Should probably read: DOW threatens Verio, Verio silences ISP of activists.
Instead of shutting down a single activist site (which would have been bad enough), they killed a whole network in some kind of a legal Denial of Service attack.
In this process, they disturbed the businesses of various clients of thing.net, destroyed some digital artworks and disabled for several hours my private email account (naughty, naughty; but should I sue DOW and Verio for my bounced love mails?).
Better be aware: your ISP could be the next target of some corporate DoS attack. So you better open up an AOL account, just in case...
This about their service provider thing.net and all its clients being held hostage by DOW and Verio (the latter playing host to quite a bit of real spammers).
There's a line. They crossed it. They have, in fact, crossed it repeatedly. They are suffering the consequences. Uhm, who's suffering here? The consequences for the Yes Men: a widely noticed activity, mirror sites all over the world, some media echo. Quite a success.
The consequences for DOW: some more people now remember Bhopal - and make the connection to DOW (instead of just remembering the long gone Union Carbide). Not really a success.
The consequences for the ISP: interrupted service, legal hazzles... The consequences for clients of ISP: interrupted service, bouncing email... A disaster.
Thing.net could have avoided this problem by taking care of their own problems. What own problems? Please share your knowledge.
What rights? Good question. So if you can explain to me what the ISP (as in thing.net) and PS1/MOMA (as in highbrow cultural institution) and artists web sites (as in artists web sites) and my email account (as inm y private mail) have to do with DOW feeling underappreciated in their careful handling of the Bhopal aftermath by somebody who just happens to rent his web space on the same subnetwork - well, I'll be listening happily.
If somebody violates the terms of use of your friendly freemail provider Yahoo!, would you still argue that the most sensible action would be to shut down Yahoo!? You know how many kiddie porn get's delivered via AOL accounts? Let's shut them down if one of their tech people doesn't react immediately to a call by you in the middle of the night...
The Bhopal accident happened in a plant of Union Carbide. Union Carbide is now a part of DOW, and so are its executives and its shareholders. That's a pretty direct implication; and if DOW would stand up, say "we did it" and pay up, the implications to its shareholders would be pretty direct, too.
It's not that somebody claimed that they produced Zyclon-B, the poison of the Nazi concentration camps (well, maybe they did, huh?). It's not that somebody claimed that using DOW products is what made Jeffrey Dahmer a cannibal (well, who knows?). And it's not like that every Anonymous Coward posting stuff on Slashdot is a paid propaganda agent of a worldwide conspiracy of chemical engineers (I didn't say that!).
Just rest assured: the Bhopal plant really blew up, killed a lot of people and hasn't been an invention of some web artists setting up a parody site (just Google it).
so you think the DMCA is there to protect ISPs and the people creating parodies???
Quite entertaining idea. Ever heard of somebody successfully suing the USPS for transporting Anthrax letters and the Unabombers mail? Ryder for renting a van to T.McVeigh?
Unfortunately, the idea of of the carrier not being allowed to be interested in what he's carrying got lost somewhere in the last couple of years.
If they'd created a web site for a fictitious chemical company that bears a striking resemblance to Dow, everything would be cool. But when they used the Dow name, and logo, and represented themselves as Dow to the press, they crossed the line. Let's get something right here. The problem is NOT that a single website by some artists got shut down, b'cause they might have infringed on copyrights, trademarks - you name it (and it's scary enough that parodies finally became a punishable offense).
The real problem is that for shutting down one single website, a whole network of sites, email addresses and the likes got bulldozed.
Let me give you an example: On the wall of your building you glue a poster with the DOW logo on it, some dead people from Bhopal and a snazzy quote from the fake press release. To make you get rid of the thing, DOW not even tries to sue you, but calls a nightwatchman of your landlord around midnight, gets no reaction, arrives with a couple of bulldozers, and as your building is surrounded by other building, they tear down a whole neighborhood to reach you and your defamatory ad.
If in the same process, DOW damages a major museum, destroys a couple of artworks and smashes the letterboxes of some innocent bystanders, you still would maintain that DOW didn't overreact?
I hope there's such a HUGE stink over this that it permanently tarnishes DOW and Verio's reputations. You mean killing a website and its ISP does the job, whilst accidentally killing a city full of people failed to achieve that?
Actually, it appears to be a perfect example of misguided souls, despite their good intentions, making unauthorized use of a company's legally protected trademarks, and getting their pee pee's smacked because of it. It's more like that an important corporate citizen didn't like Yes Men making funny faces. And as they couldn't reach out fast enough, they decided neither to sue the Yes Men nor asked their ISP thing.net for cooperation, but colluded with Verio to shut down the whole service of thing.net, maybe as some kind of a punitive measure.
So DOW smacked the pee pee's of completely unrelated organisations, institutions and people like thing.net (as in carrier), PS1/MOMA (as in high brow museum), ARTFORUM (as in magazine), as well as several hundred users who were not even able to check their emails (not speaking about their web sites).
Bluntly, this has been a legal Denial of Service attack against against thing.net with the malicious intent to disrupt their business.
No, no! That's exactly the point. rightly so; Parody, according to the Encyclopædia Britannica, is: (Greek par"a song sung alongside another"), in literature, a form of satirical criticism or comic mockery that imitates the style and manner of a particular writer or school of writers...
Given that the parody nature of this page isn't remotely obvious If we really are ready to believe what the fake DOW press releases are telling us, it's not just DOW having a problem here. It's probably more a serious case of collective nuttery.
The difference between a denial of service attack against a company that some people find to be politically unacceptable and a company's cutting off a customer that they claim is in material breach of their AUP should be blindingly obvious. You can't really put the two situations on the same level. No, you can't put it on the same level. One is a targeted political action (and you can argue about the means). The second is behaving like an 800 pound gorilla and waltzing over the rights of completely unrelated businesses. What problems do have Dow/Verio with an institution like PS1/MOMA?
Slashdot Mirror
Should probably read: DOW threatens Verio, Verio silences ISP of activists.
...
Instead of shutting down a single activist site (which would have been bad enough), they killed a whole network in some kind of a legal Denial of Service attack.
In this process, they disturbed the businesses of various clients of thing.net, destroyed some digital artworks and disabled for several hours my private email account (naughty, naughty; but should I sue DOW and Verio for my bounced love mails?).
Better be aware: your ISP could be the next target of some corporate DoS attack. So you better open up an AOL account, just in case
This is not about RTMark.
This about their service provider thing.net and all its clients being held hostage by DOW and Verio (the latter playing host to quite a bit of real spammers).
unfortunately, in the twisted minds of some of our well paid off lawmakers, spam IS free speech (and parodies are NOT).
There's a line. They crossed it. They have, in fact, crossed it repeatedly. They are suffering the consequences.
... ...
Uhm, who's suffering here?
The consequences for the Yes Men: a widely noticed activity, mirror sites all over the world, some media echo.
Quite a success.
The consequences for DOW: some more people now remember Bhopal - and make the connection to DOW (instead of just remembering the long gone Union Carbide).
Not really a success.
The consequences for the ISP: interrupted service, legal hazzles
The consequences for clients of ISP: interrupted service, bouncing email
A disaster.
Thing.net could have avoided this problem by taking care of their own problems.
What own problems? Please share your knowledge.
What rights?
...
Good question.
So if you can explain to me what the ISP (as in thing.net) and PS1/MOMA (as in highbrow cultural institution) and artists web sites (as in artists web sites) and my email account (as inm y private mail) have to do with DOW feeling underappreciated in their careful handling of the Bhopal aftermath by somebody who just happens to rent his web space on the same subnetwork - well, I'll be listening happily.
If somebody violates the terms of use of your friendly freemail provider Yahoo!, would you still argue that the most sensible action would be to shut down Yahoo!?
You know how many kiddie porn get's delivered via AOL accounts? Let's shut them down if one of their tech people doesn't react immediately to a call by you in the middle of the night
The Bhopal accident happened in a plant of Union Carbide.
Union Carbide is now a part of DOW, and so are its executives and its shareholders.
That's a pretty direct implication; and if DOW would stand up, say "we did it" and pay up, the implications to its shareholders would be pretty direct, too.
It's not that somebody claimed that they produced Zyclon-B, the poison of the Nazi concentration camps (well, maybe they did, huh?). It's not that somebody claimed that using DOW products is what made Jeffrey Dahmer a cannibal (well, who knows?).
And it's not like that every Anonymous Coward posting stuff on Slashdot is a paid propaganda agent of a worldwide conspiracy of chemical engineers (I didn't say that!).
Just rest assured: the Bhopal plant really blew up, killed a lot of people and hasn't been an invention of some web artists setting up a parody site (just Google it).
you probably mean: wash you mouth (and don't forget to wipe your brains clean)??
so you think the DMCA is there to protect ISPs and the people creating parodies???
Quite entertaining idea. Ever heard of somebody successfully suing the USPS for transporting Anthrax letters and the Unabombers mail? Ryder for renting a van to T.McVeigh?
Unfortunately, the idea of of the carrier not being allowed to be interested in what he's carrying got lost somewhere in the last couple of years.
If they'd created a web site for a fictitious chemical company that bears a striking resemblance to Dow, everything would be cool. But when they used the Dow name, and logo, and represented themselves as Dow to the press, they crossed the line.
Let's get something right here.
The problem is NOT that a single website by some artists got shut down, b'cause they might have infringed on copyrights, trademarks - you name it (and it's scary enough that parodies finally became a punishable offense).
The real problem is that for shutting down one single website, a whole network of sites, email addresses and the likes got bulldozed.
Let me give you an example: On the wall of your building you glue a poster with the DOW logo on it, some dead people from Bhopal and a snazzy quote from the fake press release. To make you get rid of the thing, DOW not even tries to sue you, but calls a nightwatchman of your landlord around midnight, gets no reaction, arrives with a couple of bulldozers, and as your building is surrounded by other building, they tear down a whole neighborhood to reach you and your defamatory ad.
If in the same process, DOW damages a major museum, destroys a couple of artworks and smashes the letterboxes of some innocent bystanders, you still would maintain that DOW didn't overreact?
try thing.net. ;-)
According to Verio, they have a track record
I hope there's such a HUGE stink over this that it permanently tarnishes DOW and Verio's reputations.
You mean killing a website and its ISP does the job, whilst accidentally killing a city full of people failed to achieve that?
Actually, it appears to be a perfect example of misguided souls, despite their good intentions, making unauthorized use of a company's legally protected trademarks, and getting their pee pee's smacked because of it.
It's more like that an important corporate citizen didn't like Yes Men making funny faces. And as they couldn't reach out fast enough, they decided neither to sue the Yes Men nor asked their ISP thing.net for cooperation, but colluded with Verio to shut down the whole service of thing.net, maybe as some kind of a punitive measure.
So DOW smacked the pee pee's of completely unrelated organisations, institutions and people like thing.net (as in carrier), PS1/MOMA (as in high brow museum), ARTFORUM (as in magazine), as well as several hundred users who were not even able to check their emails (not speaking about their web sites).
Bluntly, this has been a legal Denial of Service attack against against thing.net with the malicious intent to disrupt their business.
oops.... luser award right here
...
No, no! That's exactly the point.
rightly so; Parody, according to the Encyclopædia Britannica, is:
(Greek par"a song sung alongside another"), in literature, a form of satirical criticism or comic mockery that imitates the style and manner of a particular writer or school of writers
Given that the parody nature of this page isn't remotely obvious
If we really are ready to believe what the fake DOW press releases are telling us, it's not just DOW having a problem here. It's probably more a serious case of collective nuttery.
In logos we trust!
The difference between a denial of service attack against a company that some people find to be politically unacceptable and a company's cutting off a customer that they claim is in material breach of their AUP should be blindingly obvious. You can't really put the two situations on the same level.
No, you can't put it on the same level. One is a targeted political action (and you can argue about the means).
The second is behaving like an 800 pound gorilla and waltzing over the rights of completely unrelated businesses. What problems do have Dow/Verio with an institution like PS1/MOMA?
simlocks are everywhere; but in the EU, it's mostly the subsidized phones coming with no monthly plans attached.