For the record, I agree with most people here that the $200k "damage" figure is bs. Unless he infected their system or took down security in some way, that $200k cost was only the cost of patching their preexisting vulnerability. Facebook would have have difficult time arguing for damages if that were the case.
There is a common sentiment on Slashdot that whatever good intentions a company may have, its gathering of data without permission constitutes both a violation and a risk. That risk being the potential for the data in their hands to be compromised by yet another party. Can this logic not also apply to this Glenn and his company as well?
Even better, audit smaller sites with permission so you build up a portfolio of clients before pursuing business with the big guys. That way you don't have to lie about your income on your tax forms, you don't draw negative attention to yourself or your business, and instead of selling for chump change what few holes you do find, you make a steady income from secure sites as well as insecure sites.
Can we use the cost of having to install locks and security systems in homes to deal with theft to increase the punishment of the thieves?
It seems you're writing this with the assumption that this guy is being fined $200k. He isn't. Facebook can choose to pursue damages in civil courts, just as a burglarized home owner can. But that's not what's happening yet and your post kind of jumps the gun with that assumption.
Even the wikipedia page paints a portrait of them that's more or less neutral and less biased than what you seem to want us to believe (i.e. a "sham" group). In any case, unless you can point to specific flaws in their methodology, this appears to be a legitimate contribution to the debate.
Summary is not entirely correct. Germany, Poland, Netherlands did not also "drop" ACTA, they delayed proceeding on it in pursuit of further clarification. Their actions are not the same as Bulgaria's. There are still internal conflicts in the governments of those countries and ratification is still likely after amendment. I understand there is a desire on slashdot to portray an unstoppable tide of anti-ACTA sentiment in Europe, but we can't make up what we want.
...more a place where documents and other things got put by whistleblowers. There was very few pirated content on MU, it wasn't the place to go for your latest movie or video game.
There was an segment on NPR a few months back that touched on exactly this question of "why hasn't India experienced the same growth as China". One of the main points brought up was that it is much more difficult in India for the government to seize land for economic development. This was one of the reasons why Indian cities remain badly organized for industry to this day. So part of the answer could lie in the differences between the two countries' priorities on rights vs economy -- China is more willing than India to trade some rights of their citizens for faster economic development. The guest speaker also commented that there has always been calls in India to use the China model of an iron-fisted focus on economic growth, but were always shot down in government debate with the argument that it would mean India abandoning it's founding democratic principles.
YES PLEASE! Finally high res screens on consumer electronics! I hope the rumor that Apple's computers will get updated with high res screens is also true. Laptop manufacturers need a kick in the butt to get them out of the 1366x768 doldrums.
It seems to me the current "liberation" as understood by Tunisians might be defined as freedom from Ben Ali and his family and associates, whereas "liberation" as understood by the author is defined as having the freedoms enjoyed by a handful of secular Western nations. So what we have here is some calling the first steps out of their shackles a liberation, and then someone else saying "you're not out of the prison yet." Maybe they're both right but they're looking at different goalposts.
If we adhere to the author's standard for "liberated" then very few countries can be described as "liberated" without the "quotation marks of irony". Not that I disagree with the sentiment, it's good to hold countries to higher standards, but just as parent post says, putting the word in quotes implies the author was somehow expecting a very improbable thing.
Hey it could be pretty smart, why throw money into research when you can let others do it? The US can surreptitiously hack into ESA's servers later like China and take whatever they want, or maybe just pick up the "information wants to be free" banner and take it publicly without compensating the EU. How many people on Slashdot would oppose sharing ESA's data with the US? Probably not many. Maybe it's time for others to take the lead and for the US to coast along and reap the benefits with minimal investment.:)
Western Europe is the major source of intellectual property. Look at WIPO's top applicant nations - Germany, France, UK, Netherlands. Look at IMDB's top film making countries - France, UK. Look at the fashion world where you're nobody unless your're based in London, Paris, or Milan. In addition, Central and Eastern Europe are the conduits (if not the source) for many counterfeits. With ACTA, those governments would bear a share of the burden in protecting someone else's economy while their own not-quite-so IP-reliant economies see no benefit. So they'd go from not spending money enforcing someone else's IP while getting economic benefit from those citizen who profit from counterfeit, to spending money enforcing someone else's IP while killing off a pretty nice influx of money. Western EU countries are going to have to offer much more trade incentives to get what they want, but then by increasing trade incentives to get IP enforcement, they will just be switching from one hose siphoning money from them to another hose siphoning money from them.
Well, one man's client state is another man's ally. Just like China calls Japan and South Korea "American lapdogs" but turn around and call North Korea and Myanmar are brave allies. Or like some would call Syria "Iranian lapdogs" but others call them brave allies against western hegemony. That's all silly though. states align themselves according to their interests, and will dress it up or down to play their game
If there's one thing that brings perspective and a little clarity, it's that if you zoom out on the map you'll see that Iran has few friends in the region, or around the world, and that's not because of a global conspiracy.
Kinect interface seems like a useful extension to touch interfaces. There are lots of games out there still that rely on hovering your mouse in an area for an essential action, which is impossible to replicate on touch screens. Kinect can provide that layer of interaction.
Also, inb4 "It looks like you're trying to touch the screen, would you like help?":D
That is assuming Farmville was an original Zynga creation. It's not. There were a handful of highly successful virtual farming games before it, the Chinese game Happy Farm being one example.
Is it really that hard to port to WebOS? Besides, WebOS users are starving for good apps, so it's a good opportunity to carve out a niche. Settling into a good niche is often more profitable than squabbling with the big boys.
He's reacting to the equivalence fallacies. This is what happens on Slashdot every single time:
1. Some other country trespasses egregiously on human rights (e.g. death penalty for software unwittingly used by porn sites) 2. First comment says "this is no different than the USA", gets modded +5 3. Someone responds to that post with "that's not a fair comparison since the US reacts differently for [crime in topic]" 4. Someone like you twists #3's words around to frame him as an apologist with low standards when in fact he was calling out the non-sequitur for having no logical connection. 5. Someone chimes in about how this is a cultural phenomenon and we should sympathize with abusive foreign governments (to which I can only laugh because it begs the silly question: why doesn't the world sympathize with the abusive US government for reasons of cultural understanding?)
Yes of course you SHOULD be vigilant in policing the abuses by the government, but when you can no longer separate bad from worse, you will have lost all hope of separating good from bad. If you want a country to get better, then you better know exactly where it stands in relation to others, those which are better than it and those which are worse than it. Only what that self-knowledge can you seek to improve. Defeatist like #2 have neither the insight nor the inclination to improve a country.
I think the OP was referring to explicitly copyrighted material like movies, music (things that are published with copyright notice or are registered), rather than implicitly copyrighted material like forums postings.
No, the issue isn't about storage of pirated files, it's about leveraging access to pirated content in order to make money.
The difference between MU and hard drive makers is that hard drive makers don't have revenue sharing schemes whereby they pay people who advertise and sell hard drives filled with pirated content. The more apt comparison would be a situation wherein Toshiba, Seagate, etc. are paying private individuals who possess pirated content to make that content available to the public in a scheme to drive hard drive sales.
DDL sites mostly make money on paid membership. Much like porn sites, the operators all have a revenue sharing model whereby 3rd parties funnel traffic to the main site, encouraging those people to join the paid membership plans for a cut of the sign up fees. What pirates would do is to pick a high paying site and put all their content exclusively on that site. There are usually very low daily or hourly download limits, with various wait times, so as to encourage paid membership. When you post 0- 1- 2- or 3-day content in a popular warez or porn forum and link to a site that pays up to 40% of sign up fees, the money can add up. Over time, there were newer incentives like certain amount of money per 1000 downloads (calculated based on how many sign ups they typically get per 1000 visitors)
Yes I have done this in college years ago, when I wanted money and didn't give a fuck how. I take no pride in it.
I'm not calling for his income to be published. I'm saying in the absence of their site statistics and their income breakdown, neither FightFreedomOfSpeach nor the AC who responded to his post can prove their assertions. One claims his money is made illegitimately, the other claims the opposite. What I'm seeing is moderator reaction favoring the AC and punishing FightFreedomOfSpeach in an instance where all we have is speculation. I'm for a neutral stance until facts emerge, and because of that I'm against this one sided moderation. Why are you so defensive?
Before anyone gets voted up to the stratosphere or down to oblivion here, we should remind ourselves that there is no way to tell how legitimately or illegitimately he made his money until a breakdown of his income is published.
Slashdot Mirror
For the record, I agree with most people here that the $200k "damage" figure is bs. Unless he infected their system or took down security in some way, that $200k cost was only the cost of patching their preexisting vulnerability. Facebook would have have difficult time arguing for damages if that were the case.
There is a common sentiment on Slashdot that whatever good intentions a company may have, its gathering of data without permission constitutes both a violation and a risk. That risk being the potential for the data in their hands to be compromised by yet another party. Can this logic not also apply to this Glenn and his company as well?
Even better, audit smaller sites with permission so you build up a portfolio of clients before pursuing business with the big guys. That way you don't have to lie about your income on your tax forms, you don't draw negative attention to yourself or your business, and instead of selling for chump change what few holes you do find, you make a steady income from secure sites as well as insecure sites.
You know, what smart security pros do?
Can we use the cost of having to install locks and security systems in homes to deal with theft to increase the punishment of the thieves?
It seems you're writing this with the assumption that this guy is being fined $200k. He isn't. Facebook can choose to pursue damages in civil courts, just as a burglarized home owner can. But that's not what's happening yet and your post kind of jumps the gun with that assumption.
Even the wikipedia page paints a portrait of them that's more or less neutral and less biased than what you seem to want us to believe (i.e. a "sham" group). In any case, unless you can point to specific flaws in their methodology, this appears to be a legitimate contribution to the debate.
Summary is not entirely correct. Germany, Poland, Netherlands did not also "drop" ACTA, they delayed proceeding on it in pursuit of further clarification. Their actions are not the same as Bulgaria's. There are still internal conflicts in the governments of those countries and ratification is still likely after amendment. I understand there is a desire on slashdot to portray an unstoppable tide of anti-ACTA sentiment in Europe, but we can't make up what we want.
There's a legitimate argument against DRM on things you've bought, but complaining about DRM on borrowed books from the library is stretching it.
...more a place where documents and other things got put by whistleblowers. There was very few pirated content on MU, it wasn't the place to go for your latest movie or video game.
http://www.google.com/search?q=link:%22megaupload.com%2F%3Fd%22
There was an segment on NPR a few months back that touched on exactly this question of "why hasn't India experienced the same growth as China". One of the main points brought up was that it is much more difficult in India for the government to seize land for economic development. This was one of the reasons why Indian cities remain badly organized for industry to this day. So part of the answer could lie in the differences between the two countries' priorities on rights vs economy -- China is more willing than India to trade some rights of their citizens for faster economic development. The guest speaker also commented that there has always been calls in India to use the China model of an iron-fisted focus on economic growth, but were always shot down in government debate with the argument that it would mean India abandoning it's founding democratic principles.
YES PLEASE! Finally high res screens on consumer electronics! I hope the rumor that Apple's computers will get updated with high res screens is also true. Laptop manufacturers need a kick in the butt to get them out of the 1366x768 doldrums.
It seems to me the current "liberation" as understood by Tunisians might be defined as freedom from Ben Ali and his family and associates, whereas "liberation" as understood by the author is defined as having the freedoms enjoyed by a handful of secular Western nations. So what we have here is some calling the first steps out of their shackles a liberation, and then someone else saying "you're not out of the prison yet." Maybe they're both right but they're looking at different goalposts.
If we adhere to the author's standard for "liberated" then very few countries can be described as "liberated" without the "quotation marks of irony". Not that I disagree with the sentiment, it's good to hold countries to higher standards, but just as parent post says, putting the word in quotes implies the author was somehow expecting a very improbable thing.
Hey it could be pretty smart, why throw money into research when you can let others do it? The US can surreptitiously hack into ESA's servers later like China and take whatever they want, or maybe just pick up the "information wants to be free" banner and take it publicly without compensating the EU. How many people on Slashdot would oppose sharing ESA's data with the US? Probably not many. Maybe it's time for others to take the lead and for the US to coast along and reap the benefits with minimal investment. :)
More like it's payment for services. Did anyone sign up to facebook thinking it was a charity to help people make friends?
Western Europe is the major source of intellectual property. Look at WIPO's top applicant nations - Germany, France, UK, Netherlands. Look at IMDB's top film making countries - France, UK. Look at the fashion world where you're nobody unless your're based in London, Paris, or Milan. In addition, Central and Eastern Europe are the conduits (if not the source) for many counterfeits. With ACTA, those governments would bear a share of the burden in protecting someone else's economy while their own not-quite-so IP-reliant economies see no benefit. So they'd go from not spending money enforcing someone else's IP while getting economic benefit from those citizen who profit from counterfeit, to spending money enforcing someone else's IP while killing off a pretty nice influx of money. Western EU countries are going to have to offer much more trade incentives to get what they want, but then by increasing trade incentives to get IP enforcement, they will just be switching from one hose siphoning money from them to another hose siphoning money from them.
Slashdot = nerd drama
Don't take it too seriously.
Well, one man's client state is another man's ally. Just like China calls Japan and South Korea "American lapdogs" but turn around and call North Korea and Myanmar are brave allies. Or like some would call Syria "Iranian lapdogs" but others call them brave allies against western hegemony. That's all silly though. states align themselves according to their interests, and will dress it up or down to play their game
If there's one thing that brings perspective and a little clarity, it's that if you zoom out on the map you'll see that Iran has few friends in the region, or around the world, and that's not because of a global conspiracy.
Kinect interface seems like a useful extension to touch interfaces. There are lots of games out there still that rely on hovering your mouse in an area for an essential action, which is impossible to replicate on touch screens. Kinect can provide that layer of interaction.
Also, inb4 "It looks like you're trying to touch the screen, would you like help?" :D
That is assuming Farmville was an original Zynga creation. It's not. There were a handful of highly successful virtual farming games before it, the Chinese game Happy Farm being one example.
Is it really that hard to port to WebOS? Besides, WebOS users are starving for good apps, so it's a good opportunity to carve out a niche. Settling into a good niche is often more profitable than squabbling with the big boys.
He's reacting to the equivalence fallacies.
This is what happens on Slashdot every single time:
1. Some other country trespasses egregiously on human rights (e.g. death penalty for software unwittingly used by porn sites)
2. First comment says "this is no different than the USA", gets modded +5
3. Someone responds to that post with "that's not a fair comparison since the US reacts differently for [crime in topic]"
4. Someone like you twists #3's words around to frame him as an apologist with low standards when in fact he was calling out the non-sequitur for having no logical connection.
5. Someone chimes in about how this is a cultural phenomenon and we should sympathize with abusive foreign governments (to which I can only laugh because it begs the silly question: why doesn't the world sympathize with the abusive US government for reasons of cultural understanding?)
Yes of course you SHOULD be vigilant in policing the abuses by the government, but when you can no longer separate bad from worse, you will have lost all hope of separating good from bad. If you want a country to get better, then you better know exactly where it stands in relation to others, those which are better than it and those which are worse than it. Only what that self-knowledge can you seek to improve. Defeatist like #2 have neither the insight nor the inclination to improve a country.
I think the OP was referring to explicitly copyrighted material like movies, music (things that are published with copyright notice or are registered), rather than implicitly copyrighted material like forums postings.
No, the issue isn't about storage of pirated files, it's about leveraging access to pirated content in order to make money.
The difference between MU and hard drive makers is that hard drive makers don't have revenue sharing schemes whereby they pay people who advertise and sell hard drives filled with pirated content. The more apt comparison would be a situation wherein Toshiba, Seagate, etc. are paying private individuals who possess pirated content to make that content available to the public in a scheme to drive hard drive sales.
DDL sites mostly make money on paid membership. Much like porn sites, the operators all have a revenue sharing model whereby 3rd parties funnel traffic to the main site, encouraging those people to join the paid membership plans for a cut of the sign up fees. What pirates would do is to pick a high paying site and put all their content exclusively on that site. There are usually very low daily or hourly download limits, with various wait times, so as to encourage paid membership. When you post 0- 1- 2- or 3-day content in a popular warez or porn forum and link to a site that pays up to 40% of sign up fees, the money can add up. Over time, there were newer incentives like certain amount of money per 1000 downloads (calculated based on how many sign ups they typically get per 1000 visitors)
Yes I have done this in college years ago, when I wanted money and didn't give a fuck how. I take no pride in it.
I'm not calling for his income to be published. I'm saying in the absence of their site statistics and their income breakdown, neither FightFreedomOfSpeach nor the AC who responded to his post can prove their assertions. One claims his money is made illegitimately, the other claims the opposite. What I'm seeing is moderator reaction favoring the AC and punishing FightFreedomOfSpeach in an instance where all we have is speculation. I'm for a neutral stance until facts emerge, and because of that I'm against this one sided moderation. Why are you so defensive?
Before anyone gets voted up to the stratosphere or down to oblivion here, we should remind ourselves that there is no way to tell how legitimately or illegitimately he made his money until a breakdown of his income is published.