I think the point of them removing it was that... they got a little benefit from it (Web Outfitters, corporate inventory control), not much, not many people were writing apps that used it. OTOH, they got a lot of negative publicity. So they decided that the benefits weren't worth the negative side effects.
If my above statements are accurate, it doesn't seem like they have any motive to keep an undocumented version... the potential PR backlash would be 10 times worse if it were found out. --
The fact is that if you don't ever install Napster, run it, and allow it to search your hard drive for music, then all subsequent distribution of copyrighted material would never occur. That alone makes the serving computer break copyright law.
I don't see that point as a valid one. Without the copier, you couldn't copy the book, but the same with the library. A whole string of prerequisites has to occur before you can copy it. Same with Napster. Napster doesn't just copy MP3's from computer to computer on its own; a user has to purposely click on a song to download it.
Why can't the blame be put on the people who actually copy the files from your computer? Maybe this falls under something about "public broadcast", but other than that, it seems like... leaving a book on a table in the front yard. Should the owner of the book be held responsible if someone comes along, borrows the book for a few minutes, copies it, and puts it back?
I guess the Napster thing is closer to the owner puting up a sign that says "don't copy this book (nudge nudge wink wink)".
But this feels intuitively wrong, even in a legal sense. I'm sure I'm blissfully ignoring a law or three somewhere... --
I doubt if that would stand up in court. The act of installing Napster on your computer, and even moreso, telling it where to find the MP3s on your computer, would most certainly be considered distribution. If not, they would fix that quickly.
Libraries store thousands of books worth of copyrighted material. Worse yet, they advertise themselves as a library to the public, telling people where to find copyrighted books. This allows the general public to visit, borrow books, and make complete copies if they wish... --
Hrm. I think the record companies had hoped that the CD being a physical object would be sufficient copy protection. I don't know if that's a legal argument though. --
Or just run a palm emulator in linux so you could run all your native apps... It certainly seems to have the horsepower to emulate a much slower processor. --
Aye. Even Slashdot has been serving Amazon and Doubleclick ads for a while (see my sig). Those that haven't opted out of DoubleClick are inadvertantly assisting DoubleClick just by viewing Slashdot.
It's a complex issue. Even if a few members of an organization want to Do The Right Thing(c), there are probably many others who just want to make money. If a company changes its mind, it's not necessarily because the company is talking out of two sides of its mouth, it's because there are two mouths.
Also, any organization that becomes sufficiently large will have many opportunities to piss off their customers at one point or another. With many customers with many conflicting opinions, sometimes you have to just get on with business. --
Hrm. Mostly an airgap. I believe the confidential network is transported via the standard Internet (one reason the 'net was created). Granted, the data is as encrypted as possible and probably has random time/random bits added to prevent covert channels, but there's still an electronic connection to the unsecure network, as well as the rest of the world. --
I'm even more worried about the following scenario... I didn't want to include it in the above post because this is even more "out there" and I wanted people to consider it before discounting me as nuts.
I'm hoping that brain uploading becomes possible eventually. The benefits are numerous:
You can backup and restore yourself anytime
Instant teleportation
You can take on any simulated "cyberspace" shape you want. Of course, it will be meaingless, but it'll still be fun.
You can get smarter just by buying more CPU time.
You can put in direct neural probes to allow you to simply think commands to the computer or send thoughts to someone else at a much higher rate than otherwise possible, and with parallel channels with multiple conversations being possible. Knowledge of brain functioning is all that limits this. You could fuse your brain with the brain of your loved one.
Other than the neural knowledge required, you could modify any synaptic connections directly. If you knew how and you wanted to, you could remove all emotion. If you later decide it was a bad idea, just jot down a note about why you were wrong and restore your previous self.
If humanity becomes anywhere near this dependant on computers, companies will jump all over themselves to try to control the software that people exist within.
If such a day comes when we can upload, I want open source to be around so I can live life without a company's restrictions and without the constant annoyance of advertising. I want to know the source code to the software that's keeping me alive and safe. --
My roommate isn't THE 'general population' either, but he's very defensive of microsoft. His major is very computer related too.
A paraphrase of his arguments: "Microsoft is like a giant who wanders the hillsides, sometimes making nice things for the rest of us, and those things generally make our lives easier. So what if it could crush anybody with the bat of an eye? It seems like a nice giant, I haven't seen it crush anyone yet. Just leave it alone, let it go about its business. So what if it could be lazy if it wanted to? It's been working pretty hard so far. Other people are just jealous of how big it is. Just leave it alone." --
Yes, companies should have the right to control their content. What the original poster was addressing was that once a company can completely control a stream (eg. DVD), they can control what content can be produced within that stream. This allows the big boys to keep any smaller companies from ever having a hope of making it to the top because they aren't allowed access to that stream.
The issue isn't that the company doesn't have control over their own content, it's that they prevent other companies' content from being available because they have a monopoly on the interface.
Imagine this: some company (rhymes with "Noel") writes new networking software that's initially compatible with TCP/IP, but is so successful on its own that they later remove support for TCP from the product. They kill off all competitors by restrictive liscencing since they have 95% of the market. Since nearly everyone accesses the 'net through them, other companies pay tons of money to advertise on their network. They can also become market leader in any market they want by advertising their product and preventing others from advertising competing products on their network. If done subtley enough, they can also silence opposing opinions (let a few of the slightly-negative things through so people think you're "objective", but filter the really bad stuff out). Open source is no longer viable... in order to write applications for the new network, an organization has to sign a contract that prevents disclosure of source code.
The above scenario is a big stretch (and pretty cynical, especially for me), but I suspect that it's what the "dot com" and media CEOs secretly dream about at night. Fortunately, the government is wary of losing its control and would try to stop something like this at all costs. --
I meant something more along the lines of blocking them by putting 127.0.0.1 for their name in the hosts file or using junkbusters or some other such hack. You're right, I assumed wrongly that mine was the only way to block it.
If they're blocked completely at the client though, then the hits won't be logged and/. won't get money for those ad views. --
Puting up ads from doubleclick is different from amazon though. With amazon, users have a choice of whether they want to support amazon. With DC, users who haven't blocked DC's IPs are helping DC simply by visiting slashdot.
Yes,/. users are more likely to have DC blocked, but if everyone on/. blocked DC, then there would be no reason for/. to serve DC ads; the ad views would never get registered and/. would get no money. Therefore, slashdot is profiting by exploiting those who are less knowledgable, which is horrible.
(or those who are knowledgable and don't mind DC (perfectly okay))
(or those who are just too lazy (borderline)) (or those who don't have enough control over their machine to do anything about it (maybe bad))
The problem with DC is that they're peering into something the general populace doesn't expect them to. While this isn't a priori a bad thing, most users are surprised when they first find out what doubleclick is doing, and they possibly would have not done certain things had they known. Therefore, DC is doing it without their knowledge or consent, and slashdot is assisting in that.
Also, adfu doesn't keep DC from seeing your cookies; IFRAME, IMG, and SCRIPT tags are included in some slashdot pages (approx 5% of them) with direct URLs to ad.doubleclick.net. --
You may not realize this, but the moderators are picked more or less at random. The ability to moderate lasts three days. It's not like there is someone out there attacking anything that is against "slashdot policy."
I know this is a long stretch, but it's a possibility that you're ignoring, so I'll mention it just so that it doesn't happen:
When someone gets moderated down, they don't know who moderated the post down. Therefore, it's possible for the people who work for Slashdot to moderate posts down that they wish to quiet.
Again, I don't think it's happening, but those who work at slashdot have a motive (protect their bottom line), a means (they have access to the database), and the opportunity (it's not possible for the community to police them). --
O'l Bill, of course. What other reason but telepathic suggestion would millions of people use such horrible software?
Okay, that was a cheap shot. Not a good fit either-- microsoft subjects aren't loyal or loving enough of their dictator. I would like to see Bill Gates as an abused clown though. --
There is no need for a real defense force if you play it right. You cut a few treaties with some key powers in the area, and make them dependant on your software ("We're under attack! Send planes quick, or you don't bug patch 203 goes down with us!").
Yes, and then someone will remember the prophetic words of our leader, Linus Trovalds, about another island on the "other side" of the ocean that will help humanity get through the 1000 years of censorship and darkness. --
How can the people behind this case justify such a foolish notion that they can stop distribution of something on the internet. Its impossible. Period.
Yeah, but in the past, it's been possible to keep large organizations from doing illegal things (they're too visible and have too much at stake). That effectively kept the general public from finding out about it. There will always be a few people who knew about it before it was declared illegal, but if you can keep them to a dull roar, you've wiped it out as best you can. For instance, warez still takes some knowledge and persistence to get (the general population only knows the web and its pr0n banners... irc, hotline, etc. are usually only passed by word of mouth).
Now information travels much faster, so companies like Napster can get their products or services become known to the general public before the law can do anything about it.
(begin flame war about whether or not napster is illegal...) --
wget -- how long since we had a new relase? Why can't wget handle imap, nntp, ldap...
It can't handle cookies or SSL either. (well, cookies can done with a hack , but it's a pain. it'd be much nicer if you could just point it at your netscape cookies file) --
Slashdot Mirror
If my above statements are accurate, it doesn't seem like they have any motive to keep an undocumented version... the potential PR backlash would be 10 times worse if it were found out.
--
I don't see that point as a valid one. Without the copier, you couldn't copy the book, but the same with the library. A whole string of prerequisites has to occur before you can copy it. Same with Napster. Napster doesn't just copy MP3's from computer to computer on its own; a user has to purposely click on a song to download it.
Why can't the blame be put on the people who actually copy the files from your computer? Maybe this falls under something about "public broadcast", but other than that, it seems like... leaving a book on a table in the front yard. Should the owner of the book be held responsible if someone comes along, borrows the book for a few minutes, copies it, and puts it back?
I guess the Napster thing is closer to the owner puting up a sign that says "don't copy this book (nudge nudge wink wink)".
But this feels intuitively wrong, even in a legal sense. I'm sure I'm blissfully ignoring a law or three somewhere...
--
Thanks for the info! :) I stand happily corrected.
--
Libraries store thousands of books worth of copyrighted material. Worse yet, they advertise themselves as a library to the public, telling people where to find copyrighted books. This allows the general public to visit, borrow books, and make complete copies if they wish...
--
Or you can play tricks with your MP3 directory... so that the only directory that napster knows about is empty.
--
Hrm. I think the record companies had hoped that the CD being a physical object would be sufficient copy protection. I don't know if that's a legal argument though.
--
You can search PDF's, but:
1) it's slow
2) you can't use regexps or your own homecooked perl script on them
--
Or just run a palm emulator in linux so you could run all your native apps... It certainly seems to have the horsepower to emulate a much slower processor.
--
The end result would be a more expensive machine whose apps usually only use part of the screen, but it'd be an interesting hack if possible?
--
It's a complex issue. Even if a few members of an organization want to Do The Right Thing(c), there are probably many others who just want to make money. If a company changes its mind, it's not necessarily because the company is talking out of two sides of its mouth, it's because there are two mouths.
Also, any organization that becomes sufficiently large will have many opportunities to piss off their customers at one point or another. With many customers with many conflicting opinions, sometimes you have to just get on with business.
--
Hrm. Mostly an airgap. I believe the confidential network is transported via the standard Internet (one reason the 'net was created). Granted, the data is as encrypted as possible and probably has random time/random bits added to prevent covert channels, but there's still an electronic connection to the unsecure network, as well as the rest of the world.
--
Checkpoint the memory periodically?
MIB problem
Have another key sequence that wipes all of your still-semi-volatile memory?
--
I'm hoping that brain uploading becomes possible eventually. The benefits are numerous:
If humanity becomes anywhere near this dependant on computers, companies will jump all over themselves to try to control the software that people exist within.
If such a day comes when we can upload, I want open source to be around so I can live life without a company's restrictions and without the constant annoyance of advertising. I want to know the source code to the software that's keeping me alive and safe.
--
A paraphrase of his arguments: "Microsoft is like a giant who wanders the hillsides, sometimes making nice things for the rest of us, and those things generally make our lives easier. So what if it could crush anybody with the bat of an eye? It seems like a nice giant, I haven't seen it crush anyone yet. Just leave it alone, let it go about its business. So what if it could be lazy if it wanted to? It's been working pretty hard so far. Other people are just jealous of how big it is. Just leave it alone."
--
The issue isn't that the company doesn't have control over their own content, it's that they prevent other companies' content from being available because they have a monopoly on the interface.
Imagine this: some company (rhymes with "Noel") writes new networking software that's initially compatible with TCP/IP, but is so successful on its own that they later remove support for TCP from the product. They kill off all competitors by restrictive liscencing since they have 95% of the market. Since nearly everyone accesses the 'net through them, other companies pay tons of money to advertise on their network. They can also become market leader in any market they want by advertising their product and preventing others from advertising competing products on their network. If done subtley enough, they can also silence opposing opinions (let a few of the slightly-negative things through so people think you're "objective", but filter the really bad stuff out). Open source is no longer viable... in order to write applications for the new network, an organization has to sign a contract that prevents disclosure of source code.
The above scenario is a big stretch (and pretty cynical, especially for me), but I suspect that it's what the "dot com" and media CEOs secretly dream about at night. Fortunately, the government is wary of losing its control and would try to stop something like this at all costs.
--
If they're blocked completely at the client though, then the hits won't be logged and /. won't get money for those ad views.
--
Yes, /. users are more likely to have DC blocked, but if everyone on /. blocked DC, then there would be no reason for /. to serve DC ads; the ad views would never get registered and /. would get no money. Therefore, slashdot is profiting by exploiting those who are less knowledgable, which is horrible.
- (or those who are knowledgable and don't mind DC (perfectly okay))
The problem with DC is that they're peering into something the general populace doesn't expect them to. While this isn't a priori a bad thing, most users are surprised when they first find out what doubleclick is doing, and they possibly would have not done certain things had they known. Therefore, DC is doing it without their knowledge or consent, and slashdot is assisting in that.(or those who are just too lazy (borderline))
(or those who don't have enough control over their machine to do anything about it (maybe bad))
Also, adfu doesn't keep DC from seeing your cookies; IFRAME, IMG, and SCRIPT tags are included in some slashdot pages (approx 5% of them) with direct URLs to ad.doubleclick.net.
--
I know this is a long stretch, but it's a possibility that you're ignoring, so I'll mention it just so that it doesn't happen:
When someone gets moderated down, they don't know who moderated the post down. Therefore, it's possible for the people who work for Slashdot to moderate posts down that they wish to quiet.
Again, I don't think it's happening, but those who work at slashdot have a motive (protect their bottom line), a means (they have access to the database), and the opportunity (it's not possible for the community to police them).
--
See sid=doubleclick
--
Oh, nevermind, 3 days late.
I was shocked too... not all the ads are coming from them though. Time to get out the ad-blocking tools. For ip-masqed networks, you can use:
ipchains -A output -d 199.95.206.0/24 -j REJECT
ipchains -A output -d 199.95.207.0/24 -j REJECT
ipchains -A output -d 199.95.208.0/24 -j REJECT
ipchains -A output -d 199.95.207.0/24 -j REJECT
ipchains -A output -d 63.160.54.0/24 -j REJECT
ipchains -A output -d 208.211.225.0/24 -j REJECT
ipchains -A output -d 208.10.202.0/24 -j REJECT
ipchains -A output -d 216.94.59.0/24 -j REJECT
ipchains -A output -d 208.228.78.0/24 -j REJECT
ipchains -A output -d 208.228.86.0/24 -j REJECT
ipchains -A output -d 209.167.73.0/24 -j REJECT
ipchains -A output -d 208.229.75.0/24 -j REJECT
ipchains -A output -d 208.203.243.0/24 -j REJECT
ipchains -A output -d 204.178.112.160/24 -j REJECT
ipchains -A output -d 204.253.104.0/24 -j REJECT
ipchains -A output -d 216.230.65.0/24 -j REJECT
ipchains -A output -d 63.77.79.0/24 -j REJECT
ipchains -A output -d 128.11.60.0/24 -j REJECT
ipchains -A output -d 128.11.92.0/24 -j REJECT
ipchains -A output -d 199.95.210.0/24 -j REJECT
ipchains -A output -d 199.95.206.0/24 -j REJECT
--
Okay, that was a cheap shot. Not a good fit either-- microsoft subjects aren't loyal or loving enough of their dictator. I would like to see Bill Gates as an abused clown though.
--
Yes, and then someone will remember the prophetic words of our leader, Linus Trovalds, about another island on the "other side" of the ocean that will help humanity get through the 1000 years of censorship and darkness.
--
Yeah, but in the past, it's been possible to keep large organizations from doing illegal things (they're too visible and have too much at stake). That effectively kept the general public from finding out about it. There will always be a few people who knew about it before it was declared illegal, but if you can keep them to a dull roar, you've wiped it out as best you can. For instance, warez still takes some knowledge and persistence to get (the general population only knows the web and its pr0n banners... irc, hotline, etc. are usually only passed by word of mouth).
Now information travels much faster, so companies like Napster can get their products or services become known to the general public before the law can do anything about it.
(begin flame war about whether or not napster is illegal...)
--
It can't handle cookies or SSL either. (well, cookies can done with a hack , but it's a pain. it'd be much nicer if you could just point it at your netscape cookies file)
--
Which is why some hand/thumbprint scanners today have an IR sensor to make sure there's some heat in that hand. Though perhaps that could be faked...