Heh why not?
NASA is going the same way in some area's; they built a VTOL prototype aircraft using mostly off-the-shelf RC airplane components. In fact there were hardly any special components in the prototype; they even published the drawings in an RC magazine so the readers could build the aircraft themselves!
I am not sure if it is price fixing or lack of supply, but LCDs and especially big-screen LCD TVs are still sold at prices very much in the early adopter and yuppie range. Case in point: the big electronics outlet around the corner sells many LCD TVs, most of which are sold as separate components: an LCD monitor, a TV tuner, matching VCR/DVD etc. The LCD monitor part was $6000 or so, no surprise there, but they charged $2500 for the tuner part. A simple TV tuner! I asked the sales guy and according to him, there was nothing extraordinary about it. People were buying them too...
I'll stand by my statement. And this wasn't just data entry work they did, it was complete IT outsourcing. Oh well... this was in Holland, perhaps they work differently here?
In any case I'd like to prove I am not a representative of EDS, but I am not sure how.
To offer a counterexample: I did work for a telco who had outsourced all their IT management, procurement and support to EDS. I was pleasantly surprised at how efficient these guys were running things. Everything from support to getting new software on your PC or a new PC itself was efficient and fast. The EDS guys worked with the comfidence that comes with experience. When we audited their operation, we found everything fully documented.
If this is a representative example of how they work, I'd hire them anytime.
"The only two places right now (IMO) where creativity and real intelligence are needed are the embedded coding and theoretical CS research."
Not so. In many instances a job will require creativity and intelligence from a programmer. A few examples:
- Often, functional and/or technical specs only go so far in describing how a particular program should be solved. The programmer has to supply the missing details and, in effect, make detailed design decisions. I rarely see a specification for a program that is so detailed than one could simply sit down, spec in hand, and start programming the whole thing. The few times I do see a spec that detailed it is unworkable due to many of the detailed problems having been solved the wrong way, because the designer missed the insight that one gains while actually programming the system. Not all design decisions can be made up front, and have to be provided by programmers. That is where I see the difference between good and bad programmers these days.
- There are many specialist areas where the problems one encounters are far from common, or simply beyond the run-of-the-mill programmer. We often work with programmers who specialise in other fields such as mathematics, ballistics, oil exploration models, financial models, etc.
- You mention toolkits and libraries. Again, it can be hard to completely evaluate these toolkits and libraries during design time. Often I see the programmer suggest the libraries and toolkits to use to the architect, not the other way around, siply because the programmers have worked with these libraries and know them inside and out. And suppose the designer has all the specs for a simple plugin, and specifies exactly how to use it. Then... the programmer stumbles upon some flaw or bug in the plugin, and has to program his way around it. That requires real creativity. Every VB programmer should know what I am talking about here. This is the main reason why I hardly ever see a productivity boost from using premade components: they are often flawed or don't work as advertised, and programming the workaround eats up all the time previously gained. It usually also requires a very good programmer, not a code monkey.
I work with programmers a lot, both good ones and bad ones. The good, and most productive programmers are invariably the ones that are creative and able to achieve flow, not the ones that know only how to apply a bunch of standard solutions and patterns.
You are absolutely right. But for non-programmers it is hard to believe, especially for managers! A project manager's job often is basically going from one small task to the next, from having to revise the planning to answering queries from accounting about a misplaced comma, to consoling a team member whose cat just passed away. Their job consists of little 'regular' or scheduled work, instead it is like one long stream of interruptions and crises. No wonder managers cannot understand the way a programmer likes to work; they thrive on these interruptions.
Nothing wrong with that. But this mode of working is completely the opposite of the programmer's. I had the opportunity once to combine the job of programmer and project manager. It was a nightmare and needless to say I got little programming work done, but from the viewpoints of both programmer and manager, it was educational to be in that position.
The law does state you are free to receive anything... without affecting the transmitter in a significant way. If you steal electricity using the EMF around a powerline, you are affecting their 'transmitter' in a very real and measurable way. And yes, government transmissions and analog cell phones are fair game as well. You are free to receive them, that is why such transmissions are encrypted these days.
What about phones, radios, etc? As long as you don't have "express permission" from the service provider, you're in trouble.
I am glad we in Holland have a law called the "Right to reception", which basically means that if something is transmitted into the ether, it's fair game for anyone to receive. This law is quite fundamental, almost constitutional, and has even be used to uphold the right to use radar detectors to avoid speed traps. The law grants you the unconditional right to receive anything, including the radar signal.
"It's a generic version of the book "1984." A duplicate of the storyline but with their own twists"
There are similarities but I would not go as far as to call 'Brazil' a duplicate of the '1984' storyline. The theme in '1984' is total governmental control of information, in 'Brazil' the theme is more a stifling and ineffective bureaucracy. In '1984', the hero commits thoughtcrime and is almost inevitably sniffed out and arrested by the government. The hero in 'Brazil' is done in by a chain of events set of by a stupid accounting mistake, compounded by more mistakes when he attempts to rectify the situation. In the end, he is not tortured for conspiring against the government or associating with terrorists, but because he is about to expose the silly accounting mistakes of others. ("It's not my fault Tuttle's heart condition did not appear on Buttle's form").
"I guess I'll leave it to all of you who just can't get enough of seeing the world as a hollow empty place devoid of happiness. Me, I prefer to learn that lesson the first time and move on to more uplifting pursuits."
Lighten up. To me, the point of that movie was to make us laugh, in which it succeeded wonderfully. Grim as it is, that movie is funny as hell.
Hey, now is the time! A few cities here sold their TV cable outfits during the boom. Since those shares today fetch pennies rather than dollars, they can buy them back on the cheap and pocket the difference. Some cities are considering this, since service levels have dropped even faster than the share prices.
", it might be hard to find something that actually beats this under anticipation. This is especially true considering how limited some of these claims appear."
That means that it will be equally easy to circumvent this patent, if you happen to have a webshop and wish to add discussion forums to items on sale.
Of course the real problem is that Amazon will likely sue you for infringment anyway.
"As mobile Internet access becomes reality, the media will be awash with boring articles that offer no more insight than performing "Function X" from your mobile phone.
"
Oh yes... and expect IP squatters to submit a stream of patent applications in this vein:
"Method and apparatus to perform some blatantly obvious function that people have been doing for hundreds if not thousands of years, but this time from their mobile phone"
Re:Cassette decks s will continue to sell
on
The Future of the CD
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
"As long as people have a portable cassette deck, a cassette deck at home, and one in the car, tapes will keep selling. The extra quality benefit of the CD will not (unfortunately) be enough to lure people to immediately rush out and buy new equipment."
The difference between a cassette player and a CD is not only a (significant) improvement in sound quality, but also a leap in convenience: track skipping vs winding tape, a forgiving medium when it comes to handling vs scratched, wrinkled and broken tape, a maintenance-free laser vs tape heads that need cleaning and degaussing. The same leap in performance and ease of use is what convinced the public to switch from video tape to DVD despite lack of a means to even record your own.
From tape and VHS to CD and DVD was a huge leap in performance and ease of use. Now that we have CD and DVD, what improvement can we expect in future media? 100-channel sound? It'll be hard to improve on convenience and ease of use, the only thing I can think of is reducing the size. A new format that offers easy and affordable recording capability might be interesting. But the last 5% of possible improvement in sound and picture quality will be lost upon most people. People see the difference between VHS and DVD, and hear the difference between a good tape recording and a CD. But there's no way people will want higher picture resolution or better sound, especially considering the dinky equipment they play it on.
Well, it might be a good distraction for people into this sort of thing, or it might not. I really don't have a clue.
Don't forget though that the child porn has to come from somewhere. Children are being abused to make it. For the same reason there are severe restrictions on trading ivory or furs of endangered species: the only way to obtain new material is to commit a serious crime. That is the reason governments limit trafficking in these goods, so as to limit the potential demand as far as possible.
Making an ISP ultimately responsible for all content hosted on their servers is ridiculous. It would be impossible for them to check, and keep checking, every single website hosted by them. And I do not think the end justifies the means, ever. Besides, the legitimate sites that get blocked along with the ones with child porn may belong to third parties, not the ISP. Is that "tough" for them as well?
Instead, an ISP should be forced to remove questionable materials from their servers if and when authorities inform them that such materials have been found there. They should remove if when told to, but not be forced to look for it themselves. ISPs are not law enforcing agencies.
Note that I am just voicing my opinion about the implementation of this law, not about what should and should not be censored, or if censoring should not take place at all.
"This is not a bad idea, I don't think the blocking is the problem - why not close down the sites completely? Are there really any countries out there that wouldn't cooperate on such a task? Maybe blocking is a strategy to log which users visit these sites and keep them under surveillance?"
Eeeh.... not a bad idea?! Do we want our respective governments to somehow examine our surfing habits and keep us under surveillance if we visit a questionable site? Not without a proper court order, buddy! Also, this falls firmly in the "slippery slope" category... Next thing you know they'll be monitoring on other criminal or undesirable behavior, or just monitor everything under the guise of the popular "terrorist threat" excuse.
"In.au the govt with Telstra have a list of sites that are collected (porn sites) that are listed as banned sites for visiting during work hours (within govt)."
That's a completely different thing. If a government orders ISPs to block certain sites or content, it's censorship any way you slice it. In contrast, I have no problem with a governmental institute or company blocking off sites from their own network, if that is their internal policy.
"So Pennsylvania authorities are going to call a Web-hosting company in Denmark and threaten legal action? In addition to being silly, I think that also violates US law. Foreign policy is the domain of the federal government."
I imagine in this case they will simply contact law enforcement agencies in Denmark or whereever. Child porn is illegal in many countries. Also, I do not think local law enforcement needs an OK from the federal government for this.
To my knowledge our (Dutch) police already work extensively with European and US police to find purveyors of child porn and bring them to justice.
"and it's based on 'patent pending technology' that is somehow acceptable by slashdotters"
Yes it is, at least to me. Not all patents are bad; I am fine with the technological details (the encryption algorithm, process for randomness, etc) being patented. Ie. if you want to do a similar thing using different algorithms, you'd be allowed to.
It would be another matter if they'd patent the idea of Micropayments.
Not so, the customer is always charged the $0,50 (in this example). It is the shopowner who will get $10 or nothing. If he sells a lot of items, probability dictates that his average take will still be around $0,50 per item.
I suspect that on the customer's end they will solve the micropayment problem by forcing the customer to deposit a minimum amount (say $10) into his Peppercoin account, rather than charging every nickel and dime he spends separately. The customers will not mind if they expect to be able to spend these Peppercoins on many goods and services. Thst is where the chicken&egg problem comes in: if there are only a few sites accepting these coins initially, no one will want to depost the minimum $10 to activate his account.
Thank you for this idea, I have just patented it. Method and apparatus for automatically tracking down warezing P2P users and then serving them with a subpoena using the built-in P2P mesaging system. "Download completed; you are expected to appear in court on 12-3-03, bring your checkbook".
I use ABN Amro, a Dutch bank, but they offer retail banking services in a number of other countries as well. I'm not sure if they offer similar Internet banking there, though.
I can't imagine really what home user would use a gigabyte per day downstream for... but then again, perhaps there are some who use that much. These users need to wake up to the fact that bandwidth costs money, it is by no means free. When an ISP finds that the bandwidth of their routers, backbone, or outbound links falls short of the demand, they have two choices:
- Increase the capacity of their network and pass the cost on to the customers in the form of higher subscription fees.
- Cap bandwidth usage per subscriber so that the total demand for capacity falls within the capabilities of the infrastructure.
Charging for bandwidth is fair, but I would like to see more flexible subscriber plans. Usually ISPs offer only a few limited home subscriptions with very low caps and limits, and business subscriptions that cost 10 times as much. Usually there is nothing in between. Also... not being allowed to run VPNs or NAT networks stinks. I'm glad my ISP has taken a flexible approach: basically they say "We sell you the connection; as long as you do not resell it, do whatever you want". Webservers, commercial activity, NAT networks, everything is allowed.
The law aims to force spammers to make their spam easily identifyable, allowing simple filtering, and it makes circumventing those filters (like those random letters that appear in most spam subject lines) illegal. Is that a good thing? I think so, for two reasons:
First of all, it's a start. If the USA adopts this law, it may well be that many other nations follow suit, making life harder for spammers.
Second, it will help against spam originating from the USA. That guy Ralsky seems to be responsible for a sizable portion of all Internet spam. He is based in the USA, and taking orders from sites and companies in the USA. Even if his actual spam originates from an ISP in China, you'd still be able to take him to court for this.
Slashdot Mirror
Heh why not? NASA is going the same way in some area's; they built a VTOL prototype aircraft using mostly off-the-shelf RC airplane components. In fact there were hardly any special components in the prototype; they even published the drawings in an RC magazine so the readers could build the aircraft themselves!
O..o..outside?! You mean where the pizza guy comes from?
I hope prices will come down at some point.
I am not sure if it is price fixing or lack of supply, but LCDs and especially big-screen LCD TVs are still sold at prices very much in the early adopter and yuppie range. Case in point: the big electronics outlet around the corner sells many LCD TVs, most of which are sold as separate components: an LCD monitor, a TV tuner, matching VCR/DVD etc. The LCD monitor part was $6000 or so, no surprise there, but they charged $2500 for the tuner part. A simple TV tuner! I asked the sales guy and according to him, there was nothing extraordinary about it. People were buying them too...
Heh.
I'll stand by my statement. And this wasn't just data entry work they did, it was complete IT outsourcing. Oh well... this was in Holland, perhaps they work differently here?
In any case I'd like to prove I am not a representative of EDS, but I am not sure how.
Happens everywhere, not just EDS.
To offer a counterexample: I did work for a telco who had outsourced all their IT management, procurement and support to EDS. I was pleasantly surprised at how efficient these guys were running things. Everything from support to getting new software on your PC or a new PC itself was efficient and fast. The EDS guys worked with the comfidence that comes with experience. When we audited their operation, we found everything fully documented.
If this is a representative example of how they work, I'd hire them anytime.
"The only two places right now (IMO) where creativity and real intelligence are needed are the embedded coding and theoretical CS research."
Not so. In many instances a job will require creativity and intelligence from a programmer. A few examples:
- Often, functional and/or technical specs only go so far in describing how a particular program should be solved. The programmer has to supply the missing details and, in effect, make detailed design decisions. I rarely see a specification for a program that is so detailed than one could simply sit down, spec in hand, and start programming the whole thing. The few times I do see a spec that detailed it is unworkable due to many of the detailed problems having been solved the wrong way, because the designer missed the insight that one gains while actually programming the system. Not all design decisions can be made up front, and have to be provided by programmers. That is where I see the difference between good and bad programmers these days.
- There are many specialist areas where the problems one encounters are far from common, or simply beyond the run-of-the-mill programmer. We often work with programmers who specialise in other fields such as mathematics, ballistics, oil exploration models, financial models, etc.
- You mention toolkits and libraries. Again, it can be hard to completely evaluate these toolkits and libraries during design time. Often I see the programmer suggest the libraries and toolkits to use to the architect, not the other way around, siply because the programmers have worked with these libraries and know them inside and out.
And suppose the designer has all the specs for a simple plugin, and specifies exactly how to use it. Then... the programmer stumbles upon some flaw or bug in the plugin, and has to program his way around it. That requires real creativity. Every VB programmer should know what I am talking about here. This is the main reason why I hardly ever see a productivity boost from using premade components: they are often flawed or don't work as advertised, and programming the workaround eats up all the time previously gained. It usually also requires a very good programmer, not a code monkey.
I work with programmers a lot, both good ones and bad ones. The good, and most productive programmers are invariably the ones that are creative and able to achieve flow, not the ones that know only how to apply a bunch of standard solutions and patterns.
You are absolutely right. But for non-programmers it is hard to believe, especially for managers! A project manager's job often is basically going from one small task to the next, from having to revise the planning to answering queries from accounting about a misplaced comma, to consoling a team member whose cat just passed away. Their job consists of little 'regular' or scheduled work, instead it is like one long stream of interruptions and crises. No wonder managers cannot understand the way a programmer likes to work; they thrive on these interruptions.
Nothing wrong with that. But this mode of working is completely the opposite of the programmer's. I had the opportunity once to combine the job of programmer and project manager. It was a nightmare and needless to say I got little programming work done, but from the viewpoints of both programmer and manager, it was educational to be in that position.
The law does state you are free to receive anything... without affecting the transmitter in a significant way. If you steal electricity using the EMF around a powerline, you are affecting their 'transmitter' in a very real and measurable way. And yes, government transmissions and analog cell phones are fair game as well. You are free to receive them, that is why such transmissions are encrypted these days.
What about phones, radios, etc? As long as you don't have "express permission" from the service provider, you're in trouble. I am glad we in Holland have a law called the "Right to reception", which basically means that if something is transmitted into the ether, it's fair game for anyone to receive. This law is quite fundamental, almost constitutional, and has even be used to uphold the right to use radar detectors to avoid speed traps. The law grants you the unconditional right to receive anything, including the radar signal.
"It's a generic version of the book "1984." A duplicate of the storyline but with their own twists"
There are similarities but I would not go as far as to call 'Brazil' a duplicate of the '1984' storyline. The theme in '1984' is total governmental control of information, in 'Brazil' the theme is more a stifling and ineffective bureaucracy. In '1984', the hero commits thoughtcrime and is almost inevitably sniffed out and arrested by the government. The hero in 'Brazil' is done in by a chain of events set of by a stupid accounting mistake, compounded by more mistakes when he attempts to rectify the situation. In the end, he is not tortured for conspiring against the government or associating with terrorists, but because he is about to expose the silly accounting mistakes of others. ("It's not my fault Tuttle's heart condition did not appear on Buttle's form").
"I guess I'll leave it to all of you who just can't get enough of seeing the world as a hollow empty place devoid of happiness. Me, I prefer to learn that lesson the first time and move on to more uplifting pursuits."
Lighten up. To me, the point of that movie was to make us laugh, in which it succeeded wonderfully. Grim as it is, that movie is funny as hell.
Hey, now is the time! A few cities here sold their TV cable outfits during the boom. Since those shares today fetch pennies rather than dollars, they can buy them back on the cheap and pocket the difference. Some cities are considering this, since service levels have dropped even faster than the share prices.
", it might be hard to find something that actually beats this under anticipation. This is especially true considering how limited some of these claims appear."
That means that it will be equally easy to circumvent this patent, if you happen to have a webshop and wish to add discussion forums to items on sale.
Of course the real problem is that Amazon will likely sue you for infringment anyway.
"As mobile Internet access becomes reality, the media will be awash with boring articles that offer no more insight than performing "Function X" from your mobile phone. "
Oh yes... and expect IP squatters to submit a stream of patent applications in this vein:
"Method and apparatus to perform some blatantly obvious function that people have been doing for hundreds if not thousands of years, but this time from their mobile phone"
"As long as people have a portable cassette deck, a cassette deck at home, and one in the car, tapes will keep selling. The extra quality benefit of the CD will not (unfortunately) be enough to lure people to immediately rush out and buy new equipment."
The difference between a cassette player and a CD is not only a (significant) improvement in sound quality, but also a leap in convenience: track skipping vs winding tape, a forgiving medium when it comes to handling vs scratched, wrinkled and broken tape, a maintenance-free laser vs tape heads that need cleaning and degaussing. The same leap in performance and ease of use is what convinced the public to switch from video tape to DVD despite lack of a means to even record your own.
From tape and VHS to CD and DVD was a huge leap in performance and ease of use. Now that we have CD and DVD, what improvement can we expect in future media? 100-channel sound? It'll be hard to improve on convenience and ease of use, the only thing I can think of is reducing the size. A new format that offers easy and affordable recording capability might be interesting. But the last 5% of possible improvement in sound and picture quality will be lost upon most people. People see the difference between VHS and DVD, and hear the difference between a good tape recording and a CD. But there's no way people will want higher picture resolution or better sound, especially considering the dinky equipment they play it on.
Well, it might be a good distraction for people into this sort of thing, or it might not. I really don't have a clue.
Don't forget though that the child porn has to come from somewhere. Children are being abused to make it. For the same reason there are severe restrictions on trading ivory or furs of endangered species: the only way to obtain new material is to commit a serious crime. That is the reason governments limit trafficking in these goods, so as to limit the potential demand as far as possible.
Making an ISP ultimately responsible for all content hosted on their servers is ridiculous. It would be impossible for them to check, and keep checking, every single website hosted by them. And I do not think the end justifies the means, ever. Besides, the legitimate sites that get blocked along with the ones with child porn may belong to third parties, not the ISP. Is that "tough" for them as well?
Instead, an ISP should be forced to remove questionable materials from their servers if and when authorities inform them that such materials have been found there. They should remove if when told to, but not be forced to look for it themselves. ISPs are not law enforcing agencies.
Note that I am just voicing my opinion about the implementation of this law, not about what should and should not be censored, or if censoring should not take place at all.
"This is not a bad idea, I don't think the blocking is the problem - why not close down the sites completely? Are there really any countries out there that wouldn't cooperate on such a task? Maybe blocking is a strategy to log which users visit these sites and keep them under surveillance?"
.au the govt with Telstra have a list of sites that are collected (porn sites) that are listed as banned sites for visiting during work hours (within govt)."
Eeeh.... not a bad idea?! Do we want our respective governments to somehow examine our surfing habits and keep us under surveillance if we visit a questionable site? Not without a proper court order, buddy! Also, this falls firmly in the "slippery slope" category... Next thing you know they'll be monitoring on other criminal or undesirable behavior, or just monitor everything under the guise of the popular "terrorist threat" excuse.
"In
That's a completely different thing. If a government orders ISPs to block certain sites or content, it's censorship any way you slice it. In contrast, I have no problem with a governmental institute or company blocking off sites from their own network, if that is their internal policy.
"So Pennsylvania authorities are going to call a Web-hosting company in Denmark and threaten legal action? In addition to being silly, I think that also violates US law. Foreign policy is the domain of the federal government."
I imagine in this case they will simply contact law enforcement agencies in Denmark or whereever. Child porn is illegal in many countries. Also, I do not think local law enforcement needs an OK from the federal government for this.
To my knowledge our (Dutch) police already work extensively with European and US police to find purveyors of child porn and bring them to justice.
"and it's based on 'patent pending technology' that is somehow acceptable by slashdotters"
Yes it is, at least to me. Not all patents are bad; I am fine with the technological details (the encryption algorithm, process for randomness, etc) being patented. Ie. if you want to do a similar thing using different algorithms, you'd be allowed to.
It would be another matter if they'd patent the idea of Micropayments.
Not so, the customer is always charged the $0,50 (in this example). It is the shopowner who will get $10 or nothing. If he sells a lot of items, probability dictates that his average take will still be around $0,50 per item.
I suspect that on the customer's end they will solve the micropayment problem by forcing the customer to deposit a minimum amount (say $10) into his Peppercoin account, rather than charging every nickel and dime he spends separately. The customers will not mind if they expect to be able to spend these Peppercoins on many goods and services. Thst is where the chicken&egg problem comes in: if there are only a few sites accepting these coins initially, no one will want to depost the minimum $10 to activate his account.
Thank you for this idea, I have just patented it. Method and apparatus for automatically tracking down warezing P2P users and then serving them with a subpoena using the built-in P2P mesaging system. "Download completed; you are expected to appear in court on 12-3-03, bring your checkbook".
"Send up a weather baloon connected to your serial/parallel port."
That works fine until the first thunderstorm... I hope you're wearing rubber gloves while typing.
I use ABN Amro, a Dutch bank, but they offer retail banking services in a number of other countries as well. I'm not sure if they offer similar Internet banking there, though.
I can't imagine really what home user would use a gigabyte per day downstream for... but then again, perhaps there are some who use that much. These users need to wake up to the fact that bandwidth costs money, it is by no means free. When an ISP finds that the bandwidth of their routers, backbone, or outbound links falls short of the demand, they have two choices:
- Increase the capacity of their network and pass the cost on to the customers in the form of higher subscription fees.
- Cap bandwidth usage per subscriber so that the total demand for capacity falls within the capabilities of the infrastructure.
Charging for bandwidth is fair, but I would like to see more flexible subscriber plans. Usually ISPs offer only a few limited home subscriptions with very low caps and limits, and business subscriptions that cost 10 times as much. Usually there is nothing in between. Also... not being allowed to run VPNs or NAT networks stinks. I'm glad my ISP has taken a flexible approach: basically they say "We sell you the connection; as long as you do not resell it, do whatever you want". Webservers, commercial activity, NAT networks, everything is allowed.
The law aims to force spammers to make their spam easily identifyable, allowing simple filtering, and it makes circumventing those filters (like those random letters that appear in most spam subject lines) illegal. Is that a good thing? I think so, for two reasons:
First of all, it's a start. If the USA adopts this law, it may well be that many other nations follow suit, making life harder for spammers.
Second, it will help against spam originating from the USA. That guy Ralsky seems to be responsible for a sizable portion of all Internet spam. He is based in the USA, and taking orders from sites and companies in the USA. Even if his actual spam originates from an ISP in China, you'd still be able to take him to court for this.