Given M$ recently delared push to fix the security of their OS, this makes a fiendishly clever move. The single most valuable resource for fixing security problems is to know EVERY exploit currently in use.
Try this for a plan... So they get the security problems fixed, kinda sorta they think. The truly evil plan would be to TROLL the entire net. With some sort of nasty unfounded lie about UNIX. It would generate millions of hits, and have every cracker, script kiddie and real Security Geek on the planet spend the next few days trying to take down that system. Log it. M$ would now have a comprehensive database of every known method for breaking windows because thousands of enemies just showed them their favorite exploits!
From now on, we can assume that M$ actually has the most knowledge about methods of cracking windoze. Here is the ultimate panic point. Now that M$ has this information, it is quite possible that they WILL soon have the most secure system. With this quality of information about holes, and legions of code drones spending ALL of their time fixing them, they just might actually fix them ALL. What happens to *NIX if M$ really does end up with the most secure system?
Why do I have ask PERMISSION to read letters from my grandkids?
This morning, I was at a meeting with a number of CEO's, Presidents and such. When I brought this Hollings insanity up, at first they all thought it sounded like a good idea. (Yes, they all have grandkids and run public companies so understand the mental processes here). It took me a while to explain to them in non-technical terms that it means everything has to be labled with copyright status when it is created no matter who writes it. Which got a certain amount of uneasiness. Then I explained that when ever they opened anything, even email, the copy protection hardware would verify that they were allowed to see it. When they started yawning, I switched track...
"Lets say your granddaughter sent you an email. Before you could read it, you would have to get permission from the Disney Copyright Tracking System to read it."
Suddenly, the lights went on and these men were extremely angry! "What do you mean I have to get PERMISSION! Its mine, I don't need PERMISSION from anyone!" and similar screams of defiance.
PERMISSION is the key word here. The RIAA will keep claiming this is about THEFT. In political terms, this is the equivelent of saying "its just about sex". For all of us to defeat this stupid bill, we have to get a similar framing of the debate. The key word here is that nobody likes to have to ask permission to see, read hear or enjoy things that they rightly believe they own.
So every time the RIAA says " We're stopping THEFT". We need to claim "By forcing everyone to ask PERMISSION to read thier own mail!
Many of you are forgetting the MOST important factor here. This is Harlan Ellison they are trying to screw out of money. He believes in getting paid for everything he writes, no matter how minor or trivial. Perhaps a small historical anectdote may put this in better presepective.
Once, a long time ago, a publisher ran late in paying Mr. Ellison his royalties. Mr. Ellison was forced to write a dunning letter to the publisher for non-payment. This of course angered Harlan even more because he was forced to write without pay. He eventually got paid the arrears but he didn't give up. Instead, he sold the rights to the dunning letter to one of those publishers that sold books of model business letters (think pre-computer Word Templates).
Now, some company has tried to screw him out of money for his writings. Do not make the mistake of underestimating his willingness to go all out until he has gotten every last penny Harlan thinks is owed. Mere judges won't prevent him from finding out a way.
AOL has no idea just how small a victory they won. I pity them.
TopText is KaZaA's version of this mess so I assume Streamcast is doing basically the same. Specifically, it reads the HTML coming through and does two things. First, any link to an affiliate program it recognizes gets rewritten so that the referal ID is TopText's NOT the site which provided the link and content. Second, the text is searched for keywords which are then rewritten to be links again with a refer ID for TopText. This is the source of the so called Yellow Text links.
The first one is theft pure and simple. The people like me who write the site are trying to get paid by putting the link there. KaZaA, Morpheus etc are simply stealing scarce and hard earned money from others. The second activity might barely be legit but not likely. For example, if I linked "Buy your books at BN" with my referal ID and TopText then grabbed "books" to point it at Amazon, I have still been robbed.
If my sites didn't make at least some money off the links, they would disappear when the hosting bills come around. For all the screaming about/. subscriptions, how bad would it be if all the ad revenue disappeared because Morpheus and KaZaA stole it? Now think about all of the free sites out there trying to live off the referal ads. They will all die if scumware like this becomes standard.
I have sent the following message to Robin Gross of EFF.
Dear Ms. Gross
I am writing to express my concern that my attempts to financially support EFF have been stolen by Morpheus and similar companies. I have long been careful to use the Amazon Affiliate Button on your front page for all of my book purchases. I have felt that doing this combined to support what I believe in simply and effectively. Since my purchases have been well over $1000 per year for at least the last two years, I know that it has to have been worth at least some money to EFF.
It has recently become apparent that Morpheus et al. have been placing software such as TopText and other scumware on users machines. These programs have the sole purpose of rewriting affiliate links. This effectively redirects the financial benefits of these links to the scumware operators. To put it bluntly, this is theft, no different than if they had taken the affiliate checks and written their own names as payee.
I have supported the EFF for years. I supported Morpheus partly because of EFF's support of them. But I am frankly disgusted by this turn of events. As the Director of the Campaign for Audiovisual Free Expression, and a staff attorney for EFF for Fair Use and Intellectual Property, I believe that you may well be the single best person to let them know they have gone too far. To take a principled stand on Fair Use is one thing. To pump ads to users while using the software is also perfectly legit. To actively steal revenue from other people, companies and organizations, even after the user has supposedly removed the software, without notice is simply beyond comprehension.
Slashdot Mirror
Given M$ recently delared push to fix the security of their OS, this makes a fiendishly clever move. The single most valuable resource for fixing security problems is to know EVERY exploit currently in use.
Try this for a plan... So they get the security problems fixed, kinda sorta they think. The truly evil plan would be to TROLL the entire net. With some sort of nasty unfounded lie about UNIX. It would generate millions of hits, and have every cracker, script kiddie and real Security Geek on the planet spend the next few days trying to take down that system. Log it. M$ would now have a comprehensive database of every known method for breaking windows because thousands of enemies just showed them their favorite exploits!
From now on, we can assume that M$ actually has the most knowledge about methods of cracking windoze. Here is the ultimate panic point. Now that M$ has this information, it is quite possible that they WILL soon have the most secure system. With this quality of information about holes, and legions of code drones spending ALL of their time fixing them, they just might actually fix them ALL. What happens to *NIX if M$ really does end up with the most secure system?
something like
Why do I have ask PERMISSION to read letters from my grandkids?
This morning, I was at a meeting with a number of CEO's, Presidents and such. When I brought this Hollings insanity up, at first they all thought it sounded like a good idea. (Yes, they all have grandkids and run public companies so understand the mental processes here). It took me a while to explain to them in non-technical terms that it means everything has to be labled with copyright status when it is created no matter who writes it. Which got a certain amount of uneasiness. Then I explained that when ever they opened anything, even email, the copy protection hardware would verify that they were allowed to see it. When they started yawning, I switched track...
"Lets say your granddaughter sent you an email. Before you could read it, you would have to get permission from the Disney Copyright Tracking System to read it."
Suddenly, the lights went on and these men were extremely angry! "What do you mean I have to get PERMISSION! Its mine, I don't need PERMISSION from anyone!" and similar screams of defiance.
PERMISSION is the key word here. The RIAA will keep claiming this is about THEFT. In political terms, this is the equivelent of saying "its just about sex". For all of us to defeat this stupid bill, we have to get a similar framing of the debate. The key word here is that nobody likes to have to ask permission to see, read hear or enjoy things that they rightly believe they own.
So every time the RIAA says " We're stopping THEFT". We need to claim "By forcing everyone to ask PERMISSION to read thier own mail!
Many of you are forgetting the MOST important factor here. This is Harlan Ellison they are trying to screw out of money. He believes in getting paid for everything he writes, no matter how minor or trivial. Perhaps a small historical anectdote may put this in better presepective.
Once, a long time ago, a publisher ran late in paying Mr. Ellison his royalties. Mr. Ellison was forced to write a dunning letter to the publisher for non-payment. This of course angered Harlan even more because he was forced to write without pay. He eventually got paid the arrears but he didn't give up. Instead, he sold the rights to the dunning letter to one of those publishers that sold books of model business letters (think pre-computer Word Templates).
Now, some company has tried to screw him out of money for his writings. Do not make the mistake of underestimating his willingness to go all out until he has gotten every last penny Harlan thinks is owed. Mere judges won't prevent him from finding out a way.
AOL has no idea just how small a victory they won. I pity them.
TopText is KaZaA's version of this mess so I assume Streamcast is doing basically the same. Specifically, it reads the HTML coming through and does two things. First, any link to an affiliate program it recognizes gets rewritten so that the referal ID is TopText's NOT the site which provided the link and content. Second, the text is searched for keywords which are then rewritten to be links again with a refer ID for TopText. This is the source of the so called Yellow Text links.
/. subscriptions, how bad would it be if all the ad revenue disappeared because Morpheus and KaZaA stole it? Now think about all of the free sites out there trying to live off the referal ads. They will all die if scumware like this becomes standard.
The first one is theft pure and simple. The people like me who write the site are trying to get paid by putting the link there. KaZaA, Morpheus etc are simply stealing scarce and hard earned money from others. The second activity might barely be legit but not likely. For example, if I linked "Buy your books at BN" with my referal ID and TopText then grabbed "books" to point it at Amazon, I have still been robbed.
If my sites didn't make at least some money off the links, they would disappear when the hosting bills come around. For all the screaming about
I have sent the following message to Robin Gross of EFF.
Dear Ms. Gross
I am writing to express my concern that my attempts to financially support EFF have been stolen by Morpheus and similar companies. I have long been careful to use the Amazon Affiliate Button on your front page for all of my book purchases. I have felt that doing this combined to support what I believe in simply and effectively. Since my purchases have been well over $1000 per year for at least the last two years, I know that it has to have been worth at least some money to EFF.
It has recently become apparent that Morpheus et al. have been placing software such as TopText and other scumware on users machines. These programs have the sole purpose of rewriting affiliate links. This effectively redirects the financial benefits of these links to the scumware operators. To put it bluntly, this is theft, no different than if they had taken the affiliate checks and written their own names as payee.
I have supported the EFF for years. I supported Morpheus partly because of EFF's support of them. But I am frankly disgusted by this turn of events. As the Director of the Campaign for Audiovisual Free Expression, and a staff attorney for EFF for Fair Use and Intellectual Property, I believe that you may well be the single best person to let them know they have gone too far. To take a principled stand on Fair Use is one thing. To pump ads to users while using the software is also perfectly legit. To actively steal revenue from other people, companies and organizations, even after the user has supposedly removed the software, without notice is simply beyond comprehension.
Sincerely
Walter Williams
It may be the funniest court but does anyone want a trial there even if it is free? Just a thought