ATTBI's cancellation went fine
on
Disconnecting
·
· Score: 1
I just called AT&T's support and within a minute or two, I was talking to a live person(Sales, they ALWAYS are there). After verifying my information they allowed me to disconnect with no penalties, they even refunded the remainder of the month's bill and let me choose the day they turned off service.
The only resistance they gave was an offer to switch my billing to $25 a month for the next 6 months. I would have taken it, had we been moving. DSL was the only option in that area.
These ISP's don't realize that if you close someone's account, that experience is their last impression of that company, If the customer has a crappy experience closing, they're never going to go back. Heck, I have no hostility towards them now, sure their support sometimes sucked, but who's doesn't?
Or worse yet... Windows will Reboot in 15 seconds.. _________ === | _________
|Reboot Now|
It might as well say, "let's see how fast you can save everything.
Personally, I wouldn't mind seeing Microsoft release a version that can restart all the critical components without a full restart. NT does some services, but not everything.
When we transitioned in Dallas, TX, I had the EXACT same problem. Not only me, but a few other people I know who use NAT had the same problem. After troubleshooting for a while we came up with a strange fix that works(for us at least). We set up our IP's dynamic(to the NAT box) but the DNS servers were manually entered(doesn't rely on DHCP). We can't understand why this works, but ever sense, we've had no problems at all.
That's why there's the phrase "Choose your battles wisely" You obviously use common sense when demonstrating civil disobedience. There are conformists who believe you just obey a law no matter how unfair it is, and eventually someone will do something about it and there are those who guard their own personal liberties with their life. If you don't think civil disobedience doesn't work, you might want to read your history books. When the majority has the law on their side, it doesn't necessarily mean they're right, it only means they passed a law. If you make enough of a scene(and break no laws except the ones you're protesting, Martin Luther King Jr. emphasized that), your voice will eventually be heard, It's not easy, you have everything to loose, your time, money, even personal freedom and life, but you lost it in a fight for something you believe in. Kazaa believes they had the right to contribute a free service to better the internet. It was abused in some cases and obviously(i.e. US Border Control, Napster...) blocking 100% of all illegal activity is impossible. Kazaa feels that if they're going down, they're going to fall fighting all the way and I don't blame them.
A suggestion, how about mirroring the page linked to in each article(and provide the mirrored link at the end). Even if you only keep it mirrored while it's on the mainpage, that'll still prevent the slashdot effect to some extent by giving people an alternative. I personally would opt to see text-only with broken images when a poor defenseless university server is brought to its knees.
My mind wanders from day to day, and a plausable conspiracy theory popped into my mind:
Not true but could be: Microsoft releases IIS4.0 with future plans, implements overflow bug on purpose. Releases IIS 5.0 w/ same bug. The time comes to implement their plan. Distribute a worm that appears to come from china that causes no damage to the servers(memory-resident) and then force everyone to install the newest security patch. This patch then fixes the hole, but opens another that doesn't log any activity coming from M$'s subnet so that they now have access to millions of web servers to do whatever they please. Their new trojan horse then lets them check for license compliance on every machine and then ultimately plant a self-destruct timer that forces an upgrade to M$ Windows $upreme Server(monthly lease of course).
I personally wonder where they get these stats...Big software companies always attribute their losses to piracy, what's to stop them from saying "We had 30% less profit this month, our software sucks, but that can't be it, must be piracy" No one's there to stop them from saying that or proving them wrong. Couldn't DirecTV pull a similar stunt in an attempt to explain 1M customers leaving or falling 1M customers short of their expectations(or at least bloat their piracy numbers a bit)?
Obviously I was referring to vulnerability to the Code Red Worm. I think we've all established that IIS has more holes than pumice.
And regarding the other reply, I again was only referring to the exploit that Code Red was taking advantage of. Wasn't that what the topic of the thread about anyways?
The way I see it, since a patched IIS server is no longer vulnerable, I see these infecting waves hitting a smaller and smaller amount of unpatched IIS servers due to (hopefully)the admins seeing their defaced site and getting off thier butts to patch it. Eventually the numbers will drop low enough to not effect any noticable amount. Of course by then, all the admins realize they were totally raped by M$ and move to Apache and join the rest of the world.
Or are there not any filters that ISP's can place on incoming messages that limit a specific sender from sending so many e-mails to the IPS's users per day. Maybe bouncing back any amount over 10-15 saying that if they'd like to send more they need to contact them for exclusion(thus requiring effort)?
...also, anyone know of mail client that can bounce back messages as user unknown, that seems to me the best way to be removed from spam...it seems to me that >send message, wait, no returned message=good addy versus send message, wait, bounced-user not found=remove from list(hopefully)
The CHIPs plan to hold illegal sites and post "a warning that the site has been seized by law enforcement" and present a "clear message that cybercrime carries real penalties for offenders."
So now they're trying to seize our domains? Are they going to start taking any sites related to a "cybercrime" purely for the ability to dance around saying "naa naa, we caught you".
Police already seize autos in drug-related arrests but at least they have (somewhat)good reasons to.
I see the best way to get public attention is to use the media. They're great for scaring the public into caring and blowing things out of proportion. Maybe they can draw enough attention to the issue and make it seem so bad(if it wasn't bad enough already) that the Gov't will have no choice but to face the people. Unfortunately I have yet to see a single newscast about the DMCA. I personally have submitted a well-written letter to all of my local news stations bringing to their attention the Skylarov arrest, and encouraging them to look into doing a story over Dimitri. I encourage everyone else to do so too. I figure if one station covers it and gets good ratings, the rest will follow like lemmings.
We program a worm that when infected, decrypts all e-books and places the unlocked PDF file on their hard drive, then quietly spreads via Outlook. I mean, If you actually PAY for an e-book you are probbably an oulook user too, right?
I don't know if anyone else caught this, but one/. post linked to a site called www.gotapex.com who had an "deals page"(Wednesday Category) They linked to Dell's site and a search revealed some 128x72 ECC Kingston 1GB ram sticks for...$15.96! It's a shame it went off sale yesterady, but I was able to score 3 sticks and a friend of mine got 10! Now we just have to find some MB's that support 1Gb per slot and we'll be in Ramdrive heaven!
Deals
I don't think it was the actual writing of the program that got him in trouble, but the importation of it into a DMCA-applicable area that got him tino trouble. If he were to to make it a point to not export his product into the US(or at least say "Not for Export in the following countries:...") then he might have a better chance.
FYI, i'm not for the DMCA, personally I'd like to thrown out all together.
I think the problem they see is users actually using their bandwidth. Right now, they expect you to only use a small portion of your bandwidth, if you use what they "say" they're giving you then they're going to have to allocate more bandwidth per geographical region. And I'm sure AT&T @Home would just love to upgrade their systems to handle more load with only a minimal increase in users. That's why they try and make users who DO use 85% of their bandwidth look like evil people who rip off everyone else. Sort of like the airlines overbooking flights, they'd rather underestimate the load than overestimate.
One example... My Linksys router allows you to enter any type of MAC address you'd like, in case your broadband provider requires you to connect from a specific NIC. I didn't even know spoofing MAC's was legal.
Or how about this, instead of any sort of prompting, have a small icon flash in the status bar of the browser. If you want to release the pop-ups, click the icon and they'll pop up, otherwise just ignore them and continue to the next site. That way sites that require a pop-up to start a download don't get messed up.
Slashdot Mirror
I just called AT&T's support and within a minute or two, I was talking to a live person(Sales, they ALWAYS are there). After verifying my information they allowed me to disconnect with no penalties, they even refunded the remainder of the month's bill and let me choose the day they turned off service.
The only resistance they gave was an offer to switch my billing to $25 a month for the next 6 months. I would have taken it, had we been moving. DSL was the only option in that area.
These ISP's don't realize that if you close someone's account, that experience is their last impression of that company, If the customer has a crappy experience closing, they're never going to go back. Heck, I have no hostility towards them now, sure their support sometimes sucked, but who's doesn't?
Or worse yet...
Windows will Reboot in 15 seconds..
_________
=== |
_________
|Reboot Now|
It might as well say, "let's see how fast you can save everything.
Personally, I wouldn't mind seeing Microsoft release a version that can restart all the critical components without a full restart. NT does some services, but not everything.
When we transitioned in Dallas, TX, I had the EXACT same problem. Not only me, but a few other people I know who use NAT had the same problem. After troubleshooting for a while we came up with a strange fix that works(for us at least). We set up our IP's dynamic(to the NAT box) but the DNS servers were manually entered(doesn't rely on DHCP). We can't understand why this works, but ever sense, we've had no problems at all.
That's why there's the phrase "Choose your battles wisely" You obviously use common sense when demonstrating civil disobedience. There are conformists who believe you just obey a law no matter how unfair it is, and eventually someone will do something about it and there are those who guard their own personal liberties with their life. If you don't think civil disobedience doesn't work, you might want to read your history books. When the majority has the law on their side, it doesn't necessarily mean they're right, it only means they passed a law. If you make enough of a scene(and break no laws except the ones you're protesting, Martin Luther King Jr. emphasized that), your voice will eventually be heard, It's not easy, you have everything to loose, your time, money, even personal freedom and life, but you lost it in a fight for something you believe in. Kazaa believes they had the right to contribute a free service to better the internet. It was abused in some cases and obviously(i.e. US Border Control, Napster...) blocking 100% of all illegal activity is impossible. Kazaa feels that if they're going down, they're going to fall fighting all the way and I don't blame them.
A suggestion, how about mirroring the page linked to in each article(and provide the mirrored link at the end). Even if you only keep it mirrored while it's on the mainpage, that'll still prevent the slashdot effect to some extent by giving people an alternative. I personally would opt to see text-only with broken images when a poor defenseless university server is brought to its knees.
My mind wanders from day to day, and a plausable conspiracy theory popped into my mind:
Not true but could be: Microsoft releases IIS4.0 with future plans, implements overflow bug on purpose. Releases IIS 5.0 w/ same bug. The time comes to implement their plan. Distribute a worm that appears to come from china that causes no damage to the servers(memory-resident) and then force everyone to install the newest security patch. This patch then fixes the hole, but opens another that doesn't log any activity coming from M$'s subnet so that they now have access to millions of web servers to do whatever they please. Their new trojan horse then lets them check for license compliance on every machine and then ultimately plant a self-destruct timer that forces an upgrade to M$ Windows $upreme Server(monthly lease of course).
obviously not true, but hey, it could happen!
I personally wonder where they get these stats...Big software companies always attribute their losses to piracy, what's to stop them from saying "We had 30% less profit this month, our software sucks, but that can't be it, must be piracy" No one's there to stop them from saying that or proving them wrong. Couldn't DirecTV pull a similar stunt in an attempt to explain 1M customers leaving or falling 1M customers short of their expectations(or at least bloat their piracy numbers a bit)?
Obviously I was referring to vulnerability to the Code Red Worm. I think we've all established that IIS has more holes than pumice.
And regarding the other reply, I again was only referring to the exploit that Code Red was taking advantage of. Wasn't that what the topic of the thread about anyways?
The way I see it, since a patched IIS server is no longer vulnerable, I see these infecting waves hitting a smaller and smaller amount of unpatched IIS servers due to (hopefully)the admins seeing their defaced site and getting off thier butts to patch it. Eventually the numbers will drop low enough to not effect any noticable amount. Of course by then, all the admins realize they were totally raped by M$ and move to Apache and join the rest of the world.
Or are there not any filters that ISP's can place on incoming messages that limit a specific sender from sending so many e-mails to the IPS's users per day. Maybe bouncing back any amount over 10-15 saying that if they'd like to send more they need to contact them for exclusion(thus requiring effort)?
...also, anyone know of mail client that can bounce back messages as user unknown, that seems to me the best way to be removed from spam...it seems to me that >send message, wait, no returned message=good addy versus send message, wait, bounced-user not found=remove from list(hopefully)
The same story on Yahoo News says they are going to pay $35 to the Computer maker for each customer that signs up through their desktop!
The CHIPs plan to hold illegal sites and post "a warning that the site has been seized by law enforcement" and present a "clear message that cybercrime carries real penalties for offenders."
So now they're trying to seize our domains? Are they going to start taking any sites related to a "cybercrime" purely for the ability to dance around saying "naa naa, we caught you".
Police already seize autos in drug-related arrests but at least they have (somewhat)good reasons to.
I see the best way to get public attention is to use the media. They're great for scaring the public into caring and blowing things out of proportion. Maybe they can draw enough attention to the issue and make it seem so bad(if it wasn't bad enough already) that the Gov't will have no choice but to face the people.
Unfortunately I have yet to see a single newscast about the DMCA. I personally have submitted a well-written letter to all of my local news stations bringing to their attention the Skylarov arrest, and encouraging them to look into doing a story over Dimitri. I encourage everyone else to do so too. I figure if one station covers it and gets good ratings, the rest will follow like lemmings.
Who buys a computer that has a full address book, and doesn't suspect that it's stolen?
We program a worm that when infected, decrypts all e-books and places the unlocked PDF file on their hard drive, then quietly spreads via Outlook. I mean, If you actually PAY for an e-book you are probbably an oulook user too, right?
I don't know if anyone else caught this, but one /. post linked to a site called www.gotapex.com who had an "deals page"(Wednesday Category) They linked to Dell's site and a search revealed some 128x72 ECC Kingston 1GB ram sticks for ...$15.96! It's a shame it went off sale yesterady, but I was able to score 3 sticks and a friend of mine got 10! Now we just have to find some MB's that support 1Gb per slot and we'll be in Ramdrive heaven!
Deals
I don't think it was the actual writing of the program that got him in trouble, but the importation of it into a DMCA-applicable area that got him tino trouble. If he were to to make it a point to not export his product into the US(or at least say "Not for Export in the following countries:...") then he might have a better chance. FYI, i'm not for the DMCA, personally I'd like to thrown out all together.
I think the problem they see is users actually using their bandwidth. Right now, they expect you to only use a small portion of your bandwidth, if you use what they "say" they're giving you then they're going to have to allocate more bandwidth per geographical region. And I'm sure AT&T @Home would just love to upgrade their systems to handle more load with only a minimal increase in users. That's why they try and make users who DO use 85% of their bandwidth look like evil people who rip off everyone else. Sort of like the airlines overbooking flights, they'd rather underestimate the load than overestimate.
One example... My Linksys router allows you to enter any type of MAC address you'd like, in case your broadband provider requires you to connect from a specific NIC. I didn't even know spoofing MAC's was legal.
Or how about this, instead of any sort of prompting, have a small icon flash in the status bar of the browser. If you want to release the pop-ups, click the icon and they'll pop up, otherwise just ignore them and continue to the next site. That way sites that require a pop-up to start a download don't get messed up.