She's called AOLiza, IIRC. There's *SO* much prior art here, I have a hard time figuring out just what they could patent. Given that it's listed as an 'IM Buddy' I'm betting that it's not very novel.
Heck, I've heard of various lusers who set up similar bots to direct people to porn sites & collect off that. Of course, I think it ran in the AOL chat rooms, though I can certainly imagine that it could be set up to run on AIM, too...
Reading Material License Agreement ----- By having read this post, you agree NEVER to vote for any laws that give creedence to this nonsense and not to vote for any politician who does. Further, you agree to send a post with these 'viral' conditions to every politician you possibly can.
If you are unable or unwilling to fulfill this contract, you can terminate it by sending a contribution to the EFF. On the other hand, if this contract is ruled unenforceable, so much the better.
Well, since so much email is spam, I can't say that I'd mind slaughtering it if only I knew how... until then, there's always uce@ftc.gov, I suppose...:]
RTFL--unfortunately, they crafted the law so that it only applied to P2P systems which are *NOT primarily located in the USA* Since I assume that all their servers are in the USA & they don't run any P2P apps, no you can't legally DoS them.
While it's a crappy law, they did pretty good about making sure that ONLY they can use it. IMO, that's one of the worst features of it & hopefully that's what will get it killed. Hopefully there are a *few* congresscritters who will recognize what a BAD idea this law is, though...
(Hey Boucher! Be sure to lambaste/fillibuster/ect. This stupid thing if it ever gets to the floor, please! Urge them not to "legalize hacking and spamming" [they attack the P2P servers by spamming them with fake files & other stuff] and not to make stupid laws that grant special priviledges to a select few and that this will cause a lot of international uproar & vigilante justice online, which could hurt the economy by unleashing utter *CHAOS* on this nation's critical electronic infrastructure!)
Considering that that @#$#@ing monkey had a habit of crashing my browser, I'm much more inclined to punch whoever though up that ad, instead of the monkey... not that I'll ever do that, but...
Note that there are *many* variants of Angband now. My personal favorites are: Hengband (yes, there *is* an english version!), Pernanband errr... I guess that's "ToME" now, though vanilla, Ey-, Norse-, O-, and others aren't bad, either. Play around until you find your favorite! Just be sure to read that little bit burried in one of the help files about what resistances you need by what depth, or you may see that dreaded message of a one-turn death:
It breathes. -more- You die.
Yes, I had that happen when I thought I could take Ancalagon the Black with mere "single" reist acid and ~300 HP. Someday, I hope to come back with Thorin (which gives immunity to acid) for revenge...
Re:ASCII art? ANSI was much better...
on
Google Art Creator
·
· Score: 1
There's also an ancient app called "ACiD Draw"... I have a copy lying around somewhere; works great:] I think it can still be found from Google, but I haven't looked in ages...
Re:You're assuming too much
on
More MS EULA Fun
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Almost everyone probably has -something- to hide. No, maybe not a porn stash or illegal copies of things, but most people have at least one thing they wouldn't want others to know about. An expectation of privacy isn't really that sinister. Heck, how many of you folks use envelopes instead of the (much cheaper to send) post cards? What? You don't want them all to be able to easily read your mail? Even though most postal carriers would probably never bother? What? You don't want to release your medical history to the world? Even though we often practically force presidential candidates & misc. other politicians to do so?
Besides, complacency isn't the answer. MS isn't currently collecting people's first-born; but reserving the right to would (and should!) raise a few eyebrows. It's not that I think they have sinister intentions right now, it's just that I don't trust them to come up with a way to profit at my expense... something not exactly foreign to them, according the to DOJ...
I don't think that they need that clause in the EULA to do what they want to do; all they need to say is that by using their updating software, you grant them the right to make certain changes to the system for the purpose of installing that software & that if you don't like that, you can just turn it off and prevent it from connecting to MS for updates, but that this may not be a good idea.
BTW, yes it really does bother some people to know that MS has a backdoor on their system, just as much as it would bother them to have sub7, netbus, or BO installed. While we may (think) we know exactly what it's doing, given MS' track record on security, it might as well be BO -- at least you can password protect an installation of that...
Just remember an old legal proverb: only a fool signs a contract because he thinks it's unenforcable.
It's not a good idea to install a coffee maker on someone's computer. When you take it in for repair & tell the techs that the cupholder is broken, you get a lot of funny looks...
They're probably just half-breeds of various sorts. Suppose some noble klingon family had a bit of human blood in there somewhere, would they care to admit it? The worse problem is how come we keep only ever seeing one type of klingon... but we all know that that's due to the makeup artitsts, not klingon proto-history:] If all else fails they can just say "the Q did it" or somesuch...
SFAIK (IANAL), they want it so that they can enjoy the protections from liability. E.G. luser X didn't read the documentation (which, let's say, lists a known bug & warns you about it) and so he screwed up a production server, but now wants to blame Red Hat (or whoever wrote it) for that mistake.
As said above, he didn't need to accept the license for most of what he did (e.g. he didn't redistribute it) so he didn't accept the provisions which limit RH's liability... So are they still liable, or not? I think that's the question that needs to be addressed. Now, if you'd shown that he'd implicitly accepted the license by doing something he couldn't do without accepting it, you might have a stronger case against him.
OTOH, if he didn't do anything but run it without having done anything to indicate that he accepted the license, where does that leave you? Are you liable for damages or not? It's certainly not a good thing if people giving away software now have to worry that someone might misuse it & blame them (financially) for that...
Slashdot Mirror
I wonder what they'd think if we started refering to that place as "Microsoft's Waterloo"? ... It's a nice thought, anyhow :]
She's called AOLiza, IIRC. There's *SO* much prior art here, I have a hard time figuring out just what they could patent. Given that it's listed as an 'IM Buddy' I'm betting that it's not very novel.
Heck, I've heard of various lusers who set up similar bots to direct people to porn sites & collect off that. Of course, I think it ran in the AOL chat rooms, though I can certainly imagine that it could be set up to run on AIM, too...
What's next, can I just put a EULA on this post?
Reading Material License Agreement
-----
By having read this post, you agree NEVER to vote for any laws that give creedence to this nonsense and not to vote for any politician who does. Further, you agree to send a post with these 'viral' conditions to every politician you possibly can.
If you are unable or unwilling to fulfill this contract, you can terminate it by sending a contribution to the EFF. On the other hand, if this contract is ruled unenforceable, so much the better.
That's like exiling Napoleon. They'd just come back, stronger than ever, and be radioactive and fire-breathing, to boot.
---
I'm pretty sure that you mean Godzilla... Or did you say Napoleon to avoid being sued by the people who just went after Davezilla?
Fox programmers? It has to be C ...
Well, since so much email is spam, I can't say that I'd mind slaughtering it if only I knew how... until then, there's always uce@ftc.gov, I suppose... :]
I still want some with the DMCA on it. ThinkGeek hasn't responded to my request for it just yet... :[
I'm not sure you can get in under the weight limit by doing that... :]
Better make that libel/defamation.
Slander refers to spoken defamation, libel is written defamation. These three are some of the most misused english words on the internet today.
> It's good to know that software debugging has a practical application.
:]
Someone needs to tell MS that...
That makes me wonder, does thinkgeek have any 'DMCA toilet paper'? It might sell rather well... :]
I can picture it now :]
"I see your future... you will soon be conned out of money. That will be $19.95, please."
Actually, RadioShack sells an IR emitter/detecter pair -- I used one ages ago in a remote control project.
I like to feed them uce@ftc.gov if at all possible... :]
RTFL--unfortunately, they crafted the law so that it only applied to P2P systems which are *NOT primarily located in the USA* Since I assume that all their servers are in the USA & they don't run any P2P apps, no you can't legally DoS them.
While it's a crappy law, they did pretty good about making sure that ONLY they can use it. IMO, that's one of the worst features of it & hopefully that's what will get it killed. Hopefully there are a *few* congresscritters who will recognize what a BAD idea this law is, though...
(Hey Boucher! Be sure to lambaste/fillibuster/ect. This stupid thing if it ever gets to the floor, please! Urge them not to "legalize hacking and spamming" [they attack the P2P servers by spamming them with fake files & other stuff] and not to make stupid laws that grant special priviledges to a select few and that this will cause a lot of international uproar & vigilante justice online, which could hurt the economy by unleashing utter *CHAOS* on this nation's critical electronic infrastructure!)
Considering that that @#$#@ing monkey had a habit of crashing my browser, I'm much more inclined to punch whoever though up that ad, instead of the monkey... not that I'll ever do that, but...
Note that there are *many* variants of Angband now. My personal favorites are: Hengband (yes, there *is* an english version!), Pernanband errr... I guess that's "ToME" now, though vanilla, Ey-, Norse-, O-, and others aren't bad, either. Play around until you find your favorite! Just be sure to read that little bit burried in one of the help files about what resistances you need by what depth, or you may see that dreaded message of a one-turn death:
It breathes. -more- You die.
Yes, I had that happen when I thought I could take Ancalagon the Black with mere "single" reist acid and ~300 HP. Someday, I hope to come back with Thorin (which gives immunity to acid) for revenge...
There's also an ancient app called "ACiD Draw" ... I have a copy lying around somewhere; works great :] I think it can still be found from Google, but I haven't looked in ages...
Almost everyone probably has -something- to hide. No, maybe not a porn stash or illegal copies of things, but most people have at least one thing they wouldn't want others to know about. An expectation of privacy isn't really that sinister. Heck, how many of you folks use envelopes instead of the (much cheaper to send) post cards? What? You don't want them all to be able to easily read your mail? Even though most postal carriers would probably never bother? What? You don't want to release your medical history to the world? Even though we often practically force presidential candidates & misc. other politicians to do so?
Besides, complacency isn't the answer. MS isn't currently collecting people's first-born; but reserving the right to would (and should!) raise a few eyebrows. It's not that I think they have sinister intentions right now, it's just that I don't trust them to come up with a way to profit at my expense... something not exactly foreign to them, according the to DOJ...
I don't think that they need that clause in the EULA to do what they want to do; all they need to say is that by using their updating software, you grant them the right to make certain changes to the system for the purpose of installing that software & that if you don't like that, you can just turn it off and prevent it from connecting to MS for updates, but that this may not be a good idea.
BTW, yes it really does bother some people to know that MS has a backdoor on their system, just as much as it would bother them to have sub7, netbus, or BO installed. While we may (think) we know exactly what it's doing, given MS' track record on security, it might as well be BO -- at least you can password protect an installation of that...
Just remember an old legal proverb: only a fool signs a contract because he thinks it's unenforcable.
It's not a good idea to install a coffee maker on someone's computer. When you take it in for repair & tell the techs that the cupholder is broken, you get a lot of funny looks...
They're probably just half-breeds of various sorts. Suppose some noble klingon family had a bit of human blood in there somewhere, would they care to admit it? The worse problem is how come we keep only ever seeing one type of klingon... but we all know that that's due to the makeup artitsts, not klingon proto-history :] If all else fails they can just say "the Q did it" or somesuch...
No, there can be only one.
Oh, wait...
Pity you won't lose any mass that way... Well, maybe if you walked the whole way there...
Can you imagine, though, the problems that might cause? Forget the Y2K bug, how'd you like to reverse all your compases if this ever happened? Oogh...
SFAIK (IANAL), they want it so that they can enjoy the protections from liability. E.G. luser X didn't read the documentation (which, let's say, lists a known bug & warns you about it) and so he screwed up a production server, but now wants to blame Red Hat (or whoever wrote it) for that mistake.
As said above, he didn't need to accept the license for most of what he did (e.g. he didn't redistribute it) so he didn't accept the provisions which limit RH's liability... So are they still liable, or not? I think that's the question that needs to be addressed. Now, if you'd shown that he'd implicitly accepted the license by doing something he couldn't do without accepting it, you might have a stronger case against him.
OTOH, if he didn't do anything but run it without having done anything to indicate that he accepted the license, where does that leave you? Are you liable for damages or not? It's certainly not a good thing if people giving away software now have to worry that someone might misuse it & blame them (financially) for that...