One of the article's complaints is about searching for apple and finding mostly results about Apple Computer ("You have to sift through 50 results before you reach a link that deals with apples that grow on trees"). It's interesting to note that if he had simply searched for what he was actually looking for, apples, he would have found plenty.
Ouch. FYI You can get 1.5/386 from Earthlink DSL for $49.
I could also get a 1.5/256 line for $39, from a local ISP who isn't earthlink, and if I didn't want the upstream thats what I'd probably do. If you know a way to get 768k upstream (or, ideally, more) on a non-business (aka residential) DSL line for less money, please do let me know.
Other reasons I wouldn't use earthlink:
Last I heard, their DSL still required PPPOE or some other nonsense
They don't want you to run an open WAP
Their tech support is retarded (I've dealt with them on behalf of a client, and I think I actually taught them some things about earthlink's hosting services.)
IIRC, they're owned by some religious organization I want nothing to do with. But I can't remember what the story on that was, and a quick googling didn't turn it up. Maybe just a rumor.
They tell people it's Their Internet (as in, "It's Your Internet"). What a bunch of crap.
It's a scam. I explain why here. But the basic gist is that you only get 50% of what your "customers" pay speakeasy credited back to your account. They don't mention this until you're on the MySpeakeasy page where you can set it up (screenshot).
It makes far more sense to not tell them you're sharing, and just have your neighbors pay you directly. And until the NetShare plan was unveiled, that was an OK thing to do. Now... I may actually need to find a new ISP because of this, if they intend to enforce this nonsense.
ralphus:
What kind of ethics cause one to intentionally run a open access point and then charge someone who doesn't 'get' it?
Hehe, I thought I might get a reply like that.
I run an open network for people passing by who might want to use the net for a while. I leave my network wide open, with DHCP and all, because when I travel, I apprecieate others who do the same.
However, I pay $100/mo for my dsl (split with housemates, we all value having a 1.5/768 connection), and I'm not paying that to give other people full-time premium dsl in their homes for free. This guy approached me and offered to pay in on our dsl bill, and I don't see our choice of media as having anything to do with the ethics of charging him.
I keep a pretty close eye on stats for our little net (linux hostap puts these in/proc), and I know how much bandiwdth which clients are using. This guy uses KaZaa a lot, and if he weren't paying me, I'd probably have limited his MAC address to 5k/sec by now, if not dropped him completely.
I'll have to look into the NetShare thing, one the login stops 404ing, as giving him an email address and having him pay speakeasy directly may be a nicer option.
I hope to be able to continue to run my network open though.
ralphus:
come on.... you aren't open. admit it.
Whatever. I block outbound port 25, too. Does that also make it not open? Still seems pretty open to me, strangers can browse the web just fine... I was thinking of limiting it further, so strangers could get online, but could only make TCP connections to a whitelist of ports (ie 22). That way people can ssh out and check their mail, and if they're savy enough they can bring in a full net connection from outside. Now _that_ would be "not really open", though still open enough for a lot of wifi travelers I know.
I got a new neighbor who had the bright idea to ask me about running cat5 to my house, so we could share dsl costs. I told him that, since he only had a laptop, he should get a wireless card instead, and I'd get him online.
Now he pays a share of the bill, in exchange for connecting to my AP. If he knew anything about wireless networks, and/or knew that I was already intentionally running an open AP before he moved in, he might not be so willing to pay for an equal share of the line... But he doesn't! =)
I wonder if running a NetShare AP rules out running a wide-open free AP. Neighbors won't want to pay if they can get it for free, right? I think my setup now, with free access for anyone who knows what free access is, and payment from those who don't, works well for the time being. Nobody better educate my neighbor, though, or I might have to install NoCatAuth or something.
A friend of mine has a 12'' AlBook on the way, and just got an email this morning with the subject "Great news about your recent Apple purchase". They're crediting him the difference, and he didn't even have to ask:)
Re:Cringley, Linus, and Christoph Hellwig
on
Today's SCO News
·
· Score: 0, Troll
The key here, I think, is the Windows emulation technology Microsoft got when it bought Connectix.
Last time I checked, Connectix' software emulates x86, not windows. But hey, Cringley is a crackhead, after all...
I think it would (matter), since you can't very well use this tool to trade files with complete strangers or even large groups of people. This software simply isn't a problem for them (the *AA). Gnutella, OpenNAP, Kazaa, et al are a far bigger threat.
Lately XNap (xnap.sf.net) has been my p2p app of choice.
I don't understand why he would make such a serious allegation...
For example, the author recently purchased an embedded Linux powered device and, when he asked the vendor's support person how to obtain a copy of the Linux they used, was politely informed that their product uses "a proprietary version of Linux."
...and yet not tell the community which vendor he's speaking of! If what he says is true, and they're shipping a modified kernel and witholding the source, they are definitely in violation. So who is it?
Re:Early parts overclockable?
on
802.11g Slows Down
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
This is not the first time IEEE has made a similar mistake
I think Apple and Linksys et al are the ones who made the biggest mistake, by marketing and selling products based on an unfinalized standard. How many ads have we all seen that promise 54Mbit wireless? I can't imagine they'll be real happy about giving customers this firmware update. In fact, I almost wonder if they'll keep on updating and selling their 54Mbit 802.11-notquite-g hardware, even if it never gets IEEE certified.
The good news in this story is that, now that the standard is finalized, we'll finally get some other chipsets besides broadcom (which still had no linux support, last I heard).
Can I put a sign by my door that says "by entering the premesis you agree to be my personal slave for life", and enslave every person who walks in without reading the fine-print sign?
From my understanding, if someone installs GPL software onto more than one of their own machines then they are distributing it and need to publish the source. This should apply to leasers and device distributors.
No, you're wrong. If I have 100 PCs and I want to put my own custom hacked linux kernel on all of them, I'm perfectly allowed to do so, without releasing the source. I'm just not allowed to offer binaries to the general public (unless I also make the source available too).
$17k is practically nothing to the music mafia. Their real win here is in the intimidation factor. There will be people who read this slashdot story, say Oh Shit, and think twice next time they want to get a track off a p2p network. They're trying to scare us, and from the looks of this discussion, it's working well.
It seems you might enjoy a service that offers songs for $0.25 in a lossless format, with no form of DRM, with a selection of every song ever made and nothing less.
The songs I see are $0.99, not $0.25, and AAC is not a lossless format (it just sounds better than mp3 at the same bitrate). The selection really isn't that good imo, most of the things I've searched for so far were not available (I mean, one album from radiohead? And zero search results for Squarepusher or Aphex Twin?)
As for the DRM: I haven't bought any tracks yet (see: selection, above), but I have downloaded one of the short sample tracks (I sniffed the url while shopping in iTunes). I downloaded this 30 second clip of NIN from several different hosts, and they all got the same file. Finder shows the file as being an "AAC Audio File (Protected)," but I transferred the file between several computers and played it without problem. I'd like to see some more info about what "Protected" means in this instance.
I was a little worried about the phone-home potential. The data I sniffed so far is largly text/xml with gzip encoding, but I don't think it sent back nearly enough data to have told them about everything in my library. It very well could have, however, sent back unique identifying information about my machine. If I give them my creditcard number, will they be able to tie my RealName(tm) to my Airport's MAC address? Or can they already, from my machine's serial number, and the software update queries I've run since I installed it? Ah the sacrifices we make for use of candy coated commercial unix goodness....
Phoenix, the lightweight opensource mozilla browser, was renamed to Firebird. Firebird, the open source database, is supported by a company called IBPhoenix. Firebird, the database, also happens to be licensed under the IPL, which is based on the Mozilla Public License.
The Mozilla Project's Asa Dotzler has said that "the chances of someone confusing a web browser and a relational database are about as slim as someone confusing a loaf of bread and a bananna". There have now been complaints from Mozilla camp about IBPhoenix inciting their users to contact, en masse, Asa (and others) about this matter... I think that the Mozilla people should really just be glad that the users were only asked to send email, rather than to snail mail packages of mozilla-branded banana bread. Because that would be kind of funny.
In any case, I think that a project who's name and logo comes awfully close to infringing on a certain Japaneese movie franchise really ought to think carefully before stepping on friend's toes regarding name rights.
Can anyone explain to me how this story got so big? I've had a few people send me links, and I've seen it on a few sites... Now slashdot even has it! I mean, WHAT THE FUCK?
It's the WEEKLY WORLD NEWS, people! (Yes, the tabliod refered to as "The Paper" in So I Married An Axe Murderer)
Now that yahoo is syndicating them, there are lots of bullshit stories filled into the yahoo news templates. What makes this one so special that it gets on slashdot? And how many people forwarding it don't actually realize it's from the WWN? I mean, this is the publication that brought us Bat Boy, and the Clinton's Alien Baby stories. And now some crap about a time traveler makes slashdot?
Considering the number of convicted criminals appointed to important offices lately, it's difficult to believe anything that the administration does is in the public's best interest. I hope your suspicions are incorrect in this case, but I fear they're probably not. Time will tell...
As bad as slashdot has made it sound, after reading the article I think this is actually a good thing. From the text:
O'Connor Kelly is well acquainted with the often bitter debate over balancing privacy rights with other interests. She joined DoubleClick in February 2000 after the Federal Trade Commission launched an investigation into complaints that the company was improperly storing and sharing private user data. DoubleClick also was embroiled in similar investigations by 12 state attorneys general and several class-action lawsuits.
DoubleClick settled most of those lawsuits, and created a division specializing in privacy compliance, which O'Connor Kelly ran.
chrisd is either intentionally trying to stir shit up with sensational misrepresentation of facts, or he just skimmed the article before posting it and didn't bother to get the whole story. In either case, I think this is definitely worthy of an Update: on the front page, noting that the individual in question was responsible for cleaning up DoubleClick's privacy catastrophies, rather than causing them.
I'm really glad I read the article on this post, because after only reading the slashdot version I had a very different opinion on the matter than I do now!
If I owned the pictures in question, and the warrant demanded that I turn over my entire hard drive, I'd see them in court.
IANAL, but I think that, with a warrant, they just could take it from you immediately and any legal case you could make would be after-the-fact.
They can't have a blank warrant to seize anything at all that exists on the computer.
Well, from many books and news stories I've read on the subject (of computers and the law), I think that they can and do. (Not to say I think it's right, it's just that law enforcement gets to operate by a different standard for right/wrong than the rest of the human race...)
Slashdot Mirror
One of the article's complaints is about searching for apple and finding mostly results about Apple Computer ("You have to sift through 50 results before you reach a link that deals with apples that grow on trees"). It's interesting to note that if he had simply searched for what he was actually looking for, apples, he would have found plenty.
Well, their site is clearly changing a bit, and I'm pretty certain that wasn't spelled out there at all before.
I could also get a 1.5/256 line for $39, from a local ISP who isn't earthlink, and if I didn't want the upstream thats what I'd probably do. If you know a way to get 768k upstream (or, ideally, more) on a non-business (aka residential) DSL line for less money, please do let me know.
Other reasons I wouldn't use earthlink:
Last I heard, their DSL still required PPPOE or some other nonsense
They don't want you to run an open WAP
Their tech support is retarded (I've dealt with them on behalf of a client, and I think I actually taught them some things about earthlink's hosting services.)
IIRC, they're owned by some religious organization I want nothing to do with. But I can't remember what the story on that was, and a quick googling didn't turn it up. Maybe just a rumor.
They tell people it's Their Internet (as in, "It's Your Internet"). What a bunch of crap.
It's a scam. I explain why here. But the basic gist is that you only get 50% of what your "customers" pay speakeasy credited back to your account. They don't mention this until you're on the MySpeakeasy page where you can set it up (screenshot).
It makes far more sense to not tell them you're sharing, and just have your neighbors pay you directly. And until the NetShare plan was unveiled, that was an OK thing to do. Now... I may actually need to find a new ISP because of this, if they intend to enforce this nonsense.
I run an open network for people passing by who might want to use the net for a while. I leave my network wide open, with DHCP and all, because when I travel, I apprecieate others who do the same.
However, I pay $100/mo for my dsl (split with housemates, we all value having a 1.5/768 connection), and I'm not paying that to give other people full-time premium dsl in their homes for free. This guy approached me and offered to pay in on our dsl bill, and I don't see our choice of media as having anything to do with the ethics of charging him.
I keep a pretty close eye on stats for our little net (linux hostap puts these in
I'll have to look into the NetShare thing, one the login stops 404ing, as giving him an email address and having him pay speakeasy directly may be a nicer option.
I hope to be able to continue to run my network open though.Whatever. I block outbound port 25, too. Does that also make it not open? Still seems pretty open to me, strangers can browse the web just fine... I was thinking of limiting it further, so strangers could get online, but could only make TCP connections to a whitelist of ports (ie 22). That way people can ssh out and check their mail, and if they're savy enough they can bring in a full net connection from outside. Now _that_ would be "not really open", though still open enough for a lot of wifi travelers I know.
I just went to readup on NetShare more, and they highly recomend using WEP, but don't require it. The page to sign up 404s after I login, though...
I got a new neighbor who had the bright idea to ask me about running cat5 to my house, so we could share dsl costs. I told him that, since he only had a laptop, he should get a wireless card instead, and I'd get him online.
Now he pays a share of the bill, in exchange for connecting to my AP. If he knew anything about wireless networks, and/or knew that I was already intentionally running an open AP before he moved in, he might not be so willing to pay for an equal share of the line... But he doesn't! =)
I wonder if running a NetShare AP rules out running a wide-open free AP. Neighbors won't want to pay if they can get it for free, right? I think my setup now, with free access for anyone who knows what free access is, and payment from those who don't, works well for the time being. Nobody better educate my neighbor, though, or I might have to install NoCatAuth or something.
A friend of mine has a 12'' AlBook on the way, and just got an email this morning with the subject "Great news about your recent Apple purchase". They're crediting him the difference, and he didn't even have to ask :)
The key here, I think, is the Windows emulation technology Microsoft got when it bought Connectix.
Last time I checked, Connectix' software emulates x86, not windows. But hey, Cringley is a crackhead, after all...
I think it would (matter), since you can't very well use this tool to trade files with complete strangers or even large groups of people. This software simply isn't a problem for them (the *AA). Gnutella, OpenNAP, Kazaa, et al are a far bigger threat.
Lately XNap (xnap.sf.net) has been my p2p app of choice.
is your nick intended as a crosley bendix reference?
This is not the first time IEEE has made a similar mistake
I think Apple and Linksys et al are the ones who made the biggest mistake, by marketing and selling products based on an unfinalized standard. How many ads have we all seen that promise 54Mbit wireless? I can't imagine they'll be real happy about giving customers this firmware update. In fact, I almost wonder if they'll keep on updating and selling their 54Mbit 802.11-notquite-g hardware, even if it never gets IEEE certified.
The good news in this story is that, now that the standard is finalized, we'll finally get some other chipsets besides broadcom (which still had no linux support, last I heard).
But wheres the signature?
Can I put a sign by my door that says "by entering the premesis you agree to be my personal slave for life", and enslave every person who walks in without reading the fine-print sign?
As funny as this story is, it wasn't meant to be taken so seriously. K5 has the details.
Wtf does bluetooth have to do with anything?
Hey, where did the Anonymous posting checkbox go?!
From my understanding, if someone installs GPL software onto more than one of their own machines then they are distributing it and need to publish the source. This should apply to leasers and device distributors.
No, you're wrong. If I have 100 PCs and I want to put my own custom hacked linux kernel on all of them, I'm perfectly allowed to do so, without releasing the source. I'm just not allowed to offer binaries to the general public (unless I also make the source available too).
$17k is practically nothing to the music mafia. Their real win here is in the intimidation factor. There will be people who read this slashdot story, say Oh Shit, and think twice next time they want to get a track off a p2p network. They're trying to scare us, and from the looks of this discussion, it's working well.
:)
I for one won't let this stop me though
It seems you might enjoy a service that offers songs for $0.25 in a lossless format, with no form of DRM, with a selection of every song ever made and nothing less.
The songs I see are $0.99, not $0.25, and AAC is not a lossless format (it just sounds better than mp3 at the same bitrate). The selection really isn't that good imo, most of the things I've searched for so far were not available (I mean, one album from radiohead? And zero search results for Squarepusher or Aphex Twin?)
As for the DRM:
I haven't bought any tracks yet (see: selection, above), but I have downloaded one of the short sample tracks (I sniffed the url while shopping in iTunes). I downloaded this 30 second clip of NIN from several different hosts, and they all got the same file. Finder shows the file as being an "AAC Audio File (Protected)," but I transferred the file between several computers and played it without problem. I'd like to see some more info about what "Protected" means in this instance.
I was a little worried about the phone-home potential. The data I sniffed so far is largly text/xml with gzip encoding, but I don't think it sent back nearly enough data to have told them about everything in my library. It very well could have, however, sent back unique identifying information about my machine. If I give them my creditcard number, will they be able to tie my RealName(tm) to my Airport's MAC address? Or can they already, from my machine's serial number, and the software update queries I've run since I installed it? Ah the sacrifices we make for use of candy coated commercial unix goodness....
Phoenix, the lightweight opensource mozilla browser, was renamed to Firebird.
Firebird, the open source database, is supported by a company called IBPhoenix.
Firebird, the database, also happens to be licensed under the IPL, which is based on the Mozilla Public License.
The Mozilla Project's Asa Dotzler has said that "the chances of someone confusing a web browser and a relational database are about as slim as someone confusing a loaf of bread and a bananna". There have now been complaints from Mozilla camp about IBPhoenix inciting their users to contact, en masse, Asa (and others) about this matter... I think that the Mozilla people should really just be glad that the users were only asked to send email, rather than to snail mail packages of mozilla-branded banana bread. Because that would be kind of funny.
In any case, I think that a project who's name and logo comes awfully close to infringing on a certain Japaneese movie franchise really ought to think carefully before stepping on friend's toes regarding name rights.
I find your suggestion, that humor is an acceptable practice on the internet, to be patently offensive. Please, never reply to one of my posts again.
Can anyone explain to me how this story got so big? I've had a few people send me links, and I've seen it on a few sites... Now slashdot even has it! I mean, WHAT THE FUCK?
It's the WEEKLY WORLD NEWS, people!
(Yes, the tabliod refered to as "The Paper" in So I Married An Axe Murderer)
Now that yahoo is syndicating them, there are lots of bullshit stories filled into the yahoo news templates. What makes this one so special that it gets on slashdot? And how many people forwarding it don't actually realize it's from the WWN? I mean, this is the publication that brought us Bat Boy , and the Clinton's Alien Baby stories. And now some crap about a time traveler makes slashdot?
It makes no sense.
You raise valid points.
Considering the number of convicted criminals appointed to important offices lately, it's difficult to believe anything that the administration does is in the public's best interest. I hope your suspicions are incorrect in this case, but I fear they're probably not. Time will tell...
I'm really glad I read the article on this post, because after only reading the slashdot version I had a very different opinion on the matter than I do now!
If I owned the pictures in question, and the warrant demanded that I turn over my entire hard drive, I'd see them in court.
IANAL, but I think that, with a warrant, they just could take it from you immediately and any legal case you could make would be after-the-fact.
They can't have a blank warrant to seize anything at all that exists on the computer.
Well, from many books and news stories I've read on the subject (of computers and the law), I think that they can and do. (Not to say I think it's right, it's just that law enforcement gets to operate by a different standard for right/wrong than the rest of the human race...)