I'm probably going to burn through some of my karma on this, but what the hell:
By itself licensing ISP's is not a bad idea. It is a pointless idea, but not bad. Now add in "You must censor whatever we tell you to" and were starting to talk trouble. Sure it just starts with kiddy p0rn, but then they will find something else they don't like and what do you know all we need to do now is add it to the list.
I'm not really all that fond of kiddy p0rn, but protecting children at the cost of liberty, in this case freedom of speech, is just too high a price to pay! Hmmm, I've heard this argument before somewhere - where could that be?
I liked your solution until I thought about it a bit. This is exactly how we ended up in this mess in the first place. Allow me to explain:
Lawsuits were just the beginning. Yes I think you should be able to sue somebody when they were careless and they should have to pay for it when they make a careless mistake, but many of these suits have nothing to do with that anymore. People are filing lawsuits like they were buying a Lottery ticket. The problem here is one of ballence, I wouldn't want a person who had the wrong organ removed to not be able to sue for all the future medical bills, lost wages, and a little bit for pain and suffering, but some of these suits are getting out of hand. For example when a doctor delivers a baby there are a lot of things that could go wrong, but now the parents of that baby, in many states, could sue until it is 20 years old when something comes along that could have been birth related! And that seems to be the ammount of proof that is required to win! This means that malpractice insurance costs are going through the roof.
So what this means for the whole medical industry is that their insurance bills are getting higher every year so that a few people can sue them pretty much at random. Obviously somebody has to pay for this. (Wonder who that will be?) So then you get $3500 tests to cover your butt when you get sued. Now I'll bet most people will not have $3500 sitting around just to run a test, they have health insurance to pay for this kind of stuff. Which it's no big deal how much the test costs since your not paying for it right? No wait your insurance rates keep going up every year since the price of health care keeps going up. So once again Joe Blow still ends up holding the bag.
In the end health care costs go up so high that you can't afford it without insurance! So now there selling a product that you can't live without, but can't afford -- what a busines plan!
So where is all this money going?
Lawyers - Yea, and easy target, but they get a good cut on all those lawsuits they file.
Insurance Companies - They are makeing money comming and going here, doctors and patients.
Drug Companies - Sure these guys could be sued out of existance when the hot new drug they make kills a few people, but the CEO will still go home with $100M bonus that last year. Maybe he can try running a telecom next year.
I mean who here does not have a copy of DeCSS? As soon as I read the story here, I downloaded a copy via one of the dozens of links posted.
The MPAA did a much better job of spreading DeCSS than anybody else could have. Nobody would have cared much about this little bit of code otherwise. This code will now live on forever and they can't do a damn thing about it.
For those keeping score at home, current score: MPAA 1, Geeks 1. Round 2 comming soon.
Keeping things like this under you hat is exactly how worms get out of control. This hole was fixed 2 weeks ago, if you have not fixed your site by now this is your final warning. If you know any other Apache admins, you should be a nice guy and send them an email to make sure that their site is fixed.
When Micro$oft kept it quiet about those IIS vulnerabilities, many IIS installs went unpatched. (Ok, if you were a good admin you knew about them, but most sites do not have good admins) This by itself was not a problem, but then Nimda and Code Red hit. Tons of systems ripe for the picking!
Any system will have bugs (some more than others, but that is not the point here) and a certain percentage of those bugs will be security vulnerabilities. No matter how hard you try to debug the system, there will be some securty hole left to be discovered. The best action is to make sure that everybody who has that system running knows about the hole before it become a problem.
Yes using this tool on a website that is not yours would fall under this law, but this law does not seem to have any provisions for possession of the tools. Laws like that are stupid anyway. Just because I have X does not mean that I will use X to commit to hurt someone or something else.
In other unbiased news...
on
Is Linux Dead?
·
· Score: 3, Funny
In other unbiased news ORCL-CBS has declared MSSQL untrustworthy, NOVEL-ABC has declared Windows 2000 server unstable, and LNX-FOX declared that Windows has no future on the desktop.
Monday I ran into W32/Klez.h@MM which was no big deal by itself, but the W95/Elkern.cav.c nailed two computers so bad that they needed to be reinstalled.
So far at work we have been lucky and never gotten any of the "Hyped" viruses, just all the hoaxex; however, we tend to get the viruses that are not hyped and make small messes.
1. You respond with an account number. They make a deposite to the account just like they said they would.
2. They come back to you and say "Please give us back $X of the money we sent you". Since you have the money in your account you write them a big fat check.
3. After a few big fat checks clear your bank, you you find out from your bank that the first big deposit did not auctually clear, you now have an account that is overdrawn because of all those big fat checks.
And since your name is the only name on the account you are entirly responsable!
But, if I can draw the analogy that just because everyone should wear a computerized bulletproof vest doesn?t mean that shooting people to find out who isn?t wearing one is the best answer. If Mr. Gulliver chooses to do this, he perhaps shouldn?t be surprised that he will occasionally be confused with the type of individual he is fighting against.
Not quite, here is a better analogy:
ORBZ is giving out crack and instructing you to pass it out to children, to test out you sense of common sense. The bad servers just pass the crack out, the good servers distroy the crack. BC's mail server decided to take the crack.
If handed some crack everybody should know not to give it to children (forward spam), and not to take it (create a mail loop inside the server).
It is simple why the media as a whole has not reported on this:
He did not use a handgun to mow down an Adobe office.
He did not write a Outlook email virus that will destroy your computer with one click.
He did not write an IIS worm that will end the internet as we know it.
He did not have sexual relations with a congressman/President/justice or an intern and then lie about it.
Until he fits into one of these "popular" stories his story is never going to be seen on CNN. I think that Al Franken was right calling it "Infotainment".
Slashdot Mirror
I'm probably going to burn through some of my karma on this, but what the hell:
By itself licensing ISP's is not a bad idea. It is a pointless idea, but not bad. Now add in "You must censor whatever we tell you to" and were starting to talk trouble. Sure it just starts with kiddy p0rn, but then they will find something else they don't like and what do you know all we need to do now is add it to the list.
I'm not really all that fond of kiddy p0rn, but protecting children at the cost of liberty, in this case freedom of speech, is just too high a price to pay! Hmmm, I've heard this argument before somewhere - where could that be?
I liked your solution until I thought about it a bit. This is exactly how we ended up in this mess in the first place. Allow me to explain:
Lawsuits were just the beginning. Yes I think you should be able to sue somebody when they were careless and they should have to pay for it when they make a careless mistake, but many of these suits have nothing to do with that anymore. People are filing lawsuits like they were buying a Lottery ticket. The problem here is one of ballence, I wouldn't want a person who had the wrong organ removed to not be able to sue for all the future medical bills, lost wages, and a little bit for pain and suffering, but some of these suits are getting out of hand. For example when a doctor delivers a baby there are a lot of things that could go wrong, but now the parents of that baby, in many states, could sue until it is 20 years old when something comes along that could have been birth related! And that seems to be the ammount of proof that is required to win! This means that malpractice insurance costs are going through the roof.
So what this means for the whole medical industry is that their insurance bills are getting higher every year so that a few people can sue them pretty much at random. Obviously somebody has to pay for this. (Wonder who that will be?) So then you get $3500 tests to cover your butt when you get sued. Now I'll bet most people will not have $3500 sitting around just to run a test, they have health insurance to pay for this kind of stuff. Which it's no big deal how much the test costs since your not paying for it right? No wait your insurance rates keep going up every year since the price of health care keeps going up. So once again Joe Blow still ends up holding the bag.
In the end health care costs go up so high that you can't afford it without insurance! So now there selling a product that you can't live without, but can't afford -- what a busines plan!
So where is all this money going?
Lawyers - Yea, and easy target, but they get a good cut on all those lawsuits they file.
Insurance Companies - They are makeing money comming and going here, doctors and patients.
Drug Companies - Sure these guys could be sued out of existance when the hot new drug they make kills a few people, but the CEO will still go home with $100M bonus that last year. Maybe he can try running a telecom next year.
I mean who here does not have a copy of DeCSS? As soon as I read the story here, I downloaded a copy via one of the dozens of links posted.
The MPAA did a much better job of spreading DeCSS than anybody else could have. Nobody would have cared much about this little bit of code otherwise. This code will now live on forever and they can't do a damn thing about it.
For those keeping score at home, current score: MPAA 1, Geeks 1. Round 2 comming soon.
Keeping things like this under you hat is exactly how worms get out of control. This hole was fixed 2 weeks ago, if you have not fixed your site by now this is your final warning. If you know any other Apache admins, you should be a nice guy and send them an email to make sure that their site is fixed.
When Micro$oft kept it quiet about those IIS vulnerabilities, many IIS installs went unpatched. (Ok, if you were a good admin you knew about them, but most sites do not have good admins) This by itself was not a problem, but then Nimda and Code Red hit. Tons of systems ripe for the picking!
Any system will have bugs (some more than others, but that is not the point here) and a certain percentage of those bugs will be security vulnerabilities. No matter how hard you try to debug the system, there will be some securty hole left to be discovered. The best action is to make sure that everybody who has that system running knows about the hole before it become a problem.
Yes using this tool on a website that is not yours would fall under this law, but this law does not seem to have any provisions for possession of the tools. Laws like that are stupid anyway. Just because I have X does not mean that I will use X to commit to hurt someone or something else.
In other unbiased news ORCL-CBS has declared MSSQL untrustworthy, NOVEL-ABC has declared Windows 2000 server unstable, and LNX-FOX declared that Windows has no future on the desktop.
Monday I ran into W32/Klez.h@MM which was no big deal by itself, but the W95/Elkern.cav.c nailed two computers so bad that they needed to be reinstalled.
So far at work we have been lucky and never gotten any of the "Hyped" viruses, just all the hoaxex; however, we tend to get the viruses that are not hyped and make small messes.
I wish that in this case that Klez was all hyped up since then McAfee would have released the DAT file that would detect Elkern. McAfee's website says that DAT 4198 will detect the virus, but they have only released 4198 today!
Here is how I was told that this scam works:
1. You respond with an account number. They make a deposite to the account just like they said they would.
2. They come back to you and say "Please give us back $X of the money we sent you". Since you have the money in your account you write them a big fat check.
3. After a few big fat checks clear your bank, you you find out from your bank that the first big deposit did not auctually clear, you now have an account that is overdrawn because of all those big fat checks.
And since your name is the only name on the account you are entirly responsable!
From the article:
Not quite, here is a better analogy:
If handed some crack everybody should know not to give it to children (forward spam), and not to take it (create a mail loop inside the server).
Just think of it from the perspective of a new investor:
"Hmm...this company is tring to make a living selling "Free Software". And they say it is better than Microsoft's software! Lies! Call the SEC!"
But then again some scepticism would have been a good thing during the DotBomb era.
Leave it to Microsoft to find a loophole! Now they are constructing a 50' rope for a 25' hangn' platform.
Note to DOJ: Since they have 50' feet of rope now insist on a mass execution - 50 people, 1 nuse!
It is simple why the media as a whole has not reported on this:
Until he fits into one of these "popular" stories his story is never going to be seen on CNN. I think that Al Franken was right calling it "Infotainment".