The one major difference between this and satellite or cable-modem systems is that it is truly wireless. With satellite systems it is wireless, but you still need a fixed dish. 56K dialup can compete with that in just about any location. Radio waves do not require a fixed dish, so they can be accessed from mobile locations, such as cars. If this is marketed properly, for situations where upstream bandwidth is extremely limited or even nonexistant, this could be a great thing for certain mobile uses. Imagine being able to make a quick 1 minute phone call on your mobile phone and then getting Sgt. Peppers streamed to you in your car. That is the killer app, in my opinion.
Anyone have this know how open it is? It'd be kind of neat to have my upstream connection at home and just download mp3s randomly, then tap into the downstream from my car, for instance. With nextel's free incoming calls, I could even have my computer call my car, and get a really slow but usable upstream connection as well.
The main worry about
obscenity, the main reason for its proscription,
is not that it is harmful, which is the worry
behind the Indianapolis ordinance, but that it is
offensive.
I don't get it. Where is the ruling? I can understand how a national law would get struck down (10th Ammendment), but what in the constitution bans the state or local government from making this law? The 1st and 14th? Considering that the plaintiffs were the game manufacturers, not the minors, I don't see how the 1st ammendment applys. Manufacturers are allowed to make the speech. They're just not allowed to sell it to minors.
I disagree with the law, but I can't agree with the ruling at this point. States and local governments should have the ability to regulate commerce within the jurisdication without interference of the national government.
They did fix it - in order to exploit it, you had to send a message through AOL's servers. Harmful messages are now blocked at AOL's servers, so the exploit is no longer effective.
The scary part here is that AOL has basically admitted that it has a back door into every system which runs AIM. I wonder how that law about music companies (Time Warner) breaking into the machines of suspected copyright violators is going.
Not to mention simple DNS attacks, attacks from someone working at AOL, attacks from someone who broke into AOL's servers.
Could even be the next new "I love you" worm. Send an html link containing a registry edit to change the IP address of the AIM server to the person sending the link. Then when the user reconnects to what it thinks is the AIM server (which you could probably force in some way), hack in, start up its own fake AIM server, and send the link on to everyone in the users buddy list.
C'mon now, there are tons of man-in-the-middle exploits out there. When you download everybuddy or whatever IM software it is you use, do you really check the PGP key?
The same can and should be said about links and code then.
Just as you can't shout "fire" in a crowded theater under the guise of first amendment free speech, this law makes it illegal to send an unsolicited bulk email and lie about how you get removed from the mailing list.
Noone forces you to take code, and pay for it, before you can see what it is, and without you asking for it previously.
No one forces you to take email. The spammer's machine says "Hello" (actually HELO). Your machine says "Hey, what's up". The spammer's machine says "I have an email from blahblah@blah.blah". Your machine says "OK. I accept mail from that sender". The spammer's machine says "This mail is addressed to blahblah@blah.blah". Again, your machine can stop at this point, but instead it once again says "OK". Only at this point does the spammer send the mail, which still does not have to be stored by your computer.
It's very simple. If you don't want to receive unsolicited email, don't accept email from addresses you don't solicit.
So spam costs the recipient money.
This is nonsense. If you're so concerned about an extra 10 minutes a month to download a few hundred headers sign up for a Free ISP. They give you 10 hours.
Now all we have to do is have another state pass a law which contradicts the CA law and we can eliminate all spam. Since the CA law requires first four characters of the subject to be ADV:, all we need is for another state (say VA) to require that the first five characters of the subject to be SPAM:.
Of course there's no way the federal courts are going to let this ruling stand.
After seeing more than 13 times as many false positives as real positives, you won't have the guts to do anything to the people who test positive for lying.
You make a good point, but I think the reality of the situation will work a lot of that out. It seems obvious to me that airlines are not going to unnecessarily detain their paying customers for long periods of time. Quite simply, they'd lose too much money. Instead when they ask if you have been in possession of your bag at all times and you "lie", they open your bags or whatever it is they do when you answer "no" (having once checked in a friend's bags I can tell you for a fact that answering "no" doesn't cause any detainment, I assume they just search your bags by hand instead of by machine or whatever).
The way standard lie detectors work (and I assume this would also), there is a baseline established and the particular question which is a lie is detected. The mini-baton is pretty much built in.
Shouldn't be a problem that 1 out of 4 liars will get away and 1 in 10 innocents will be incorrectly nailed.
Most metal detectors probably let 1 out of 10 get away and incorrectly nail 1 out of 4. Hasn't stopped them from using it as one of many screening methods.
Advocating civil disobedience as a way to deal with abusive monopolies?
I'm not sure if doing something which may or may not be a crime under civil law, almost certainly isn't a crime under criminal law, and has almost zero chance of being caught could be considered civil disobedience.
Finally, something we agree on completely. =) Seems like a good place to end this little thread.
No I don't. I don't know what corporations have vulnerable gift cards and which ones have taken the (trivial) steps to make these devices relatively safe to use.
I was referring to Microsoft mainly, as I thought you were in your original statement. But still, the knowledge that there are vulnerabilities in any of the products is enough to make an educated decision - the decision to get more information before making a purchase, especially if there is a disclaimer of some sort on the product. If there is no disclaimer I would assume that the implied warranty of merchantibilty would apply, and your risk would be zero.
By allowing, and encouraging (through an avoidance of suppressive legislation, if not actual financial support) the independant review and disclosure of consumer goods. Such things as Bugtraq and other consumer watchdog organizations.
OK, I agree with you, but I'm under the impression that that's something that our current system already has.
>>consumers are likewise not going to expend money fixing any problem, no matter how severely it affects a corporation, until it starts to affect them.
I, as a consumer, am not in a position to fix security issues with products I purchase, or I most certainly would.
My point was that most consumers are not going to spend time or money fixing problems that only cost the business money, just as most businesses are not going to spend time or money fixing problems that only cost the consumers money. It's unfair to single out the businesses for not being philanthropic.
I don't have the source code to Windows or Outlook to fix those bugs or they'd be fixed by now.
I'm sure Microsoft would be willing to hire you for minimum wage to fix all bugs in Windows, if that statement were actually true.
Furthermore, assuming I know full well that a product from a given corpoation is full of security problems, and want to boycott it, what do I do if that corporation has a (judicially proven) abusive monopoly in that product space?
Borrow someone else's copy of that abusive monopoly product and burn it to CD. If Microsoft sues you for copyright infringement (which they won't), counter-sue.
A basic knowledge of assembly (and basic compiler theory) is absoluely essential to efficient programming in C. If you program in a higher level language (not C++) that knowledge is perhaps less useful.
Another good use for knowledge of assembly is in analysing certain crash dumps from software that was built optimised. When a highly important customer sends in a crash dump it's nice to be able to at least determine the line in the software that the error occurred, if for no other reason than to use as evidence to pass the buck to someone else.
With the lottery, they publish the odds of winning (in fine print, of course), but up until I saw this article I had no idea that buying a gift card represented any kind of a financial risk (other than the risk of physically losing the card, of course).
Unless there is some type of disclaimer, there is no financial risk other than losing the card (or the company going out of business). If the store tells you otherwise, you can sue them in small claims court and win.
Same thing to the corporation. Not the same to the consumer. (That's you, slick.)
No, same thing to society. If the money is lost, it's going to hurt the company one way or another (either lost future business or lawsuit settlements); which ultimately will hurt the consumer through higher prices.
Microsoft wants to keep you from ever finding out that there are any problems with their product. Being stupid and not being allowed to have enough information to make an educated decision are most certainly -not- the same thing.
"This software is sold as-is" is all the information you need. Plus, obviously you are incorrect about not being allowed to have enough information, since you apparently have this information.
I like capitalism fine. I just advocate a system that gives corporations a significant capitalist interest in promptly and proactively fixing problems with their products that put their customers' money (gift cards), health (aspartame and other drugs), or lives (automobiles) at risk.
And how exactly would you enact such a system? Lawsuits and free choice seem like a fine solution to me. If the legal system were perfect, the Fight Club cost/benefit analysis would also be perfect. True, the legal system isn't perfect, but that doesn't seem to be what you're complaining about. You seem to be blaming corporations for the problems with the legal system. Well one thing about human nature is that both corporations and consumers are going to exploit any holes they can find in the legal system. Short of banning corporations, you're not going to fix that, and even if you did ban corporations individual business owners would take up the slack.
Businesses are not going to expend money fixing any problem, no matter how severly it affects me as a customer, until it starts to affect their profitability.
In general, you are right, but consumers are likewise not going to expend money fixing any problem, no matter how severely it affects a corporation, until it starts to affect them. If you make corporations liable for stolen gift cards, the consumer is not going protect the gift card against being stolen. Unscrupulous consumers will probably even sell copies of their gift cards at a discounted rate.
My goal as a security-conscious consumer is to -make- it the corporation's best interest to fix any problems that would have a detrimental effect on me as quickly as possible.
As a security-conscious consumer I don't see why you'd ever buy a gift card in the first place. To fix the problem, give the person cash. Circuit City has no responsibility to provide you with gift cards on your terms. They offer the product, and you have the choice to buy it or not. It's sad that we've become a society dependent on having the government protect us from ourselves, to the point where we don't even read the disclaimers on the products we buy.
Slashdot Mirror
The one major difference between this and satellite or cable-modem systems is that it is truly wireless. With satellite systems it is wireless, but you still need a fixed dish. 56K dialup can compete with that in just about any location. Radio waves do not require a fixed dish, so they can be accessed from mobile locations, such as cars. If this is marketed properly, for situations where upstream bandwidth is extremely limited or even nonexistant, this could be a great thing for certain mobile uses. Imagine being able to make a quick 1 minute phone call on your mobile phone and then getting Sgt. Peppers streamed to you in your car. That is the killer app, in my opinion.
Anyone have this know how open it is? It'd be kind of neat to have my upstream connection at home and just download mp3s randomly, then tap into the downstream from my car, for instance. With nextel's free incoming calls, I could even have my computer call my car, and get a really slow but usable upstream connection as well.
http://www.ca7.uscourts.gov/op3.fwx?yr=00&num=3643 &Submit1=Request+Opinion
I don't get it. Where is the ruling? I can understand how a national law would get struck down (10th Ammendment), but what in the constitution bans the state or local government from making this law? The 1st and 14th? Considering that the plaintiffs were the game manufacturers, not the minors, I don't see how the 1st ammendment applys. Manufacturers are allowed to make the speech. They're just not allowed to sell it to minors.
I disagree with the law, but I can't agree with the ruling at this point. States and local governments should have the ability to regulate commerce within the jurisdication without interference of the national government.
They did fix it - in order to exploit it, you had to send a message through AOL's servers. Harmful messages are now blocked at AOL's servers, so the exploit is no longer effective.
The scary part here is that AOL has basically admitted that it has a back door into every system which runs AIM. I wonder how that law about music companies (Time Warner) breaking into the machines of suspected copyright violators is going.
Not to mention simple DNS attacks, attacks from someone working at AOL, attacks from someone who broke into AOL's servers.
Could even be the next new "I love you" worm. Send an html link containing a registry edit to change the IP address of the AIM server to the person sending the link. Then when the user reconnects to what it thinks is the AIM server (which you could probably force in some way), hack in, start up its own fake AIM server, and send the link on to everyone in the users buddy list.
Familiar with the concept of packet insertion?
C'mon now, there are tons of man-in-the-middle exploits out there. When you download everybuddy or whatever IM software it is you use, do you really check the PGP key?
However... it might not be protected speech.
The same can and should be said about links and code then.
Just as you can't shout "fire" in a crowded theater under the guise of first amendment free speech, this law makes it illegal to send an unsolicited bulk email and lie about how you get removed from the mailing list.
This law does more than just that.
Spam cost me money in a direct and demonstratable manner....therefore it is not and should not be protected by law.
How much did spam cost you in December of 2001? Please, demonstrate that direct manner.
Noone forces you to take code, and pay for it, before you can see what it is, and without you asking for it previously.
No one forces you to take email. The spammer's machine says "Hello" (actually HELO). Your machine says "Hey, what's up". The spammer's machine says "I have an email from blahblah@blah.blah". Your machine says "OK. I accept mail from that sender". The spammer's machine says "This mail is addressed to blahblah@blah.blah". Again, your machine can stop at this point, but instead it once again says "OK". Only at this point does the spammer send the mail, which still does not have to be stored by your computer.
It's very simple. If you don't want to receive unsolicited email, don't accept email from addresses you don't solicit.
So spam costs the recipient money.
This is nonsense. If you're so concerned about an extra 10 minutes a month to download a few hundred headers sign up for a Free ISP. They give you 10 hours.
Now all we have to do is have another state pass a law which contradicts the CA law and we can eliminate all spam. Since the CA law requires first four characters of the subject to be ADV:, all we need is for another state (say VA) to require that the first five characters of the subject to be SPAM:.
Of course there's no way the federal courts are going to let this ruling stand.
Let me get this straight. Links are speech. Code is speech. But e-mail is not speech?
After seeing more than 13 times as many false positives as real positives, you won't have the guts to do anything to the people who test positive for lying.
You make a good point, but I think the reality of the situation will work a lot of that out. It seems obvious to me that airlines are not going to unnecessarily detain their paying customers for long periods of time. Quite simply, they'd lose too much money. Instead when they ask if you have been in possession of your bag at all times and you "lie", they open your bags or whatever it is they do when you answer "no" (having once checked in a friend's bags I can tell you for a fact that answering "no" doesn't cause any detainment, I assume they just search your bags by hand instead of by machine or whatever).
I guess we'll just have to call these devices "mini hot flush detectors". That'll solve that problem.
The way standard lie detectors work (and I assume this would also), there is a baseline established and the particular question which is a lie is detected. The mini-baton is pretty much built in.
I'm referring to metal detectors ability to detect weapons, not metal.
Shouldn't be a problem that 1 out of 4 liars will get away and 1 in 10 innocents will be incorrectly nailed.
Most metal detectors probably let 1 out of 10 get away and incorrectly nail 1 out of 4. Hasn't stopped them from using it as one of many screening methods.
Gee, it's not like the Linux crowd has been trying to do this to Microsoft for the past 10 years or anything.
The ironic part being that this illegally obtained or (more likely) libelous story is a perfect example.
The smart people were already shorting at that point.
And most of those "smart people" got burned with margin calls, forcing them to close their positions long before the bubble burst.
Advocating civil disobedience as a way to deal with abusive monopolies?
I'm not sure if doing something which may or may not be a crime under civil law, almost certainly isn't a crime under criminal law, and has almost zero chance of being caught could be considered civil disobedience.
Finally, something we agree on completely. =) Seems like a good place to end this little thread.
Absolutely :).
No I don't. I don't know what corporations have vulnerable gift cards and which ones have taken the (trivial) steps to make these devices relatively safe to use.
I was referring to Microsoft mainly, as I thought you were in your original statement. But still, the knowledge that there are vulnerabilities in any of the products is enough to make an educated decision - the decision to get more information before making a purchase, especially if there is a disclaimer of some sort on the product. If there is no disclaimer I would assume that the implied warranty of merchantibilty would apply, and your risk would be zero.
By allowing, and encouraging (through an avoidance of suppressive legislation, if not actual financial support) the independant review and disclosure of consumer goods. Such things as Bugtraq and other consumer watchdog organizations.
OK, I agree with you, but I'm under the impression that that's something that our current system already has.
>>consumers are likewise not going to expend money fixing any problem, no matter how severely it affects a corporation, until it starts to affect them.
I, as a consumer, am not in a position to fix security issues with products I purchase, or I most certainly would.
My point was that most consumers are not going to spend time or money fixing problems that only cost the business money, just as most businesses are not going to spend time or money fixing problems that only cost the consumers money. It's unfair to single out the businesses for not being philanthropic.
I don't have the source code to Windows or Outlook to fix those bugs or they'd be fixed by now.
I'm sure Microsoft would be willing to hire you for minimum wage to fix all bugs in Windows, if that statement were actually true.
Furthermore, assuming I know full well that a product from a given corpoation is full of security problems, and want to boycott it, what do I do if that corporation has a (judicially proven) abusive monopoly in that product space?
Borrow someone else's copy of that abusive monopoly product and burn it to CD. If Microsoft sues you for copyright infringement (which they won't), counter-sue.
A basic knowledge of assembly (and basic compiler theory) is absoluely essential to efficient programming in C. If you program in a higher level language (not C++) that knowledge is perhaps less useful.
Another good use for knowledge of assembly is in analysing certain crash dumps from software that was built optimised. When a highly important customer sends in a crash dump it's nice to be able to at least determine the line in the software that the error occurred, if for no other reason than to use as evidence to pass the buck to someone else.
With the lottery, they publish the odds of winning (in fine print, of course), but up until I saw this article I had no idea that buying a gift card represented any kind of a financial risk (other than the risk of physically losing the card, of course).
Unless there is some type of disclaimer, there is no financial risk other than losing the card (or the company going out of business). If the store tells you otherwise, you can sue them in small claims court and win.
.Same thing to the corporation. Not the same to the consumer. (That's you, slick.)
No, same thing to society. If the money is lost, it's going to hurt the company one way or another (either lost future business or lawsuit settlements); which ultimately will hurt the consumer through higher prices.
Microsoft wants to keep you from ever finding out that there are any problems with their product. Being stupid and not being allowed to have enough information to make an educated decision are most certainly -not- the same thing.
"This software is sold as-is" is all the information you need. Plus, obviously you are incorrect about not being allowed to have enough information, since you apparently have this information.
I like capitalism fine. I just advocate a system that gives corporations a significant capitalist interest in promptly and proactively fixing problems with their products that put their customers' money (gift cards), health (aspartame and other drugs), or lives (automobiles) at risk.
And how exactly would you enact such a system? Lawsuits and free choice seem like a fine solution to me. If the legal system were perfect, the Fight Club cost/benefit analysis would also be perfect. True, the legal system isn't perfect, but that doesn't seem to be what you're complaining about. You seem to be blaming corporations for the problems with the legal system. Well one thing about human nature is that both corporations and consumers are going to exploit any holes they can find in the legal system. Short of banning corporations, you're not going to fix that, and even if you did ban corporations individual business owners would take up the slack.
Businesses are not going to expend money fixing any problem, no matter how severly it affects me as a customer, until it starts to affect their profitability.
In general, you are right, but consumers are likewise not going to expend money fixing any problem, no matter how severely it affects a corporation, until it starts to affect them. If you make corporations liable for stolen gift cards, the consumer is not going protect the gift card against being stolen. Unscrupulous consumers will probably even sell copies of their gift cards at a discounted rate.
My goal as a security-conscious consumer is to -make- it the corporation's best interest to fix any problems that would have a detrimental effect on me as quickly as possible.
As a security-conscious consumer I don't see why you'd ever buy a gift card in the first place. To fix the problem, give the person cash. Circuit City has no responsibility to provide you with gift cards on your terms. They offer the product, and you have the choice to buy it or not. It's sad that we've become a society dependent on having the government protect us from ourselves, to the point where we don't even read the disclaimers on the products we buy.
That's not a federal law, it's a state law.