How many people have passed on XP because of the licensing crap?
Personally, I tried it (in Best Buy, actually) and didn't like it because it looked more like a video game than an OS. And don't bother telling me that that's configurable. The point is that, out of the box, XP looks that way and it pissed me off. End of story.
I prefer linux anyway, but have to deal with the Evil Empire until I get enough cpu cycles in one box to run certain kids games effectively in an emulator...
Maybe these financial institutions have heard about the Flight Simulator that appeared in at least one version of Excel? At a certain level in the institution the thinking would be: "if some crack-head programmer can slip that past quality control, what else might there be?" Because ya gotta know, a flight simulator in a spreadsheet program is surely not in the project plan...
For a company in the business of artifically boosting PageRank scores and selling ads whose price is based on the boosted PageRank...
My bad... I read the above in the LawMeme article and made the assumption they were responsible for some of the banner/popup madness.
I think my point is still valid, though. If I can make that unjustified assumption, so can the Judge... I suppose SearchKing's real problem now is finding a judge that has seen (or can be shown) their ad stuff without being exposed to banner ads and popups.
Here's hoping the judge dislikes banner ads and popups as intensely as the rest of us:
SearchKing: We sell banner ads based on...
Judge: Case dismissed.
SearchKing: But, but, but...
Judge: You want to pay the defendant's costs? Great! Keep talking.
...for the simple fact that the Linux kernel doesn't enforce any type of copy protection.
And there you have one very good reason for all the supporters of the DMCA to intensely dislike Linux - it doesn't enforce any copy protection. And even if it did, there'd soon be patches to the config scripts to make it de-selectable when building a kernel.
Besides which, region free DVD players have been available for some time, right? I'm talking about the normal players with some kind of hidden menu option, or players that flat out ignore region coding, not chipped or modded players.
My point being that, if I can walk into WalMart and buy a region-free player to hook up to my TV, why should it be illegal to make a software region-free player for my PC?
No way the *AA's can prevent that short of getting the government to ban all file transfers
I think it was Andrew Tanenbaum (of Minix fame) who said, "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes."
In more modern, practical terms, if you have friends that have big music collections on their computers, organize a LAN party... Ain't nobody gonna catch you doing P2P if yer not doin' it over the Internet... And if by some small chance they do, you'd be using Microsoft's P2P software (Windows file sharing), which would implicate them very nicely.:)
Perhaps rather than ignore them, keep them informed...
First of all, be absolutely sure that all your artists are completely independant of any RIAA entanglement. Then send a daily email to a bunch of RIAA execs saying, "Here's my paylist for this time next week. Let me know if any of the artists and/or songs are controlled by the RIAA so that I can delete them. If I don't hear from you by air time, I'll take that to be consent that I can play such artists for free." Better get advice from a lawyer to see if that will fly... The advantage to you is that your software can generate the list automatically, but RIAA has to read through the entire list to validate it.
Alternatively, have your software auto-send an email similar to the above every time a track is played, for each and every listener.
Either way, it costs you very little effort to play the game their way by asking them to validate that you're playing music legally, plus you have the satisfaction of knowing that they must be grinding their teeth over the apparent popularity of artists they don't own...
If they ever get irritated enough to try taking you to court, turn on the injured innocent look and try to keep a straight face while telling the judge, "But I was just trying to make sure I didn't illegally play music the RIAA owns!" You might even be able to trick the RIAA into irritating the judge if your lawyer can get them to produce that big pile of playlists as evidence...
More to the point, M$ isn't just a US company. They have (and/or could acquire very quickly) subsidiaries in any country where they wanted to take action. Firing a full spread of legal photon torpedoes is then simply a question of hiring enough local legal talent to entangle the alleged offender so deep in their own legal system that said offender goes out of business from spending capital on their defence.
And if that ploy fails to attain the desired result, $40Bn of cold, hard cash can exert a lot of leverage on the offender's ISP, telco provider, utilities providers, etc.
Heck, it probably wouldn't cost a vast amount to buy out the offender's janitorial company and then slide a couple of hit-persons in among the cleaning staff to sabotage their equipment. How resilient would your network be in the face of electronic noise makers near strategic routers, or even simply snagging cables and straining them?
Reminds me of a senior-year student back when I was in school (20+ years ago). This guy, normally fairly bright, decided that it would be possible to collect hydrogen over water by filling a gas jar with water, inverting it in a water bath, then introducing a pellet of sodium under the gas jar.
Everything went as planned for a few seconds, then the burning molten sodium caused the same kind of fuel/air explosion as described in the 'Sodium Party' article. The resultant shockwave took the bottom out of the glass(!!) water bath, releasing about 5 gallons of water onto the workbench, along with little bits of fizzing sodium. The gas jar (probably about 1 pound in weight) cleared the adjacent bench, landing maybe 10 feet away.
Doesn't the Bill of Rights say something about a reasonable expectation of privacy in your own home, whih is why law enforcement officers are supposed to get search warrants before demanding entry?? There's your basis for the right to be not seen.
Of course, once you give up that right by stepping out of your house, all bets are off. Any random passerby can observe anything you do or say...
And to folks that have a problem with cameras watching everything you do, I have just this to offer - let them. Let the Gubmint put up cameras. The more the merrier, I say. Why? Because eventually the system will implode under the sheer volume of data.
Until, or unless, image recognition gets to be very, very good and very, very fast, there's no way that a computerised system is going to track any one individual. This means that for every person "they" want to track, "they" pretty much have to assign several heads to watch the monitors. The salary bill alone will cripple the system. Then there's the cost of the office space, the equipment, power, A/C, etc.
Pretty soon the only people unemployed would be drunks and drug-users that can't get their eyes uncrossed enough to watch a monitor.
Ah, what the heck, go ahead and flame me. It's just an opinion, and I have the right to give it to you. I just don't have the right to make you understand it, or even to make you listen.
The real ground-breaking decision is going to be when RIAA/MPAA get a judge to rule any and all P2P software illegal.
Think about it for a minute - what else is out there apart from napster, gnutella, KaZaa, and so on? NFS? Windows file sharing? Yep, those would be illegal too. Suddenly anyone with any kind of network connected computer is breaking the law - including the RIAA/MPAA, Sony, Disney, AOL, Microsoft, US Government/Army/Navy/Air Force, etc.
Technically, ftp/ftpd constitute a file sharing mechanism as well, as does web browser/server (I browse your site, see a file I want, download it). In a fair world, the RIAA/MPAA would have to sue the entire world and themselves for running file sharing...
OK, so it almost certainly won't happen with this particular tech-savvy judge, but there are plenty of other judges and surely one of them is daft enough to take such a bold step? Personally, I just think it would be really, really funny if the RIAA's penchant for suing people was the prime cause for the DMCA's demise.
How long will it be before someone throws together a P2P server package that runs off read-only media?
Personally, I don't use P2P, but I'd be surprised if there aren't multiple P2P packages for Linux. These days you can boot a fully working system off a cdrom, and with the price of DVD burners dropping, it wouldn't be too hard to make up a completely read-only system with Gb's of storage.
OK, so that's still vulnerable to the multiple speed-limited client DoS attack, but the content would be safe...
And if it comes to a second letter, check around your town for a lawyer that does a 'fixed fee interview'. You pay a fixed sum to discuss the problem and get relevant advice, possibly including a letter to the iggerant CEO explaining how much it would cost him to pursue a lost cause.
No, if you act like terrorists will strike any time, they lose.
Think about it - many people here and elsewhere have said that nobody will ever successfully hijack an airplane again, because the passengers will expect to die anyway and therefore will have no reason not to fight back. The hijacker loses.
Same goes for hostage situations - the only difference is one of venue. Airplane, bank, private dwelling, whatever, the hostages will expect to die and will attempt to kick seven shades of shit out of their captors. The captor loses, either because he is taken captive, or because he kills his hostages and law enforcement officers are then free to shoot his sorry ass. The hijacker / kidnapper / bank robber loses.
But actual security has already taken second place to privacy, as in "you can't search my kid's bags at the school gate". OK, this is not yer actual hijack-an-airplane security, but even so...
Parents have blocked moves to have airport-style x-ray and/or metal detectors at schools. How many school massacres could have been averted/prevented by scanners? I don't know, but I'll tell you this - if any of my kids are injured because of some lame-brained privacy nut's anti-inspection crusade, I will take action. And that includes the idiot that didn't keep proper control of a dangerous weapon...
It is stressed that privacy advocates have nothing to worry about, because they are completely voluntary and cannot be used to scan without a person's knowledge, but there is a brief note about using it in the future for staff.
As long as Security measures have to take second place to privacy concerns, the terrorists will win.
Go ahead and flame me, I'm wearing a +2,+2 asbestos suit.
The one thing that truly travels faster than light is monarchy. When a reigning monarch dies, the heir to the throne instantaneously becomes the next king or queen.
According to Terry Pratchett (can't remember which book offhand), experiments to transmit messages by careful torturing of a small king have so far been unsuccessful, but the researchers are still hopeful...
Everyone is really hot about 'freedom of speech', and that's just fine with me. But can anyone tell me since when did the right to freedom of speech guarantee the speaker an audience??
As far as I know, I can stand on a street corner and say pretty much what I like, right? Or distribute pamphlets, say.
What I can't do, correct me if I'm wrong, is grab hold of a passerby and hold him still while I exercise my right to free speech. Nor can I grab people and stuff pamphlets into their pockets. Right? Speak, sure, but nobody has to listen.
So, getting on to spam, how is it that spammers can do the electronic equivalent of stuffing pamphlets into my pockets? Why is nobody advocating opt-in lists for those people that enjoy getting spam?
The opt-in list would be equivalent to me stopping and listening to the speaker on the street corner, willingly taking a pamphlet. And by opt-in, I'm talking about opt-in for a particular marketing company, not for all its affiliates as well. If I want to opt-in to the affiliates, I'll do so on a case by case basis, because they have interesting offers.
Somebody else talked about legislation legitimising spam - that's already been done, pal. I've received plenty of spam with notes at the bottom saying, 'this email is not deemed spam because it complies with USC....whatever'. Hah! It's spam and it's been legitimised already.
No, what's needed is legislation stating that spam can only be sent to people that volunteer to read it. Anything else is exactly the same as the street corner speaker stuffing pamphlets into my pockets. People say, 'well, you can just hit delete', to which the only real response is, 'why should I have to?' When an ad break happens on TV, I can just walk away, get a drink, take a pee, whatever. The 'just hit delete' crowd are telling me, 'nope, can't move, gotta watch that ad'.
OK, so I don't really think that opt-in legislation would work, but it would be a step in the right direction. Heavy fines and jail time for repeat spam offenders would be better. Make it uneconomical to continue in business. Ah, enough already. Spammers won't quit any more than politicans will keep election promises..:)
Though I've seen quite a few empty-headed tech types, I've also seen and worked with an even greater amount of bright, clueful folks. Imagine for a moment that all of these clever people are suddenly unemployed by N1. What will they do? Work at the soup kitchen? No.
No, indeed. The bright clueful folks will be setting up a SysAdmin company to provide admin teams at triple wages to fix up the mess left by the empty headed tech types when they screw up their N1 installations.
I've got the power/knowledge of Big Vendor to rely on.
You're assuming, I guess, that Big Vendor didn't do the same thing. Because if Big Vendor did ditch their experienced people, your low-tech Help Desk will be talking to their low-tech Help Desk, and your server(s) will stay down...
Also notice that the law firm says they won't be out by one cent, which is obviously a clear warning to the bank to expect to discuss their gross negligence in front of a judge.
Reminds me of the old saying about never irritating 'someone who buys ink by the barrel', except in this case it's lawyers not ink.
That pretty much sums up how I feel about all the Psychic Friends ads on TV. I figure if they're really psychic they'll know to call me if anything really good/bad is about to happen to me.
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Personally, I tried it (in Best Buy, actually) and didn't like it because it looked more like a video game than an OS. And don't bother telling me that that's configurable. The point is that, out of the box, XP looks that way and it pissed me off. End of story.
I prefer linux anyway, but have to deal with the Evil Empire until I get enough cpu cycles in one box to run certain kids games effectively in an emulator...
Maybe these financial institutions have heard about the Flight Simulator that appeared in at least one version of Excel? At a certain level in the institution the thinking would be: "if some crack-head programmer can slip that past quality control, what else might there be?" Because ya gotta know, a flight simulator in a spreadsheet program is surely not in the project plan...
My bad... I read the above in the LawMeme article and made the assumption they were responsible for some of the banner/popup madness.
I think my point is still valid, though. If I can make that unjustified assumption, so can the Judge... I suppose SearchKing's real problem now is finding a judge that has seen (or can be shown) their ad stuff without being exposed to banner ads and popups.
SearchKing: We sell banner ads based on...
Judge: Case dismissed.
SearchKing: But, but, but...
Judge: You want to pay the defendant's costs? Great! Keep talking.
And there you have one very good reason for all the supporters of the DMCA to intensely dislike Linux - it doesn't enforce any copy protection. And even if it did, there'd soon be patches to the config scripts to make it de-selectable when building a kernel.
Did anyone else read "Cracking Contraptions" and immediately think of the DMCA and illegal circumvention devices??
My point being that, if I can walk into WalMart and buy a region-free player to hook up to my TV, why should it be illegal to make a software region-free player for my PC?
I think it was Andrew Tanenbaum (of Minix fame) who said, "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes."
In more modern, practical terms, if you have friends that have big music collections on their computers, organize a LAN party... Ain't nobody gonna catch you doing P2P if yer not doin' it over the Internet... And if by some small chance they do, you'd be using Microsoft's P2P software (Windows file sharing), which would implicate them very nicely. :)
First of all, be absolutely sure that all your artists are completely independant of any RIAA entanglement. Then send a daily email to a bunch of RIAA execs saying, "Here's my paylist for this time next week. Let me know if any of the artists and/or songs are controlled by the RIAA so that I can delete them. If I don't hear from you by air time, I'll take that to be consent that I can play such artists for free." Better get advice from a lawyer to see if that will fly... The advantage to you is that your software can generate the list automatically, but RIAA has to read through the entire list to validate it.
Alternatively, have your software auto-send an email similar to the above every time a track is played, for each and every listener.
Either way, it costs you very little effort to play the game their way by asking them to validate that you're playing music legally, plus you have the satisfaction of knowing that they must be grinding their teeth over the apparent popularity of artists they don't own...
If they ever get irritated enough to try taking you to court, turn on the injured innocent look and try to keep a straight face while telling the judge, "But I was just trying to make sure I didn't illegally play music the RIAA owns!" You might even be able to trick the RIAA into irritating the judge if your lawyer can get them to produce that big pile of playlists as evidence...
And if that ploy fails to attain the desired result, $40Bn of cold, hard cash can exert a lot of leverage on the offender's ISP, telco provider, utilities providers, etc.
Heck, it probably wouldn't cost a vast amount to buy out the offender's janitorial company and then slide a couple of hit-persons in among the cleaning staff to sabotage their equipment. How resilient would your network be in the face of electronic noise makers near strategic routers, or even simply snagging cables and straining them?
Everything went as planned for a few seconds, then the burning molten sodium caused the same kind of fuel/air explosion as described in the 'Sodium Party' article. The resultant shockwave took the bottom out of the glass(!!) water bath, releasing about 5 gallons of water onto the workbench, along with little bits of fizzing sodium. The gas jar (probably about 1 pound in weight) cleared the adjacent bench, landing maybe 10 feet away.
Of course, once you give up that right by stepping out of your house, all bets are off. Any random passerby can observe anything you do or say...
And to folks that have a problem with cameras watching everything you do, I have just this to offer - let them. Let the Gubmint put up cameras. The more the merrier, I say. Why? Because eventually the system will implode under the sheer volume of data.
Until, or unless, image recognition gets to be very, very good and very, very fast, there's no way that a computerised system is going to track any one individual. This means that for every person "they" want to track, "they" pretty much have to assign several heads to watch the monitors. The salary bill alone will cripple the system. Then there's the cost of the office space, the equipment, power, A/C, etc.
Pretty soon the only people unemployed would be drunks and drug-users that can't get their eyes uncrossed enough to watch a monitor.
Ah, what the heck, go ahead and flame me. It's just an opinion, and I have the right to give it to you. I just don't have the right to make you understand it, or even to make you listen.
Think about it for a minute - what else is out there apart from napster, gnutella, KaZaa, and so on? NFS? Windows file sharing? Yep, those would be illegal too. Suddenly anyone with any kind of network connected computer is breaking the law - including the RIAA/MPAA, Sony, Disney, AOL, Microsoft, US Government/Army/Navy/Air Force, etc .
Technically, ftp/ftpd constitute a file sharing mechanism as well, as does web browser/server (I browse your site, see a file I want, download it). In a fair world, the RIAA/MPAA would have to sue the entire world and themselves for running file sharing...
OK, so it almost certainly won't happen with this particular tech-savvy judge, but there are plenty of other judges and surely one of them is daft enough to take such a bold step? Personally, I just think it would be really, really funny if the RIAA's penchant for suing people was the prime cause for the DMCA's demise.
Personally, I don't use P2P, but I'd be surprised if there aren't multiple P2P packages for Linux. These days you can boot a fully working system off a cdrom, and with the price of DVD burners dropping, it wouldn't be too hard to make up a completely read-only system with Gb's of storage.
OK, so that's still vulnerable to the multiple speed-limited client DoS attack, but the content would be safe...
And if it comes to a second letter, check around your town for a lawyer that does a 'fixed fee interview'. You pay a fixed sum to discuss the problem and get relevant advice, possibly including a letter to the iggerant CEO explaining how much it would cost him to pursue a lost cause.
Think about it - many people here and elsewhere have said that nobody will ever successfully hijack an airplane again, because the passengers will expect to die anyway and therefore will have no reason not to fight back. The hijacker loses.
Same goes for hostage situations - the only difference is one of venue. Airplane, bank, private dwelling, whatever, the hostages will expect to die and will attempt to kick seven shades of shit out of their captors. The captor loses, either because he is taken captive, or because he kills his hostages and law enforcement officers are then free to shoot his sorry ass. The hijacker / kidnapper / bank robber loses.
Tranquiliser guns, anyone??
Parents have blocked moves to have airport-style x-ray and/or metal detectors at schools. How many school massacres could have been averted/prevented by scanners? I don't know, but I'll tell you this - if any of my kids are injured because of some lame-brained privacy nut's anti-inspection crusade, I will take action. And that includes the idiot that didn't keep proper control of a dangerous weapon...
As long as Security measures have to take second place to privacy concerns, the terrorists will win.
Go ahead and flame me, I'm wearing a +2,+2 asbestos suit.
According to Terry Pratchett (can't remember which book offhand), experiments to transmit messages by careful torturing of a small king have so far been unsuccessful, but the researchers are still hopeful...
Everyone is really hot about 'freedom of speech', and that's just fine with me. But can anyone tell me since when did the right to freedom of speech guarantee the speaker an audience??
As far as I know, I can stand on a street corner and say pretty much what I like, right? Or distribute pamphlets, say.
What I can't do, correct me if I'm wrong, is grab hold of a passerby and hold him still while I exercise my right to free speech. Nor can I grab people and stuff pamphlets into their pockets. Right? Speak, sure, but nobody has to listen.
So, getting on to spam, how is it that spammers can do the electronic equivalent of stuffing pamphlets into my pockets? Why is nobody advocating opt-in lists for those people that enjoy getting spam?
The opt-in list would be equivalent to me stopping and listening to the speaker on the street corner, willingly taking a pamphlet. And by opt-in, I'm talking about opt-in for a particular marketing company, not for all its affiliates as well. If I want to opt-in to the affiliates, I'll do so on a case by case basis, because they have interesting offers.
Somebody else talked about legislation legitimising spam - that's already been done, pal. I've received plenty of spam with notes at the bottom saying, 'this email is not deemed spam because it complies with USC....whatever'. Hah! It's spam and it's been legitimised already.
No, what's needed is legislation stating that spam can only be sent to people that volunteer to read it. Anything else is exactly the same as the street corner speaker stuffing pamphlets into my pockets. People say, 'well, you can just hit delete', to which the only real response is, 'why should I have to?' When an ad break happens on TV, I can just walk away, get a drink, take a pee, whatever. The 'just hit delete' crowd are telling me, 'nope, can't move, gotta watch that ad'.
OK, so I don't really think that opt-in legislation would work, but it would be a step in the right direction. Heavy fines and jail time for repeat spam offenders would be better. Make it uneconomical to continue in business. Ah, enough already. Spammers won't quit any more than politicans will keep election promises.. :)
No, indeed. The bright clueful folks will be setting up a SysAdmin company to provide admin teams at triple wages to fix up the mess left by the empty headed tech types when they screw up their N1 installations.
You're assuming, I guess, that Big Vendor didn't do the same thing. Because if Big Vendor did ditch their experienced people, your low-tech Help Desk will be talking to their low-tech Help Desk, and your server(s) will stay down...
Reminds me of the old saying about never irritating 'someone who buys ink by the barrel', except in this case it's lawyers not ink.
Right??