You mean to tell me European black-hats get up early (or would that be staying up very late?) just to try and break into a system? Very different cultures;-)
Sorry, I just got caught up in the wicked burn. Linus is awesome, what can I say? He certainly has a way with words. I laughed so hard after reading that.
They gotta be pulling these kinds of stunts out of desperation.
Somebody in the earlier story (Tuesday I believe) about the RIAA settling for $2000 with the mother of the 12 year-old mentioned that perhaps the RIAA is suing these people not because they're major downloaders or share metric ass-loads of files, but because they are the only people they can track down. This lends some credibility to the "desperation" angle... perhaps they want people to step forward so they can go "AH HA! See, you were next on the chopping block... you should feel lucky" and add to their FUD. Or maybe they'll just keep a lookout (since they now know who you are and can get your ISP and your ip address and all that) and if you ever (ever ever ever... ever) download or share another song again, then they'll sue you.
Well, in this case, rather then being an assumed music "thief" (which brings up a whole other rant about copyright infringement not being theft) you are now admitting you are.
And on another note, when they said "destroy hard copies" did they mean of your mp3s or your cds too? If it's the latter, sounds like a deliciously evil way to get MORE of your cash-money.
Re:Open letter to McBride
on
Back To SCO
·
· Score: 1
I'm using my karma bonus to get this noticed, so don't mod me up if you don't want to (not trying to karma whore, don't need more karma anyways):
They started a new set of comments related to the Darl McBride open letter response after the first one mentioned in the parent post filled up.
Hopefully insightful or informative/.-ers will contribute.
To what kind of ears are you referring? Human ears? In that case, this dog whistle I have doesn't produce sound. I sure as hell can't hear it, but when I blow it, my dog goes bonkers. But I guess it's not sound because I do not hear it. Try telling that to my dog.
Granted, I don't think anybody could hear that noise... but who knows, maybe some alien is bitching to his neighborhood association because that black hole won't turn it down or something.
Open letter to McBride
on
Back To SCO
·
· Score: 3, Informative
Over at Groklaw there is a large set of comments forming in the hopes of drafting an open letter response to McBride's. It is my hope when they are finished that the/. editors will publish the text of said letter in an effort to debunk his claims and outright lies and misquotes.
I tried to post my comment on there but for some reason it wouldn't take. I offer my services to mirror a PDF or HTML copy of the response once it is finished. I hope others would follow suit, and perhaps some of the readers here with connections can get it published on high-profile sites or even pass it along to CIO/CEO/CTO type people in an effort to dispel SCO FUD.
Exactly. I guess some company needs to bring up a suit against makers of those types of adware (e.g. Xupiter) that use an exploit to auto-install themselves then won't go away short of manually ripping it out. They can claim the same type of thing, popups over their business of something competing, although I guess you'd need an actual instance of that happening first...
But hey, I guess it would be a start on the right track.
So what you're saying is that you don't think McBride is an asshat?
And don't forget that SCO went from "contract dispute" to "Linux is our bitch" to "We own anything and everything even remotely related to Unix", and now seem to be switching between those arguments randomly. I don't know about you, but contradictory press releases and interviews do not a court case make.
From the article: A plane may need up to 10 or more sensors fitted over its fuselage and impending legislation from the US's federal aviation authority (FAA) is likely to require that from 2005 all new light aircraft are fitted with tailplane ice sensing equipment.
So the FAA mandate is impending (according to the article), and also according to the article there are other methods of detection but their placement and use locations are limited because of their size, which implies that ice sensing equipment is already in use for aircraft.
If you're fast enough using the two-finger method, then who cares if you can touch type? I really only use my right thumb for space bar, and I never use the home row (never learned how)... I'm a self-taught typist and I'm semi-fast (maybe 60 words a minute if I'm on a roll).
My tip? Join a MUD or some other text-only game. If you want to learn fast, join one that is PK (player killing) only... you'll learn to type very fast and accurate in an awful hurry.
Here at work we run systems tests on a crapload of old 386 and 486's... that run DOS 6.22. I'm currently investigating pitching a move to FreeDOS once I play with it and see if it can allow a program to use more than 640k of RAM (for some reason we can't with 6.22 and the software we use for testing, and we're running out of space).
So it has it's uses. Plus you can use it to make some kind of distributable boot disk without having to worry about Microsoft coming after you.
The esteemed P.J. over at Groklaw had an interesting analogy related to this IBM campaign:
AntiFUD is an important part of this battle, which is why IBM is launching an advertising campaign about Linux. But legally they're like circling sharks. Not a sound. Just water rippling ever so slightly on the surface, a brief glimpse of a fin, as they slowly circle. Until it's time to lunge.
I'd like to add to it by saying that SCO is that loud mouthed kid who's splashing around in the water yelling obscenities and other unpleasantries at the sharks, almost daring them to attack.
"IBM has been great in getting us set up, but they don't live with the systems."
This is a very, very, very important point to consider. If you let IBM run the whole shootin match from a distance, and something goes wrong, expect downtime.
This isn't related to Z/Linux but it is related to IBM and their systems management. At the business of my employment we outsourced all our network/systems administration to IBM. In the past 2 months (July and August) we have had not 1, not 2, but 4 very very major worm/virus infections that shut the entire network (as well as business) down. IBM didn't keep any systems up to date on patches (and the corporate security department didn't help either... they approved Win2k SP4 in an awful hurry after they found out it contained the Blaster worm fix) and told us to leave our unprotected computers on 24/7 and they would update them "in the next few days." I leave the determination of what happened after that as an excercise to the reader.
But hopefully IBM won't do that to your Z/Linux VM... Hopefully you'll have someone on site who knows their stuff, even if it has to be you (hey, then you can ask for a raise!)
...It's copyright infringement. That isn't stealing. Theft is a criminal offense, copyright infringement is a civil offense.
And another thing from your post... "People, pay for your music. Music is a product, it takes time and energy to create, people deserve to be able to make money at it."
Which people deserve to be able to make money, the artists? Too bad some (most?) recording industry contracts end up barely making the artist anything unless they can put out something like 5 super ultra mega platinum albums in a row.
Kinda makes you wonder how many are ficticous names... For some reason I'm reminded of the disclaimer from Crank Yankers though... "The names have not been changed. Screw the innocent [or in this case, guilty]."
From the article: In an e-mail interview, Auman said that the club was dedicated to promoting "responsible" business practices and that it offers information about misleading tactics used by some spammers simply to show why they are improper.
Now, I hate spam and spammers with a passion, but I must admit that the subject lines and stuff I've been getting recently are a lot more appropriate. At least the spam I get, they aren't trying to hide it anymore with stuff like "Re: Your bank account" or "Re: Tech support" and it's about debt management or a second mortgage or my wang. Too bad that their "responsible business practices" include articles about spoofing (probably about spoofing emails and forging headers) and harvesting emails ("opt-in" my ass).
But anyways... down to the real reason I posted. Did anybody manage to get any info about addresses, telephone numbers, etc? I have a baseball bat and some free time in the mornings before work... and late nights are free too! DId I mention I live in Florida, just like this guy:
Among the Bulk Club's list of 159 "active members" was Damon Decrescenzo, one of the operators of Rockin Time Holdings, a Florida junk e-mailer sued by Microsoft in June and by Amazon this month.
I have responsible business practices too! I am responsible for alot of death and destruction...
Could you imagine a bunch of nerds standing around the "pumps" at a refil station talking like truckers?
- "Where ya crunchin today" - "I'm headin ova to the east side to war drive for a few hours then I gotta catch me a plane to Utah to kick McBride in the crotch." - "Get 'er dun"
But seriously. Hopefully the refils are cheap enough that it would make this feasible. Otherwise I personally only see the technology being viable for desknotes or desktop replacement computers that are rarely away from a wall socket and could benifit from a (very) small battery.
Tycho also had an interesting news post on the Phantom subject (about half-way down the page, titled "Oh, Right"), as well as Gabe's response directly below.
Slashdot Mirror
Last time this story was posted, I got a Score:5, Funny...
:-)
Mods, go to work
4. Then we got fed up with SCO
5. Then we bombed SCO
You mean to tell me European black-hats get up early (or would that be staying up very late?) just to try and break into a system? Very different cultures ;-)
To paraphrase Kelso from That 70's Show:
"BUUUUUURRRRRRRNNN!"
Sorry, I just got caught up in the wicked burn. Linus is awesome, what can I say? He certainly has a way with words. I laughed so hard after reading that.
They gotta be pulling these kinds of stunts out of desperation.
Somebody in the earlier story (Tuesday I believe) about the RIAA settling for $2000 with the mother of the 12 year-old mentioned that perhaps the RIAA is suing these people not because they're major downloaders or share metric ass-loads of files, but because they are the only people they can track down. This lends some credibility to the "desperation" angle... perhaps they want people to step forward so they can go "AH HA! See, you were next on the chopping block... you should feel lucky" and add to their FUD. Or maybe they'll just keep a lookout (since they now know who you are and can get your ISP and your ip address and all that) and if you ever (ever ever ever... ever) download or share another song again, then they'll sue you.
Or maybe I'm just paranoid...
Well, in this case, rather then being an assumed music "thief" (which brings up a whole other rant about copyright infringement not being theft) you are now admitting you are.
And on another note, when they said "destroy hard copies" did they mean of your mp3s or your cds too? If it's the latter, sounds like a deliciously evil way to get MORE of your cash-money.
I'm using my karma bonus to get this noticed, so don't mod me up if you don't want to (not trying to karma whore, don't need more karma anyways):
/.-ers will contribute.
They started a new set of comments related to the Darl McBride open letter response after the first one mentioned in the parent post filled up.
Hopefully insightful or informative
To what kind of ears are you referring? Human ears? In that case, this dog whistle I have doesn't produce sound. I sure as hell can't hear it, but when I blow it, my dog goes bonkers. But I guess it's not sound because I do not hear it. Try telling that to my dog.
Granted, I don't think anybody could hear that noise... but who knows, maybe some alien is bitching to his neighborhood association because that black hole won't turn it down or something.
Over at Groklaw there is a large set of comments forming in the hopes of drafting an open letter response to McBride's. It is my hope when they are finished that the /. editors will publish the text of said letter in an effort to debunk his claims and outright lies and misquotes.
I tried to post my comment on there but for some reason it wouldn't take. I offer my services to mirror a PDF or HTML copy of the response once it is finished. I hope others would follow suit, and perhaps some of the readers here with connections can get it published on high-profile sites or even pass it along to CIO/CEO/CTO type people in an effort to dispel SCO FUD.
Exactly. I guess some company needs to bring up a suit against makers of those types of adware (e.g. Xupiter) that use an exploit to auto-install themselves then won't go away short of manually ripping it out. They can claim the same type of thing, popups over their business of something competing, although I guess you'd need an actual instance of that happening first...
But hey, I guess it would be a start on the right track.
In Soviet Russia, SCO sues... oh wait, that doesn't fit the joke.
Hrm, how about:
In Soviet Russia, SCO licenses you!
So what you're saying is that you don't think McBride is an asshat?
And don't forget that SCO went from "contract dispute" to "Linux is our bitch" to "We own anything and everything even remotely related to Unix", and now seem to be switching between those arguments randomly. I don't know about you, but contradictory press releases and interviews do not a court case make.
They don't have internet police (well they do have a proxy and you WILL be canned for visiting certain websites)
Note to self: don't visit www.sco.com if ever working at IBM...
From the article:
A plane may need up to 10 or more sensors fitted over its fuselage and impending legislation from the US's federal aviation authority (FAA) is likely to require that from 2005 all new light aircraft are fitted with tailplane ice sensing equipment.
So the FAA mandate is impending (according to the article), and also according to the article there are other methods of detection but their placement and use locations are limited because of their size, which implies that ice sensing equipment is already in use for aircraft.
If you're fast enough using the two-finger method, then who cares if you can touch type? I really only use my right thumb for space bar, and I never use the home row (never learned how)... I'm a self-taught typist and I'm semi-fast (maybe 60 words a minute if I'm on a roll).
My tip? Join a MUD or some other text-only game. If you want to learn fast, join one that is PK (player killing) only... you'll learn to type very fast and accurate in an awful hurry.
Here at work we run systems tests on a crapload of old 386 and 486's... that run DOS 6.22. I'm currently investigating pitching a move to FreeDOS once I play with it and see if it can allow a program to use more than 640k of RAM (for some reason we can't with 6.22 and the software we use for testing, and we're running out of space).
So it has it's uses. Plus you can use it to make some kind of distributable boot disk without having to worry about Microsoft coming after you.
The esteemed P.J. over at Groklaw had an interesting analogy related to this IBM campaign:
AntiFUD is an important part of this battle, which is why IBM is launching an advertising campaign about Linux. But legally they're like circling sharks. Not a sound. Just water rippling ever so slightly on the surface, a brief glimpse of a fin, as they slowly circle. Until it's time to lunge.
I'd like to add to it by saying that SCO is that loud mouthed kid who's splashing around in the water yelling obscenities and other unpleasantries at the sharks, almost daring them to attack.
Would you really want something like that ugly purple for the Developers section logo? Although I am a fan of the blue they use...
"IBM has been great in getting us set up, but they don't live with the systems."
This is a very, very, very important point to consider. If you let IBM run the whole shootin match from a distance, and something goes wrong, expect downtime.
This isn't related to Z/Linux but it is related to IBM and their systems management. At the business of my employment we outsourced all our network/systems administration to IBM. In the past 2 months (July and August) we have had not 1, not 2, but 4 very very major worm/virus infections that shut the entire network (as well as business) down. IBM didn't keep any systems up to date on patches (and the corporate security department didn't help either... they approved Win2k SP4 in an awful hurry after they found out it contained the Blaster worm fix) and told us to leave our unprotected computers on 24/7 and they would update them "in the next few days." I leave the determination of what happened after that as an excercise to the reader.
But hopefully IBM won't do that to your Z/Linux VM... Hopefully you'll have someone on site who knows their stuff, even if it has to be you (hey, then you can ask for a raise!)
...It's copyright infringement. That isn't stealing. Theft is a criminal offense, copyright infringement is a civil offense.
And another thing from your post...
"People, pay for your music. Music is a product, it takes time and energy to create, people deserve to be able to make money at it."
Which people deserve to be able to make money, the artists? Too bad some (most?) recording industry contracts end up barely making the artist anything unless they can put out something like 5 super ultra mega platinum albums in a row.
Kinda makes you wonder how many are ficticous names... For some reason I'm reminded of the disclaimer from Crank Yankers though... "The names have not been changed. Screw the innocent [or in this case, guilty]."
From the article:
In an e-mail interview, Auman said that the club was dedicated to promoting "responsible" business practices and that it offers information about misleading tactics used by some spammers simply to show why they are improper.
Now, I hate spam and spammers with a passion, but I must admit that the subject lines and stuff I've been getting recently are a lot more appropriate. At least the spam I get, they aren't trying to hide it anymore with stuff like "Re: Your bank account" or "Re: Tech support" and it's about debt management or a second mortgage or my wang. Too bad that their "responsible business practices" include articles about spoofing (probably about spoofing emails and forging headers) and harvesting emails ("opt-in" my ass).
But anyways... down to the real reason I posted. Did anybody manage to get any info about addresses, telephone numbers, etc? I have a baseball bat and some free time in the mornings before work... and late nights are free too! DId I mention I live in Florida, just like this guy:
Among the Bulk Club's list of 159 "active members" was Damon Decrescenzo, one of the operators of Rockin Time Holdings, a Florida junk e-mailer sued by Microsoft in June and by Amazon this month.
I have responsible business practices too! I am responsible for alot of death and destruction...
That would explain this case of athlete's stomach...
Could you imagine a bunch of nerds standing around the "pumps" at a refil station talking like truckers?
- "Where ya crunchin today"
- "I'm headin ova to the east side to war drive for a few hours then I gotta catch me a plane to Utah to kick McBride in the crotch."
- "Get 'er dun"
But seriously. Hopefully the refils are cheap enough that it would make this feasible. Otherwise I personally only see the technology being viable for desknotes or desktop replacement computers that are rarely away from a wall socket and could benifit from a (very) small battery.
Tycho also had an interesting news post on the Phantom subject (about half-way down the page, titled "Oh, Right"), as well as Gabe's response directly below.