I think we both know that they'll never let go. The more control over our computers they have, the more they want. Sadly, too few people realize that they intend to tighten their grip slowly and ensure that there *are* no alternatives to turn to via software patents, "trusted" hardware, and all that other crap.
All I can say is that I, for one, have no intention of putting up with DRM, "reasonable" or otherwise.
I'd sure as hell jump at subscribing if Google offered an ISP service around here that was halfway decent. Even if they *were* evil, they could hardly do worse than the local ISPs!
While I think it's been over-hyped, Linus has said that he doesn't like the GPL v3, etc. He thinks that the anti-DRM measures are a bad idea and so forth.
It's gotten to the point where his every mention of the GPL on mailing lists and such gets reported on Slashdot, which is kind of excessive no matter whether you're for or against it.
For the record, I believe that the GPL v3 is both futile and necessary. Necessary because it will be forced upon us without the need of legal intervention. Futile because they'll cram it down our throats via the law, too.
No, one is far more special than being 'merely' prime. One is not a prime number.
It so happens that I have a degree in mathematics, but anyone can just claim that, so I doubt you'll listen to that any more than a Wikipedia link, even if the revision I saw gave the definition of prime numbers correctly.
According to some anime I watched the other day, they're "Highly Quarified":]
Just joking:] They usually seem to do quite well in English, for the most part, perhaps because it's a mandatory part of their education. I can hardly blame them when they have to learn to pronounce that many hundreds of sounds not found in Japanese, especially when my Japanese is so terrible and I have to learn the thousands of kanji they use to make up for having so few unique sounds...
> Someone who want all software to be 'open' only in the GPL notion is trying to spread FUD that the truly free BSD license also has the same viral restrictions. Don't buy it, don't spread it. It's FUD.
That's not what the article said. You made all that up because you didn't want to hear it. They said that the BSD license could have problems under Australian law. It wasn't exactly written with that venue in mind, you know. Isn't this sort of like someone finding an arcane security hole, then the fanboys jump in and say "Oh! It's just FUD!" Yeah. Right.
Well, licenses have the same sort of problems. And because the laws change around them, they do sometimes need 'patches'. They're interpreted by lawyers and judges, not normal folks. Just because you're unaware of legal arcana, that doesn't mean it won't bite you in the ass. But if you prefer, do nothing. Shoot the messenger. Just don't be out there posting about how stupid it is if someone manages to abuse the license as described, because you had ample warning on this one.
> (and leaving aside for the moment any tin-foil-hat conspiracy theories about backdoors)
I guess everyone has forgotten about nsakey and !seineewerasreenigneepacsten by now, although I admit that there was doubt about whether nsakey was actually nefarious. I don't remember that issue ever really being resolved.
True, I can't imagine Acer doing something like this and never using the exploit, so I have to suppose that it was more likely the work of some malicious employee or something akin to that, like testing code used for some internal purpose that got included by mistake.
But because you can't create much more of an "0wn me" type of program than that, I have to feel like someone had improper intentions...
> Have you ever gone through customs and immigration coming into the US?
Yes, although it was a few years ago, prior to 9-11 hysteria. I remember returning from a brief trip to Mexico most recently, the border guard just asked "U.S.?" and let us through.
> With a US-issued passport, we have a reasonable comfort level that the person is who they say they are. And, we already have those fingerprints on file.
I never gave them my fingerprints in order to get a passport, unless I badly misremember the process.
As for comfort level, I honestly worry more about my fellow Americans causing harm these days than any random foreigner:/
> Would you allow your pregnant daughter to go through this procedure of donating amniotic fluid?
Yes. It's a pretty normal procedure, I don't believe it to be very risky to either the mother or the child.
Also, I'm glad for the fact that there are no ethical complications here--this should allow stem cell research to move forward and help save lives. For all the propaganda to the contrary, most people who are "against [embryonic] stem cell research" are actually against killing human embryos, not against science or research, even stem cell research, in and of itself.
> I doubt their intentions are anything so malicious. TFA states that this control is from back in 1998. Back then internet security wasn't as big of a concern as it is now. They probably put the control in place with the intention that they could use it to launch a help-desk application or run commands for repairing the computer remotely (i.e. from a help desk tech).
Err, I think there was a bit more concern over internet security back in '98 than you seem to remember. I can suppose that it wasn't intentionally malicious, but I'd have to hear a more convincing explanation than that--i.e. exactly what is or was it used for? Or did some random employee manage to sneak the code in there for it?
The ability to execute arbitrary programs means that your computer is already thoroughly 0wn3d, after all. The only remaining steps would be to make controlling that PC a little more user friendly.
> I didn't realize that "not being fingerprinted" is a basic human right.
I don't think it's a basic human right, but aren't you the least bit disturbed that we have two standards, one for citizens and another for others? I, for one, think it's shamefully hypocritical.
I'd be happy to give it a nod whenever I see it in the "firehose" of new stories, but I don't know enough details to be able to write it up as a proper submission.
Don't you recognize his reasoning? It's not based on facts, it's based on the theory that both programs have bugs, therefore they must be just about as secure as the other.
Never mind the recent story that Firefox was vulnerable to a critical (one where "visit bad web page" == pwn3d), unpatched, published exploit for all of 9 days last year (IE was vulnerable for 9 months). This is called a "vulnerability window" and is an important part of any security assessment attempting to measure how secure bits of software are without having to rely on vendor claims. Obviously, that's too quantifiable for use with such a reasoning process. Then we have to reason about all the exploits that aren't public, as if people can silently exploit computers en masse with private exploits and no one will notice. Sure, if they're not interested in a botnet of random computers, they'll stick to targeting specific people and keep their exploits quiet, but that doesn't really impact the security of the population in general. It's also funny that people have this perception sometimes that they only visit "safe" sites. Even assuming they're not one of the porn viewing public, and that they never install smilies or screen savers (great way to get infected) or other such crap, that ignores that we've seen major advertising networks get compromised and serve up exploits. Not to mention the shady ad networks that do that deliberately...
Ironically, when it comes to open vs. closed source, it's usually argued that open source helps make the vulnerabilities more public, so that puts things even more in Firefox's favor. So to argue that IE is even as secure as Firefox requires you to use ridiculous metrics touted only by PR departments in media releases.
So yes, it's true--Firefox does have bugs. There were even 9 days last year when you could've been 0wn3d by an unpatched exploit (assuming you haven't learned to use the noscript extension). But there's no way to hide the sheer magnitude of the difference: 9 days vs. 9 months. Yeah, they can improve. Maybe they'll even manage to do things a lot better. And maybe you can find a few things to quibble with in that story. But the fact is that Microsoft has a terrible security record. Period. No one else is perfect, sure, but let's call a spade a spade here instead of being distracted by a dirty hoe:]
Unless you can cite precedent to the contrary indicating that using more than X% of a work can never be fair use, I don't believe there's any such bright line rule in USC 17 (copyright law). I know that there are plenty of anecdotal bits of advice out there which give various formulas, but I've never heard of any that have any actual force of law.
According to the my understanding, there's a four factor test which decides whether or not the use is fair. The four factors are purpose and character, nature of the copied work, amount and substantiality, and effect upon work's value.
Because I cannot see how this use (even if it were of the whole program) would harm the market for the work in question, and because they appear to be using the clips for non-commercial news reporting, commentary and criticism, it's my belief that even if they were to use the whole program, their use would be fair. I should also mention that the Betamax case indicates that fair use can still exist even if you copy the entire work, although that was a rather exceptional case.
Granted, IANAL, but were I on the jury, I would have absolutely no qualms in immediately deciding that this particular use was fair and that the infringement claims were merely an attempt to silence criticism. Of course, I'm quite hostile to anyone who uses copyright as a shield against their critics, so I'm probably biased:]
If it wasn't for this stupid DMCA notice, I doubt I'd have ever known or cared about this video. Now everyone knows about it and millions of people will make copies of this just out of spite. Hasn't anyone learned this by now?
> As a sidenote, having a licence that specifies "this version or any other later revision of this licence" is kinda braindead. That makes it possible to do all kinds of neat tricks to the licence, and you can't really do anything about it (Except change the licence for the next release).
I take it you don't actually know *why* that clause is in there? For a work like Linux, it's so that it's *possible* to update the license (they don't use it, but if they did, they'd be able to update the license).
Why do you update a license? The first reason would be to address legal loopholes that have come about due to changes in the law. If you can't respond to these changes, it's like having a binary you can never change that now has a remote exploit. Oops, too late now...
Now, what "cute tricks" are possible? Say you put it on there back in GPL v1 days, so you have a license for GPL v1 or later. That means that anyone can download it and then choose to abide by the GPL v1 as a whole, or the GPL v2 as a whole, or both so long as at least one of the licenses is fully satisfied. According to the FSF, the licensee choses the license they accept, not the licensor.
So what evil tricks can they add to it? Say the GPL v3 says that you have to give SCO a billion dollars (it won't, but just say it did). Well, unless you have a v3 only license, you can just accept a v2 license and tell SCO to go to hell. Thus, the only "trick" you can perform is giving people additional freedom--otherwise they'll just take the old license instead.
True, when you update, you can start saying that you only offer GPL v3 or later with your new additions. That's a separate case, but they can just use the old v2 licensed software instead.
In other words, license updates are like software updates: they can be a pain in the ass, but sometimes they're needed, and making them impossible isn't always a good idea.
When you say "not simple" do you mean "written in dense legalese which would be useless for recreating the 'invention'" or "an invention that is not stupidly obvious"?
> If a video tape was mailed to the police department, would the postal service be abolished?
As I learned from reading why TMNT are called the Teenage Mutant "Hero" Turtles, even cartoon depictions of nunchucks and the word "ninja" (but apparently not swords or laser weapons) have been censored in the UK.
So it's my best guess that if you found some way to work paedophilia into your scenario and got it in the media, you'd have a pretty good shot of getting the postal service abolished, or at least of having people take the idea seriously.
It doesn't trust the client. It's just greedier about allocating "spare" bandwidth--that is, bandwidth the other clients can't pay you back for. From their FAQ:
Q: How is BitTyrant different from existing BitTorrent clients?
BitTorrent differs from existing clients in its selection of which peers to unchoke and send rates to unchoked peers. Suppose your upload capacity is 50 KBps. If you've unchoked 5 peers, existing clients will send each peer 10 KBps, independent of the rate each is sending to you. In contrast, BitTyrant will rank all peers by their receive / sent ratios, preferentially unchoking those peers with high ratios. For example, a peer sending data to you at 20 KBps and receiving data from you at 10 KBps will have a ratio of 2, and would be unchoked before unchoking someone uploading at 10 KBps (ratio 1). Further, BitTyrant dynamically adjusts its send rate, giving more data to peers that can and do upload quickly and reducing send rates to others.
Slashdot Mirror
I think we both know that they'll never let go. The more control over our computers they have, the more they want. Sadly, too few people realize that they intend to tighten their grip slowly and ensure that there *are* no alternatives to turn to via software patents, "trusted" hardware, and all that other crap.
All I can say is that I, for one, have no intention of putting up with DRM, "reasonable" or otherwise.
Around here, backhoe appears to be the method of choice.
(Wish I were kidding...)
I'd sure as hell jump at subscribing if Google offered an ISP service around here that was halfway decent.
Even if they *were* evil, they could hardly do worse than the local ISPs!
While I think it's been over-hyped, Linus has said that he doesn't like the GPL v3, etc. He thinks that the anti-DRM measures are a bad idea and so forth.
It's gotten to the point where his every mention of the GPL on mailing lists and such gets reported on Slashdot, which is kind of excessive no matter whether you're for or against it.
For the record, I believe that the GPL v3 is both futile and necessary. Necessary because it will be forced upon us without the need of legal intervention. Futile because they'll cram it down our throats via the law, too.
No, one is far more special than being 'merely' prime. One is not a prime number.
It so happens that I have a degree in mathematics, but anyone can just claim that, so I doubt you'll listen to that any more than a Wikipedia link, even if the revision I saw gave the definition of prime numbers correctly.
Does it contain anything inflammatory about the GPL v3? If not, I'm not interested. :]
According to some anime I watched the other day, they're "Highly Quarified" :]
:] They usually seem to do quite well in English, for the most part, perhaps because it's a mandatory part of their education. I can hardly blame them when they have to learn to pronounce that many hundreds of sounds not found in Japanese, especially when my Japanese is so terrible and I have to learn the thousands of kanji they use to make up for having so few unique sounds...
Just joking
> Someone who want all software to be 'open' only in the GPL notion is trying to spread FUD that the truly free BSD license also has the same viral restrictions. Don't buy it, don't spread it. It's FUD.
That's not what the article said. You made all that up because you didn't want to hear it. They said that the BSD license could have problems under Australian law. It wasn't exactly written with that venue in mind, you know. Isn't this sort of like someone finding an arcane security hole, then the fanboys jump in and say "Oh! It's just FUD!" Yeah. Right.
Well, licenses have the same sort of problems. And because the laws change around them, they do sometimes need 'patches'. They're interpreted by lawyers and judges, not normal folks. Just because you're unaware of legal arcana, that doesn't mean it won't bite you in the ass. But if you prefer, do nothing. Shoot the messenger. Just don't be out there posting about how stupid it is if someone manages to abuse the license as described, because you had ample warning on this one.
> (and leaving aside for the moment any tin-foil-hat conspiracy theories about backdoors)
I guess everyone has forgotten about nsakey and !seineewerasreenigneepacsten by now, although I admit that there was doubt about whether nsakey was actually nefarious. I don't remember that issue ever really being resolved.
True, I can't imagine Acer doing something like this and never using the exploit, so I have to suppose that it was more likely the work of some malicious employee or something akin to that, like testing code used for some internal purpose that got included by mistake.
But because you can't create much more of an "0wn me" type of program than that, I have to feel like someone had improper intentions...
> Have you ever gone through customs and immigration coming into the US?
:/
Yes, although it was a few years ago, prior to 9-11 hysteria. I remember returning from a brief trip to Mexico most recently, the border guard just asked "U.S.?" and let us through.
> With a US-issued passport, we have a reasonable comfort level that the person is who they say they are. And, we already have those fingerprints on file.
I never gave them my fingerprints in order to get a passport, unless I badly misremember the process.
As for comfort level, I honestly worry more about my fellow Americans causing harm these days than any random foreigner
> Would you allow your pregnant daughter to go through this procedure of donating amniotic fluid?
Yes. It's a pretty normal procedure, I don't believe it to be very risky to either the mother or the child.
Also, I'm glad for the fact that there are no ethical complications here--this should allow stem cell research to move forward and help save lives. For all the propaganda to the contrary, most people who are "against [embryonic] stem cell research" are actually against killing human embryos, not against science or research, even stem cell research, in and of itself.
> I doubt their intentions are anything so malicious. TFA states that this control is from back in 1998. Back then internet security wasn't as big of a concern as it is now. They probably put the control in place with the intention that they could use it to launch a help-desk application or run commands for repairing the computer remotely (i.e. from a help desk tech).
Err, I think there was a bit more concern over internet security back in '98 than you seem to remember. I can suppose that it wasn't intentionally malicious, but I'd have to hear a more convincing explanation than that--i.e. exactly what is or was it used for? Or did some random employee manage to sneak the code in there for it?
The ability to execute arbitrary programs means that your computer is already thoroughly 0wn3d, after all. The only remaining steps would be to make controlling that PC a little more user friendly.
> I didn't realize that "not being fingerprinted" is a basic human right.
I don't think it's a basic human right, but aren't you the least bit disturbed that we have two standards, one for citizens and another for others? I, for one, think it's shamefully hypocritical.
I'd be happy to give it a nod whenever I see it in the "firehose" of new stories, but I don't know enough details to be able to write it up as a proper submission.
> I feel a great disturbance in the Force, as if billions of microbes cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.
:]
They're midichlorians, you insensitive clod!
Don't you recognize his reasoning? It's not based on facts, it's based on the theory that both programs have bugs, therefore they must be just about as secure as the other.
:]
Never mind the recent story that Firefox was vulnerable to a critical (one where "visit bad web page" == pwn3d), unpatched, published exploit for all of 9 days last year (IE was vulnerable for 9 months). This is called a "vulnerability window" and is an important part of any security assessment attempting to measure how secure bits of software are without having to rely on vendor claims. Obviously, that's too quantifiable for use with such a reasoning process. Then we have to reason about all the exploits that aren't public, as if people can silently exploit computers en masse with private exploits and no one will notice. Sure, if they're not interested in a botnet of random computers, they'll stick to targeting specific people and keep their exploits quiet, but that doesn't really impact the security of the population in general. It's also funny that people have this perception sometimes that they only visit "safe" sites. Even assuming they're not one of the porn viewing public, and that they never install smilies or screen savers (great way to get infected) or other such crap, that ignores that we've seen major advertising networks get compromised and serve up exploits. Not to mention the shady ad networks that do that deliberately...
Ironically, when it comes to open vs. closed source, it's usually argued that open source helps make the vulnerabilities more public, so that puts things even more in Firefox's favor. So to argue that IE is even as secure as Firefox requires you to use ridiculous metrics touted only by PR departments in media releases.
So yes, it's true--Firefox does have bugs. There were even 9 days last year when you could've been 0wn3d by an unpatched exploit (assuming you haven't learned to use the noscript extension). But there's no way to hide the sheer magnitude of the difference: 9 days vs. 9 months. Yeah, they can improve. Maybe they'll even manage to do things a lot better. And maybe you can find a few things to quibble with in that story. But the fact is that Microsoft has a terrible security record. Period. No one else is perfect, sure, but let's call a spade a spade here instead of being distracted by a dirty hoe
Unless you can cite precedent to the contrary indicating that using more than X% of a work can never be fair use, I don't believe there's any such bright line rule in USC 17 (copyright law). I know that there are plenty of anecdotal bits of advice out there which give various formulas, but I've never heard of any that have any actual force of law.
:]
According to the my understanding, there's a four factor test which decides whether or not the use is fair. The four factors are purpose and character, nature of the copied work, amount and substantiality, and effect upon work's value.
Because I cannot see how this use (even if it were of the whole program) would harm the market for the work in question, and because they appear to be using the clips for non-commercial news reporting, commentary and criticism, it's my belief that even if they were to use the whole program, their use would be fair. I should also mention that the Betamax case indicates that fair use can still exist even if you copy the entire work, although that was a rather exceptional case.
Granted, IANAL, but were I on the jury, I would have absolutely no qualms in immediately deciding that this particular use was fair and that the infringement claims were merely an attempt to silence criticism. Of course, I'm quite hostile to anyone who uses copyright as a shield against their critics, so I'm probably biased
The first step is to get a story about it posted on Slashdot. No one can support you if they have no idea who you are :]
If it wasn't for this stupid DMCA notice, I doubt I'd have ever known or cared about this video. Now everyone knows about it and millions of people will make copies of this just out of spite. Hasn't anyone learned this by now?
This level of 'brillance' is worthy of Paula.
> In any case, I give up. Winning in pedantry wars isn't really all it's cracked up to be.
:]
You must be new here
> As a sidenote, having a licence that specifies "this version or any other later revision of this licence" is kinda braindead. That makes it possible to do all kinds of neat tricks to the licence, and you can't really do anything about it (Except change the licence for the next release).
I take it you don't actually know *why* that clause is in there? For a work like Linux, it's so that it's *possible* to update the license (they don't use it, but if they did, they'd be able to update the license).
Why do you update a license? The first reason would be to address legal loopholes that have come about due to changes in the law. If you can't respond to these changes, it's like having a binary you can never change that now has a remote exploit. Oops, too late now...
Now, what "cute tricks" are possible? Say you put it on there back in GPL v1 days, so you have a license for GPL v1 or later. That means that anyone can download it and then choose to abide by the GPL v1 as a whole, or the GPL v2 as a whole, or both so long as at least one of the licenses is fully satisfied. According to the FSF, the licensee choses the license they accept, not the licensor.
So what evil tricks can they add to it? Say the GPL v3 says that you have to give SCO a billion dollars (it won't, but just say it did). Well, unless you have a v3 only license, you can just accept a v2 license and tell SCO to go to hell. Thus, the only "trick" you can perform is giving people additional freedom--otherwise they'll just take the old license instead.
True, when you update, you can start saying that you only offer GPL v3 or later with your new additions. That's a separate case, but they can just use the old v2 licensed software instead.
In other words, license updates are like software updates: they can be a pain in the ass, but sometimes they're needed, and making them impossible isn't always a good idea.
Disclaimer: IANAL.
When you say "not simple" do you mean "written in dense legalese which would be useless for recreating the 'invention'" or "an invention that is not stupidly obvious"?
:]
Just wondering; seemed kinda vague
> If a video tape was mailed to the police department, would the postal service be abolished?
As I learned from reading why TMNT are called the Teenage Mutant "Hero" Turtles, even cartoon depictions of nunchucks and the word "ninja" (but apparently not swords or laser weapons) have been censored in the UK.
So it's my best guess that if you found some way to work paedophilia into your scenario and got it in the media, you'd have a pretty good shot of getting the postal service abolished, or at least of having people take the idea seriously.