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User: vegetablespork

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Comments · 769

  1. Re:Do they not get it? on Will Security Task Force Affect OSS Acceptance? · · Score: 5, Insightful

    On the plus side, since we're licensing for "homeland security" reasons, there's no reason non-citizens should be writing any software used in the U.S.' critical infrastructure. Right?

  2. Re:Hard work on Make More Mistakes · · Score: 1

    OSX 10.1 was free because until 10.2, it was customary for bug fixes and minor point releases to be free. But when Jaguar was released, Apple topped its legendary greed by tapping their customers who purchased overpriced commodity hardware for even more cash.

  3. Re:using other countries to send spam on Alan Ralsky Gripes About Can Spam Act · · Score: 1

    Herein lies the rub. Any replacement for SMTP is going to involve some kind of central vetting of email servers. Those doing the vetting will want to be paid (Verisign comes immediately to mind). Once people realize they will have to pay to participate in this grand email system, if not by the message, then at least annually, the spam problem won't seem so bad after all.

  4. Re:Yup every Felon on Californians To Vote On Largest DNA Database · · Score: 1

    That's probably about five years behind the schedule for the voluntary (at first) ID implants.

  5. Re:statute of limitations assumption on Mitnick Calls for Hacker Stories · · Score: 1

    Reclassifying the crime, while a workaround, is not retroactively lengthening a statute of limitations. Sort of like charging the LAPD officers in the Rodney King affair with violating King's civil rights after failing to obtain a legitimate conviction in the first criminal trial isn't double jeopardy.

  6. Re:statute of limitations assumption on Mitnick Calls for Hacker Stories · · Score: 1
    Ex post facto. Can't change a statute of limitations or define a crime retroactively in the U.S.

    Yet.

  7. Re:This is our own fault. on BusinessWeek on Outsourcing · · Score: 1
    Nobody is paying a fucking dime more just because it's US-made. Why should we do ?

    The real indicator that it is corporate greed is that we typically aren't paying a dime less for goods made in the third world. We don't get what we pay for--we pay for what we used to get, and the fat cats pocket the difference.

  8. Re:Cell Phoney Tracking - wrong on Your Cell Phone Is Tracking You · · Score: 1

    Apparently, not all of them have been fighting, given that the RIAA was able to get enough subscriber details to file it's hundreds of lawsuits so far.

  9. Re:Tool for Control Freaks on Your Cell Phone Is Tracking You · · Score: 1

    One thing that control freaks tend to forget: these services track the location of the phone, not that of the human :).

  10. Gabe and Tycho pretty much nailed it: on Washington Post Covers iPod Battery Ruckus · · Score: 3, Funny
  11. Re:Read your AUP / TOS on Have You Fought Your ISP Over Bandwidth Limits? · · Score: 2, Informative
    The issue isn't with an ISP's right of free assocation (which they should enjoy before they start getting regulated as public utilities and required to provide service to all comers) but with their advertising "unlimited" service and not delivering it.

    Imagine if an "all you can eat" restaurant kicked out people who dared to get a third plate for "abuse."

  12. Re:Can you blame them? on Have You Fought Your ISP Over Bandwidth Limits? · · Score: 1

    No, what it means is that they're advertising unlimited while there is, in fact, a limit. They just don't tell the users what that limit is.

  13. Don't know what to suggest . . . on How Would You Like a Business to Behave? · · Score: 1

    . . . but it sure sounds like you're already on the right track.

  14. Re:Value in old domains on HP to Launch Music Service, Player In 2004 · · Score: 1

    Watch Ski introduce Laura to "Reverse Polish Notation" in this 281 MB MPEG. Only $1.99!

  15. Re:heh on Pornographic Spam And The Workplace · · Score: 1

    Farm Sluts was an outstanding piece of cinema. I kept a copy of that and it still makes me laugh violently when I watch it.

  16. Re:Change the law on RIAA Extends Legal Action · · Score: 1
    The GPL/BSD licenses are based on copyright controls, after all.

    The GPL being based on copyright is a necessary evil only in the presence of copyright. The GPL hoists corporations that would use and close up GPL software with their own petard, as those who claim to worship at the altar of copyright have no license in absence of assent to the GPL. If there were no copyright, this somewhat convulted legal contortion would be unnecessary. Thus, abolishing copyright would abolish the GPL, but the need for the GPL would also as a result have ceased to exist.

  17. Re:For those who knock US justice... on DeCSS: Jon Johansen Retrial Begins · · Score: 2, Informative

    That was technically a different charge of "violating Rodney King's civil rights." It's bullshit--anyone could see they were being retried for the same offense, but since there seemed to be an interest in keeping the teeming underclasses from burning the rest of LA, it stood. I'm sure the same would happen again if someone managed to offend a sufficiently well-connected corporation. There's more than 1 intellectual "property" law, after all.

  18. Re:This is terrible on Maine to Launch Internet Sex-Offender Registry · · Score: 1

    On that we certainly agree.

  19. Re:This is terrible on Maine to Launch Internet Sex-Offender Registry · · Score: 1

    Sodomy laws are not about consent. The laws, until the recent Supreme Court decision in Lawrence v. Texas were able to be and had been enforced against consenting adults.

  20. Re:This is terrible on Maine to Launch Internet Sex-Offender Registry · · Score: 1

    You make a good point. A person I'm close to had to fill out a form, consent to investigation, and all that stuff as part of the vetting process for a volunteer job working with children. One of the questions asked if that person had been a victim of child sexual abuse. It went on in a conciliatory way to say that "A yes answer does not preclude serving . . ." Yeah, right.

  21. Re:Its uninforcable on ARIA Threatens To Sue Internet Service Providers · · Score: 1

    And at that point, broadband is worth roughly the same as a dialup connection. Customers flee, and everyone loses money.

  22. Re:What DRM issue does this really fix, though? on Apple's iTunes DRM Cracked? · · Score: 1

    This assumes they're watermarked. If they aren't, the watermarking can be disproven by the first person who purchases a file twiced--under two different Apple IDs (and probably best on two different machines, in case they're watermarked with a machine ID). Then, this hypothetical person needs to run QTFairUse against each purchased track. If the resulting AAC files are byte for byte identical, there is no watermarking that can be individually identified.

  23. Re:Whats the point? on Apple's iTunes DRM Cracked? · · Score: 1
    This isn't about capturing the decompressed PCM stream, which would incur more loss when recompressed. Rather, this program purports to (note to industry-slave TLA's, I haven't tried it) produce an unprotected AAC file with no loss.

    What'll be interesting is to see if the protected AAC is watermarked. An easy way to find out would be to go to another machine, buy the same track from iTMS with a different Apple ID, and compare the results from this program. If they differ, they may well be watermarked in addtion to DRMd.

  24. Re:Mod up on Best Buy Uses DMCA To Quash Black Friday Prices · · Score: 1
    Why not sue over $20? Sure, you'll pay a filing fee for more than that to file in Small Claims, but you'll have the satisfaction of them having to get a highly paid manager (and tie up their counsel briefing him, even those they can't send a lawyer to Small Claims). And if they blow it off, there's always the possibility of a default judgement :).

    If you don't want to go through that much trouble, at least write to the Attorney General in your state, and increment the complaint counter. Who knows--you might live in a state with a good AG's office, and Best Buy could end up spending some high-priced employee time responding. Sort of a legal DDoS against their offices.

  25. Re:DMCA is crap, but.... on Best Buy Uses DMCA To Quash Black Friday Prices · · Score: 1

    With regard to the NDA, Best Buy et al have cause of action against those who violated the NDA, i.e. their employees. Once the facts are out in the wild, they're facts--if I come across Best Buy's prices legally by reading a website, I have no duty to protect them, regardless of any harm which may come to the asshats at best buy for my failure to do so.