except for the whole part about Edison being a brilliant inventor who applied for intellectual property protection ON HIS OWN WORK.
You mean Rosen didn't come up with CD Copy Protection? I mean, it takes real genius to develop a digital protection scheme that can be defeated by a magic marker!
Doesn't decss do the same thing your dvd player does to decrypt dvds? How can it be an illegal tool then? - unless of course any company making and selling a dvd player is doing something illegal...
<disclaimer>IANAL</disclaimer>
To legally create a system that decrypts CSS, you have to license the technology from the DVD-CCA (i.e., pay lots and lots of money). DVD players are made by companies that have paid this licensing fee. Bunner et al have not.
The problem here, however, is that source code cannot be used to decrypt anything. It can certainly be compiled to do that, but compiled binaries and source code are two different things. The source code is an idea (speech), where as the compiled binary is an implementation (a tool). A lot of people, including myself, think that merely telling somebody how to do something (i.e., providing the source code) is different than actually doing it (i.e., running the compiled binary).
For example, the court has already determined that it is perfectly legal to provide detailed instructions on how to build a bomb. What it is illegal to do is to actually build the bomb (whether you blow it up or not is covered by a whole different set of laws). This to me correlates to the "DVD-CCA vs. $defendant" cases very nicely. It should be perfectly legal to provide detailed plans for building a tool to decrypt DVDs (i.e., distribute DeCSS source code), but illegal to actually build and use the code (except for uses that are generally considered "fair" such as for personal or educational uses).
Here's one I expect to come up. Viruses that hack the DRM bits on common media files. Some turn them on, to annoy people with legit homemade files, some turn them off, to annoy media companies. I'd imagine both will seem funny enough to some hackers to produce several.
This was modded funny, but I'm thinking that if enough people were hit by such a virus, the masses might finally get annoyed enough to rise up against the Gesta^H^H^H^H^HCongress and the SS^H^HMicrosoft and demand that their fair use rights be restored.
So ya, I support short-term copy protection but in a perfect world, it would just happily expire after a few years.
This is, essentially, a programmatic paradox. Ideally, the best security method is one that can not be defeated. Obviously, this is the goal of DRM. However, by adding in an expiration, you're essentially providing for a (fairly easy) way to defeat the security.
You couldn't do this with anything "dumb" (i.e., read-only), such as manufactured CDs or DVDs, because there would be no way to know what the date is. Would you base it on the user's system date? Heck, even my mom can change the date on her computer. Base it on some server somewhere that the CD/DVD has to access before it can be played? Well, obviously that wouldn't work considering the vast amount of standalone players there are out there. Even with software in general you can't assume internet connectivity.
Essentially, there's no way for this kind of thing to happen without it being very easily defeatable. Of course, that didn't stop the DVDCCA with CSS, so who knows.....
Oh! Well then. As long as they're not prosecuting PLEASANT INCEST CASES.
On Jerry Springer the other day (Memorial Day) there were two sisters who came out to their mother that they were sleeping together. That sort of thing isn't my cup of tea, and from the sight of them just imagining the act was very unpleasant, but they seemed pretty happy with themselves.
I'm sure I just "don't get it" when it comes to trade secrets, but some things don't make sense to me. Obviously, IANAL (and I only sometimes play one on/.), but I believe I heard that if something that is considered a "trade secret" is developed independently by somebody else, there's really nothing you can do about it. That's the tradeoff of patenting your findings -- the information is public, but at least you have rights to it. If you keep it as a trade secret, then you have rights only so far as nobody else discovers/invents the same thing you did.
Now, having said that, obviously there is the IBM component. SCO claims that IBM violated trade agreemnts or NDAs or whatever, and that is how "SCO's code" (if indeed the code even belongs to them) was integrated into linux. But here is the kicker: Just because some lines of code are similar (or even the same) in two different pieces of software, it doesn't mean that the code for one was taken from the other! It seems that SCO not only has the burden of proof of identifying what code they allege is similar, but that they also need to prove that it was IBM (or someone who works at IBM) that actually inserted the code into linux (or at least provided it to Linus et al).
Furthermore, SCO would then need to prove that the code implemented in the linux kernel is 1) critical to the application and 2) actually covered by any patents as being both non-obvious and non-prior art. If some of the matching code is nothing more than an abstracted for loop that increments a counter variable and passes the result to a function or sets another variable (such as an array), then I can't image how any rational person could construe that as patent infringement. But then again, I'm not CEO of a failing company (Q2 earnings aside -- we all know posted earnings don't actually mean anything -- *cough*enron*cough*)
Finally, I like the idea of "whole blocks of code." Obviously his intent is to imply that massive portions of System Unix V code have been "violated," but what he didn't consider is that block has a very technical meaning -- a "whole block" could very easily be a one-line if statement. Not that impressive overall.
What are you talking about?/. doesn't always use a "story" per se. They often link to press releases, blog entries, etc. To say that the poster "came up with the story" is nuts when there is a prevalence of other sources, and half of what was posted was written comments by Perens.
First you people complain that MS ships buggy OS's and no one knows how to update it. Now that they put in an auto-update feature for the newbie, everyone complains that it's also bad.
You're right -- the expectation that a product should work as intended is entirely unfounded. Thank you for freeing me from the ignorant cave in which I have been hiding all these years.
Damn, Flamebait? Really? I was going for Funny. Guess that'll learn me.
Since this one'll probably get modded offtopic anyway, I'll say: 1) Yes I have been to Colorado, 2) I support gun ownership, and 3) I was supporting the governor, not being a wise-ass. I'm just glad they haven't tried to introduce this kind of crap in New York State. If somebody stands up to it at some point, it will be that much easier for others to defend against it.
So I stand by my original post -- A governor with a brain! And one who's willing to fight for the rights of the people who elected him! That's a treasure for sure, and something that you Coloradans should be greatful for!
Add to that the *visible* arcs of electricity and the loud buzzing noise associated with said arcs, and I think that pretty much covers any sort of warning required by law.
Don't forget the obligatory ejaculation of "I am She-Ra, Mistress of the Universe!" by the wearer, which should be sufficient to warn off any baddies around.
BTW Guns are not the answer. Peacefully protest is. Do you really think that the citizens of the US could beat the US Defence force.
When peaceful protest isn't allowed, only violent protest will be effective. Besides, there are a lot of soldiers who would quickly abandon the military if they were ordered to attack their own people.
Sometimes it's more like you writing someone a letter and saying it's from me. I don't know how many spams I get with my name in the Sender address. That is and should be illegal.
Actually, impersonation is not as illegal as you might think, at least not everywhere. Usually it is only limited to a few things, such as impersonating a police officer, military personnel, or public officials. Not sure how this relates to businesses (probably illegal), or how it is different on a federal level vs. a state level.
Kevin Mitnick talks about this a bit in his book "The Art of Deception".
Re:forging sender address
on
I, Spammer
·
· Score: 1
Actually if it was a business calling (which most SPAM purports to be) it might be illegal to tell you false information based on truth in advertising laws and business practice laws.
Yes, but the original post was only dealing with the origin of the spam and not the content. Simply saying you're from somewhere doesn't equate to presenting false ID, which was my only point.
How much (if at all) that can be disassociated from the content of the spam is certainly up for (legal) interpretation. There is certainly a fair number of spam messages that don't necessarily sell you something.
Slashdot Mirror
You mean Rosen didn't come up with CD Copy Protection? I mean, it takes real genius to develop a digital protection scheme that can be defeated by a magic marker!
Better make sure that one gets into the Wayback Machine!
Caveat: hot lesbian sisters snugglin' on the couch is just plain hot. Like those freakin' chicks in the beer commercials. grrrrrrrrrrrrr!
<disclaimer>IANAL</disclaimer>
To legally create a system that decrypts CSS, you have to license the technology from the DVD-CCA (i.e., pay lots and lots of money). DVD players are made by companies that have paid this licensing fee. Bunner et al have not.
The problem here, however, is that source code cannot be used to decrypt anything. It can certainly be compiled to do that, but compiled binaries and source code are two different things. The source code is an idea (speech), where as the compiled binary is an implementation (a tool). A lot of people, including myself, think that merely telling somebody how to do something (i.e., providing the source code) is different than actually doing it (i.e., running the compiled binary).
For example, the court has already determined that it is perfectly legal to provide detailed instructions on how to build a bomb. What it is illegal to do is to actually build the bomb (whether you blow it up or not is covered by a whole different set of laws). This to me correlates to the "DVD-CCA vs. $defendant" cases very nicely. It should be perfectly legal to provide detailed plans for building a tool to decrypt DVDs (i.e., distribute DeCSS source code), but illegal to actually build and use the code (except for uses that are generally considered "fair" such as for personal or educational uses).
This was modded funny, but I'm thinking that if enough people were hit by such a virus, the masses might finally get annoyed enough to rise up against the Gesta^H^H^H^H^HCongress and the SS^H^HMicrosoft and demand that their fair use rights be restored.
This is, essentially, a programmatic paradox. Ideally, the best security method is one that can not be defeated. Obviously, this is the goal of DRM. However, by adding in an expiration, you're essentially providing for a (fairly easy) way to defeat the security.
You couldn't do this with anything "dumb" (i.e., read-only), such as manufactured CDs or DVDs, because there would be no way to know what the date is. Would you base it on the user's system date? Heck, even my mom can change the date on her computer. Base it on some server somewhere that the CD/DVD has to access before it can be played? Well, obviously that wouldn't work considering the vast amount of standalone players there are out there. Even with software in general you can't assume internet connectivity.
Essentially, there's no way for this kind of thing to happen without it being very easily defeatable. Of course, that didn't stop the DVDCCA with CSS, so who knows.....
Okay, I'll bite -- "business ethics" is an oxymoron.
On Jerry Springer the other day (Memorial Day) there were two sisters who came out to their mother that they were sleeping together. That sort of thing isn't my cup of tea, and from the sight of them just imagining the act was very unpleasant, but they seemed pretty happy with themselves.
I'm sure I just "don't get it" when it comes to trade secrets, but some things don't make sense to me. Obviously, IANAL (and I only sometimes play one on /.), but I believe I heard that if something that is considered a "trade secret" is developed independently by somebody else, there's really nothing you can do about it. That's the tradeoff of patenting your findings -- the information is public, but at least you have rights to it. If you keep it as a trade secret, then you have rights only so far as nobody else discovers/invents the same thing you did.
Now, having said that, obviously there is the IBM component. SCO claims that IBM violated trade agreemnts or NDAs or whatever, and that is how "SCO's code" (if indeed the code even belongs to them) was integrated into linux. But here is the kicker: Just because some lines of code are similar (or even the same) in two different pieces of software, it doesn't mean that the code for one was taken from the other! It seems that SCO not only has the burden of proof of identifying what code they allege is similar, but that they also need to prove that it was IBM (or someone who works at IBM) that actually inserted the code into linux (or at least provided it to Linus et al).
Furthermore, SCO would then need to prove that the code implemented in the linux kernel is 1) critical to the application and 2) actually covered by any patents as being both non-obvious and non-prior art. If some of the matching code is nothing more than an abstracted for loop that increments a counter variable and passes the result to a function or sets another variable (such as an array), then I can't image how any rational person could construe that as patent infringement. But then again, I'm not CEO of a failing company (Q2 earnings aside -- we all know posted earnings don't actually mean anything -- *cough*enron*cough*)
Finally, I like the idea of "whole blocks of code." Obviously his intent is to imply that massive portions of System Unix V code have been "violated," but what he didn't consider is that block has a very technical meaning -- a "whole block" could very easily be a one-line if statement. Not that impressive overall.
while (1) {}
Oh, wait...only Microsoft would do that....
Whatever! I only buy stuff after the company goes bankrupt. That way you know they won't try and pull any sh*t on you!
The last sentence on the right of the main PHP page says:
You're confusing one Apache propject (namely, the webserver) with the entire suite of Apache software.
You forgot the evil "Mwahahahahahaha" after it!
...what are you going to put in the db?
What are you talking about? /. doesn't always use a "story" per se. They often link to press releases, blog entries, etc. To say that the poster "came up with the story" is nuts when there is a prevalence of other sources, and half of what was posted was written comments by Perens.
Only 2nd or 3rd? Don't visit /. much, do ya?
You're right -- the expectation that a product should work as intended is entirely unfounded. Thank you for freeing me from the ignorant cave in which I have been hiding all these years.
I found this (possibly) offending line:
int i = 0;I certainly hope this doesn't mean linux as we know it is going down the tubes....
You forgot Ludicrous-DMCA.
Damn, Flamebait? Really? I was going for Funny. Guess that'll learn me.
Since this one'll probably get modded offtopic anyway, I'll say: 1) Yes I have been to Colorado, 2) I support gun ownership, and 3) I was supporting the governor, not being a wise-ass. I'm just glad they haven't tried to introduce this kind of crap in New York State. If somebody stands up to it at some point, it will be that much easier for others to defend against it.
So I stand by my original post -- A governor with a brain! And one who's willing to fight for the rights of the people who elected him! That's a treasure for sure, and something that you Coloradans should be greatful for!
Wow, a governor with a brain. I'm moving to Colorado. Think they'll let me bring my guns?
Don't forget the obligatory ejaculation of "I am She-Ra, Mistress of the Universe!" by the wearer, which should be sufficient to warn off any baddies around.
When peaceful protest isn't allowed, only violent protest will be effective. Besides, there are a lot of soldiers who would quickly abandon the military if they were ordered to attack their own people.
Actually, impersonation is not as illegal as you might think, at least not everywhere. Usually it is only limited to a few things, such as impersonating a police officer, military personnel, or public officials. Not sure how this relates to businesses (probably illegal), or how it is different on a federal level vs. a state level.
Kevin Mitnick talks about this a bit in his book "The Art of Deception".
Yes, but the original post was only dealing with the origin of the spam and not the content. Simply saying you're from somewhere doesn't equate to presenting false ID, which was my only point.
How much (if at all) that can be disassociated from the content of the spam is certainly up for (legal) interpretation. There is certainly a fair number of spam messages that don't necessarily sell you something.