They are the sort who have no regard for other people's property or civil rights. They have no respect for property and civil rights because they have been taught to think that way by what they see all around them while they are growing up. This is, IMHO, the inevitable result of years of namby pamby liberal and over regulated nanny state government in the UK which has led to a generation of youth with little or no respect for authority or private property and fewer job prospects with higher unemployment.
From TFA: "Comcast compared its practices to a traffic-ramp control light that regulates the entry of additional vehicles onto a freeway during rush hour. One would not claim that the car is 'blocked' or 'prevented from entering the freeway; rather it is briefly delayed,' the company's statement said."
The problem with their implementation does not match their argument. They are discriminating based upon the type of the traffic (i.e. a bittorrent packet has to wait at the stop light while an http packet on port 80 goes right through). To use their analogy this would be like insisting that all SUVs and trucks must stop at the light and be delayed before entering the freeway while all four door sedans can go right through. Whenever they cease to treat all traffic equally, or at least all traffic from a particular user equally, then they should lose common carrier protections. The ability to filter implies responsibility for content. They can say whatever they want in the media, but it seems that anyone with cause to bring an action against Comcast involving the traffic that flows over their network, the MAFIAA perhaps, would have a strong case that Comcast abandoned their common carrier immunities when they began using packet shaping to route traffic preferentially. What does the MAFIAA get these days for vicarious copyright infringement and how much does Comcast have in the bank? Comcast would be wise to give up the small benefits of their filtering scheme (i.e. more customers on less bandwidth) against the threat of losing common carrier status and opening themselves up to massive liability lawsuits.
The ISP is a business and businesses like profits. As far as they are concerned there is no financial incentive, in the absence of litigation, to spend money on hardware or software to MITM P2P connections for the benefit of the third parties. It is not essential to providing service to their customers so unless the legislature and the courts force them to do something then they will be quite happy to ignore third parties (like the RIAA) and do nothing because it is the monthly subscribers who are buttering the bread of the ISP not those third parties (i.e. they are a potential cost center not a profit center).
I think that you have it exactly backwards. For example, one of the primary goals of the Geneva conventions, other than laying out the rules for treatment of POWs, was to ensure that only weapons which deliver a quick and certain death, with the minimal amount of suffering, were used in warfare between signatories. This is why weapons such as the crossbow and others not deemed lethal enough were banned because they caused more agonizing deaths too frequently to justify their use in the face of better available weaponry (i.e. the only reason they would be chosen over a standard rifle would be to increase the suffering of the enemy which was not a valid reason under the agreement).
It is not the status in the public eye so much as it is the enormous amounts of money and investment that are now tied up in the electronic gaming industry. The total annual revenues of the electronic gaming industry or even just the computer and console gaming industries now collectively exceeds the total annual revenues of Hollywood and has for several years now so you can bet your bottom dollar that a portion of those profits will be spent on lobbyists to protect the interests of the gaming industry on capitol hill and to ensure that those profits keep rolling in.
The MITM attack, while theoretically a possibility, is actually a bit tricky to execute in practice and the prospect of using MITM on millions of simultaneous P2P sessions with thousands of new connections every second is simply impractical. The MITM attack has largely been one of ongoing theoretical interest and much less a practical eavesdropping technique.
If they really wanted to be secure about it then they should use a rental car or public transit (even better) instead of their own real cars when they travel to and from the protest areas. Their name tag could even read "hello, my name is: Xenu". The CoS and their members are notorious and unscrupulous when it comes to harassing their critics so some sensible precautions to protect one's identity are probably in order should one decide to participate in these demonstrations.
Perhaps, but it is also in the best business interests of Facebook to prevent or at least limit Flash Mob like behavior, or its influence on the advertising system, so that advertisers who do not wish to advertise based upon a brief or even one time fad do not end up paying more for false trends or fake demographics.
Do your friends play Pitch Penny or other pub games as well? There really aren't very many good English style pubs here in America, particularly on the west coast where the beach bar reigns supreme, and it is even more rare to find a well furnished pub with traditional English pub games...sigh.
Besides, I'd be surprised if we aren't doing the same thing to China, at least I'd hope we are. It's a bit more difficult in our case, since we don't have tens of thousands of American engineers and students flooding Chinese companies and schools. The United States has a considerable head start on just about every technological area of either interest or consequence when compared to China and especially in technologies with military applications. In other words, the Chinese don't have much that the Americans don't already know AND would be worthwhile to steal with the possible exception of intelligence on their capabilities which the United States almost certainly already collects. They rip off American movies, music, and even technology, but what have they contributed in the way of worthwhile original research? Apparently not very much compared to the United States.
Perhaps because they have already tried automated baggage handling and having failed miserably they thought it was time to move on to air traffic control instead.
From TFLA: "The airport's [Denver International] computerized baggage system, which was supposed to reduce flight delays, shorten waiting times at luggage carousels, and save airlines in labor costs, turned into an unmitigated failure, and is widely given as a textbook example of a software engineering disaster"
I think that you parsed the statement wrong. Milton said that capitalism and free markets are necessary but NOT a sufficient conditions for political freedom. China fits this definition perfectly both now and in the past. The logic is a bit subtle perhaps to the casual observer, but the supposition remains true. In other words, without free market capitalism you will never have political freedom, but neither does having free market capitalism guarantee that political freedom will follow. Capitalism and free markets merely make political freedom possible. Do you see the distinction now?
You might want to take a look at Open Source Web Design, even if they do not have exactly what you want their templates will give you a good starting point for your layout and design.
So they could simply say "we're doing nothing" and comply with the law. They could indeed, but this would provide precisely the leverage that the RIAA is looking for to "clarify and existing provision of law" at a later date with new teeth while at the same time dodging more stringent review processes for making new laws vs amending existing laws. This is an incremental step in the wrong direction and a prelude to the real law which come after the RIAA points to your existing policy of "doing nothing" as the reason why an existing law "needs to be strengthened with teeth." The lobbyists employed by the RIAA are nothing if not politically savvy and they now exactly what they are doing, the question is do you know what they are doing? We have hear this song or seen this film before as they say.
You make a good point, but doing business with a dictatorship alone does not guarantee the toppling of said dictator. Precisely, it was Milton Friedman who said in his book Capitalism and Freedom that, "Capitalism and free markets are necessary, although not sufficient conditions for political freedom."
When you've got two demons on either side of you, and no other way to go, how can you not do evil? It is unavoidable in the case of Google or any other corporation. That is why it makes no sense, at least in my estimation, for people to form attachments to corporations or believe them when they talk about their "corporate conscience" or how they promise that they will not do evil things. Here is an important tidbit for everyone who is surprised by the actions taken by Google, or indeed any other corporation. Corporations exist to maximize profit for their owners period...that is it and that is all. They will very rarely come out and just say this of course, but it remains true none the less. Once you understand why corporations exist and view their actions through that prism then what they do usually, although not always, makes sense. There are limits of course, that is why we have and should have the government, to enforce the rules of the game, but we should not fault the corporations for intelligent play within the rules, however underhanded and sneaky we believe that play to be. If you don't like this then work to change the rules (i.e. the laws), but always remember that in other countries it is their rules not yours, it is their country after all. The job of Google is whatever they decide their job is and their customers can decide to either use their services or not, that is what it means to have a free market.
If you really wanted to tweak their nose then you might set up an Asterisk server which implements a private branch exchange system for routing and handling incoming calls. I have not worked with Asterisk before specifically (although I have worked on Microsoft Speach Server projects in the past) but it would be interesting to write a program which would attempt to string the call along for as long as possible without actually confirming anything definitively (i.e. resulting in no sale). The program could listen to the telemarketer and respond during pauses with phrases like, "that sounds interesting" or "tell me more" or "I don't know, maybe" or the like. If the recorded voice acting was good then it might be possible to string the call along for ten (10) minutes or more in an automated fashion without interrupting the human owner/operator of the Asterisk server. A better or clever AI might be able to trick them for even longer by responding with context sensitive responses designed to send the conversation into new and unproductive branches ad infinitum.
If you are using Linux then it probably isn't an issue, set the MAC to whatever you want. However, in windows it is also possible to alter the MAC address of your network interfaces to something other that the factory defaults. The procedure is as follows:
Go to the Properties menu of the Ethernet adapter, in the Advanced tab, as "MAC Address", "Locally Administered Address", "Ethernet Address", "Physical Address" or "Network Address". The exact name depends on the Ethernet driver used; not all drivers' support changing the MAC address in this way. If not, then you can edit the registry manually:
Here you can find the settings for each network interface. To set the MAC address of the adapter when next it is enabled will be the contents of the string value called 'NetworkAddress'. If the NetworkAddress string value isn't there then create it and give it the hex (no hyphens) for the address you want to use (probably the one bound to your expensive software installation).
You want something like the Toughbook 30. If it can survive in Iraq getting banged around, blown up, baked in the sun, or even submerged all the while operating in a dusty and dirty environment then it will probably fit the bill for your world trip. The only downsides are that it is expen$ive, a bit bulky, and somewhat heavy, but the military swears by these things so you know that it will take whatever you can dish out.
Which their clients could easily dodge by using an alternative DNS server OR they could simply type in the IP address for the pirate bay instead of "thepiratebay.org".
Its called the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and they would be pleased to accept your tax deductible donation right now. I have donated money to them each year for the past three (3) years now. I think you will agree, after reviewing their website, that their lobbying efforts have been intelligent, organized, informed, and as their list of successful actions attests, surprisingly effective as well. The professional lobbyist is an inevitable and some would say unfortunate part of our democracy, but the EFF proves that it does not take a fortune to effectively agitate for positive change or resist unwelcome changes. If you can donate even fifty ($50) US dollars on a yearly basis then that would be a useful and powerful statement against the RIAA and other special interest groups who are fighting to take away and roll back your rights and carve out unwarranted new rights and protections for themselves at your expense.
Buy any Vioxx recently? It was my understanding that the drug was still available, albeit no longer advertised or promoted for new prescriptions, but it seems that I was mistaken and it has indeed been withdrawn. In any case I said that it was rare for a drug to be completely withdrawn but not impossible. For example, the fen-phen anti-obesity drug combination was withdrawn for causing heart problems just as Vioxx seems to do although the mechanisms appear to be unrelated.
But patents are rights that can be asserted against the public generally. So this limitation on who can contest them, would be incontestability by a large section of the persons affected by the rights. That provision of the law could probably be shot down in the courts as well on grounds of equal protection or something similar (IANAL). If the law can be enforced against you in a civil suit then you should have an equal right to contest the cause of action before it becomes a large sword haning over your head just waiting for the patent holder to drop it on your toes at the worst possible moment.
Agreed. The patent office does such a crappy job that we would be better off without it. We could just change the law so that any patent is granted by paying the fees, but which can be revoked in court due to prior art AND loser pays the court costs of the winner. The courts end up deciding most of the important patents anyway so what value is the patent office adding to the equation? Basically they are a glorified agency for collecting patent filing fees so we can either scale them way back or absorb their function entirely into the court system.
Slashdot Mirror
From TFA: "Comcast compared its practices to a traffic-ramp control light that regulates the entry of additional vehicles onto a freeway during rush hour. One would not claim that the car is 'blocked' or 'prevented from entering the freeway; rather it is briefly delayed,' the company's statement said."
The problem with their implementation does not match their argument. They are discriminating based upon the type of the traffic (i.e. a bittorrent packet has to wait at the stop light while an http packet on port 80 goes right through). To use their analogy this would be like insisting that all SUVs and trucks must stop at the light and be delayed before entering the freeway while all four door sedans can go right through. Whenever they cease to treat all traffic equally, or at least all traffic from a particular user equally, then they should lose common carrier protections. The ability to filter implies responsibility for content. They can say whatever they want in the media, but it seems that anyone with cause to bring an action against Comcast involving the traffic that flows over their network, the MAFIAA perhaps, would have a strong case that Comcast abandoned their common carrier immunities when they began using packet shaping to route traffic preferentially. What does the MAFIAA get these days for vicarious copyright infringement and how much does Comcast have in the bank? Comcast would be wise to give up the small benefits of their filtering scheme (i.e. more customers on less bandwidth) against the threat of losing common carrier status and opening themselves up to massive liability lawsuits.
The ISP is a business and businesses like profits. As far as they are concerned there is no financial incentive, in the absence of litigation, to spend money on hardware or software to MITM P2P connections for the benefit of the third parties. It is not essential to providing service to their customers so unless the legislature and the courts force them to do something then they will be quite happy to ignore third parties (like the RIAA) and do nothing because it is the monthly subscribers who are buttering the bread of the ISP not those third parties (i.e. they are a potential cost center not a profit center).
I think that you have it exactly backwards. For example, one of the primary goals of the Geneva conventions, other than laying out the rules for treatment of POWs, was to ensure that only weapons which deliver a quick and certain death, with the minimal amount of suffering, were used in warfare between signatories. This is why weapons such as the crossbow and others not deemed lethal enough were banned because they caused more agonizing deaths too frequently to justify their use in the face of better available weaponry (i.e. the only reason they would be chosen over a standard rifle would be to increase the suffering of the enemy which was not a valid reason under the agreement).
It is not the status in the public eye so much as it is the enormous amounts of money and investment that are now tied up in the electronic gaming industry. The total annual revenues of the electronic gaming industry or even just the computer and console gaming industries now collectively exceeds the total annual revenues of Hollywood and has for several years now so you can bet your bottom dollar that a portion of those profits will be spent on lobbyists to protect the interests of the gaming industry on capitol hill and to ensure that those profits keep rolling in.
The MITM attack, while theoretically a possibility, is actually a bit tricky to execute in practice and the prospect of using MITM on millions of simultaneous P2P sessions with thousands of new connections every second is simply impractical. The MITM attack has largely been one of ongoing theoretical interest and much less a practical eavesdropping technique.
If they really wanted to be secure about it then they should use a rental car or public transit (even better) instead of their own real cars when they travel to and from the protest areas. Their name tag could even read "hello, my name is: Xenu". The CoS and their members are notorious and unscrupulous when it comes to harassing their critics so some sensible precautions to protect one's identity are probably in order should one decide to participate in these demonstrations.
Perhaps, but it is also in the best business interests of Facebook to prevent or at least limit Flash Mob like behavior, or its influence on the advertising system, so that advertisers who do not wish to advertise based upon a brief or even one time fad do not end up paying more for false trends or fake demographics.
Do your friends play Pitch Penny or other pub games as well? There really aren't very many good English style pubs here in America, particularly on the west coast where the beach bar reigns supreme, and it is even more rare to find a well furnished pub with traditional English pub games...sigh.
Perhaps because they have already tried automated baggage handling and having failed miserably they thought it was time to move on to air traffic control instead.
From TFLA: "The airport's [Denver International] computerized baggage system, which was supposed to reduce flight delays, shorten waiting times at luggage carousels, and save airlines in labor costs, turned into an unmitigated failure, and is widely given as a textbook example of a software engineering disaster"
I think that you parsed the statement wrong. Milton said that capitalism and free markets are necessary but NOT a sufficient conditions for political freedom. China fits this definition perfectly both now and in the past. The logic is a bit subtle perhaps to the casual observer, but the supposition remains true. In other words, without free market capitalism you will never have political freedom, but neither does having free market capitalism guarantee that political freedom will follow. Capitalism and free markets merely make political freedom possible. Do you see the distinction now?
You might want to take a look at Open Source Web Design, even if they do not have exactly what you want their templates will give you a good starting point for your layout and design.
Is that before or after you smash the lute against the tree?
If you really wanted to tweak their nose then you might set up an Asterisk server which implements a private branch exchange system for routing and handling incoming calls. I have not worked with Asterisk before specifically (although I have worked on Microsoft Speach Server projects in the past) but it would be interesting to write a program which would attempt to string the call along for as long as possible without actually confirming anything definitively (i.e. resulting in no sale). The program could listen to the telemarketer and respond during pauses with phrases like, "that sounds interesting" or "tell me more" or "I don't know, maybe" or the like. If the recorded voice acting was good then it might be possible to string the call along for ten (10) minutes or more in an automated fashion without interrupting the human owner/operator of the Asterisk server. A better or clever AI might be able to trick them for even longer by responding with context sensitive responses designed to send the conversation into new and unproductive branches ad infinitum.
If you are using Linux then it probably isn't an issue, set the MAC to whatever you want. However, in windows it is also possible to alter the MAC address of your network interfaces to something other that the factory defaults. The procedure is as follows:
Go to the Properties menu of the Ethernet adapter, in the Advanced tab, as "MAC Address", "Locally Administered Address", "Ethernet Address", "Physical Address" or "Network Address". The exact name depends on the Ethernet driver used; not all drivers' support changing the MAC address in this way. If not, then you can edit the registry manually:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E972-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}.
Here you can find the settings for each network interface. To set the MAC address of the adapter when next it is enabled will be the contents of the string value called 'NetworkAddress'. If the NetworkAddress string value isn't there then create it and give it the hex (no hyphens) for the address you want to use (probably the one bound to your expensive software installation).
You want something like the Toughbook 30. If it can survive in Iraq getting banged around, blown up, baked in the sun, or even submerged all the while operating in a dusty and dirty environment then it will probably fit the bill for your world trip. The only downsides are that it is expen$ive, a bit bulky, and somewhat heavy, but the military swears by these things so you know that it will take whatever you can dish out.
Which their clients could easily dodge by using an alternative DNS server OR they could simply type in the IP address for the pirate bay instead of "thepiratebay.org".
Its called the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and they would be pleased to accept your tax deductible donation right now. I have donated money to them each year for the past three (3) years now. I think you will agree, after reviewing their website, that their lobbying efforts have been intelligent, organized, informed, and as their list of successful actions attests, surprisingly effective as well. The professional lobbyist is an inevitable and some would say unfortunate part of our democracy, but the EFF proves that it does not take a fortune to effectively agitate for positive change or resist unwelcome changes. If you can donate even fifty ($50) US dollars on a yearly basis then that would be a useful and powerful statement against the RIAA and other special interest groups who are fighting to take away and roll back your rights and carve out unwarranted new rights and protections for themselves at your expense.
Agreed. The patent office does such a crappy job that we would be better off without it. We could just change the law so that any patent is granted by paying the fees, but which can be revoked in court due to prior art AND loser pays the court costs of the winner. The courts end up deciding most of the important patents anyway so what value is the patent office adding to the equation? Basically they are a glorified agency for collecting patent filing fees so we can either scale them way back or absorb their function entirely into the court system.