Upgradeability for high-end (ie gaming) PCs is little to non-existant.
Change your CPU, oh no, new slot, change the motherboard. Change the motherboard, change the RAM. Change the motherboard, end up with a no-ISA board for the features you want, throw out all your "legacy" (== "more than six months old" modem, sound, network cards). Buy a new graphics card every six months and be unable to sell the old one for anything more than a pittance. PCs now seem to be desinged for six-month obsolescence.
I've given up with the whole PC upgrade rat-race. My boxen are a P75, P133 and K5-100 (Win95, Linux, NetBSD), and I'm only adding hardware when something I want to do needs it (the P133 is looking for a second CPU, but only because I want to play around with an SMP box. Nothing I'm doing needs the speed.) I gave in and bought a Playstation - it's *so* much easier, all the games run on it, I don't have to keep checking the box thinking 'do I meet the specs? Do I have enough disk space to install?'
Admittedly I probably picked a bad time to do it, with the PS2 due in the UK late this year, but in general with consoles you can look at three to five years of playing games on the same machine without any upgrades. I've no intention of being on the PS2 bleeding edge, so I should get another year at least out of my PS1.
$ISP_I_USED_TO_WORK_FOR did it The Right Way - $ISP.net for infrastructure - routers, internal servers, staff email; $ISP.co.uk for customer-facing servers, customer email etc.
($ISP_I_CURRENTLY_WORK_FOR is a backbone provider and uses so uses.net everywhere.)
I see far too many ISPs now getting the first part right and registering themselves as.net, but then handing out $LUSER@$ISP.net addresses to their customers. It just makes them look like they Don't Get It.
slashdot.org is about as right as any other.org with banner ads IMHO, and I guess it's better than the alternatives.
Eh? TTBOMK, Linux *does* run on Sun E[0-9]+k servers. I'm sure I've seen dmesg output from one of the big names on the Sparc port showing it coming up on a 14-CPU box.
I'm not saying it scales as well as Solaris on this type of box - I'm sure it doesn't, and I doubt it works especially well with things like the E10k's partitioning. But I'm sure it's at least running...
I actually found the rest of the article far more interesting than the withdrawal of the UDP. Seeing ISPs talking about how many of their users access news makes for interesting reading, especially those claiming the numbers are flat - the volume of news is *far* from flat, I can assure you.
As for comments regarding the alternatives - web-based bulletin boards and the like - I find them far *harder* to use. Point, click, wait, scroll, wait, back-up, point, click, wait... a decent news reader (personally I use slrn) knocks all of this into a cocked hat. And I can read off-line, so I don't pay the whole time I'm reading and replying.
/.'s interface is fairly usuable, for a web-based forum - most of the others I've seen are *far* worse, especially the min-fora that exist as 'feedback to this article' on countless news web sites. But it's still a million miles from threading, kill-files and a real editor.
Sadly, the com|net|org distinctions appear to be somewhat non-existant these days.
I assumed that Notworking Solution's "grab all three!" policy was just an extension of their usual cluelessness in pursuit of the almighty dollar, but rs.internic.net (supposed custodians of the namespace) now agrees that there is no requirement to be an organisation for a.org or part of the infrastructure for a.net. Although to be fair, they do mention those groupings as a 'tradition'.
I belive the division *is* still enshrined in the relevent RFC (sorry, don't have the number to hand), but I'm not sure if that's a STD.
Either way, I'll continue to assume that anyone I deal with who has a 'wrong' domain is clueless. ISPs giving.net addresses to their customers are the worst offenders.
Er, smoking has been medically *proven* to be bad for you, and for those around you; everything regarding the effects of video games is (currently) speculation.
I don't force the people I work with to sit and stare at Quake 3 until they become drooling psychopaths either (*grin*), unlike filling your cow-orkers airspace with toxins - they don't have any choice about breathing.
>>> Rather than mealy-mouthed exulpation, some of us might prefer accurate terms like "theft." >>>>
Accurate in what sense? If the Gnu Manifesto the quote comes from is to be believed (and I have no reason to doubt the quality of RMS' research), then legally infringement of one of the various forms of IP legislation is categorically *not* theft.
As to whether it's morally accurate to call it theft, we can all sit and argue that one until... well, a *very* long time from now. You certainly can't take it as an accepted truth.
>>> Well, Apple's Open Firmware runs on FORTRAN... so in a sense all modern PowerMacs are "FORTRAN machines" - they just don't run a FORTRAN OS. >>> Isn't Open Firmware tied to FORTH, nor FORTRAN?
(And I think it's that it contains a FORTH interpreter, not that it's necessarily *written* in FORTH).
>>> How about "And how many of you that voted for Win9x being unstable are actually running an alternative such as Linux as your primary OS?" >>>
How do you define "Primary OS" for someone who has (and regularly uses) several machines?
My Windows (95) box exists mostly to play games. Because it plays games, it has the 17" monitor. Because it has the big monitor, I run an X server under 95 and leave the Linux box in another room (my 14" goldfish bowl sucks, and two machines in the living room meets with disapproval from my finacee). However, the Linux box has higher spec hardware (and more of it) than the Windows box.
I also have a NetBSD box, which is the one with the full-time 10Mb internet connection and does primary DNS and MX for me, but doesn't have much in the way of hardware.
Then I've got the boxen work provide for me personally (95, NT) and the work boxen I spend a lot of time logged in to and working on (Solaris, IOS)...
>>> Indeed, that flood *did* destroy the Internet as we knew it - it drove innovation, swelled the Internet's infospace exponentially and led to Internet access becoming a simple matter instead of the complicated mess it was at the time. >>>
If by 'innovation', you largely mean 'dumbing-down and pretty pictures', yes.
I can think of two benefits of the invasion of the GUM - cheap home dialup access exists at all, and you can buy stuff on-line. The price of this is Eternal September on Usenet, Skript Kiddies rampant, web sites that take hours to download on a modem and are almost totally free of any actual content, banner ads, corporations trying to monopolize the namespace, namespace pollution to try and create 'kewl' URLs ("come.to" et al), search engines that turn up more porn than useful hits of any kind... (unless you're looking for porn, of course)
The amount of Useful Stuff on the net has increased since the GUM came. The trouble is that the amount of dross has increased many, many times faster, to the point where you're searching for pennies in a mountain of shit.
>>> ... and with time, those clueless newbies became experienced users... >>>
No. *A few* of those clueless newbies, those who have any interest in learning and are prepared to work at it, become experienced users. The vast majority remain clueless, but because they've been here so long now can make it seem to clueless newbies that cluelessness is the natural and correct state of the net.
To get back on topic, I do worry that the same could happen to Linux. Imagine Linux newsgroups, web sites and mailing lists being full of the whinings of the people who can't manage to understand the difference between 'left click' and 'right click' under Windows, who now face the possibility of having to *shock* type something. (Those of you who have done tech support will know what I mean).
No, you shouldn't need a CS degree to run Linux (or to use a computer at all). But like driving a car, you should be prepared to learn a little in order to use it properly.
1. (*main purpose*) Provides the other end for your modem to connect to, establishing IP connectivity to your house, effectively extending the internet to the home. >>>
Agreed, although I think you're missing the important point that they also provide some degree of connectivity beyond the modem, which I'll come back to in a minute.
>>> 2. Mail Server 3. Web Server space 4. Usenet setver >>>
The only real reason you need the ISP to provide these is because of the temporary and low-bandwidth nature of your dial-up connection (or because you're not capable of running your own SMTP server for accepting incoming mail, which is frequently true for Windoze folks).
Cable modems remove both of those limitations.
>>> I would argue that cable modems, by themselves, do the job of #1, above -- they effectively extend the internet into the home. With cable, there is no set of corresponding cable modems on the other end that you're switched to, depending on what phone number you dialed. By attempting to force cable systems into the ISP model, you enormously drive up the cost. because the cable system would need to know "Ok. This house is a mindspring customer. Route his packets to the mindspring router." Just plain silly. >>>
Not if you care about your upstream connection.
There are small local ISPs who are tier-17 providers - they buy bandwidth from people who buy bandwidth from people who buy bandwidth from...
There are ISPs who have backbones of their own, respectable international connections, are present at relevent peering points and have good transit agreements to get their customer's traffic to where it needs to go.
I want to have the choice of who takes my packets a sends them where the going. And there's a fairly good chance I don't want it to be Joe Cableco, who knows something about fibre, maybe SDH, ATM and voice-switching, but is a relatively new player in the IP game. I want it to be someone with a proven track record in managing large(r than dialup) IP data streams.
"I'm off to a meeting with the moron^H^H^H^H^Hmarketing department..." is the usual kind of usage - replacing what you *want* to say with what you are in some way *obliged* to say...
You make it sound like 'the Internet' is some kind of organised network, with links planned by some kind of 'Internet Manager' who then delegates down to managers in each country to sort out their links.
It isn't.
The Internet is made of lots of little chunks of commercial self-interest who talk to to each other because it's in their financial interest to do so.
If a company, ISP, or transit provider thinks its in their best interest to install a direct link to the US, or to somewhere else in Europe, or to Africa, or to the moon, they'll do so. If the cost / benefit analysis gives better numbers for going via three other countries, or buying transit peering from someone else, or sending a truck full of mag tapes once a day they'll do that. What you end up with a mass of links and even more routes, depending on who you are and where you're trying to connect to.
Your comment about '*the* transatlantic link' is nonsense - there are *many* transatlantic links just from the UK to the US; other European entities may have their own, or may buy transit from UK entities. When I worked for a UK ISP, we went through 5 or more different transatlantic links in two years, upgrading 64K -> 256K -> T1 -> STM-1, and we weren't the only UK ISP with our own links to the US.
Your first sentence is true though - much of Europe *can* manage to interconnect without going to the US.
Pre-emptive multi-tasking? Win9x has it, except when it doesn't. Anything that hits the thunking layer fails to multi-task miserably (ISTR there's a single mutex for all of the 16-bit code in 95).
Trying to do anything while accessing the floppy has routinely blue-screened every 95 and NT machine I've used (not BSOD, the 'an error has occured while writing' full-screen nonsense).
Then there's the little un-announced joys of non-compatability between versions, such as the removal of support for DOS file/record locking (SHARE.EXE functionality) in Win95 OSR2. That was fun for those running "legacy" DOS database apps (like great chunks of FidoNet, and I'm sure plenty of other folks).
It's interesting to note that the press release mentions 'unathorized access' - what do they mean by this?
Have they recovered damages against someone who spammed their customers, with the resultant increased mail server / network load? This would be a nice precedent.
If it's one of their own customers, there should be harsh fines specified in their AUP / TOS, which it should be simple to collect. Again, nice if this is actually being enforced.
If it's someone outside of their network relaying off of them, it should probably not have happened in the first place. There's very little in the way of excuses for running an open mail relay any more - the only way to get around a sensibly configured mail server I can think of is IP spoofing, which is a) beyond most spammers and b) blockable at your border routers. If it's this one, I hope they've fixed the problem as well as collecting the damages.
"Unauthorized access" tends to suggest the last option to me:(
Those of us outside of the US are quite happily obtaining and using strong encryption, all completely legally. We're just not obtaining it from US companies.
I'm surprised that this hasn't been put forward more often as a counter to the 'encryption == munitions' farce - no country is prevented from obtaining strong encryption. All that is prevented is a revenue stream to US companies.
Agreed. At home I have a PC, which I use for strategy and RPGs (and many other things beside games!), and a MegaDrive, which I use for platformers, simple shoot-em-ups and the like.
The first needs detailed graphics and a mouse. The second is quite happy with TV resolution and a stick.
I've not felt the need to 'upgrade' to a Playstation / N64 or similar, as the games all seem to be 'look how cool our 3D is' or fighting games, and I have little interest in either. Plus a real joystick (not a pad) is either not an option or obscenely priced:( Games for the MegaDrive are *much* cheaper now too:)
I think there's a place for old consoles, new consoles and PCs, but I think fairly different markets are going to be gaming on each.
>>> Have a look at http://www.courtservice.gov.uk/godfrey2.htm. In particular see paragraphs 19 and 20.
Yes. A defendent can establish under Section 1(1)(a) that they are categorically not the publisher of an article, and yet still must show that they "took reasonable care in relation to its publication" (1(1)(b)) and that they "had no reason to believe, that what he did caused or contributed to the publication of a defamatory statement" (1(1)(c)).
If you're not a publisher, then you shouldn't have to take any care in relation to the publication of something. If you're not a publisher, you don't cause or contribute to the publication.
In short, if 1(1)(a) applies, then I can't see how 1(1)(b) and 1(1)(c) can possible be part of the discusssion.
The law appears to remain an ass.
However, I'm still arguing from the point of view of common sense, not a legal background...
>>> The facts of the case are interesting. The plaintiff in the case informed Demon that they had libellous material (and it was not disputed at trial that the material was, in fact, libellous), but Demon didn't do anything about it.
Now, technically, in English law, the act of serving an article from a news spool is publication. Since Demon knew that the article was potentially libellous, they couldn't avail themselves of the 'innocent publication' defence that is part of the 1996(? I should know this) Act.
This is, IMHO, where the law is an ass. Serving an article from a news spool is *not* publishing, any more than serving an html file, image, sound file or anything else from a web cache is.
Demon are doing the Right Thing by letting this one drop rather than throwing money into a bottomless legal pit, and instead pressing for the law to be changed to take account of what ISPs actually do.
If you follow the link back to Demon's web site from the BBC article, they have made a lot of sensible points regarding this and a lot of other touchy current UK net issues, mainly around cryptography and e-commerce.
It's nice to see that even with Big Corp at the head rather than Cliff, they still seem to be trying to Do It Right...
Slashdot Mirror
Upgradeability for high-end (ie gaming) PCs is
little to non-existant.
Change your CPU, oh no, new slot, change the motherboard. Change the motherboard, change the RAM. Change the motherboard, end up with a no-ISA board for the features you want, throw out all your "legacy" (== "more than six months old" modem, sound, network cards). Buy a new graphics card every six months and be unable to sell the old one for anything more than a pittance. PCs now seem to be desinged for six-month obsolescence.
I've given up with the whole PC upgrade rat-race. My boxen are a P75, P133 and K5-100 (Win95, Linux, NetBSD), and I'm only adding hardware when something I want to do needs it (the P133 is looking for a second CPU, but only because I want to play around with an SMP box. Nothing I'm doing needs the speed.) I gave in and bought a Playstation - it's *so* much easier, all the games run on it, I don't have to keep checking the box thinking 'do I meet the specs? Do I have enough disk space to install?'
Admittedly I probably picked a bad time to do it, with the PS2 due in the UK late this year, but in general with consoles you can look at three to five years of playing games on the same machine without any upgrades. I've no intention of being on the PS2 bleeding edge, so I should get another year at least out of my PS1.
Regards,
Tim.
$ISP_I_USED_TO_WORK_FOR did it The Right Way - $ISP.net for infrastructure - routers, internal servers, staff email; $ISP.co.uk for customer-facing servers, customer email etc.
.net everywhere.)
.net, but then handing out $LUSER@$ISP.net addresses to their customers. It just makes them look like they Don't Get It.
.org with banner ads IMHO, and I guess it's better than the alternatives.
($ISP_I_CURRENTLY_WORK_FOR is a backbone provider and uses so uses
I see far too many ISPs now getting the first part right and registering themselves as
slashdot.org is about as right as any other
Regards,
Tim.
Eh? TTBOMK, Linux *does* run on Sun E[0-9]+k servers. I'm sure I've seen dmesg output from one of the big names on the Sparc port showing it coming up on a 14-CPU box.
I'm not saying it scales as well as Solaris on this type of box - I'm sure it doesn't, and I doubt it works especially well with things like the E10k's partitioning. But I'm sure it's at least running...
Regards,
Tim.
I actually found the rest of the article far more interesting than the withdrawal of the UDP. Seeing ISPs talking about how many of their users access news makes for interesting reading, especially those claiming the numbers are flat - the volume of news is *far* from flat, I can assure you.
As for comments regarding the alternatives - web-based bulletin boards and the like - I find them far *harder* to use. Point, click, wait, scroll, wait, back-up, point, click, wait... a decent news reader (personally I use slrn) knocks all of this into a cocked hat. And I can read off-line, so I don't pay the whole time I'm reading and replying.
/.'s interface is fairly usuable, for a web-based forum - most of the others I've seen are *far* worse, especially the min-fora that exist as 'feedback to this article' on countless news web sites. But it's still a million miles from threading, kill-files and a real editor.
Regards,
Tim.
Sadly, the com|net|org distinctions appear to be somewhat non-existant these days.
.org or part of the infrastructure for a .net. Although to be fair, they do mention those groupings as a 'tradition'.
.net addresses to their customers are the worst offenders.
I assumed that Notworking Solution's "grab all three!" policy was just an extension of their usual cluelessness in pursuit of the almighty dollar, but rs.internic.net (supposed custodians of the namespace) now agrees that there is no requirement to be an organisation for a
I belive the division *is* still enshrined in the relevent RFC (sorry, don't have the number to hand), but I'm not sure if that's a STD.
Either way, I'll continue to assume that anyone I deal with who has a 'wrong' domain is clueless. ISPs giving
Regards,
Tim.
Er, smoking has been medically *proven* to be bad for you, and for those around you; everything regarding the effects of video games is (currently) speculation.
I don't force the people I work with to sit and stare at Quake 3 until they become drooling psychopaths either (*grin*), unlike filling your cow-orkers airspace with toxins - they don't have any choice about breathing.
Regards,
Tim.
>>>
Rather than mealy-mouthed exulpation, some of us might prefer accurate terms like "theft."
>>>>
Accurate in what sense? If the Gnu Manifesto the quote comes from is to be believed (and I have no reason to doubt the quality of RMS' research), then legally infringement of one of the various forms of IP legislation is categorically *not* theft.
As to whether it's morally accurate to call it theft, we can all sit and argue that one until... well, a *very* long time from now. You certainly can't take it as an accepted truth.
Regards,
Tim.
>>>
Well, Apple's Open Firmware runs on FORTRAN... so in a sense all modern PowerMacs are "FORTRAN machines" - they just don't run a FORTRAN OS.
>>>
Isn't Open Firmware tied to FORTH, nor FORTRAN?
(And I think it's that it contains a FORTH interpreter, not that it's necessarily *written* in FORTH).
Regards,
Tim.
>>>
How about "And how many of you that voted for Win9x being unstable are actually running an alternative such as Linux as your primary OS?"
>>>
How do you define "Primary OS" for someone who has (and regularly uses) several machines?
My Windows (95) box exists mostly to play games. Because it plays games, it has the 17" monitor. Because it has the big monitor, I run an X server under 95 and leave the Linux box in another room (my 14" goldfish bowl sucks, and two machines in the living room meets with disapproval from my finacee). However, the Linux box has higher spec hardware (and more of it) than the Windows box.
I also have a NetBSD box, which is the one with the full-time 10Mb internet connection and does primary DNS and MX for me, but doesn't have much in the way of hardware.
Then I've got the boxen work provide for me personally (95, NT) and the work boxen I spend a lot of time logged in to and working on (Solaris, IOS)...
Now, what was my primary OS again?
Regards,
Tim.
>>>
Indeed, that flood *did* destroy the Internet as we knew it - it drove innovation, swelled the Internet's infospace exponentially and led to Internet access becoming a simple matter instead of the complicated mess it was at the time.
>>>
If by 'innovation', you largely mean 'dumbing-down and pretty pictures', yes.
I can think of two benefits of the invasion of the GUM - cheap home dialup access exists at all, and you can buy stuff on-line. The price of this is Eternal September on Usenet, Skript Kiddies rampant, web sites that take hours to download on a modem and are almost totally free of any actual content, banner ads, corporations trying to monopolize the namespace, namespace pollution to try and create 'kewl' URLs ("come.to" et al), search engines that turn up more porn than useful hits of any kind... (unless you're looking for porn, of course)
The amount of Useful Stuff on the net has increased since the GUM came. The trouble is that the amount of dross has increased many, many times faster, to the point where you're searching for pennies in a mountain of shit.
>>>
... and with time, those clueless newbies became experienced users...
>>>
No. *A few* of those clueless newbies, those who have any interest in learning and are prepared to work at it, become experienced users. The vast majority remain clueless, but because they've been here so long now can make it seem to clueless newbies that cluelessness is the natural and correct state of the net.
To get back on topic, I do worry that the same could happen to Linux. Imagine Linux newsgroups, web sites and mailing lists being full of the whinings of the people who can't manage to understand the difference between 'left click' and 'right click' under Windows, who now face the possibility of having to *shock* type something. (Those of you who have done tech support will know what I mean).
No, you shouldn't need a CS degree to run Linux (or to use a computer at all). But like driving a car, you should be prepared to learn a little in order to use it properly.
Bah, humbug.
Tim.
>>>
The ISP provides the following services:
1. (*main purpose*) Provides the other end for your modem to connect to, establishing IP connectivity to your house, effectively extending the internet to the home.
>>>
Agreed, although I think you're missing the important point that they also provide some degree of connectivity beyond the modem, which I'll come back to in a minute.
>>>
2. Mail Server
3. Web Server space
4. Usenet setver
>>>
The only real reason you need the ISP to provide these is because of the temporary and low-bandwidth nature of your dial-up connection (or because you're not capable of running your own SMTP server for accepting incoming mail, which is frequently true for Windoze folks).
Cable modems remove both of those limitations.
>>>
I would argue that cable modems, by themselves, do the job of #1, above -- they effectively extend the internet into the home. With cable, there is no set of corresponding cable modems on the other end that you're switched to, depending on what phone number you dialed. By attempting to force cable systems into the ISP model, you enormously drive up the cost. because the cable system would need to know "Ok. This house is a mindspring customer. Route his packets to the mindspring router." Just plain silly.
>>>
Not if you care about your upstream connection.
There are small local ISPs who are tier-17 providers - they buy bandwidth from people who buy bandwidth from people who buy bandwidth from...
There are ISPs who have backbones of their own, respectable international connections, are present at relevent peering points and have good transit agreements to get their customer's traffic to where it needs to go.
I want to have the choice of who takes my packets a sends them where the going. And there's a fairly good chance I don't want it to be Joe Cableco, who knows something about fibre, maybe SDH, ATM and voice-switching, but is a relatively new player in the IP game. I want it to be someone with a proven track record in managing large(r than dialup) IP data streams.
Regards,
Tim.
"I'm off to a meeting with the moron^H^H^H^H^Hmarketing department..." is the usual kind of usage - replacing what you *want* to say with what you are in some way *obliged* to say...
Regards,
Tim.
You make it sound like 'the Internet' is some kind of organised network, with links planned by some kind of 'Internet Manager' who then delegates down to managers in each country to sort out their links.
It isn't.
The Internet is made of lots of little chunks of commercial self-interest who talk to to each other because it's in their financial interest to do so.
If a company, ISP, or transit provider thinks its in their best interest to install a direct link to the US, or to somewhere else in Europe, or to Africa, or to the moon, they'll do so. If the cost / benefit analysis gives better numbers for going via three other countries, or buying transit peering from someone else, or sending a truck full of mag tapes once a day they'll do that. What you end up with a mass of links and even more routes, depending on who you are and where you're trying to connect to.
Your comment about '*the* transatlantic link' is nonsense - there are *many* transatlantic links just from the UK to the US; other European entities may have their own, or may buy transit from UK entities. When I worked for a UK ISP, we went through 5 or more different transatlantic links in two years, upgrading 64K -> 256K -> T1 -> STM-1, and we weren't the only UK ISP with our own links to the US.
Your first sentence is true though - much of Europe *can* manage to interconnect without going to the US.
Regards,
Tim.
Pre-emptive multi-tasking? Win9x has it, except when it doesn't. Anything that hits the thunking layer fails to multi-task miserably (ISTR there's a single mutex for all of the 16-bit code in 95).
:(
Trying to do anything while accessing the floppy has routinely blue-screened every 95 and NT machine I've used (not BSOD, the 'an error has occured while writing' full-screen nonsense).
Then there's the little un-announced joys of non-compatability between versions, such as the removal of support for DOS file/record locking (SHARE.EXE functionality) in Win95 OSR2. That was fun for those running "legacy" DOS database apps (like great chunks of FidoNet, and I'm sure plenty of other folks).
It's a mess
It's interesting to note that the press release mentions 'unathorized access' - what do they mean by this?
:(
Have they recovered damages against someone who spammed their customers, with the resultant increased mail server / network load? This would be a nice precedent.
If it's one of their own customers, there should be harsh fines specified in their AUP / TOS, which it should be simple to collect. Again, nice if this is actually being enforced.
If it's someone outside of their network relaying off of them, it should probably not have happened in the first place. There's very little in the way of excuses for running an open mail relay any more - the only way to get around a sensibly configured mail server I can think of is IP spoofing, which is a) beyond most spammers and b) blockable at your border routers. If it's this one, I hope they've fixed the problem as well as collecting the damages.
"Unauthorized access" tends to suggest the last option to me
Regards,
Tim.
Those of us outside of the US are quite happily obtaining and using strong encryption, all completely legally. We're just not obtaining it from US companies.
I'm surprised that this hasn't been put forward more often as a counter to the 'encryption == munitions' farce - no country is prevented from obtaining strong encryption. All that is prevented is a revenue stream to US companies.
Talk about shooting yourself in the foot...
Agreed. At home I have a PC, which I use for strategy and RPGs (and many other things beside games!), and a MegaDrive, which I use for platformers, simple shoot-em-ups and the like.
:( Games for the MegaDrive are *much* cheaper now too :)
The first needs detailed graphics and a mouse. The second is quite happy with TV resolution and a stick.
I've not felt the need to 'upgrade' to a Playstation / N64 or similar, as the games all seem to be 'look how cool our 3D is' or fighting games, and I have little interest in either. Plus a real joystick (not a pad) is either not an option or obscenely priced
I think there's a place for old consoles, new consoles and PCs, but I think fairly different markets are going to be gaming on each.
Regards,
Tim.
>>> .htm. In particular see paragraphs 19 and 20.
Have a look at http://www.courtservice.gov.uk/godfrey2
Yes. A defendent can establish under Section 1(1)(a) that they are categorically not the publisher of an article, and yet still must show that they "took reasonable care in relation to its publication" (1(1)(b)) and that they "had no reason to believe, that what he did caused or contributed to the publication of a defamatory statement" (1(1)(c)).
If you're not a publisher, then you shouldn't have to take any care in relation to the publication of something. If you're not a publisher, you don't cause or contribute to the publication.
In short, if 1(1)(a) applies, then I can't see how 1(1)(b) and 1(1)(c) can possible be part of the discusssion.
The law appears to remain an ass.
However, I'm still arguing from the point of view of common sense, not a legal background...
Tim.
>>>
The facts of the case are interesting. The plaintiff in the case informed Demon that they had libellous material (and it was not disputed at trial that the material was, in fact, libellous), but Demon didn't do anything about it.
Now, technically, in English law, the act of serving an article from a news spool is publication. Since Demon knew that the article was potentially libellous, they couldn't avail themselves of the 'innocent publication' defence that is part of the 1996(? I should know this) Act.
This is, IMHO, where the law is an ass. Serving an article from a news spool is *not* publishing, any more than serving an html file, image, sound file or anything else from a web cache is.
Demon are doing the Right Thing by letting this one drop rather than throwing money into a bottomless legal pit, and instead pressing for the law to be changed to take account of what ISPs actually do.
If you follow the link back to Demon's web site from the BBC article, they have made a lot of sensible points regarding this and a lot of other touchy current UK net issues, mainly around cryptography and e-commerce.
It's nice to see that even with Big Corp at the head rather than Cliff, they still seem to be trying to Do It Right...
IANAL, etc.
Tim.