Nope. They give permission before you ever speak to this one.
Almost all of them state: "This call may be recorded for quality assurance".
That's legal consent to the call being recorded. That's why our AOL cancellation friend who's call was widely disseminated was able to do exactly what he did without violating any laws.
contacting the better business bureau sometimes helps, may not be very effective but its something that doesnt require a lawyer
Perhaps the BBB will help with a small issue, but more often they will just put something in a companies file and a few months later declare it "resolved" (whether it was or wasn't resolved).
The BBB is run by the businesses that it purports to "rate". You would be suprised at home many people think the BBB is some kind of government entity that can make companies do one thing or another.
In reality, it is merely a trade group that businesses purchase a membership to, and it heads off expensive legal action by giving the consumer someplace to complain and blow off stream instead of running off to a lawyer to seek class status.
The BBB also exists to promite it's member businesses. In actuality, it is simply an advertising and marketing company that exists to protect its members.
It still boggles my mind to this day when I hear people say "I'll complain to the BBB!", without realizing that this is exactly what the offending company wants you to do. Every time you acknowledge that organization, you give it credibility that it does not resolve.
Ignore the BBB. It's a sham and a scam. Okay, if it's a minor issue that won't cost the company much maybe they will make things right if you seem serious enough that you may go to a lawyer, but in general, those who think the BBB is "looking out for them" are just severely misinformed.
You're telling me because I did something to minimize damage, and prevent my fiance from also really getting hosed by this, "Who was a victim according to you people, since the DA is 100% right if I took a plea deal", I'm actually guilty.
No. If you re-read my post I actually supported your decision.
Why do so many companies, for example, settle out of court? Is it because they are really guilty, and this is an easy way out?
Almost always because they are really guilty. A company rarely settles when it has completely clean hands in the matter.
But that is a civil court.
You are talking about a criminal matter. And it's much more serious. No matter if you were completely guitly, completely innocent, or somewhere in between, you did what you thought what was best for you and nobody can judge you on that. It's your life. Judges and juries are unpredicatable, and the outcomes are not always fair. So, somtimes it makes sense for an individual to settle.
Just as the other poster stated that "you would not have settled if you were innocent", neither would the DA have let you plead down if you had done something truly heneous.
I imagine there was some fault, some politics, and some just downright bad luck mixed into the whole incident. There usually is.
Then again, I wasn't there, so maybe the whole thing was a witch hunt. It happens.
I am just glad that you are here to post with us. Sucks that it's on your record, but you seem to be handling yourself well despite the matter. Kudos.
Also known as "tit for tat", which turns out to be the best strategy in a repeated "Prisoner's Dilemma" scenario. (Although that also requires being able to forgive after retaliating.)
Well, it's certainly better than my former "tit for cash" philosphy which turned out to be the best strategy in a repeated "Embarassing Moment" scenario.
Most pirates, don't need to know anything about cracking/pirating other than "what bitorrent" is..
I have never knowingly pirated a commercial software program. Ever. And I have been using computers since 1982.
However, if this WGA thing turn out to be true (which honestly it may not), then I will have no qualms about starting. I built my own computer and paid retail for XP Pro. If they are going to screw it up, it will be the last dollar from me.
I never illegally downloaded music until I started having spyware and rootkits installed on my machine, now I never buy CD's under any circumstances.
Morally, I consider it fair compensation now. Treat me right, I treat you right. You fuck me, I fuck you. Not a pretty motto, but I've always lived by it and it has worked for me more often than it hasn't.
In 2004 I bought an Averatec laptop computer with XP Home pre-installed. I have been using it for 2 years. Just last weekend I had a WGA pop-up telling me that WGA had determined that my copy of Windows was "not genuine" and to click a box to "correct" it.
I did not click the box, and I used Tiny Personal Firewall to block the phoning home of WGA. I paid for the Windows on the machine, and I am not jumping through hoops to prove it. Now, only very select connections can use the Internet through the firewall (which can suck while trying to use Wi-Fi in the airport), and I have to make sure that it cannot possibly phone home.
My main concern is that they will find a way to make it "phone home" during boot, before the firewall loads.
In any event, if the copy is disabled, I am actually one of the few who will actually take the time out of my busy life to file a civil suit at my local courthouse. Everyone says they will do these things in internet dick-swinging contests, but I actually will. I may not win, but I will do it anyway.
Also, I will pirate the living shit out of Microsoft software.
Again, assuming this rumor us true, which it very well may not be.
If i'm going to do the time, i'm going to do the time. Period.
Good point, but the fallacy of "I don't have the money to buy it" becomes really easy to rationalize.
Of course.
One need only look at the National Debt, credit cards, car loans, and interest-only mortgages as proof of this.
People do all kinds of outright kooky things in the name of not being able to purchase something they want.
I wasn't trying to argue that downloading copyrighted material was a correct thing to do. Only that, much like murder vs. speeding... some reasonable lines must be drawn against which two perceived misdeeds cannot be compared.
Downloading Britney Spears music may not be right (on more levels than I can address), but it's far from stealing a car.
My point is that if he doesn't have the funds to pay for something, or if he has the funds but doesn't want to spend them via a "trackable" method, then he's SOL.
"I want that new car, but I didn't have enough money, so I had no option but to take it."
"Those shoes look cool, but I don't have a credit card, so I had no option but to slip them under my jacket and walk out of the store."
While I think we all get your point, IMHO you have gotten a little carried away.
The above situations would remove a tangible product from circulation thus preventing someone who wanted to pay for it from doing so and removing real property from a place of business.
Downloading a file that you could not purchase even if you wanted to does no such thing.
We can argue the merits or evilness of such an act ad-nauseum, but some perspective and differences need to be pointed out when we start comparing it to stealing cars.
My guess is they want people to register for the same reason that internet petitions aren't worth crap -- anonymity is ultimately a form of obfuscation, and when you're trying to tell someone something they don't want to hear, they'll jump on any excuse to devalue the legitimacy of your position.
I just don't understand whatsoever how "registration" is supposed to make anything more credible by making people use "real" information.
Name: Joe Blow
Email Address: joeblow123456@yahoo.com
Postal Code: 12345
It's a ilttle silly to assume or even expect people to give real information on "registration" forms these days.
Grant it....it will slow you up a bit, but, will make you far less traceable. Set up anon. browsing, set up nym accounts for email...that will help your mail at least be encrypted, even from those who don't know how to use pgp.
* Tor - For anonymous browsing [eff.org]......
I really like the Tor product. Especially the plugin for Firefox.
Hoever, ironically, Slashdot and Wiki both block posting via Tor nodes.
It's not just the government and large corporations that have a problem with privacy.
"A computer expert told KATU News there is no way to know if someone is using your wireless connection without permission."
I don't know about you guys, but all of my wireless routers have a web interface that shows every MAC address and computer name that currently has an IP address assigned.
There certainly is a way to know if someone is using your wireless connection without permission.
It doesn't set off alarms and flash a big neon light saying "unauthorized access" or anything, but if at any point in time I want to see who is using my router, I can.
There are also little applets than can email access reports to you, and it would seem very simply to have the thing ping a URL which in turn would have the router send you an SMS or email for everytime someone logs on or off.
Something that the quoted "computer expert" might have wanted to mention instead of the inaccurate blanket statement "there is no way to know".
There is a way to know, most people who run wide open just don't care.
Sure you can... unless you signed up by credit/debit card or eft. If that's the case, your only recourse is to close the account. Of course their response may be to send your AOL account to a collection agency after their internal collection fails.
I've heard from someone in the business who should know, that the collection agency for AOL does not report to CRA's, because the CRA's got so many complaints and disputes about AOL that they no longer list "delinquent" AOL accounts on consumer credit reports.
Seems the customer gets the benefit of the doubt these days when AOL is involved, and no harm is done to the all important "credit report".
Of course, don't take what I am saying as gospel. Periodically check your reports (if you care about such things) after doing this, and go through the appropriate dispute mechanism. It is second hand information from a generally reliable source, but it appears that AOL collections don't have any teeth whatsover. Mostly just a bunch of threatening letters trying to squeeze a few dollars out of the guillable.
All the law requires is that you make a "good faith" effort to cancel your account.
If you make said effort, then cancel the billed account, you are covered legally. And the shots of AOL suing over the "debt" are pretty slim.
WSS has one big issue: they depend on cookies. If your browser doesn't accept their cookies, they don't track browser stats on your hits. If your browser only accepts their cookie for a session and then discards it, it skews their stats. And I'd bet that the majority of people who use FireFox have it set to not accept third-party cookies (cookies from outside the domain of the page being viewed).
Therein lies a very large rub. Since I agree that most Firefox users do not accept cookies across domains, the logical conclusion is that WSS does not count THE MAJORITY of Firefox hits.
I think simple webstats do a better job of gauging traffic from the User_Agent data.
I've looked over the actual stats of many, many sites other than the ones I am resonpsible for, and there is always a very large disconnect with what IE's market share is reported as being, and what something like Webalizer will report.
I've seen very, very few sites where IE still represents 90% of visits.
Like you said, there really is no realiable way to track such things on a general basis. But if what you say is true, the way WSS does it is very unfriendly to typical FF congifurations, and thus there will always be a natural skew to some degree away from the browser. I could be wrong, but I remains skeptical about those "market share" numbers. I just don't think they are accurate.
Perhaps they help identify general trends, but I don't think they are reflecting accurate market share.
I think it would be better if a bunch of sites just dumped the "User Agent" portion of their weblogs to some 3rd party beancounter. Still not perfect, but better than cookies.
And unique visit shouldn't matter that much. If 1 person visits a site 10 times, all ten hits should be counted. Those are legitimate visits. Surfing patterns of heavier users should count more than surfing patterns of casual users. A visit is a vist, IMHO.
I keep seeing WebSideStory and the other metrics put out stats, but the stats from the sites I manage don't mesh with them, and have not meshed with them in awhile.
I administer roughly 100 websites, ranging from downright soccer-mom commercial, to those oriented to the more tech savvy, and everything in between.
Last month I saw 37% of our users arrive via Firefox or other Mozilla project.
We also go up to.8% from Windows CE (mobile) web browsers.
I don't know how much stock I put in these various metrics. They always grossly underestimate non-IE browser from my experiences.
I guess it all depends on what site you measure. AOL.com probably gets 99% IE, while Slashdot probably gets 50% IE.
Unless you can measure the whole web, which is impossible, cherrypicking sites is always going to produce unreliable numbers.
I imagine that they poll mostly "mainstream" websites, but the fact is that such sites really account for an overwhleming minority of internet traffic.
If you leave the car unlocked and the key in the ignition, then you should be held liable for any damage caused by the car, no matter who's driving it. A car is a dangerous object, so the owner is responsible for taking at least some basic measures to prevent unauthorized operation of the vehicle.
Actually they are. If you lave your key in the car and the door unlocked, most insurance companies WON'T pay if your car gets stolen. Read that fine print. Most of them require "due diligence" or some similar wording.
The main problem? Proving that the person did not exercise due diligence can be hard or impossible.
Nobody is going to admit to leaving the door unlocked.
Let's hope most Americans don't really believe that's true.
By the people, for the people, and all of that happy shit.
Theoretically we are all the government, but we elect people to manage certain tasks and do certain things.
But most people here do see "the government" as some wholly seperate entity as many of our employees have kind of gone off to start their own side-businesses.
If government employees are doing something on government time in the process of doing their job, surely the government is doing that thing? (seeing as a government is, ultimately, just a group of people)
Technically, every American citizen is the government.
Slashdot Mirror
Nope. They give permission before you ever speak to this one.
Almost all of them state: "This call may be recorded for quality assurance".
That's legal consent to the call being recorded. That's why our AOL cancellation friend who's call was widely disseminated was able to do exactly what he did without violating any laws.
Perhaps the BBB will help with a small issue, but more often they will just put something in a companies file and a few months later declare it "resolved" (whether it was or wasn't resolved).
The BBB is run by the businesses that it purports to "rate". You would be suprised at home many people think the BBB is some kind of government entity that can make companies do one thing or another.
In reality, it is merely a trade group that businesses purchase a membership to, and it heads off expensive legal action by giving the consumer someplace to complain and blow off stream instead of running off to a lawyer to seek class status.
The BBB also exists to promite it's member businesses. In actuality, it is simply an advertising and marketing company that exists to protect its members.
It still boggles my mind to this day when I hear people say "I'll complain to the BBB!", without realizing that this is exactly what the offending company wants you to do. Every time you acknowledge that organization, you give it credibility that it does not resolve.
Ignore the BBB. It's a sham and a scam. Okay, if it's a minor issue that won't cost the company much maybe they will make things right if you seem serious enough that you may go to a lawyer, but in general, those who think the BBB is "looking out for them" are just severely misinformed.
The BBB looks out for it's members.
That would be like, 50,000+ violations per page.
Don't say I didn't warn you when they knock on your door.
No. If you re-read my post I actually supported your decision.
Almost always because they are really guilty. A company rarely settles when it has completely clean hands in the matter.
But that is a civil court.
You are talking about a criminal matter. And it's much more serious. No matter if you were completely guitly, completely innocent, or somewhere in between, you did what you thought what was best for you and nobody can judge you on that. It's your life. Judges and juries are unpredicatable, and the outcomes are not always fair. So, somtimes it makes sense for an individual to settle.
Just as the other poster stated that "you would not have settled if you were innocent", neither would the DA have let you plead down if you had done something truly heneous.
I imagine there was some fault, some politics, and some just downright bad luck mixed into the whole incident. There usually is.
Then again, I wasn't there, so maybe the whole thing was a witch hunt. It happens.
I am just glad that you are here to post with us. Sucks that it's on your record, but you seem to be handling yourself well despite the matter. Kudos.
Wrong link to the "Embarassing Moment" scenario, but that's the least of my problems.
Well, it's certainly better than my former "tit for cash" philosphy which turned out to be the best strategy in a repeated "Embarassing Moment" scenario.
Uh, and the crime too.
then run the WGA crack that you got from here..G enuine_Advantage_WGA_v3_3_1_5_540_0_Taag
http://www.torrentspy.com/torrent/782179/Windows_
Most pirates, don't need to know anything about cracking/pirating other than "what bitorrent" is..
I have never knowingly pirated a commercial software program. Ever. And I have been using computers since 1982.
However, if this WGA thing turn out to be true (which honestly it may not), then I will have no qualms about starting. I built my own computer and paid retail for XP Pro. If they are going to screw it up, it will be the last dollar from me.
I never illegally downloaded music until I started having spyware and rootkits installed on my machine, now I never buy CD's under any circumstances.
Morally, I consider it fair compensation now. Treat me right, I treat you right. You fuck me, I fuck you. Not a pretty motto, but I've always lived by it and it has worked for me more often than it hasn't.
In 2004 I bought an Averatec laptop computer with XP Home pre-installed. I have been using it for 2 years. Just last weekend I had a WGA pop-up telling me that WGA had determined that my copy of Windows was "not genuine" and to click a box to "correct" it.
I did not click the box, and I used Tiny Personal Firewall to block the phoning home of WGA. I paid for the Windows on the machine, and I am not jumping through hoops to prove it. Now, only very select connections can use the Internet through the firewall (which can suck while trying to use Wi-Fi in the airport), and I have to make sure that it cannot possibly phone home.
My main concern is that they will find a way to make it "phone home" during boot, before the firewall loads.
In any event, if the copy is disabled, I am actually one of the few who will actually take the time out of my busy life to file a civil suit at my local courthouse. Everyone says they will do these things in internet dick-swinging contests, but I actually will. I may not win, but I will do it anyway.
Also, I will pirate the living shit out of Microsoft software.
Again, assuming this rumor us true, which it very well may not be.
If i'm going to do the time, i'm going to do the time. Period.
Of course.
One need only look at the National Debt, credit cards, car loans, and interest-only mortgages as proof of this.
People do all kinds of outright kooky things in the name of not being able to purchase something they want.
I wasn't trying to argue that downloading copyrighted material was a correct thing to do. Only that, much like murder vs. speeding ... some reasonable lines must be drawn against which two perceived misdeeds cannot be compared.
Downloading Britney Spears music may not be right (on more levels than I can address), but it's far from stealing a car.
Well, not yet.
P2P is still alive and well.
They are TRYING to make him SOL.
Actually, you just roughly described the business model of a record label.
"Those shoes look cool, but I don't have a credit card, so I had no option but to slip them under my jacket and walk out of the store."
While I think we all get your point, IMHO you have gotten a little carried away.
The above situations would remove a tangible product from circulation thus preventing someone who wanted to pay for it from doing so and removing real property from a place of business.
Downloading a file that you could not purchase even if you wanted to does no such thing.
We can argue the merits or evilness of such an act ad-nauseum, but some perspective and differences need to be pointed out when we start comparing it to stealing cars.
I just don't understand whatsoever how "registration" is supposed to make anything more credible by making people use "real" information.
Name: Joe Blow
Email Address: joeblow123456@yahoo.com
Postal Code: 12345
It's a ilttle silly to assume or even expect people to give real information on "registration" forms these days.
BTW, my real name isn't Asphalt.
For all intents and purposes there is no way to know?????
Simply type http://192.168.1.1/ .... enter you username and password, and LOOK.
I really don't know how much easier it could be.
That doesn't mean that it's impossible ... which is what the article stated.
I don't know many people that have seen spidermonkeys in the wild. This doesn't mean an article stating they don't exist is correct.
* Tor - For anonymous browsing [eff.org] ......
I really like the Tor product. Especially the plugin for Firefox.
Hoever, ironically, Slashdot and Wiki both block posting via Tor nodes.
It's not just the government and large corporations that have a problem with privacy.
I don't know about you guys, but all of my wireless routers have a web interface that shows every MAC address and computer name that currently has an IP address assigned.
There certainly is a way to know if someone is using your wireless connection without permission.
It doesn't set off alarms and flash a big neon light saying "unauthorized access" or anything, but if at any point in time I want to see who is using my router, I can.
There are also little applets than can email access reports to you, and it would seem very simply to have the thing ping a URL which in turn would have the router send you an SMS or email for everytime someone logs on or off.
Something that the quoted "computer expert" might have wanted to mention instead of the inaccurate blanket statement "there is no way to know".
There is a way to know, most people who run wide open just don't care.
I've heard from someone in the business who should know, that the collection agency for AOL does not report to CRA's, because the CRA's got so many complaints and disputes about AOL that they no longer list "delinquent" AOL accounts on consumer credit reports.
Seems the customer gets the benefit of the doubt these days when AOL is involved, and no harm is done to the all important "credit report".
Of course, don't take what I am saying as gospel. Periodically check your reports (if you care about such things) after doing this, and go through the appropriate dispute mechanism. It is second hand information from a generally reliable source, but it appears that AOL collections don't have any teeth whatsover. Mostly just a bunch of threatening letters trying to squeeze a few dollars out of the guillable.
All the law requires is that you make a "good faith" effort to cancel your account.
If you make said effort, then cancel the billed account, you are covered legally. And the shots of AOL suing over the "debt" are pretty slim.
Therein lies a very large rub. Since I agree that most Firefox users do not accept cookies across domains, the logical conclusion is that WSS does not count THE MAJORITY of Firefox hits.
I think simple webstats do a better job of gauging traffic from the User_Agent data.
I've looked over the actual stats of many, many sites other than the ones I am resonpsible for, and there is always a very large disconnect with what IE's market share is reported as being, and what something like Webalizer will report.
I've seen very, very few sites where IE still represents 90% of visits.
Like you said, there really is no realiable way to track such things on a general basis. But if what you say is true, the way WSS does it is very unfriendly to typical FF congifurations, and thus there will always be a natural skew to some degree away from the browser. I could be wrong, but I remains skeptical about those "market share" numbers. I just don't think they are accurate.
Perhaps they help identify general trends, but I don't think they are reflecting accurate market share.
I think it would be better if a bunch of sites just dumped the "User Agent" portion of their weblogs to some 3rd party beancounter. Still not perfect, but better than cookies.
And unique visit shouldn't matter that much. If 1 person visits a site 10 times, all ten hits should be counted. Those are legitimate visits. Surfing patterns of heavier users should count more than surfing patterns of casual users. A visit is a vist, IMHO.
I administer roughly 100 websites, ranging from downright soccer-mom commercial, to those oriented to the more tech savvy, and everything in between.
Last month I saw 37% of our users arrive via Firefox or other Mozilla project.
We also go up to .8% from Windows CE (mobile) web browsers.
I don't know how much stock I put in these various metrics. They always grossly underestimate non-IE browser from my experiences.
I guess it all depends on what site you measure. AOL.com probably gets 99% IE, while Slashdot probably gets 50% IE.
Unless you can measure the whole web, which is impossible, cherrypicking sites is always going to produce unreliable numbers.
I imagine that they poll mostly "mainstream" websites, but the fact is that such sites really account for an overwhleming minority of internet traffic.
Actually they are. If you lave your key in the car and the door unlocked, most insurance companies WON'T pay if your car gets stolen. Read that fine print. Most of them require "due diligence" or some similar wording.
The main problem? Proving that the person did not exercise due diligence can be hard or impossible.
Nobody is going to admit to leaving the door unlocked.
By the people, for the people, and all of that happy shit.
Theoretically we are all the government, but we elect people to manage certain tasks and do certain things.
But most people here do see "the government" as some wholly seperate entity as many of our employees have kind of gone off to start their own side-businesses.
Must your analysis of the situation be so technical?
Technically, every American citizen is the government.