"Please. No legal leg to stand on. You want the legal protection of being considered a "business entity" under United States Law, you need to have no blood on your hands. Anotherwards, your business can't be illegal. You will not be awarded jack shit in court if you can't prove that your business is legal."
First, you don't need to prove a business is legal: that's a presumption of guilt. Someone needs to prove that your business is illegal. Supplying general-purpose computer software doesn't count.
Secondly, the courts have said they are an american business entity: that's why record labels are being allowed to sue them. Kazaa is pointing out quite rightly that repeated attacks by an industry-wide consortium against a small company is an antitrust violation, for which the RIAA should be disarmed.
"that is why listen to public domain music ( mozart) public domain films (charlie chaplin) and read public domain text (projct gutenberg)...."
And if you get a public domain text on e-book, you lose the ability to copy it. And if you listen to mozart on a CD, have a look at the CD and see if it prohibits you from playing it in public. And if you want to copy the charlie chaplin film from its DVD to your computer? Oops, broken the law again. And that's just for copying public domain works
"Is there any such expiration date on open source code licenses?"
Here in the free software world, we gave up on the public domain long ago, after it became a barren wasteland, completely destroyed by government and corporate greed.
We've replaced it with our own version, the GNU domain. It's a way for authors to build on each others' work, and to promote the progress of art and the useful sciences.
Some people are even using it in conjunction with a limited monopoly on distribution, by releasing software which becomes GNU a few months after its initial release. Some people are using in a more efficient way, selling extra services in addition to the art. Some people are being employed while they create GNU domain software.
But most people and most companies are content simply to contribute freely to the GNU domain, knowing that they're helping to promote science, art, and understanding.
"How would you feel if the servers you get open-source applications from were made unusable because someone attacked the network they were hosted on?"
In random order of usefulness:
(1) I'd use one of the many mirror sites (2) I'd use kazaa to get the software from P2P (3) I'd look on the FULL Mandrake distro that I got on the cover of a magazine this week (4) I'd copy the files from someone I knew locally, and offer to distribute those files to anyone else who needed them locally (5) I'd copy the files from another machine where they were already installed
Notice how none of the above tricks work with Microsoft software.
Okay, spam is down from 60/day to just two this weekend on my account, although admittedly some people from the US are having trouble emailing me also...
"The problem with Tabs, is as you said, there's not really a problem to begin with. Browser window-switching accomplishes the same thing, with unlimited constraints."
Well, browser windows are still limited by the size of the panel, and you still have exactly the same problems with not being able to read the titles if there are more than 8-10 windows open.
Browser windows also make it more difficult to find other applications. With 10 websites open, I can still press one key-combo, and get the email program I have open in the background. Or an FTP program. If I want to cycle through web-pages, I can press a different key combo
I've no problem with people who don't like them, but so far, everyone I know who's started to use them wouldn't even consider losing the ability.
The real problem is that we have a software monoculture
Even a configuration multiculture would be better than what we have now... why are these database servers all responding on the default port? Is it not possible to set your own choice from the 2^16 available ports, especially if there's only one program (i.e. a webserver) which ever needs to connect to it?
" What is this helpdesk for? It sounds like a product or service of some sort, so I must ask, why are you letting the developers handle support issues"
If it is a product support line, as opposed to a company helpdesk, then the first step will be to install Bugzilla to take requests, sort them, filter them, assign them, and email the user when someone answers them
"Yes, it validates your email address. So does the fact that the spam didn't bounce."
There are several email programs which can bounce email... KMail, Evolution and The Bat are the ones which spring to mind (I may be wrong)... certainly would be useful as a filtering option in MozillaMail
"Unfortunately, this paper doesn't really offer any practical advice."
It looks like it's intended for the people who program GCC, perl, kaffe, etc., as they can use this information to build better checking into their respective compilers, rather than for programmers.
Considering all of the work that's gone into truly secure voting (i.e. anonymous, no trusted server, checkable by anyone, etc) by GNU.Free and cryptographers worldwide, it hardly surprises me that you go to a website and type in the password they mailed you.
Anonymous? Send the boys round for a chat with Mr Boulet; our webserver logs show that he voted against the town hall plans.
In the UK, they want to use text-messaging on mobile telephones, of all things, to vote. Mobile telephones? Those things you need two forms of valid ID to get hold of, and which transmit a unique number each time they make a call or send a message? Yes, the dimwits in the UK decided that was a good mechanism for a vote.
Stuff like that wouldn't be a problem if we were just voting for the results of a TV show, but you'd have thought the government would know better.
"Rumor has it you can buy a strand of copper [wire] and push one end of it in a special socket labelled "Audio Out""
I suggest that a better circumvention mechanism would be to get a much larger piece of copper, and push one end of it in a special socket labelled "Jack Valentini".
"Where is the protection if the cd can still be played on a stereo, or PC?"
I have to say, MP3.com's CDs have the best copy-protection scheme I've yet seen. They include the MP3 files on the CD, and all the tracks are available for download on the internet. Treating your customers well is the best copy protection
If someone likes the music I'm listening to, I can point them to a website where they can get a few of the bands' songs, listen to them on streaming-media radio and buy a $6 CD.
Oh, and part two of the reccommendations: The second best copy-protection mechanism is selling reasonably-priced CDs
"They compile the default windows CD in the MS lab and md5 it so they can check whenever it changes"
Okay, an MD5 hash is very sensitive indeed, and even a single change will make the code not match. An MD5 can't tell you that two things have 99% of their structure in common; they either match, or they don't.
An MD5 of binary is better than an MD5 of source, because it won't break with commenting and whitespace changes. BUT, code can often contain timestamps and such like which are inserted by source-control programs, and even the same program compiled on two different days would be completely different, not to mention if anything had *actually* been changed.
And what good would be a CD compiled from trusted sources? Windows automatically updates itself. The very next security update they applied could just reinsert the american backdoor without their knowledge, and I can't see the team of pakistani officials going back to microsoft every time there's a bugfix (that would be biweekly, right?)
"You do not require a license to recieve or "interpret" any radio energy, at least in the US"
Okay, so my post was UK-centric. Here, we need licenses even to receive television signals, among other things. The law is quite weird as regards police radio and traffic-radars though: it seems to be a problem to act on information gained, rather than just receiving, which sounds like a law-hack to me. Owning equipment is of course, not a problem, anti-DMCA style.
Of course, the police here have just started using digital radios with PKI encryption, and apparently they suck. Having a completely secure communication between a policeman and the radio room sounds good, until they wonder if it's possible for any of the patrols to talk to each other. (it's not) -- nice big bottleneck in the radio-room, and no situational-awareness for patrols.
They also forgot that after the signals are decrypted, the policeman's radio retransmits them at audio-frequencies (but still radio) which can be received simply by using the right length of wire and plugging it into an amplified speaker.
"That's near exactly what I was thinking... that, and of a device that can detect GPS recievers to aid in nulifying one on a rental car."
To detect a radio receiver (of any type, GPS included), you need a transmitter and a receiver working together: the GPS' aerial will receive some power, and the flux in that region will be smaller than if the aerial (and tuned circuit) was not there. So using the receiver and transmitter together, you can listen for a dip in the signal as it moves past a GPS receiver.
The problem with this approach would seem to be that the circuit I describe is also a metal detector, although admittedly most sensitive only for certain-sized pieces of metal. So, if you were to build such a device, you might be detecting your metal car, rather than the attached GPS.
You might try comparing the response of two frequencies to get around this: one tuned to GPS, the other to a similar but not the same frequency. Of course, I've not tried it, so publish it on slashdot if you ever get it working.
The other approach is to make an extremely sensitive, directional, and localised receiver for the GPS carrier-signal. (1575.42MHz, according to the article) -- When a tuned circuit receives radio energy, some of that energy radiates back out of the antenna. With a highly directional receiver of your own, you can search for this antenna, in the same way that radio signals will appear to be coming from your radio set.
Again, get the schematics published here if you get anything working.
Slashdot Mirror
"Please. No legal leg to stand on. You want the legal protection of being considered a "business entity" under United States Law, you need to have no blood on your hands. Anotherwards, your business can't be illegal. You will not be awarded jack shit in court if you can't prove that your business is legal."
First, you don't need to prove a business is legal: that's a presumption of guilt. Someone needs to prove that your business is illegal. Supplying general-purpose computer software doesn't count.
Secondly, the courts have said they are an american business entity: that's why record labels are being allowed to sue them. Kazaa is pointing out quite rightly that repeated attacks by an industry-wide consortium against a small company is an antitrust violation, for which the RIAA should be disarmed.
"Anything from mid-level management or the marketing department would immediately be marked as spam and trashed."
And the problem?
"that is why listen to public domain music ( mozart) public domain films (charlie chaplin) and read public domain text (projct gutenberg)...."
And if you get a public domain text on e-book, you lose the ability to copy it. And if you listen to mozart on a CD, have a look at the CD and see if it prohibits you from playing it in public. And if you want to copy the charlie chaplin film from its DVD to your computer? Oops, broken the law again. And that's just for copying public domain works
"Is there any such expiration date on open source code licenses?"
Here in the free software world, we gave up on the public domain long ago, after it became a barren wasteland, completely destroyed by government and corporate greed.
We've replaced it with our own version, the GNU domain. It's a way for authors to build on each others' work, and to promote the progress of art and the useful sciences.
Some people are even using it in conjunction with a limited monopoly on distribution, by releasing software which becomes GNU a few months after its initial release. Some people are using in a more efficient way, selling extra services in addition to the art. Some people are being employed while they create GNU domain software.
But most people and most companies are content simply to contribute freely to the GNU domain, knowing that they're helping to promote science, art, and understanding.
"How would you feel if the servers you get open-source applications from were made unusable because someone attacked the network they were hosted on?"
In random order of usefulness:
(1) I'd use one of the many mirror sites
(2) I'd use kazaa to get the software from P2P
(3) I'd look on the FULL Mandrake distro that I got on the cover of a magazine this week
(4) I'd copy the files from someone I knew locally, and offer to distribute those files to anyone else who needed them locally
(5) I'd copy the files from another machine where they were already installed
Notice how none of the above tricks work with Microsoft software.
Okay, spam is down from 60/day to just two this weekend on my account, although admittedly some people from the US are having trouble emailing me also...
Is it time to declare a digital public holiday?
"The problem with Tabs, is as you said, there's not really a problem to begin with. Browser window-switching accomplishes the same thing, with unlimited constraints."
Well, browser windows are still limited by the size of the panel, and you still have exactly the same problems with not being able to read the titles if there are more than 8-10 windows open.
Browser windows also make it more difficult to find other applications. With 10 websites open, I can still press one key-combo, and get the email program I have open in the background. Or an FTP program. If I want to cycle through web-pages, I can press a different key combo
I've no problem with people who don't like them, but so far, everyone I know who's started to use them wouldn't even consider losing the ability.
"This is only a tool that will allow computer users more security over important documents."
In other news, guns don't kill people.
"but xxx@msn.com email addresses seem to not be working on Hotmail"
;-)
I think you need to replace the xxx with a username, and then things should work better for you.
The real problem is that we have a software monoculture
Even a configuration multiculture would be better than what we have now... why are these database servers all responding on the default port? Is it not possible to set your own choice from the 2^16 available ports, especially if there's only one program (i.e. a webserver) which ever needs to connect to it?
" What is this helpdesk for? It sounds like a product or service of some sort, so I must ask, why are you letting the developers handle support issues"
If it is a product support line, as opposed to a company helpdesk, then the first step will be to install Bugzilla to take requests, sort them, filter them, assign them, and email the user when someone answers them
There is no second step.
"Yes, it validates your email address. So does the fact that the spam didn't bounce."
There are several email programs which can bounce email... KMail, Evolution and The Bat are the ones which spring to mind (I may be wrong)... certainly would be useful as a filtering option in MozillaMail
"Unfortunately, this paper doesn't really offer any practical advice."
It looks like it's intended for the people who program GCC, perl, kaffe, etc., as they can use this information to build better checking into their respective compilers, rather than for programmers.
Considering all of the work that's gone into truly secure voting (i.e. anonymous, no trusted server, checkable by anyone, etc) by GNU.Free and cryptographers worldwide, it hardly surprises me that you go to a website and type in the password they mailed you.
Anonymous? Send the boys round for a chat with Mr Boulet; our webserver logs show that he voted against the town hall plans.
In the UK, they want to use text-messaging on mobile telephones, of all things, to vote. Mobile telephones? Those things you need two forms of valid ID to get hold of, and which transmit a unique number each time they make a call or send a message? Yes, the dimwits in the UK decided that was a good mechanism for a vote.
Stuff like that wouldn't be a problem if we were just voting for the results of a TV show, but you'd have thought the government would know better.
"Providing a Feedback form [pm.gov.au] rather than just an email address is a very good way of limiting the spam that the PM would receive."
Howabout writing a Perl script such that when you email some other address, it loads that page, and submits it with the email attached?
Maybe even implement it as part of an anonymous remailer chain, and you'll have the added advantage of anonymous free speech.
Has anyone looked at what educational programs work under wine?
They don't. They run under KDE.
"while on Windows, such things are mostly hidden."
Are you sure you want to view the contents of c:\winnt? Changing the files in here could cause your computer to stop working.
Show me the files, dammit!
"Actually, by signing up for that forum he accepted an agreement that he could be banned for hateful speech, etc"
Accepted in the sense of submitting a form from a page containing a hyperlinked credit to the alleged agreement?
Doesn't sound like an agreement to me. Sounds like a website TOU, which isn't worth the disk-space it's stored on.
"Rumor has it you can buy a strand of copper [wire] and push one end of it in a special socket labelled "Audio Out""
I suggest that a better circumvention mechanism would be to get a much larger piece of copper, and push one end of it in a special socket labelled "Jack Valentini".
"Where is the protection if the cd can still be played on a stereo, or PC?"
I have to say, MP3.com's CDs have the best copy-protection scheme I've yet seen. They include the MP3 files on the CD, and all the tracks are available for download on the internet. Treating your customers well is the best copy protection
If someone likes the music I'm listening to, I can point them to a website where they can get a few of the bands' songs, listen to them on streaming-media radio and buy a $6 CD.
Oh, and part two of the reccommendations: The second best copy-protection mechanism is selling reasonably-priced CDs
"Wow, Mars by 2010?
:). Now we need to get some competition going against ESA and China. Or perhaps co-operation."
This is what the US needs
And something to occupy them, rather than having to find petty wars to fight to keep the public interested.
It's about advancing US nuclear reactor technology enough to replace our hydrocarbon-based power plants with generators that don't fund al Quaeda?
No, it's about funding projects which are far worse than al quaeda
"They compile the default windows CD in the MS lab and md5 it so they can check whenever it changes"
Okay, an MD5 hash is very sensitive indeed, and even a single change will make the code not match. An MD5 can't tell you that two things have 99% of their structure in common; they either match, or they don't.
An MD5 of binary is better than an MD5 of source, because it won't break with commenting and whitespace changes. BUT, code can often contain timestamps and such like which are inserted by source-control programs, and even the same program compiled on two different days would be completely different, not to mention if anything had *actually* been changed.
And what good would be a CD compiled from trusted sources? Windows automatically updates itself. The very next security update they applied could just reinsert the american backdoor without their knowledge, and I can't see the team of pakistani officials going back to microsoft every time there's a bugfix (that would be biweekly, right?)
"You do not require a license to recieve or "interpret" any radio energy, at least in the US"
Okay, so my post was UK-centric. Here, we need licenses even to receive television signals, among other things. The law is quite weird as regards police radio and traffic-radars though: it seems to be a problem to act on information gained, rather than just receiving, which sounds like a law-hack to me. Owning equipment is of course, not a problem, anti-DMCA style.
Of course, the police here have just started using digital radios with PKI encryption, and apparently they suck. Having a completely secure communication between a policeman and the radio room sounds good, until they wonder if it's possible for any of the patrols to talk to each other. (it's not) -- nice big bottleneck in the radio-room, and no situational-awareness for patrols.
They also forgot that after the signals are decrypted, the policeman's radio retransmits them at audio-frequencies (but still radio) which can be received simply by using the right length of wire and plugging it into an amplified speaker.
"That's near exactly what I was thinking... that, and of a device that can detect GPS recievers to aid in nulifying one on a rental car."
To detect a radio receiver (of any type, GPS included), you need a transmitter and a receiver working together: the GPS' aerial will receive some power, and the flux in that region will be smaller than if the aerial (and tuned circuit) was not there. So using the receiver and transmitter together, you can listen for a dip in the signal as it moves past a GPS receiver.
The problem with this approach would seem to be that the circuit I describe is also a metal detector, although admittedly most sensitive only for certain-sized pieces of metal. So, if you were to build such a device, you might be detecting your metal car, rather than the attached GPS.
You might try comparing the response of two frequencies to get around this: one tuned to GPS, the other to a similar but not the same frequency. Of course, I've not tried it, so publish it on slashdot if you ever get it working.
The other approach is to make an extremely sensitive, directional, and localised receiver for the GPS carrier-signal. (1575.42MHz, according to the article) -- When a tuned circuit receives radio energy, some of that energy radiates back out of the antenna. With a highly directional receiver of your own, you can search for this antenna, in the same way that radio signals will appear to be coming from your radio set.
Again, get the schematics published here if you get anything working.