer the existing customer base. Why would they reinvent the wheel if everything is already in place? No need to panic.
That's what I thought when my last place of empoyment went out of business - somebody would buy us and merge our network with theirs, or they'd just buy our 160,000 residential broadband customers, transition them to their network, and then dump us. Neither happened; the customers got screwed.
Between the porn sites, open relays and unresponsiveness re spam/TOS, I'm not surprised these folks are getting out of the business. Hopefully whoever buys the pieces knows what to do with them.
Are you kidding? You actually think they're significantly worse than their competition? Policing abuse is expensive, and for a large company strictly enforcing their policies doesn't result in a signficant measurable increase in revenues or decrease in costs. Sure, if everybody did it, everybody's bandwidth costs would go down, but bandwidth is probably cheaper than manpower anyway.
C&W does a wide range of things in the US, including operating colocation facilities, providing connectivity to businesses, operating dialup POPs, and running a major backbone. As a whole, these operations are losing $1 million a day (according to the article), but is it possible that one or two of them might actually be profitable? Will C&W completely pull out of the US, or will they keep a much more limited presense?
:-)
Another thing: will some operations be sold to other companies (and their customers transferred without loss of service), or will everything be turned off and each piece of equipment sold to the highest bidder?
I doubt anyone has the answers, but these are my questions.
Do I remember that Slashdot is/was hosted by Exodus? I'm too lazy to investigate.
I'm sure AOL will happily buy Tivo and sue MS for any sort of award a la the Netscape vs. IE award.
So then they'll reach a settlement where AOL licenses Microsoft's VOD technology for free for the next 7 years, instead of using Tivo's?
The pirate culture is totally different. They're not that bad anyway since the majority of pirate sites are adwhores, unreliable, and clones of each other.
I don't know anyone who gets their pirated copies of Windows from sites like that. It's just passed around among friends (either online or offline); there are no "pirate sites" or "pirate culture" involved. Most of my computer-savvy friends have a copy; why would I go through all that hassle when I could just get it from one of them?
2 million buys quite a few programmers :)
I think somehow the beancounters make it look better to buy something for $2 million than to increase headcount by a dozen people. I'll never understand how that works.
Much as I might like to think that all the female readers of /. are lesbians, I think you need to include a man in there.
You know something about CowboyNeal you're not telling us?
That's because they're in the United States, aren't they?