Remember "CIA", "Disk Assassin" and even "Copy II+".....wow, that cool new color copy program on Tom's sure takes me back....all those cool things...like modified TOC's....Half tracks....Modified sector headers....having to use the nibble editor.....
[salty sea pirate mode] ....there beeeen pirates in these waters since there was waters..... [/salty sea pirate mode]
Could you imagine what would happen if some young hacker with no respect for "disruptive technologies" could do if he/she loosed upon the world something free....kinda like 802.11 for phones and handhelds? It seems like that ability (ad-hoc network assembly) has been kept away from us. I know that there a few exceptions, but nothing like I'm imagining....every Palm with 802.11 inside, and all set for ad-hoc / p2p.
Seems like the big players have been sitting on their hands. I guess no one wants to be the "first to move" in this arena.....but if they all move together, we the consumer get the same status-quo....nothing scary for Disney/MS/Nokia/et.al........
I'm less concerned about DRM as I am about the identification aspect. I mean, you can't buy a cell phone now without giving all your personal information.....right down to your jock size. I imagine that this "new" network will be exactly the same.
On the other hand, imagine if better wireless tools/networking gear existed for the equipment that's out now. I could walk into CompUSA with CASH and purchase any Palm/pocket-pc device, radio gear and whatever else I might want....I can be "on the air" right out in the parking lot in less than 30 minutes! No strings attached, no forms to fill out. Imagine all handhelds doing their own routing, passing messages for their neighbors, without the need for a big/centralized hub where the FBI can put their Carnivore.
Perhaps the Tin-foil beanie is fitting a little tight today, but the gubment and big business seem especially intent these last months on stamping out our privacy and anonimity for good. I don't like it one bit.
I'm not a criminal, but I'm being treated like one whenever I get "voluntarily" searched before boarding the ferry or having my picture illegally used for comparison to some "criminal" database.
I sure hope that this new "alliance" is not what I'm imagining...but from Disney and MS?....who knows....If this new alliance between Disney/MS/Nokia/et.al. makes it impossible for me to be anonyous whey I want, they're part of the problem, not part of the solution. I'll never be buying such a service.
This is great news, the engineering crowd has been stuck with MS for a while now. The Linux CAD area is one place where we could use some support. This is not a slam on the CAD stuff that's out there, but Pro-E is in a different league.
Pro-E is also VERY expensive when compared with the other CAD packages though....I'd really like to see Solidworks for Linux. I could TOTALY walk away from MS if that happened. I imagine that there are a lot of engineering operations that could do it too. All Linux workstations, no MS anywhere from the engineering office all the way out to the production floor.
I've recently written to the folks at Solidworks too, sort of the "....I'm really interested and would buy seats now if I had the opportunity..." No reply.
How about a really "kick-ass" engineering document control program to go with that?...I was just thinking about that last night, something to compete with Agile and the like.....
I thought that I had damaged my eyes enough already, what with the constant focus distance that I get behind the monitor....
Good!.....now I'll have to stare at a 3" slot, keeping my eye movements to an absolute minimum for hour after hour in order to get the "BIG PICTURE".....
No thanks, get me a monitor where I'm exercising my eyes MORE not less......
Lack of a lone inventor is not the problem with the system. There are a lot of people today that can focus on a product and develop it. Having a big staff is not the issue, and sometimes it actually slows development. It's simply that the lone inventor is having trouble getting past the legal flacks of big business who throw down slap suits, suits designed to suck off your cash, suits designed to "discover" all of your company info through the legal process of discovery, suits to hold you in court while they come up with a product, suits to determine where your bank account is so that they could sue you there.......simply put, truth and justice have almost nothing to do with today's legal system. It's all "time and materials" for the corp. lawyers.
Corp. Flack to boss: "How many thousand lawyers do you want me to drop on company X today boss?"
Boss: "Enough so they never come back!...I want those basterds!...send all we got!"
This method of operation is being used to hunt the "lone inventor," so that disruptive technologies do not emerge to threaten the giants. They have people dedicated to keeping the walls of the empire safe, that's the advantage of being big.
What Mr. Farnswort lacked was the equivelent legal firepower of the MPAA and RIAA.....could you imagine his lawsuits against RCA?...He would have ended up owning the company....but RCA's lawyers combined with the unfortunate timing of the WW2 means that Mr. Farnsworth is simply out of time to collect on his invention. The big guys stole his stuff and stalled out untill the penalties were meaningless.....sound familiar?
Now....flash forward to todays system.....all of the corporate giants not only have lawyers that they could para-drop into any courthouse across America, but they have the DMCA to make that "taking" of private invention all "legal"...think of Sonic Blue's situation....being forced (I know that it was reversed later, but principle) to collect information for the MPAA about their customers.....I know, I can hear the cynics, "It's all legal though, gotta be, it was decided in a court of law, right?"
Until the "lone inventor" can defend himself in court on the merits of the case rather than the cash onhand, he will always be hunted....
Legal reform for this problem made simple: The loosing party pays ALL legal expenses for ALL parties!....just think...no more nuiscense suits, no more extortion by the big guys because I could get the BEST defense on contingency by the BEST professional who would WANT to help me defend my position! He wins, he charges plaintif company X whatever he wants (huge is fine with me!). Contingency has done wonders for the plaintif lawsuit market, perhaps by making legal defense profitable, we can reverse the trend!
I know that.....my above comment was SUPPOSED to be deliberately absurd...notice the little jibe about using only Encarta as the source of info!
I guess that that is the best measure of MS's ability to re-write history is when others can't tell if you are being cynical or serious!
MS's ability to re-write history, even factual information like mountain elevations according to local preferences sickens me. When he changes local editions of Encarta, telling multiple countries that "you have the tallest mountain"....that's bullshit. Verify the height and only one is highest....I expect that you're up on these types of "localizations" in various versions of Encarta?
I wasn't revising history, so much as making fun of the way that Bill Gates see's it.....to me, it's hillarious how he will turn every situation around to show that ONLY HE has the right answer....ONLY HE can save the world of computing...ONLY HE can provide secure solutions for business.....the world would run perfectly if HE could control everything.....we're just a bunch of worthless stealing pirates taking HIS money....
Sorry you couldn't tell the difference between sarcasm and serious....I'll try harder next time.
I love this type of revisionist history.....Bill Gates is responsible for the PC revolution, without MS, NONE of this could possibly have happened. No other company could possibly have done this because nobody else is smart enough. Al Gore is the inventor of the internet.
You just arn't looking in the correct place for your information....try Encarta next time!
As I continue to listen to his rants against Linux/GPL and his "Intelectual Property" ideals on the world, his tone sounds increasingly screechy and shrill.
Perhaps this stuff is really having an effect on him. After reading the Wired article about the trial, I was struck by the notion that he REALLY believes that what he has done is right. That what he thinks is right. That his company has ALWAYS been right. That the big old mean government is prosecuting him for his success.
Now....with GPL....We're all out to take his fortune away and break everything that he believes in.....Mostly that money buys power and that NOTHING should be free and that he's god because he has the most money.....I can just see him wandering the halls at MS...talking to himself about those "evil GPL people...out to get all my money....must hide my precious..."
The nerve of those GPL people....next thing we'll be taking the emperor's clothes right off his back!
I don't think it's too much about the money that would be raised, since most small wireless operators are not making very much (if anything, some are free).....I see this really as a way of bringing groups like "Seattle Wireless" and others under governmental control.
By making every group subject to audits, federal fees and filings, every group can be identified and investigated as needed. That's their hook into you. Kinda like the IRS, where even if you don't make any money, you have to provide them with all of your information and "allow" them to verify it. There's no "opting-out" of the information game.
I've thought that it was just a matter of time before the government stepped in to regulate this....John Ashcroft can't have people communicating OUTSIDE the system!....How can he get Carnivore around this "wireless thing" if he can't force everyone to fill out forms and obey our regulations?
The RIAA & MPAA also can't have people communicating outside of ATT and AOL either, who would they sue in a distributed wireless city-net? They couldn't force anyone off the air through their DCMA takedown suits! Although, if you had to have a liscense.....they could take that!...and then force you off the air.....
The very idea that they would try to do this on an "unregulated" band shows what their intent is. I'd look for further attempts to limit power of WAP's, force a band change (making current units illegal by "out of band") and forcing some type of identification of base-stations. I could imagine some type of system where people would have to "activate" their base-stations by logging into the manufacturer site and giving some personal information or something like that.
The government's intent is to limit annonymous speech and communication between individuals....they can't do that if we keep jumping out of the cattle chutes that they've errected at all of the big ISP's....
Sounds like more of a "Candid camera" type gag to me.....let thieves start car and run for 3 seconds, then kill the engine....repeat as necessary.
"Masters of Space......."
on
Space Wars
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· Score: 1, Flamebait
As the article pointed out, it's Rumsfelds notion that the US should have untouchable power in space. That we should not only have the power/right to take out rogue nukes from other countries, but that we should have the power/right to "deny" other nations access to space! I heard over the last weekend that the Space Command's motto is "Masters of Space."
I read this whole thing as saying destroy "enemy" communications sat's when they don't correspond to what we think they should be communicating. Perhaps taking out all of the Arabic language sat's would not be out of the question if the trouble in Israel continues. In any case, this power is simply too much for one nation to have.
At this point, I no longer support what has been termed "defensive" weapons. In fact, I've been feeling like the poor nations need some way of leveling the field. In short, I don't think PAX America is all that different from Deuchland Uber Allis, and it makes sense considering the number of Nazi's that we recruited to work in the space program under "operation paperclip". I'll work against it as best I can. We are not the master of space, no matter what Rumsfeld, Ashcroft or any of our other war merchants think.
As the article in Wired pointed out, Russia had been working on developing warheads that would spread sand in orbit to blind other sat's....I'd like to go one step further....railgun!.....they're cheap to build and there's no plume to track! A developing nation could hide one pretty easy. A small golfball could wipe out a spy sat no matter how much armor they put on it....kinda like dropping a bowling ball off a freeway overpass. The best would be to create a trajectory that would hit orbit (sat's playground) and drop within the launching county or some neutral ocean. That way, any nation would truly have the defense that "a spy peering through a keyhole deserves to have his eye put out!" Or perhaps they could even claim "right of way" above their own country.
They are immune to the "weapons of mass destruction" rhetoric that seems to be spewing forth from Washington these days, since nobody would directly be hurt by their use and there is no "nuclear, biological or chemical" componant to them....just an iron golfball that smashes those expensive NSA toys!
This could be the next frontier of asymetric warfare, as it would cost MANY-MANY times more to launch a sat as it would to take it out.
The auto manufacturers have ALREADY made an attempt at encryption (by obsurity)....ergo, any attempt to plug in that non-factory code reader could be considered a violation, could it not?
I'd hate to have the auto industry start acting like the RIAA or the MPAA, but as soon as they see it "against their corporate interests," it's gonna be just like the Elmcomsoft/Dimitri S. all over again.....only now, they could check for hacking at the shop next time you bring the car in for a de-"tune" at the dealer......
Imagine how messed up things will be if Sen. Hollings get's his way......this would effectivly force all customers to "approved" shops to have their cars worked on.....
...I'm not for the government getting too involved in this whole thing, I just want to see SOME type of competition going on.....At least until they start letting ANY company hang fiber on telephone poles, there needs to be sharing of the public "right of way" that is the utility distribution system.
The dark side of the past "franchise" approach that the cities have been taking so far can be seen with CATV! Absolutely NO competition in our area....only thing that's even come close to breaking the "franchise/monopoly" is Sat's like Dish Network, mind you I said "close to breaking".....
The dark side of regulation is obvious....less quality at a higher price......
What really burns me though is established giants suppressing anything/everything that even remotely resembles competition........
On this one, I'll take the Public utility commission over the giants....hands down....
The basic principle is that only the enumerated responsibilities listed ( in the Const., State, Municipal, Neighborhood, etc.) are given to the government..ALL other rights belong to the individual......We submit to governance by citizenship and contract.
The Government does not GIVE us rights....We have them and give some up for the good of society! The government does not "start out" with all of the rights (or the right to all money either) and then "Give" them back to us.....
We start out with "All rights except these...." which we temporarily give to government at our pleasure....(at least in the old times)...that's why it's important to vote...always....
Like the presumption of innocence, this needs to be emphasized to kids in their civics classes.......
If you get the basics right, all the other stuff will fall into place.
I agree too....whole-heartedly......I posted yesterday about DoubleClick....with the effect that everyone, or at least as many people as possible, should file DMCA charges aginst DoubleClick.....with the same intention as you mentioned...
By filing suit, we use the over-broad and just simply wrong tools that Corp. America has created against them!....people need to be shown just how stupid this all is, and nothing points out stupidity like wanton mis-use and unbridled legal wrangling!
Bring it on guys....I'm patenting/copyrighting EVERYTHING I do........and I'm a gonna sue!
let everyone in the DoubleClick database file DMCA charges against them.....or illegal copyright infringement on personal information collected without their expressed written consent.......
I'm getting really tired of businesses being able to collect whatever stuff on me that they want...but as soon as I start collecting MP3's....they start crying foul.....
"....it's just so unfair.....I mean....we worked really hard to box in these customers and make them accept our terrible service and with no choice of providers....now the mean bully util's are totally wrecking our whole business model!.....what's capitalism coming to when you have to compete...sounds more like communism to me...."
....it was kinda like a Gerald Bull special...it could take out NSA spys like dropping a bowling ball off an overpass.........
How much $$$$ to make one of these non-"Weapons of mass destruction" weapons?......
How long could the USA survive without ESPN and ATM's?
..."...of course we're gonna use the NORAD website for orbital numbers!..."
Sounds like a winter wonderland for lawyers....
on
Perpetual Skislope
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· Score: 2, Interesting
I mean...in the real outdoors, there's nobody to sue since you can't "serve" Mother Nature with a summons....but in a Man-Made fun park, with rotating snow hill and man-made mountains and snow guns.....well, I can just see the lawyers slobbering now.....anyone who falls....well it MUST be product liability....nobody SHOULD design and build a hill where people could fall down....should they? "My client was hurt through the negligence of those Snow-Hill-Builders....I demand compensation for this tragic twisting of my client's knee. She's been disfigured and will not walk untill Tuesday!"
I'm just not convinced that taking EVERY naturally occuring (and read "free") effect of nature and turning it into a private, man-made, man-controlled, homogenized, and lawyer safe sport is a good thing. It comodotizes nature, and creates a situation which blurs the distinction between real life and "Real Life (tm)"
I see this trend with surfing too, artificial wave generators, controlled "fun-parks" where people have to "Pay-per-Wave"....Yeah, Mother Nature does not create the exact same wave every time, but that's the fun of the sport!
Both of these are, in my view, attempts by corporations to get people to pay for something that's inherently free. Surfing for instance...paddle out, ride back for free....Sking too, climb to top of hill, slide to bottom for free...Only with sking, you do pay for the lift (but you can walk for free too)
Perhaps I'm not looking at the best side of this though.....the rotation of the hill might counteract the rotation brought on by too many Irish Coffee's at the bar! Now that would be something.
Two years ago, I would never have even imagined that businesses would be able to silence critics like they are today......remember the stories on television depicting the guy with the "lemon" car and the sign on it out in front of the dealership where he bought it? How about a good old fashoned picket line? And don't forget the ever popular "face-to-face" method of spreading complaints against a company! The way things are going now, Procter and Gamble will be able to read everyone's e-mail and sue those who disstribute the myth about the moon and stars in their logo.....Ford will be allowed to moderate/censor discussion groups online that discuss "weak points" in any Ford's design. Cisco will simply make routers that also scan for their name and destroy those packets. All in the protection of the glorious "Intellectual Property."
All businesses now seem to think that the DMCA, copyright and other "PRO-BUSINESS" laws give them the legal sanction to silence all dissent, squash any consumer that even uses the name "Ford" in their complaint. Are they implying that I may only use the word "Ford" in public, out loud, if I'm saying something positive about the company. Are they also implying that I would somehow be breaking copyright law by using the word "Ford" and attaching a complaint to the end of the sentence? I'm totally fed up with their "Intellectual Property" and the whatnot.....and it's only getting worse. I just read where Disney is back in Washington with their old buddy Sen. Hollings, moving forward on built-in copyright protection again. I'm absolutely discusted!
I will respect their "IP" when they respect mine! That means no trading of my "consumer profile" without my expressed written consent (click through agreements don't count!). That means NO SPAM OR TELEMARKETERS....and no trading of my telephone number (since that's a semi-encrypted means of identifying and potentially locating me). That also means no tracking my habits without clearly publishing that fact BEFORE installation of the offending program....Microsoft, are you listening? WMA tracking?....tell people FIRST! Get it?
It seems like business has made a major assault in the last month too, I've just seen so many instances of the DMCA being used recently. For instance Nintendo yesterday, Microsoft with the X-box and Sony with the Aibo. Not a day goes by that somebody isn't getting sued by the entertainment industry, perhaps that's why the Supreme Court as expressed interest in the Sonny Bono copyright extension act.
I'm starting a 3 month entertainment "fast"....nothing but Slashdot, free TV and NPR......no purchases of music or movies or video games of any kind.....I encourage all readers to also boycott the entertainment industry as well, burn as much as you want, but don't by a single thing.....perhaps a 3 month dip in sales will get their attention.
...something that can only be cleansed with fire"...
Consider the facts...WMA spyware....Sonny Bono Copyright act....Internet radio IP payments......
...I could figure it all out too if I could get my foil hat working correctly....but the directions jammed in the laser printer at work yesterday.....time for the therapy mallets!
I mean....I ALWAYS like to see some greedy company get destroyed after they lay off a bunch of employees so they can make more money for the boss......that's just good clean fun....
But then....I ALSO have a significent ammount of contempt for the "axis of evil" that is the MS/Adobe/etc. cartel too.
And the BSA's making it's money off the fees is a little like the government making money off of current drug forfeiture laws...self perpetuating and expanding....
Slashdot Mirror
Remember "CIA", "Disk Assassin" and even "Copy II+".....wow, that cool new color copy program on Tom's sure takes me back....all those cool things...like modified TOC's....Half tracks....Modified sector headers....having to use the nibble editor.....
[salty sea pirate mode]
....there beeeen pirates in these waters since there was waters.....
[/salty sea pirate mode]
If that's the case, I'll work with the evil throne.....don't give me choices like this.
"..freedom from choice, is what you want.." Devo
Could you imagine what would happen if some young hacker with no respect for "disruptive technologies" could do if he/she loosed upon the world something free....kinda like 802.11 for phones and handhelds? It seems like that ability (ad-hoc network assembly) has been kept away from us. I know that there a few exceptions, but nothing like I'm imagining....every Palm with 802.11 inside, and all set for ad-hoc / p2p.
Seems like the big players have been sitting on their hands. I guess no one wants to be the "first to move" in this arena.....but if they all move together, we the consumer get the same status-quo....nothing scary for Disney/MS/Nokia/et.al........
I'm less concerned about DRM as I am about the identification aspect. I mean, you can't buy a cell phone now without giving all your personal information.....right down to your jock size. I imagine that this "new" network will be exactly the same.
On the other hand, imagine if better wireless tools/networking gear existed for the equipment that's out now. I could walk into CompUSA with CASH and purchase any Palm/pocket-pc device, radio gear and whatever else I might want....I can be "on the air" right out in the parking lot in less than 30 minutes! No strings attached, no forms to fill out. Imagine all handhelds doing their own routing, passing messages for their neighbors, without the need for a big/centralized hub where the FBI can put their Carnivore.
Perhaps the Tin-foil beanie is fitting a little tight today, but the gubment and big business seem especially intent these last months on stamping out our privacy and anonimity for good. I don't like it one bit.
I'm not a criminal, but I'm being treated like one whenever I get "voluntarily" searched before boarding the ferry or having my picture illegally used for comparison to some "criminal" database.
I sure hope that this new "alliance" is not what I'm imagining...but from Disney and MS?....who knows....If this new alliance between Disney/MS/Nokia/et.al. makes it impossible for me to be anonyous whey I want, they're part of the problem, not part of the solution. I'll never be buying such a service.
This is great news, the engineering crowd has been stuck with MS for a while now. The Linux CAD area is one place where we could use some support. This is not a slam on the CAD stuff that's out there, but Pro-E is in a different league.
Pro-E is also VERY expensive when compared with the other CAD packages though....I'd really like to see Solidworks for Linux. I could TOTALY walk away from MS if that happened. I imagine that there are a lot of engineering operations that could do it too. All Linux workstations, no MS anywhere from the engineering office all the way out to the production floor.
I've recently written to the folks at Solidworks too, sort of the "....I'm really interested and would buy seats now if I had the opportunity..." No reply.
How about a really "kick-ass" engineering document control program to go with that?...I was just thinking about that last night, something to compete with Agile and the like.....
I thought that I had damaged my eyes enough already, what with the constant focus distance that I get behind the monitor.... Good!.....now I'll have to stare at a 3" slot, keeping my eye movements to an absolute minimum for hour after hour in order to get the "BIG PICTURE"..... No thanks, get me a monitor where I'm exercising my eyes MORE not less......
Lack of a lone inventor is not the problem with the system. There are a lot of people today that can focus on a product and develop it. Having a big staff is not the issue, and sometimes it actually slows development. It's simply that the lone inventor is having trouble getting past the legal flacks of big business who throw down slap suits, suits designed to suck off your cash, suits designed to "discover" all of your company info through the legal process of discovery, suits to hold you in court while they come up with a product, suits to determine where your bank account is so that they could sue you there......
Corp. Flack to boss: "How many thousand lawyers do you want me to drop on company X today boss?"
Boss: "Enough so they never come back!...I want those basterds!...send all we got!"
This method of operation is being used to hunt the "lone inventor," so that disruptive technologies do not emerge to threaten the giants. They have people dedicated to keeping the walls of the empire safe, that's the advantage of being big.
What Mr. Farnswort lacked was the equivelent legal firepower of the MPAA and RIAA.....could you imagine his lawsuits against RCA?...He would have ended up owning the company....but RCA's lawyers combined with the unfortunate timing of the WW2 means that Mr. Farnsworth is simply out of time to collect on his invention. The big guys stole his stuff and stalled out untill the penalties were meaningless.....sound familiar?
Now....flash forward to todays system.....all of the corporate giants not only have lawyers that they could para-drop into any courthouse across America, but they have the DMCA to make that "taking" of private invention all "legal"...think of Sonic Blue's situation....being forced (I know that it was reversed later, but principle) to collect information for the MPAA about their customers.....I know, I can hear the cynics, "It's all legal though, gotta be, it was decided in a court of law, right?"
Until the "lone inventor" can defend himself in court on the merits of the case rather than the cash onhand, he will always be hunted....
Legal reform for this problem made simple: The loosing party pays ALL legal expenses for ALL parties!....just think...no more nuiscense suits, no more extortion by the big guys because I could get the BEST defense on contingency by the BEST professional who would WANT to help me defend my position! He wins, he charges plaintif company X whatever he wants (huge is fine with me!). Contingency has done wonders for the plaintif lawsuit market, perhaps by making legal defense profitable, we can reverse the trend!
I know that.....my above comment was SUPPOSED to be deliberately absurd...notice the little jibe about using only Encarta as the source of info!
I guess that that is the best measure of MS's ability to re-write history is when others can't tell if you are being cynical or serious!
MS's ability to re-write history, even factual information like mountain elevations according to local preferences sickens me. When he changes local editions of Encarta, telling multiple countries that "you have the tallest mountain"....that's bullshit. Verify the height and only one is highest....I expect that you're up on these types of "localizations" in various versions of Encarta?
I wasn't revising history, so much as making fun of the way that Bill Gates see's it.....to me, it's hillarious how he will turn every situation around to show that ONLY HE has the right answer....ONLY HE can save the world of computing...ONLY HE can provide secure solutions for business.....the world would run perfectly if HE could control everything.....we're just a bunch of worthless stealing pirates taking HIS money....
Sorry you couldn't tell the difference between sarcasm and serious....I'll try harder next time.
I love this type of revisionist history.....Bill Gates is responsible for the PC revolution, without MS, NONE of this could possibly have happened. No other company could possibly have done this because nobody else is smart enough. Al Gore is the inventor of the internet.
You just arn't looking in the correct place for your information....try Encarta next time!
....now I'm a criminal for trying to refill my "Hexmark" inkjet!
Where's this stuff gonna stop, there's already enough on me to send me up the river and to "the chair"....
What's capitalism coming to when you actually have to compete?
What the really want is MORE money, lots more...." William S Burroughs.
As I continue to listen to his rants against Linux/GPL and his "Intelectual Property" ideals on the world, his tone sounds increasingly screechy and shrill.
Perhaps this stuff is really having an effect on him. After reading the Wired article about the trial, I was struck by the notion that he REALLY believes that what he has done is right. That what he thinks is right. That his company has ALWAYS been right. That the big old mean government is prosecuting him for his success.
Now....with GPL....We're all out to take his fortune away and break everything that he believes in.....Mostly that money buys power and that NOTHING should be free and that he's god because he has the most money.....I can just see him wandering the halls at MS...talking to himself about those "evil GPL people...out to get all my money....must hide my precious..."
The nerve of those GPL people....next thing we'll be taking the emperor's clothes right off his back!
I don't think it's too much about the money that would be raised, since most small wireless operators are not making very much (if anything, some are free).....I see this really as a way of bringing groups like "Seattle Wireless" and others under governmental control.
By making every group subject to audits, federal fees and filings, every group can be identified and investigated as needed. That's their hook into you. Kinda like the IRS, where even if you don't make any money, you have to provide them with all of your information and "allow" them to verify it. There's no "opting-out" of the information game.
I've thought that it was just a matter of time before the government stepped in to regulate this....John Ashcroft can't have people communicating OUTSIDE the system!....How can he get Carnivore around this "wireless thing" if he can't force everyone to fill out forms and obey our regulations?
The RIAA & MPAA also can't have people communicating outside of ATT and AOL either, who would they sue in a distributed wireless city-net? They couldn't force anyone off the air through their DCMA takedown suits! Although, if you had to have a liscense.....they could take that!...and then force you off the air.....
The very idea that they would try to do this on an "unregulated" band shows what their intent is. I'd look for further attempts to limit power of WAP's, force a band change (making current units illegal by "out of band") and forcing some type of identification of base-stations. I could imagine some type of system where people would have to "activate" their base-stations by logging into the manufacturer site and giving some personal information or something like that.
The government's intent is to limit annonymous speech and communication between individuals....they can't do that if we keep jumping out of the cattle chutes that they've errected at all of the big ISP's....
Sounds like more of a "Candid camera" type gag to me.....let thieves start car and run for 3 seconds, then kill the engine....repeat as necessary.
As the article pointed out, it's Rumsfelds notion that the US should have untouchable power in space. That we should not only have the power/right to take out rogue nukes from other countries, but that we should have the power/right to "deny" other nations access to space! I heard over the last weekend that the Space Command's motto is "Masters of Space."
I read this whole thing as saying destroy "enemy" communications sat's when they don't correspond to what we think they should be communicating. Perhaps taking out all of the Arabic language sat's would not be out of the question if the trouble in Israel continues. In any case, this power is simply too much for one nation to have.
At this point, I no longer support what has been termed "defensive" weapons. In fact, I've been feeling like the poor nations need some way of leveling the field. In short, I don't think PAX America is all that different from Deuchland Uber Allis, and it makes sense considering the number of Nazi's that we recruited to work in the space program under "operation paperclip". I'll work against it as best I can. We are not the master of space, no matter what Rumsfeld, Ashcroft or any of our other war merchants think.
As the article in Wired pointed out, Russia had been working on developing warheads that would spread sand in orbit to blind other sat's....I'd like to go one step further....railgun!.....they're cheap to build and there's no plume to track! A developing nation could hide one pretty easy. A small golfball could wipe out a spy sat no matter how much armor they put on it....kinda like dropping a bowling ball off a freeway overpass. The best would be to create a trajectory that would hit orbit (sat's playground) and drop within the launching county or some neutral ocean. That way, any nation would truly have the defense that "a spy peering through a keyhole deserves to have his eye put out!" Or perhaps they could even claim "right of way" above their own country.
They are immune to the "weapons of mass destruction" rhetoric that seems to be spewing forth from Washington these days, since nobody would directly be hurt by their use and there is no "nuclear, biological or chemical" componant to them....just an iron golfball that smashes those expensive NSA toys!
This could be the next frontier of asymetric warfare, as it would cost MANY-MANY times more to launch a sat as it would to take it out.
The auto manufacturers have ALREADY made an attempt at encryption (by obsurity)....ergo, any attempt to plug in that non-factory code reader could be considered a violation, could it not?
I'd hate to have the auto industry start acting like the RIAA or the MPAA, but as soon as they see it "against their corporate interests," it's gonna be just like the Elmcomsoft/Dimitri S. all over again.....only now, they could check for hacking at the shop next time you bring the car in for a de-"tune" at the dealer......
Imagine how messed up things will be if Sen. Hollings get's his way......this would effectivly force all customers to "approved" shops to have their cars worked on.....
Just a thought......
...I'm not for the government getting too involved in this whole thing, I just want to see SOME type of competition going on.....At least until they start letting ANY company hang fiber on telephone poles, there needs to be sharing of the public "right of way" that is the utility distribution system.
The dark side of the past "franchise" approach that the cities have been taking so far can be seen with CATV! Absolutely NO competition in our area....only thing that's even come close to breaking the "franchise/monopoly" is Sat's like Dish Network, mind you I said "close to breaking".....
The dark side of regulation is obvious....less quality at a higher price......
What really burns me though is established giants suppressing anything/everything that even remotely resembles competition........
On this one, I'll take the Public utility commission over the giants....hands down....
The basic principle is that only the enumerated responsibilities listed ( in the Const., State, Municipal, Neighborhood, etc.) are given to the government..ALL other rights belong to the individual......We submit to governance by citizenship and contract.
The Government does not GIVE us rights....We have them and give some up for the good of society! The government does not "start out" with all of the rights (or the right to all money either) and then "Give" them back to us.....
We start out with "All rights except these...." which we temporarily give to government at our pleasure....(at least in the old times)...that's why it's important to vote...always....
Like the presumption of innocence, this needs to be emphasized to kids in their civics classes.......
If you get the basics right, all the other stuff will fall into place.
I agree too....whole-heartedly......I posted yesterday about DoubleClick....with the effect that everyone, or at least as many people as possible, should file DMCA charges aginst DoubleClick.....with the same intention as you mentioned...
By filing suit, we use the over-broad and just simply wrong tools that Corp. America has created against them!....people need to be shown just how stupid this all is, and nothing points out stupidity like wanton mis-use and unbridled legal wrangling!
Bring it on guys....I'm patenting/copyrighting EVERYTHING I do........and I'm a gonna sue!
....these guys should be put out of business....
let everyone in the DoubleClick database file DMCA charges against them.....or illegal copyright infringement on personal information collected without their expressed written consent.......
I'm getting really tired of businesses being able to collect whatever stuff on me that they want...but as soon as I start collecting MP3's....they start crying foul.....
Put all of them out of business with law-suits.
"....it's just so unfair.....I mean....we worked really hard to box in these customers and make them accept our terrible service and with no choice of providers....now the mean bully util's are totally wrecking our whole business model!.....what's capitalism coming to when you have to compete...sounds more like communism to me...."
....it was kinda like a Gerald Bull special...it could take out NSA spys like dropping a bowling ball off an overpass.........
How much $$$$ to make one of these non-"Weapons of mass destruction" weapons?......
How long could the USA survive without ESPN and ATM's?
..."...of course we're gonna use the NORAD website for orbital numbers!..."
I mean...in the real outdoors, there's nobody to sue since you can't "serve" Mother Nature with a summons....but in a Man-Made fun park, with rotating snow hill and man-made mountains and snow guns.....well, I can just see the lawyers slobbering now.....anyone who falls....well it MUST be product liability....nobody SHOULD design and build a hill where people could fall down....should they? "My client was hurt through the negligence of those Snow-Hill-Builders....I demand compensation for this tragic twisting of my client's knee. She's been disfigured and will not walk untill Tuesday!"
I'm just not convinced that taking EVERY naturally occuring (and read "free") effect of nature and turning it into a private, man-made, man-controlled, homogenized, and lawyer safe sport is a good thing. It comodotizes nature, and creates a situation which blurs the distinction between real life and "Real Life (tm)"
I see this trend with surfing too, artificial wave generators, controlled "fun-parks" where people have to "Pay-per-Wave"....Yeah, Mother Nature does not create the exact same wave every time, but that's the fun of the sport!
Both of these are, in my view, attempts by corporations to get people to pay for something that's inherently free. Surfing for instance...paddle out, ride back for free....Sking too, climb to top of hill, slide to bottom for free...Only with sking, you do pay for the lift (but you can walk for free too)
Perhaps I'm not looking at the best side of this though.....the rotation of the hill might counteract the rotation brought on by too many Irish Coffee's at the bar! Now that would be something.
Two years ago, I would never have even imagined that businesses would be able to silence critics like they are today......remember the stories on television depicting the guy with the "lemon" car and the sign on it out in front of the dealership where he bought it? How about a good old fashoned picket line? And don't forget the ever popular "face-to-face" method of spreading complaints against a company! The way things are going now, Procter and Gamble will be able to read everyone's e-mail and sue those who disstribute the myth about the moon and stars in their logo.....Ford will be allowed to moderate/censor discussion groups online that discuss "weak points" in any Ford's design. Cisco will simply make routers that also scan for their name and destroy those packets. All in the protection of the glorious "Intellectual Property."
All businesses now seem to think that the DMCA, copyright and other "PRO-BUSINESS" laws give them the legal sanction to silence all dissent, squash any consumer that even uses the name "Ford" in their complaint. Are they implying that I may only use the word "Ford" in public, out loud, if I'm saying something positive about the company. Are they also implying that I would somehow be breaking copyright law by using the word "Ford" and attaching a complaint to the end of the sentence? I'm totally fed up with their "Intellectual Property" and the whatnot.....and it's only getting worse. I just read where Disney is back in Washington with their old buddy Sen. Hollings, moving forward on built-in copyright protection again. I'm absolutely discusted!
I will respect their "IP" when they respect mine! That means no trading of my "consumer profile" without my expressed written consent (click through agreements don't count!). That means NO SPAM OR TELEMARKETERS....and no trading of my telephone number (since that's a semi-encrypted means of identifying and potentially locating me). That also means no tracking my habits without clearly publishing that fact BEFORE installation of the offending program....Microsoft, are you listening? WMA tracking?....tell people FIRST! Get it?
It seems like business has made a major assault in the last month too, I've just seen so many instances of the DMCA being used recently. For instance Nintendo yesterday, Microsoft with the X-box and Sony with the Aibo. Not a day goes by that somebody isn't getting sued by the entertainment industry, perhaps that's why the Supreme Court as expressed interest in the Sonny Bono copyright extension act.
I'm starting a 3 month entertainment "fast"....nothing but Slashdot, free TV and NPR......no purchases of music or movies or video games of any kind.....I encourage all readers to also boycott the entertainment industry as well, burn as much as you want, but don't by a single thing.....perhaps a 3 month dip in sales will get their attention.
Don't just stand there and take it....fight back!
...something that can only be cleansed with fire"...
Consider the facts...WMA spyware....Sonny Bono Copyright act....Internet radio IP payments......
...I could figure it all out too if I could get my foil hat working correctly....but the directions jammed in the laser printer at work yesterday.....time for the therapy mallets!
Perhaps the Supreme Court will save us.
I mean....I ALWAYS like to see some greedy company get destroyed after they lay off a bunch of employees so they can make more money for the boss......that's just good clean fun....
But then....I ALSO have a significent ammount of contempt for the "axis of evil" that is the MS/Adobe/etc. cartel too.
And the BSA's making it's money off the fees is a little like the government making money off of current drug forfeiture laws...self perpetuating and expanding....
Thinking about this, they're all crooks....
What's a guy to do? Who should I root for?