I was doing research on spam as well, and although I didn't get an instant flood of spam the level was quite substantial after two months:
Put your address in your USENET posts (From field)
Search online for typical spammer front-ends: join mailing lists with keywords mortgage, easy money, free money, cash, get rich, advertising, home business
Use your address to sign up for other spammy things, like pornography, vacation offers, credit inquiries
Unsubscribe a few days after you subscribe. Ha ha! 'Unsubscribe', I love that term. Seriously though, the spammers will sell your addresses to others and you'll get a healthy flow of spam soon enough.
For me the value of Internet access comes down to two (very noble) reasons: Communication, and Information
I can communicate with anyone in the world over email, instant messenging, and newsgroups -- all free; remember that telcos would charge a fortune if you did this over long distance telephone.
The access to Information aspect is huge. I work in the Engineering field, and if I ever run across something I don't know it's only a Google, Yahoo, or AltaVista search away. Anything I'll ever need: historic publications, circuit diagrams, data sheets, research papers, discussion forums are out there for free.
Note the various inaccuracies in the article. First, SiteFinder (despite its name) doesn't "search" for domain or anything; it is simply a wildcard that catches all lookups right on the COM and NET root servers. This is exceedingly simple to setup; there's no 'technology' involved.
Also, users of course do not get a 404 when a domain doesn't exist. The domain freakin' doesn't exist, so the DNS lookup itself fails (should get NXDOMAIN) and the browser reports an error in domain resolution.
But this is nice; I want to see all these leeches in the cybersquatting and "World Wide Web" enhancement business pitted against each other.
Seems like not answering to port 25 would fulfill all your mail rejection needs.
What are you, crazy? You're saying that if no service exists at an address then nothing should be returned? You obviously don't have a business degree and don't work for Verisign. Returning nothing would clearly waste valuable potential for new business.
Here's what I find interesting: Slashdot links to a neat-o geek recipe for a toy, and the first thing many Slashdotters think about is the Intellectual Property status of the recipe.
Damn right!! This is what happens when we're inundated with stories about business controlling and dictating technology. You've hit the nail on the head, this is the ultimate reason geeks get pissed off at the DMCA, RIAA, SCO, Microsoft -- they know that all these legal issues are hurting their freedom to experiment and innovate with technology.
Europe and the United States will fall behind Asia, because we are losing our freedom to innovate. We care so much about protecting big companies' bottom lines that we fail to allow for the freedom to play. As we all know, play = learn = grow.
Use cash your entire life and there's no way you're going to get a mortgage
I don't use cash for everything. I still own a credit card and make large purchases on it (computer equipment, textbooks) -- but there is little point to using a credit card for small purchases; it's hardly worth the risk.
We North Americans depend too much on plastic. I now make an effort to use cash whenever I can. With credit and debit transactions there are stubs with identifiers created, and often carelessly disposed off. Benefits of using cash over plastic:
Eliminates the chance of a stranger/criminal finding your account #, PIN, or card numbers
Keeps you out of advertising/purchasing habits databases which all credit card companies keep
Helps you stay out of debt by spending only what you actually have in your hand
I think it's important to establish responsibility for a domain name. A domain is an important entity on the modern Internet -- a top level domain occupies precious space in a root server's database; increases the time and bandwidth required for zone transfers; and provides a potential new destination for tons of e-mail. I think it's important to require transparent "residency" identification on domains.
I've owned my domain since 1998 and have been bothered on the phone very little. However I have purchased a P.O. box to list, since giving out my home address does seem risky. I would like to remove my phone number from the listing -- so I appreciate these privacy concerns, but how can we protect peoples' privacy and also have domain ownership clear? And accomplish it without establishing a decision-making authority such as Verisign (yikes!), governments, etc?
When I read the previous slashdot post about CDRs rapidly decaying (even becoming unreadable in a few years) I had trouble believing this... but I ran my own tests using the "Nero CD Speed" tool's ScanDisc option.
What I found was that my 3 to 4 year old archival CDs had anywhere between 20% to 50% of their surface damaged; they had (recoverable) errors. This spanned multiple brands, including Memorex, Acer, and HP.
Remember that data correction algorithms can recover from minor errors, but if data is becoming damaged this quickly it will be not too long before data is actually lost on CDRs.
Great point! That's why you should keep an eye on some foreign media sources. While the US may lead the modern world it also blinds all its own citizens; get a second opinion, check out The BBC, CBC, and The Guardian
Caching webpages in a proxy is something all ISPs do. The downside is that whenever I've used an ISPs squid proxy, it slowed things down!
I've had the same experience. The dolts at my ISP couldn't configure the invisible caching proxy correctly (note: this bastard of a technology intercepts ALL tcp connections on port 80). Result? Stalled page fetches, failures for no real reason (i.e. the site was actually still alive) and stale information that couldn't be updated by refresh.
That was one experience that made me realize what a bad idea it is to mess around with invisible processing/filtering at the transport layer. An ISP should * not * screw around with TCP/IP packets I want to send or receive. If I want to use their proxy, I should have to set it manually.
They never claim you're clear from prosecution. Merely free of procescution from the RIAA. Law enforcment does this type of thing all the time.
You're right, and this is why in general you should never reveal any information that incriminates yourself without advice from a lawyer. If anyone ever presses you into admitting guilt, something is awry.
Reminds me of a recent experience one of my friends had. Police had found some pot in his dorm room, and a cop asked my friend, "off the record, why is a good guy like you involved in drugs? just between you and me buddy". My friend revealed too much information (i.e. admission of ownership) at this point, and he got in trouble for it. (Note: he's in Canada so he didn't get in any real trouble).
Admit nothing. With P2P I really don't even think sharing music files I own is illegal in the first place. The RIAA is pressing hard to impress on people a sense of guilt for wrongdoing; people are not necessarily guilty of breaking the law by using P2P apps.
By "grow up" I mean they must change with the times. The nature of digital media is that it is meant to be easily copied. This is why it's digitally encoded so that duplicates can be made without losing any quality. THAT IS BY DESIGN.
Growing up with digital computers (and being trained as an Engineer, who designs and sells software) I will always believe that any digital data stored on my private mediums (hard drive, CD, flash memory) is my data to copy as I wish.
Trying to control the nature of digital copying (with DRM, processor or BIOS-level rights management like TCPA) is pure stupidity. You can't impose these artificial controls upon what is supposed to be the primary ability of a digital computer. I hope you see what I'm getting at; this isn't specifically directed at laws or morals or anything. I'm just saying: has bits, will copy.
I was pleased to hear about this latest attempt. The RIAA behavior as of late definitely indicates that they are down to their last ditch efforts.
People they harrass and threaten are challenging the RIAA in court. When the evidence is presented, judges may well agree that the RIAA is violating privacy rights and overstepping their bounds
Targeting university students, young music fans, and other completely benign people is making the RIAA extremely unpopular. People who enjoy music are not criminals, they are human.
The RIAA is rapidly alienating the precise crowd they really should want supporting them. They are pissing off their customers.
The RIAA is removing their own music from P2P networks; thus making the artists they represent unpopular. When they are done with this P2P networks will be full of non-RIAA music. The Association's own artists will be unrepresented among the current, popular music that is traded and enjoyed.
They are starting to take ridiculous actions, like "offering amnesty" to music traders (ha ha) and now trying to link P2P to child pornography (double ha ha).
Their days are numbered. I'm involved with university research into developing stronger, more secure and more widely applicable P2P networks and know that the implications of this technology reach far beyong trading music or porn. There's a lot of neat stuff we're about to experience.
The law is Title 17, section 106(1)... Buying a CD does not make you the owner of the copyright
No. You have referenced the exclusive rights in copyrighted works, but there are many specific LIMITATIONS on these exclusive rights. More than one of them easily applies to this situation, and I am still sure that casual file sharing does not violate copyright law in the United States. My lawyers may not wear as fancy suits as the RIAA's, but my rights are cleary illustrated under the law:
Sec. 107 grants limitations for Fair Use including copying for "criticism, comment". Factors to consider when applying fair use include "the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature" (clearly not in casual file sharing). Also significant is "the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole". Clearly, a 4 MB mp3 only conveys a small portion of the data present in the original 60 MB audio CD track.
Sec. 110 allows "communication of a transmission embodying a performance or display of a work by the public reception of the transmission on a single receiving apparatus of a kind commonly used in private homes", which perfectly applies to digital audio being downloaded to computers.
Sec. 111 demonstrates the confusion surrounding retransmission under copyright law. There is plenty of grey area.
I would further argue that a distributed network is making long term storage (archival) of works, again which is a guaranteed by the Law.
This is a brilliant post. I no longer want to own RIAA music and I think this guy is right -- the RIAA is killing itself with these actions! Not only are they removing their own music from popular trading pools, but they are also giving their customers a VERY good reason to not buy their product.
The result? People get pissed, stop buying RIAA's products. That would sure cure the online music swapping problem wouldn't it?
Can someone remind me of the law that makes it illegal for other people to access files I own over a network?
I (used to) buy lots of CDs, and I store copies of tracks in MP3 and OGG to simplify transport of the music I purchased. These files happen to be accessible over a network; I am permitting some limited access to my personal resources.
to my personal resources
RIAA can suck my octet stream. Go innovate, you lazy bastards, instead of clinging to a failing business model and screaming in a hissy fit whenever someone transports data you didn't even create (artists created their songs, and most see very little money from CD sales). The recording industry as you know it is DEAD, because people like me get pissed off and stop buying CDs.
Of course, all the backbone networks are now fiber-optic, so you should really be talking about photons, not electrons.
We currently do not have amplification devices that work entirely with photons. Unfortunately, a photon -> electron -> photon conversion is still required these days. Things will get faster when switching can be purely optical however.
Crap! That means I have to touch every machine in the enterprise--again!
Ditto. We have several Windows NT servers and I can't leave for a week without some critical new vulnerability being discovered. On the other hand, we have two linux servers running just as many services as the NT machines, and I haven't had to touch them since April.
I used to think: probably just the way it's worked out recently. But now I'm getting sure this is not the case. Over several years, I have repeatedly found that the NT machines need so much more nursing than my Linux servers.
An electron's mass is 9.109 * 10^-31 kg (I was surprised to see that google told me this directly). Now let's say you focus on just a single 10 gigabit router. How many bits flow through one of these in a year? That's (10 * 10^9 bits/sec) * (31.5 * 10^6) s = 3.15 * 10^17 bits. Each bit, we can assume, involves the flow of several million electrons. So we're talking about something like 10^23 electrons flowing through a large router, per year.
Obviously there are many routers on the internet and tons of repeaters (<cough>, NSA taps) that have to process signals. Who cares, let's say there are 10^6 signalling entities out there. This pushes up the electron flow over the internet in a year to something like 10^29
Multiply this by the mass of an electron and you're looking at something approaching a gram. All the data flowing around doesn't amount to much mass of information. So all the data on the internet may occupy on the order of grams, while my engineering textbooks are several kilograms each. Conclusion? Electrons are neat.
To better see the specific surface features, run the entire image through a simple Laplacian or scaled Laplacian, which is a frequency domain digital filter. That's just the start of it.
I highly recommend "Digital Image Processing" by Gonzalez and Woods, ISBN 0201180758. Expensive, but gold.
Blocking *.*.*.* is a way to get people to stop using the server very quickly, though.
And that's what he's trying to do. His site is experiencing a major denial of service attack. This is his hardware, his network connection and his business which he's going to defend. His course of action is smart, since it will rapidly eliminate all the legitimate traffic (blacklist users) and leave only the attacking IPs. Then he can get the responsible ISP's to take action, and hopefully even prosecute someone.
Slashdot Mirror
Unsubscribe a few days after you subscribe. Ha ha! 'Unsubscribe', I love that term. Seriously though, the spammers will sell your addresses to others and you'll get a healthy flow of spam soon enough.
For me the value of Internet access comes down to two (very noble) reasons: Communication, and Information
I can communicate with anyone in the world over email, instant messenging, and newsgroups -- all free; remember that telcos would charge a fortune if you did this over long distance telephone.
The access to Information aspect is huge. I work in the Engineering field, and if I ever run across something I don't know it's only a Google, Yahoo, or AltaVista search away. Anything I'll ever need: historic publications, circuit diagrams, data sheets, research papers, discussion forums are out there for free.
Note the various inaccuracies in the article. First, SiteFinder (despite its name) doesn't "search" for domain or anything; it is simply a wildcard that catches all lookups right on the COM and NET root servers. This is exceedingly simple to setup; there's no 'technology' involved.
Also, users of course do not get a 404 when a domain doesn't exist. The domain freakin' doesn't exist, so the DNS lookup itself fails (should get NXDOMAIN) and the browser reports an error in domain resolution.
But this is nice; I want to see all these leeches in the cybersquatting and "World Wide Web" enhancement business pitted against each other.
"Hmm... wait for it, this could be good. Shhh, just watch!"
I quote my friend, he said something like this two weekends ago. We were at a party and two really nasty fat chicks were about to get in a cat fight.What are you, crazy? You're saying that if no service exists at an address then nothing should be returned? You obviously don't have a business degree and don't work for Verisign. Returning nothing would clearly waste valuable potential for new business.
Damn right!! This is what happens when we're inundated with stories about business controlling and dictating technology. You've hit the nail on the head, this is the ultimate reason geeks get pissed off at the DMCA, RIAA, SCO, Microsoft -- they know that all these legal issues are hurting their freedom to experiment and innovate with technology.
Europe and the United States will fall behind Asia, because we are losing our freedom to innovate. We care so much about protecting big companies' bottom lines that we fail to allow for the freedom to play. As we all know, play = learn = grow.I think it's important to establish responsibility for a domain name. A domain is an important entity on the modern Internet -- a top level domain occupies precious space in a root server's database; increases the time and bandwidth required for zone transfers; and provides a potential new destination for tons of e-mail. I think it's important to require transparent "residency" identification on domains.
I've owned my domain since 1998 and have been bothered on the phone very little. However I have purchased a P.O. box to list, since giving out my home address does seem risky. I would like to remove my phone number from the listing -- so I appreciate these privacy concerns, but how can we protect peoples' privacy and also have domain ownership clear? And accomplish it without establishing a decision-making authority such as Verisign (yikes!), governments, etc?
When I read the previous slashdot post about CDRs rapidly decaying (even becoming unreadable in a few years) I had trouble believing this... but I ran my own tests using the "Nero CD Speed" tool's ScanDisc option.
What I found was that my 3 to 4 year old archival CDs had anywhere between 20% to 50% of their surface damaged; they had (recoverable) errors. This spanned multiple brands, including Memorex, Acer, and HP.
Remember that data correction algorithms can recover from minor errors, but if data is becoming damaged this quickly it will be not too long before data is actually lost on CDRs.
Great point! That's why you should keep an eye on some foreign media sources. While the US may lead the modern world it also blinds all its own citizens; get a second opinion, check out The BBC, CBC, and The Guardian
That was one experience that made me realize what a bad idea it is to mess around with invisible processing/filtering at the transport layer. An ISP should * not * screw around with TCP/IP packets I want to send or receive. If I want to use their proxy, I should have to set it manually.
You're right, and this is why in general you should never reveal any information that incriminates yourself without advice from a lawyer. If anyone ever presses you into admitting guilt, something is awry.
Reminds me of a recent experience one of my friends had. Police had found some pot in his dorm room, and a cop asked my friend, "off the record, why is a good guy like you involved in drugs? just between you and me buddy". My friend revealed too much information (i.e. admission of ownership) at this point, and he got in trouble for it. (Note: he's in Canada so he didn't get in any real trouble).
Admit nothing. With P2P I really don't even think sharing music files I own is illegal in the first place. The RIAA is pressing hard to impress on people a sense of guilt for wrongdoing; people are not necessarily guilty of breaking the law by using P2P apps.
By "grow up" I mean they must change with the times. The nature of digital media is that it is meant to be easily copied. This is why it's digitally encoded so that duplicates can be made without losing any quality. THAT IS BY DESIGN.
Growing up with digital computers (and being trained as an Engineer, who designs and sells software) I will always believe that any digital data stored on my private mediums (hard drive, CD, flash memory) is my data to copy as I wish.
Trying to control the nature of digital copying (with DRM, processor or BIOS-level rights management like TCPA) is pure stupidity. You can't impose these artificial controls upon what is supposed to be the primary ability of a digital computer. I hope you see what I'm getting at; this isn't specifically directed at laws or morals or anything. I'm just saying: has bits, will copy.
- People they harrass and threaten are challenging the RIAA in court. When the evidence is presented, judges may well agree that the RIAA is violating privacy rights and overstepping their bounds
- Targeting university students, young music fans, and other completely benign people is making the RIAA extremely unpopular. People who enjoy music are not criminals, they are human.
- The RIAA is rapidly alienating the precise crowd they really should want supporting them. They are pissing off their customers.
- The RIAA is removing their own music from P2P networks; thus making the artists they represent unpopular. When they are done with this P2P networks will be full of non-RIAA music. The Association's own artists will be unrepresented among the current, popular music that is traded and enjoyed.
- They are starting to take ridiculous actions, like "offering amnesty" to music traders (ha ha) and now trying to link P2P to child pornography (double ha ha).
Their days are numbered. I'm involved with university research into developing stronger, more secure and more widely applicable P2P networks and know that the implications of this technology reach far beyong trading music or porn. There's a lot of neat stuff we're about to experience.- Sec. 107 grants limitations for Fair Use including copying for "criticism, comment". Factors to consider when applying fair use include "the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature" (clearly not in casual file sharing). Also significant is "the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole". Clearly, a 4 MB mp3 only conveys a small portion of the data present in the original 60 MB audio CD track.
-
Sec. 110 allows "communication of a transmission embodying a performance or display of a work by the public reception of the transmission on a single receiving apparatus of a kind commonly used in private homes", which perfectly applies to digital audio being downloaded to computers.
- Sec. 111 demonstrates the confusion surrounding retransmission under copyright law. There is plenty of grey area.
I would further argue that a distributed network is making long term storage (archival) of works, again which is a guaranteed by the Law.This is a brilliant post. I no longer want to own RIAA music and I think this guy is right -- the RIAA is killing itself with these actions! Not only are they removing their own music from popular trading pools, but they are also giving their customers a VERY good reason to not buy their product.
The result? People get pissed, stop buying RIAA's products. That would sure cure the online music swapping problem wouldn't it?
Can someone remind me of the law that makes it illegal for other people to access files I own over a network?
I (used to) buy lots of CDs, and I store copies of tracks in MP3 and OGG to simplify transport of the music I purchased. These files happen to be accessible over a network; I am permitting some limited access to my personal resources.
to my personal resources
RIAA can suck my octet stream. Go innovate, you lazy bastards, instead of clinging to a failing business model and screaming in a hissy fit whenever someone transports data you didn't even create (artists created their songs, and most see very little money from CD sales). The recording industry as you know it is DEAD, because people like me get pissed off and stop buying CDs.
I used to think: probably just the way it's worked out recently. But now I'm getting sure this is not the case. Over several years, I have repeatedly found that the NT machines need so much more nursing than my Linux servers.
How much does the internet weigh?
An electron's mass is 9.109 * 10^-31 kg (I was surprised to see that google told me this directly). Now let's say you focus on just a single 10 gigabit router. How many bits flow through one of these in a year? That's (10 * 10^9 bits/sec) * (31.5 * 10^6) s = 3.15 * 10^17 bits. Each bit, we can assume, involves the flow of several million electrons. So we're talking about something like 10^23 electrons flowing through a large router, per year.
Obviously there are many routers on the internet and tons of repeaters (<cough>, NSA taps) that have to process signals. Who cares, let's say there are 10^6 signalling entities out there. This pushes up the electron flow over the internet in a year to something like 10^29
Multiply this by the mass of an electron and you're looking at something approaching a gram. All the data flowing around doesn't amount to much mass of information. So all the data on the internet may occupy on the order of grams, while my engineering textbooks are several kilograms each. Conclusion? Electrons are neat.
Better yet, see NASA's site for the pictures
To better see the specific surface features, run the entire image through a simple Laplacian or scaled Laplacian, which is a frequency domain digital filter. That's just the start of it.
I highly recommend "Digital Image Processing" by Gonzalez and Woods, ISBN 0201180758. Expensive, but gold.