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User: base3

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  1. The PowerPoint was an excellent read. on Massachusetts Sues to Halt Defcon Subway Hacking Talk · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Thanks, Judge! I'd have never know it existed had you not tried to censor it.

  2. Good news and bad news on Why COBOL Could Come Back · · Score: 5, Funny

    Good news: There's a job for someone with legacy COBOL skills because the State of California needs someone to update their payroll software to pay their workers minimum wage.

    Bad news: The gig pays minimum age.

  3. Re:WTF on IT Repair Installs Webcam Spying Software · · Score: 1

    Nice spam there. Is your commission based on referrer?

  4. Re:Another BS Patent on IBM Granted "Paper-or-Plastic?" Patent · · Score: 1

    More importantly, I really want my debit card to store preferred language settings. I'm rather sick of the ATMs asking which language to use before doing anything.

    Glad I'm not the only one amazed they haven't done that. Bad enough I have to specify English, much less do it every flipping time.

  5. Re:What, me change MAC address? I wouldn't do that on Tufts Tells Judge, We Can't Tie IP To MAC Addresses · · Score: 1

    I was thinking the same thing--I'd never do something like that in an unknown environment without having already come up with some "good answer" for the low-level network fascist that might question what I was doing. I would think the least painful way to deal with restrictions in a NAC/NAP environment like often exists in residence halls (the test bed before they roll it out to everyone, unfortunately) is to hook up a healthy, compliant, good-boy Windows box and then connect your actual machine through the "blessed" Windows machine. Of course, if one of the conditions for NAC/NAP "health" is not running a DHCP server, that won't work.

  6. Re:What, me change MAC address? I wouldn't do that on Tufts Tells Judge, We Can't Tie IP To MAC Addresses · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Hardware keyloggers are expensive/hard to get.

    While I've never bought one, they seem to be readily available although buying one untraceably would be a bit more difficult (but not impossible) which would be a necessary step to avoid having the keylogger found and an investigator simply asking (perhaps under subpoena) the selling company for the purchase information for that (probably serialized) keylogger.

  7. Re:uhhh on Source Claims 240K Kindles Sold · · Score: 2, Insightful

    With DRM/TPMs being legally protected now there's a big push in the copyright industry to move to protected digital forms. When content is surrounded by DRM/TPMs then they can remove fair use or anything that law makers provide.

    I'm normally among the first to smell a Treacherous Computing/Digital Restrictions Management dystopia, but can't "e-paper" be photocopied or scanned? I'm picturing a solenoid or two and a short program that synchronizes the "next page" button with the "scan/copy" button here.

  8. Re:Sex on How Do Geeks Exercise? · · Score: 1

    Chicks dig the subjunctive.

  9. Re:Custom Firmware Debate... on Second Mac Clone Maker Set To Sell, With a Twist · · Score: 1

    I didn't offer you anything you didn't already have a right to, just like the software EULA doesn't. And while I agree that my posts are of limited pecuniary value, the warm fuzzies people all over the world get from them are sufficient to make them consideration.

  10. Re:Custom Firmware Debate... on Second Mac Clone Maker Set To Sell, With a Twist · · Score: 1

    Then given the consideration of your right to read this post, you agree to pay me one dollar. Pretty much the same thing--I just gave you the "consideration" of something you already own, just like a end user license "agreeement" claims to do.

  11. Re:Custom Firmware Debate... on Second Mac Clone Maker Set To Sell, With a Twist · · Score: 1

    If you accept the license he offers, and you receive something in return (you do - the right to install the software)

    That's not consideration; the user already paid for that when he bought the box. Decisions based on it being consideration are erroneous--and yes, I'm a layman, but it's so damn obvious that judges ought to understand it too.

  12. Re:Custom Firmware Debate... on Second Mac Clone Maker Set To Sell, With a Twist · · Score: 1

    Sure I can, Mr. AC. An invalid contract is the same thing as no contract.

  13. Comcast's likely reaction to any FCC "punishment": on FCC Votes To Punish Comcast · · Score: 5, Funny

    Ow, my wrist!

  14. Re:Custom Firmware Debate... on Second Mac Clone Maker Set To Sell, With a Twist · · Score: 1

    A couple of examples of unconscionable provisions in many EULAs: anti-benchmarking clauses; waiver of the right to resell. I'm sure there are more, but I don't bother reading them because they're not really contracts anyway :).

  15. Re:Custom Firmware Debate... on Second Mac Clone Maker Set To Sell, With a Twist · · Score: 1

    Forcing an end user to click an "I agree" button to install a product he already purchased is a contract of adhesion and invalid on it's face anyway. Software, which vendors claim to be "licensed" and not sold, passes the "duck test" for a sale, and it's only a matter of time and a shift in the generation in the judiciary before that truth is acknowledged and erroneous decisions of the past upholding end-user license "agreements" are overturned.

  16. Re:Custom Firmware Debate... on Second Mac Clone Maker Set To Sell, With a Twist · · Score: 1

    I don't think it's that cut and dried. See Softman v. Adobe.

  17. Re:Custom Firmware Debate... on Second Mac Clone Maker Set To Sell, With a Twist · · Score: 1

    For all but pure legalists, compliance with most civil laws or contracts (and it's by no means certain EULAs are indeed contracts) is a decision based on whether the perceived personal gain for breaking the law/contract exceeds the expected penalty (i.e. the product of the magnitude of the penalty and the probability of it being applied). The post to which you replying to made the salient point that the probability of the punishment being applied is very near zero.

  18. Re:Which is cheaper? on Second Mac Clone Maker Set To Sell, With a Twist · · Score: 1

    You forgot to make a car analogy in which the Mac is a Maserati or Bentley and the PC is a Hyundai or a Yugo. Of course, I'd lash out with anger and sarcasm at anyone who pointed out how stupid I was if I spent double on commodity hardware, too :).

  19. Re:The Tenuous EULA Claim Apple May Make on Second Mac Clone Maker Set To Sell, With a Twist · · Score: 1

    At least one piece of U.S. case law disagrees with that contention. Adobe tried that argument (Softman v. Adobe) and lost. First Sale applies in the absence of a real contract--a software vendor's Diktat shrinkwrap "agreement" doesn't cut it.

  20. Re:Hardware/Software on Second Mac Clone Maker Set To Sell, With a Twist · · Score: 1

    I don't know if it'll run the current version of MVS/OS390/zOS, but have you seen this?

  21. Re:A good summary on Second Mac Clone Maker Set To Sell, With a Twist · · Score: 1

    Napster was shut down even though they didn't steal any music. They had a ton of cash, yet they ran out of appeals. It isn't easy to buy a judgement.

    In that ruling, I'm pretty certain the MAFIAA had more money with which to buy any necessary rulings than did Napster.

  22. Re:Guidance Software will tell you how (or how not on Are There Any Smart E-mail Retention Policies? · · Score: 1

    Guidance Software? Talk about being hoisted on one's own petard! If I were plaintiff's counsel (IANAL), I'd fry them with their association with forensics and imply that it's awfully convenient that they "lost" incriminating email unrecoverably.

  23. Re:Stuff that matters on Are There Any Smart E-mail Retention Policies? · · Score: 1

    The first rule of unauthorized archives is "don't talk about unauthorized archives."

  24. Re:What are they trying to hide? on Are There Any Smart E-mail Retention Policies? · · Score: 1

    Actually, given the reactive nature of typical organizations, I'd say that's a safe bet.

  25. Re:Only 15 people opted out... on ISP Embarq Monitors User Traffic · · Score: 1

    Read the Gramm-Leach-Bliley "privacy" notices your banks and insurance companies send you every year. They use that same "permitted by law" wording. They assume (sadly, correctly) that most of their customers don't know the difference between the words "permitted" and "required" and/or don't care.