I don't know about "e-stamps" for *all* e-mail, but what about an optional thing for e-stamps that would mark your mail as non-junk? Like, I could by 100 e-stamps (say, for 5 cents each). I could use them on specific emails that I want to (I wouldn't necessarily use them on all of them, only certain ones), and those ones would automatically be let through spam filters. Then we could have filters find those e-stamps, and if it has one, would let it through automatically. This could solve the problem of false positives in spam filters, and also would start costing spam companies major money!
Why don't you use SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics)? If they have Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on their computer, they probably have the Adobe SVG filter installed too. Then you can just dynamically create SVG code on the server-side like you normally do with dynamic pages.
Man, I wish I didn't use up all my mod points yesterday. This post gives some GREAT examples of why pre-emptive strikes and arrests are wrong and bad. Just because someone can do something doesn't mean they will. If it looks like someone will do something illegal (say, for example, robbing a bank), then the police officer should watch them. The second they break into the bank itself, then they are committing a crime (breaking and entering), but before they actually do anything then they're just a bunch of bums sitting on the side of the road in black masks and carrying a pickaxe.
By Joe Wilcox Special to ZDNet News December 2, 2002, 4:45 AM PT
Massachusetts officials said Friday they will appeal a recent ruling in Microsoft's long-running antitrust case, while seven other states intend to drop their opposition.
"We are going to appeal," state attorney general Tom Reilly said Friday during a conference call. "This appeal is necessary to protect consumers."
Massachusetts delivered its decision ahead of a Monday deadline. The nine plaintiff states have 30 days from U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly's Oct. 1 ruling to decide whether to file an appeal.
But Massachusetts is not being supported by most of the other states that have previously criticized the settlement as inadequate. "We are going it alone," Reilly said.
The District of Columbia and nine other states--California, Connecticut, Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Utah and West Virginia--had rejected a November 2001 settlement Microsoft cut with the Justice Department and nine other states.
In a Friday statement, Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller said, "Seven states and the District of Columbia will not appeal Judge Kollar-Kotelly's decree in the Microsoft antitrust case. We will move on to enforcing the decree on behalf of consumers and fair competition.
"For most of our states, it is time to dedicate our resources to enforcement of the decree and the law," Miller said.
West Virginia officials are expected reach a decision on whether to join Massachusetts by Monday.
In making its decision to appeal, Massachusetts is focusing on accountability. Reilly said he wanted to send the message that "breaking the law does not pay."
The Massachusetts attorney general noted that Microsoft had been found guilty of violating U.S. antitrust laws, and he described the remedy and separate settlement as being filled with "loopholes."
A consumer group praised Massachusetts' decision.
"We applaud Attorney General Reilly for deciding to appeal the remedy recently issued in the Microsoft case," the Consumer Federation of America said in statement. "This action seeks to defend critical antitrust principles that were established in the unanimous appeals court ruling that found Microsoft guilty of violating the antitrust laws."
Microsoft spokesman Jim Desler, however, said the company's "focus remains on complying fully with the court's judgment, working collaboratively with governments to address important public-policy issues and on developing innovative products that will benefit consumers."
In separate rulings, Kollar-Kotelly approved the settlement with minor modifications and instituted the revised settlement as her remedy in the plaintiff states' proceeding.
The states had asked the judge to impose a remedy that would affect Microsoft software code, such compelling the company to release a second version of its latest operating system, Windows XP, with so-called middleware removed.
But the judge largely rejected the states' request for stiffer sanctions.
"The decision is a virtual rubber-stamp of the proposed settlement," said Hillard Sterling, an antitrust attorney with Much Shelist in Chicago. "This judge didn't think that more was necessary to preserve competition. She clearly didn't buy the litigating states' premise, that Microsoft was an evil empire that needed to be punished severely."
Legal experts predicted Massachusetts could face tough going, particularly if no other states join in on the appeal.
Bob Lande, an antitrust professor with University of Baltimore Law School described Kollar-Kotelly's decision "virtually appeals proof."
"Our colleagues from Massachusetts are appealing the decision, and we wish them well," Iowa's Miller said. But he agreed with legal experts that "there are serious issues subject to appeal."
But Reilly maintained Massachusetts had no problem with going forward alone. "Microsoft is crushing...innovation," he said. "Without competition our economy has no future. Competition is the key to this case."
Whatever the outcome, the appeal will keep legal pressure on Microsoft at the same time states accepting Kollar-Kotelly's remedy focus on enforcement. Two separate bodies--a technical committee overseeing the settlement and compliance committee over the remedy--will enforce Microsoft's compliance.
"While not completely satisfying, the court decree closed enforcement loopholes, keeps compliance with the remedies squarely before the court and allows us now to turn attention to making sure that Microsoft competes fairly in the marketplace," California Attorney General Bill Lockyear said in a statement.
Miller noted that as a result of the ruling, "Microsoft will pay the States $28.6 million." Additionally, Microsoft also is paying $3.6 that million the States will use for continued enforcement and compliance. The states retain the option of asking the courts for additional enforcement funds."
Meanwhile, the Redmond, Wash.-based company faces other legal challenges. A three-day hearing next week in Baltimore will determine whether Microsoft will be compelled to carry Sun Microsystems' version of the Java Virtual Machine in Windows XP. Sun has filed a request for preliminary injunction on the matter, as part of a larger lawsuit against Microsoft.
Meanwhile, the European Union's Competition Commission is expected to soon issue a preliminary ruling in a separate antitrust investigation pending against Microsoft.
I believe that source code should be released when the product is out of support
However, if the source is released **after** it has stopped being supported, then all those bugs that would have been found would not be supported, and there wouldn't be a Windows 95.1 version released that fixed all the bugs people found by looking through the source.
It makes more sense to release the source code (if you're not going to release it when you first release the program) once your copyright is over. When your copyright on Program X is expired (assuming that the congress lets **any** copyrights expire from now until eternity), then you do not have the copyright to the code, and probably by now it is REALLY out-of-date, and your current product is FAR beyond what Program X was, in terms of its capabilities, complexities, and features, so it wouldn't be a threat to your current product because it is obselecent technology, not the cutting-edge.
Or, wait, let me think, the people have been brainwashed to use windows. Oops. It might be really nice for us, but unfortunately I don't think it'll really take off with the major consumer market for a looong time...
It seems to be just general web blocking problems
on
Google Returns to China
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
I don't see what's so big about this -- it seems that for one reason or another, china's web censoring/blocking/filtering programs have a bug in it (like most web censoring/blocking/filtering programs) that lets people get in to Google if they do it a certain way. I don't think that it means that China is going to make a general change in their policy to allow people to visit Google... they'll probably just fix up whatever bug is letting people get to Google and then we'll be right back where we started.
OK, so this is cool, I admit. However, how does this help us except that we know a little bit more? How can we use this to our advantage to improve our lives, etc?
I don't think that this is *that* important -- I mean, seriously, are we ever even going to get close to those black holes? No, not for the next 100 years, at the rate NASA is going with space missions. All people are sending out are PROBES, not PEOPLE.
I think we should try to get NASA to send just *astronauts* to the moon again, first, before we go and try to go and build a factory. A factory needs a ton of people to run it, maintain it, build it, etc. and getting them all to the moon would take TONS of money as well as actually building the factory...
And if we can't get NASA to send three people to the moon, how are we going to get them to send 2,000 people to run a factory, as well as the community that is needed to support the people who run the factory? What about *feeding* the people who build the factory? There's no farms there...
This is something taht is good in theory but needs a colony to support it, and we're nowhere near that stage yet. Give it 30 years, and it'll be plausable: not now.
I think that MSNBC articles about MS are actually pretty objective. The reasoning, i think, is precisely that it *is* owned by MS, and they don't want it to look like they're using it to push their products because people would accuse them of doing that and then nobody would watch it because who wants to watch an overtly biased (and with a motive too) news network?
"How can someone steal and then go and complain about the same company he stealed from?"
Maybe they didn't realize they were stealing, maybe? School districts have employees (who often have very little training in computers and screw things up a lot, but I digress) who install the software and advise them on computer issues. Maybe the computer people thought, "ah, screw it, don't tell them to get the district-wide licence, we'll just install one copy on a central comp. and then ghost it across the whole network".
Sometimes administrators are not at fault for their own mistakes. But then what would they do, go and sue the people who installed it incorrectly?
That's the whole point. They get no money out of blocking the links, and in fact end up spending more money on legal stuff by suing people!
The smartest thing to do would be to check to see if the referrer is within their domain, and if it isn't, then just redirect them to their frontpage.
Re:Need to do more than complain
on
CFP 2002 Wrapup
·
· Score: 1
"Hackers/computer users need to remember that Hollywood and the entertainment industry employ thousands - if not millions - and generate huge revenues for the US."
The reason that they generate just so much $$ is because they have such a tight grip on intelectual property -- if they didn't have as much control over how music, movies, screenplays, books, etc. are used in other mediums (i.e. people quoting sections of books, using music as background for short films or commercials) then they would make 10% of the money that they currently do.
Well, it's not as much the *economy* that matters about the reaction to it -- it's that MS it taking advantage of schools.
Schools are one of those things in the US that everyone (the adults, at least) likes. You can't really attack the school system or else everyone gets mad at you, because for the most part the school system is public. So because MS is attacking the school system in an effort to raise their stock by creating more revenue, many people will get mad at MS who normally wouldn't, specifically those in the communities in which MS is attacking.
The reason for this is because if MS forces them to use windows or other MS products, then they have to pay $$ to MS and then the people have to pay more taxes, which nobody really likes.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't know about "e-stamps" for *all* e-mail, but what about an optional thing for e-stamps that would mark your mail as non-junk? Like, I could by 100 e-stamps (say, for 5 cents each). I could use them on specific emails that I want to (I wouldn't necessarily use them on all of them, only certain ones), and those ones would automatically be let through spam filters. Then we could have filters find those e-stamps, and if it has one, would let it through automatically. This could solve the problem of false positives in spam filters, and also would start costing spam companies major money!
There might be a LOT of that stuff at SpamArchive.Org...
Why don't you use SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics)? If they have Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on their computer, they probably have the Adobe SVG filter installed too. Then you can just dynamically create SVG code on the server-side like you normally do with dynamic pages.
That would be "STDs", my friend. Sexually Transmitted Diseasees. Not "STIs", unless STI stands for something else...
Man, I wish I didn't use up all my mod points yesterday. This post gives some GREAT examples of why pre-emptive strikes and arrests are wrong and bad. Just because someone can do something doesn't mean they will. If it looks like someone will do something illegal (say, for example, robbing a bank), then the police officer should watch them. The second they break into the bank itself, then they are committing a crime (breaking and entering), but before they actually do anything then they're just a bunch of bums sitting on the side of the road in black masks and carrying a pickaxe.
Why should I have to pay for a debugging tool, or write a debugging tool? I've had the best debugging tool with me all along -- my brain.
the calm before the slashdotting...
-----
State to appeal MS antitrust ruling
By Joe Wilcox
Special to ZDNet News
December 2, 2002, 4:45 AM PT
Massachusetts officials said Friday they will appeal a recent ruling in Microsoft's long-running antitrust case, while seven other states intend to drop their opposition.
"We are going to appeal," state attorney general Tom Reilly said Friday during a conference call. "This appeal is necessary to protect consumers."
Massachusetts delivered its decision ahead of a Monday deadline. The nine plaintiff states have 30 days from U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly's Oct. 1 ruling to decide whether to file an appeal.
But Massachusetts is not being supported by most of the other states that have previously criticized the settlement as inadequate. "We are going it alone," Reilly said.
The District of Columbia and nine other states--California, Connecticut, Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Utah and West Virginia--had rejected a November 2001 settlement Microsoft cut with the Justice Department and nine other states.
In a Friday statement, Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller said, "Seven states and the District of Columbia will not appeal Judge Kollar-Kotelly's decree in the Microsoft antitrust case. We will move on to enforcing the decree on behalf of consumers and fair competition.
"For most of our states, it is time to dedicate our resources to enforcement of the decree and the law," Miller said.
West Virginia officials are expected reach a decision on whether to join Massachusetts by Monday.
In making its decision to appeal, Massachusetts is focusing on accountability. Reilly said he wanted to send the message that "breaking the law does not pay."
The Massachusetts attorney general noted that Microsoft had been found guilty of violating U.S. antitrust laws, and he described the remedy and separate settlement as being filled with "loopholes."
A consumer group praised Massachusetts' decision.
"We applaud Attorney General Reilly for deciding to appeal the remedy recently issued in the Microsoft case," the Consumer Federation of America said in statement. "This action seeks to defend critical antitrust principles that were established in the unanimous appeals court ruling that found Microsoft guilty of violating the antitrust laws."
Microsoft spokesman Jim Desler, however, said the company's "focus remains on complying fully with the court's judgment, working collaboratively with governments to address important public-policy issues and on developing innovative products that will benefit consumers."
In separate rulings, Kollar-Kotelly approved the settlement with minor modifications and instituted the revised settlement as her remedy in the plaintiff states' proceeding.
The states had asked the judge to impose a remedy that would affect Microsoft software code, such compelling the company to release a second version of its latest operating system, Windows XP, with so-called middleware removed.
But the judge largely rejected the states' request for stiffer sanctions.
"The decision is a virtual rubber-stamp of the proposed settlement," said Hillard Sterling, an antitrust attorney with Much Shelist in Chicago. "This judge didn't think that more was necessary to preserve competition. She clearly didn't buy the litigating states' premise, that Microsoft was an evil empire that needed to be punished severely."
Legal experts predicted Massachusetts could face tough going, particularly if no other states join in on the appeal.
Bob Lande, an antitrust professor with University of Baltimore Law School described Kollar-Kotelly's decision "virtually appeals proof."
"Our colleagues from Massachusetts are appealing the decision, and we wish them well," Iowa's Miller said. But he agreed with legal experts that "there are serious issues subject to appeal."
But Reilly maintained Massachusetts had no problem with going forward alone. "Microsoft is crushing...innovation," he said. "Without competition our economy has no future. Competition is the key to this case."
Whatever the outcome, the appeal will keep legal pressure on Microsoft at the same time states accepting Kollar-Kotelly's remedy focus on enforcement. Two separate bodies--a technical committee overseeing the settlement and compliance committee over the remedy--will enforce Microsoft's compliance.
"While not completely satisfying, the court decree closed enforcement loopholes, keeps compliance with the remedies squarely before the court and allows us now to turn attention to making sure that Microsoft competes fairly in the marketplace," California Attorney General Bill Lockyear said in a statement.
Miller noted that as a result of the ruling, "Microsoft will pay the States $28.6 million." Additionally, Microsoft also is paying $3.6 that million the States will use for continued enforcement and compliance. The states retain the option of asking the courts for additional enforcement funds."
Meanwhile, the Redmond, Wash.-based company faces other legal challenges. A three-day hearing next week in Baltimore will determine whether Microsoft will be compelled to carry Sun Microsystems' version of the Java Virtual Machine in Windows XP. Sun has filed a request for preliminary injunction on the matter, as part of a larger lawsuit against Microsoft.
Meanwhile, the European Union's Competition Commission is expected to soon issue a preliminary ruling in a separate antitrust investigation pending against Microsoft.
I believe that source code should be released when the product is out of support
However, if the source is released **after** it has stopped being supported, then all those bugs that would have been found would not be supported, and there wouldn't be a Windows 95.1 version released that fixed all the bugs people found by looking through the source.
It makes more sense to release the source code (if you're not going to release it when you first release the program) once your copyright is over. When your copyright on Program X is expired (assuming that the congress lets **any** copyrights expire from now until eternity), then you do not have the copyright to the code, and probably by now it is REALLY out-of-date, and your current product is FAR beyond what Program X was, in terms of its capabilities, complexities, and features, so it wouldn't be a threat to your current product because it is obselecent technology, not the cutting-edge.
Or, wait, let me think, the people have been brainwashed to use windows. Oops. It might be really nice for us, but unfortunately I don't think it'll really take off with the major consumer market for a looong time...
I don't see what's so big about this -- it seems that for one reason or another, china's web censoring/blocking/filtering programs have a bug in it (like most web censoring/blocking/filtering programs) that lets people get in to Google if they do it a certain way. I don't think that it means that China is going to make a general change in their policy to allow people to visit Google... they'll probably just fix up whatever bug is letting people get to Google and then we'll be right back where we started.
OK, so this is cool, I admit. However, how does this help us except that we know a little bit more? How can we use this to our advantage to improve our lives, etc?
I don't think that this is *that* important -- I mean, seriously, are we ever even going to get close to those black holes? No, not for the next 100 years, at the rate NASA is going with space missions. All people are sending out are PROBES, not PEOPLE.
I think we should try to get NASA to send just *astronauts* to the moon again, first, before we go and try to go and build a factory. A factory needs a ton of people to run it, maintain it, build it, etc. and getting them all to the moon would take TONS of money as well as actually building the factory...
And if we can't get NASA to send three people to the moon, how are we going to get them to send 2,000 people to run a factory, as well as the community that is needed to support the people who run the factory? What about *feeding* the people who build the factory? There's no farms there...
This is something taht is good in theory but needs a colony to support it, and we're nowhere near that stage yet. Give it 30 years, and it'll be plausable: not now.
I think that MSNBC articles about MS are actually pretty objective. The reasoning, i think, is precisely that it *is* owned by MS, and they don't want it to look like they're using it to push their products because people would accuse them of doing that and then nobody would watch it because who wants to watch an overtly biased (and with a motive too) news network?
"How can someone steal and then go and complain about the same company he stealed from?"
Maybe they didn't realize they were stealing, maybe? School districts have employees (who often have very little training in computers and screw things up a lot, but I digress) who install the software and advise them on computer issues. Maybe the computer people thought, "ah, screw it, don't tell them to get the district-wide licence, we'll just install one copy on a central comp. and then ghost it across the whole network".
Sometimes administrators are not at fault for their own mistakes. But then what would they do, go and sue the people who installed it incorrectly?
That's the whole point. They get no money out of blocking the links, and in fact end up spending more money on legal stuff by suing people!
The smartest thing to do would be to check to see if the referrer is within their domain, and if it isn't, then just redirect them to their frontpage.
"Hackers/computer users need to remember that Hollywood and the entertainment industry employ thousands - if not millions - and generate huge revenues for the US."
The reason that they generate just so much $$ is because they have such a tight grip on intelectual property -- if they didn't have as much control over how music, movies, screenplays, books, etc. are used in other mediums (i.e. people quoting sections of books, using music as background for short films or commercials) then they would make 10% of the money that they currently do.
Well, it's not as much the *economy* that matters about the reaction to it -- it's that MS it taking advantage of schools.
Schools are one of those things in the US that everyone (the adults, at least) likes. You can't really attack the school system or else everyone gets mad at you, because for the most part the school system is public. So because MS is attacking the school system in an effort to raise their stock by creating more revenue, many people will get mad at MS who normally wouldn't, specifically those in the communities in which MS is attacking.
The reason for this is because if MS forces them to use windows or other MS products, then they have to pay $$ to MS and then the people have to pay more taxes, which nobody really likes.