That is, after all, why they were invented in the first place.
Oh, and while storing the source IP is a partial solution, it's not 100% (think people behind a common proxy), and the whole point of the session id is that you DON'T re-enter your user/pw at every page. Cookies are the best, cleanest way to maintain state over a session. They're even better if you want to maintain state over multiple sessions (on the other hand, this can be dangerous and I'm not sure that it's usefull enough to outweight the security and privacy concerns).
There's a "privacy policy" standard. In certain configurations (not the default) IE will block cookies from sites that don't have a valid privacy policy.
URL session tokens are quite a bit less secure than cookie based ones. I know of at least a couple online webstores that allow session hijacking through thier JSP URL tokens. (You're shopping. You see X item. You cut & paste the link to your friend so they can look at it... now you're both shopping in the same session...)
There's not a damn thing a cookie can "store" that the server can't do better. A cookie can't store anything you don't give it. A website can store whatever the hell it wants that you give it, including things like your CC number, without ever giving you a cookie. Cookies are a smokescreen that people use to bitch about when they don't have anything better to do.
I suspect that you don't know what cookies do or how they work, either. If you did, they wouldn't bother you.
If cookies did any of those things, then maybe it'd be interesing. There's potential privacy issues from cookies (although minor, and tenuous ones), and the law is ridiculously overbroad and overpoweful for addressing them.
The author of the story does make that point, and of course he is correct (as are you). The counter argument is that we shouldn't have an adversarial relationship like this - particularly in this case, where, in theory, it's a mutually beneficial partnership.
Also, if that IS a standard contract, then there's something seriously wrong with the publishing industry (more than I knew about already, that is).
Okay, I'm not a lawyer. But I don't know of ANY copyright infringment case where end users were held liable. I believe that SCOs claims and Linux end users are predicated on the old crap that you need a license just to run software, which is clearly false
Normally, when you sue someone for copyright infringment, they pay you fines (this is compensation for the units already sold), and then either pay you royalties from then on or stop selling thier product (which is really thier product, since they won:P). People who already bought your product aren't in any sort of danger - Queen can't sue you for owning a Vanilla Ice CD, and JK Rowling can't sue you for owning (or even reading) one of the Harry Potter knockoffs. Similarly, USERS of Linux don't have crap to fear from SCO. Now, if SCO wins, it'll mean that the affected Linux kernels will be illegal to sell or distribute (They're only offering binary only licensing for thier code, which would conflict with the GPL), but not to use. You don't need a license to use software, no matter what everyone claims.
I honestly think at this point, SCO is seeing the stock go up, and is just getting carried away in being ballsy. Normally only the really big fish, like governments and IBM can get away with just making blatantly unsupportable claims and daring anyone to take them on.
They submitted 20 pages of code. At roughly 50 lines of code per page, thats 1000 lines of code. Even if every single one of those lines was word for word in the Linux kernel, you'd have a hard time claiming that less than 1/3 of 1% of the totality of the kernel made it a derivative. Now, SCO will naturally claim that the code is so fundamental to Linux that creates a derived work (which would be another hard sell, because Linux existed and was working before this - they only claim infrigment since 2001 - so it's clearly not totally fundamental).
Crazier things have happened. But this is hardly the open and shut kinda case that you seem to want to present.
Several things: one, in an official press release, they claim that using Linux is piracy, Straight up. That's defamation, right there. Second, you can't legally distribute Linux in binary-only form and comply with the GPL. Since what SCO is offering is binary only runtime licensing for Linux (I'm not totally clear on this, it LOOKS like it might be a license to run Linux under UnixWare, which is... useless), then there's no legal way for ANYONE to sell Linux, not even SCO. Which is a win for them.
Yeah, but you're wrong (at least to a degree), so it's okay that it got lost. SCO would certainly make a claim of taint, but thats a much harder sell with a copyright claim (where it's accepted, normal, and protected that you would take inspiration from previous work) than in patent case.
The "evidence" has not been shown in any public manner and the people who've been shown it have differing opinions, and aren't allowed to divulge sufficent technical details to allow qualified people to make decisions. So I would hesitate to make statements of fact like that.
They most certainly are claiming that. It's a wide run around the idea that "all code that's produced for Unix is ours [which is overstating a bit, granted, but the certainly lean in that direction]), but one thing they are unfailingly clear about is that there is code that they consider thiers, and that code is in Linux, and therefore Linux is thiers and people using it are pirates.
I'm actually not sure that it's ever been put quite so baldly as in this press release (note that this is an SCO press release, not an actual article, which is why it does things like state as fact rather than as allegations that Linux code is pirated). I'd think that someone would have pretty good grounds for a lawsuit now, if they didn't before - this is a flat statement of something that had better be true if they're going to threaten people with it.
I think Daryl is putting a little too much faith in the respect the market has for ballsiness...
The "story" on Yahoo is just a reprint of the SCO press release (note the "source" line at the bottom). I think it rather lacks professional ethics to display this as a regular article, but heck, what do I know about buisness.
No copying of firmware takes place in the other cases I've mentioned, either. Particularly in the case of the printer cartridge, where there is no encryption or other access code other than the obfuscation of the interface. To be honest, I'm not sure of the outcome of that case, whether it was settled, thrown out, or is still pending. But regardless, the case WAS filed, and the defendents DID have to prepare a legal defense, and that alone is enough to prevent a great many people from continuing with a project.
Did you read his link? What you say can't happen is exactly what did.
In the linked article, he says that the publisher said that the included contract was "standard boilerplate". If that is true, then the (extremely draconian) language that grants the copyright to the publisher, in any and all media, known now to be discovered (and on, and on... read it yourself) is something that people should be made aware of.
They'll claim that the firmware is copyrighted and that not releasing the specs is an access control mechanism, just like the people who're using the DMCA to sue about printer cartridges and garage door openers.
Christ, that page is pretty offensive. I don't care if they were 100% lying about "evidence eliminator" or outright claiming that it was only used by child sex rings, that kind of crap is indefensible.
The evolution of the pronunciation of a word to fit the accent of the people who borrowed it, and then the spelling to fit the pronunciation, is a hell of a lot different than the wholesale replacement of a word or phrase by governmental fiat. Especially when said word is already in popular use.
An excellent example was the "Freedom Fries" debacle, which was (rightfully) treated with scorn and derision by almost every, even in America.
Just because the colonies "failed" doesn't mean that some people didn't say and/or interbreed while they were here. Especially if there was internal squabbling.
Disclaimer: I'm far from an expert on this sort of thing, but I also have a real skepticism about the idea that it can't have happened just because nobody wrote it down.
Bare data advertising is everywhere. You probably don't think of it as advertising because it doesn't bother you, and therefore don't classify it that way. And either you're lying or you never leave the house if you say you've *never* seen an ad that simply posted a price without any sort of hootenany. The parents example of a Harry Potter sign is quite relevant, since the majority of the stores I've seen advertising the new Harry Potter have exactly that on them - no lowest price claim, no hot babe, just the title, some images from the cover, and a price.
An FTC ruling wouldn't result in any compensation for the people who were wronged anyway - thats what civil cases are for, after all.
I've never been fooled by one of these ads, but I have been really pissed off an annoyed ("Warning: Your computer clock is not correct! Click here to correct it" is obnoxious, too"). Think thats enough to get me in on the suit?
I think we SHOULD go after beer advertizers when babes don't flock to me. Untruthful advertising is especially bad - this is advertising that is intentionally attempting to decieve people by placing an add that mimics a legitimate warning. It'd be like advertising medicine by sending you mail that look like it was from a health clinic claiming you had a disease.
In what way would it harm our nation and economy if products had to advertise based soley on legitimate, provable objective benefits of thier products? No paid actors giving "testimonials", no hints that using it will get you laid - just bare, provable facts. We'd all be better off.
Full disclosure time - do you work for an advertising company?
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Oh, and while storing the source IP is a partial solution, it's not 100% (think people behind a common proxy), and the whole point of the session id is that you DON'T re-enter your user/pw at every page. Cookies are the best, cleanest way to maintain state over a session. They're even better if you want to maintain state over multiple sessions (on the other hand, this can be dangerous and I'm not sure that it's usefull enough to outweight the security and privacy concerns).
There's a "privacy policy" standard. In certain configurations (not the default) IE will block cookies from sites that don't have a valid privacy policy.
URL session tokens are quite a bit less secure than cookie based ones. I know of at least a couple online webstores that allow session hijacking through thier JSP URL tokens. (You're shopping. You see X item. You cut & paste the link to your friend so they can look at it... now you're both shopping in the same session...)
That would only be a problem if it were hard. Since it's trivial, there's no problem.
I suspect that you don't know what cookies do or how they work, either. If you did, they wouldn't bother you.
If cookies did any of those things, then maybe it'd be interesing. There's potential privacy issues from cookies (although minor, and tenuous ones), and the law is ridiculously overbroad and overpoweful for addressing them.
Your install media can boot to a recovery mode that allows you Admin access. Shoulda used that.
Also, if that IS a standard contract, then there's something seriously wrong with the publishing industry (more than I knew about already, that is).
To my knowledge, software is actually NOT treated differently than other published works. Perhaps you have a reference or case history?
Normally, when you sue someone for copyright infringment, they pay you fines (this is compensation for the units already sold), and then either pay you royalties from then on or stop selling thier product (which is really thier product, since they won :P). People who already bought your product aren't in any sort of danger - Queen can't sue you for owning a Vanilla Ice CD, and JK Rowling can't sue you for owning (or even reading) one of the Harry Potter knockoffs. Similarly, USERS of Linux don't have crap to fear from SCO. Now, if SCO wins, it'll mean that the affected Linux kernels will be illegal to sell or distribute (They're only offering binary only licensing for thier code, which would conflict with the GPL), but not to use. You don't need a license to use software, no matter what everyone claims.
I honestly think at this point, SCO is seeing the stock go up, and is just getting carried away in being ballsy. Normally only the really big fish, like governments and IBM can get away with just making blatantly unsupportable claims and daring anyone to take them on.
Crazier things have happened. But this is hardly the open and shut kinda case that you seem to want to present.
Several things: one, in an official press release, they claim that using Linux is piracy, Straight up. That's defamation, right there. Second, you can't legally distribute Linux in binary-only form and comply with the GPL. Since what SCO is offering is binary only runtime licensing for Linux (I'm not totally clear on this, it LOOKS like it might be a license to run Linux under UnixWare, which is... useless), then there's no legal way for ANYONE to sell Linux, not even SCO. Which is a win for them.
Yeah, but you're wrong (at least to a degree), so it's okay that it got lost. SCO would certainly make a claim of taint, but thats a much harder sell with a copyright claim (where it's accepted, normal, and protected that you would take inspiration from previous work) than in patent case.
The "evidence" has not been shown in any public manner and the people who've been shown it have differing opinions, and aren't allowed to divulge sufficent technical details to allow qualified people to make decisions. So I would hesitate to make statements of fact like that.
I'm actually not sure that it's ever been put quite so baldly as in this press release (note that this is an SCO press release, not an actual article, which is why it does things like state as fact rather than as allegations that Linux code is pirated). I'd think that someone would have pretty good grounds for a lawsuit now, if they didn't before - this is a flat statement of something that had better be true if they're going to threaten people with it.
I think Daryl is putting a little too much faith in the respect the market has for ballsiness...
The "story" on Yahoo is just a reprint of the SCO press release (note the "source" line at the bottom). I think it rather lacks professional ethics to display this as a regular article, but heck, what do I know about buisness.
No copying of firmware takes place in the other cases I've mentioned, either. Particularly in the case of the printer cartridge, where there is no encryption or other access code other than the obfuscation of the interface. To be honest, I'm not sure of the outcome of that case, whether it was settled, thrown out, or is still pending. But regardless, the case WAS filed, and the defendents DID have to prepare a legal defense, and that alone is enough to prevent a great many people from continuing with a project.
In the linked article, he says that the publisher said that the included contract was "standard boilerplate". If that is true, then the (extremely draconian) language that grants the copyright to the publisher, in any and all media, known now to be discovered (and on, and on... read it yourself) is something that people should be made aware of.
They'll claim that the firmware is copyrighted and that not releasing the specs is an access control mechanism, just like the people who're using the DMCA to sue about printer cartridges and garage door openers.
Christ, that page is pretty offensive. I don't care if they were 100% lying about "evidence eliminator" or outright claiming that it was only used by child sex rings, that kind of crap is indefensible.
An excellent example was the "Freedom Fries" debacle, which was (rightfully) treated with scorn and derision by almost every, even in America.
Disclaimer: I'm far from an expert on this sort of thing, but I also have a real skepticism about the idea that it can't have happened just because nobody wrote it down.
Bare data advertising is everywhere. You probably don't think of it as advertising because it doesn't bother you, and therefore don't classify it that way. And either you're lying or you never leave the house if you say you've *never* seen an ad that simply posted a price without any sort of hootenany. The parents example of a Harry Potter sign is quite relevant, since the majority of the stores I've seen advertising the new Harry Potter have exactly that on them - no lowest price claim, no hot babe, just the title, some images from the cover, and a price.
I've never been fooled by one of these ads, but I have been really pissed off an annoyed ("Warning: Your computer clock is not correct! Click here to correct it" is obnoxious, too"). Think thats enough to get me in on the suit?
In what way would it harm our nation and economy if products had to advertise based soley on legitimate, provable objective benefits of thier products? No paid actors giving "testimonials", no hints that using it will get you laid - just bare, provable facts. We'd all be better off.
Full disclosure time - do you work for an advertising company?