And the telling fact that shows this is true, that the prosecutor is working entirely on bluff and knows himself that he has no case, is that that prosecutor is threatening to accuse him under the "Wire Fraud" statute. Since there is no actual person being decieved by false statements from the accused in this case, the prosecutor is trying to use the "wire fraud is anything we don't like you to have done over communications facilities, even if it isn't actual fraud" theory. Which happily US courts have looked at and effectively told the US Jstice Department "Uh, no. Nice try but the law doesn't say that".
I'll have to take your word for it, I guess. The link you supply seems to only be available to Excite@Home customers, so it is hard to tell if it would apply to other AT&T customers.
My question is if with such a variety of AUPs, which one applies to a particular customer? I would presume only those ones presented to them.
It appears some of AT&T's customers have an AUP that doesn't support the poster I was replying to's "Hello, read your contract" sarcasm, though, if they were only given pointed at the same apparently official AT&T AUP document I quoted. If AT&T Broadband has such a clear statement elsewhere that would apply to all (noncommercial) customers, I can only wonder why they pointed at one that only makes a half=assed excuse for their actions...
That's odd. There isn't any such clause in the subscriber agreement that the AT&T page listed at in the Slashdot announcement links to.
Could you provide a URL for what you are quoting?
The explanation given and the clause given as an excuse are (quoting from the above links) an extremely long stretch in IMO:
Why Can't AT&T@Home Residential Customers Run Web Servers?
The AT&T@Home residential service offering is a consumer product designed for your personal use of the Internet. Customers must ensure that their activity does not improperly restrict, inhibit, or degrade any other user's use of the Services, nor represent (in the sole judgment of AT&T Broadband) an unusually large burden on the network itself.
The benefits and privileges available from the AT&T@Home, and the Internet in general, must be balanced with duties and responsibilities so that other customers can also have a productive experience.
Under the terms of the AT&T Broadband Subscriber Agreement customers are not to restrict, inhibit or otherwise interfere with the ability of any other person to use or enjoy the AT&T Equipment or the Service. See Prohibited Uses of Service (g) in the AT&T@Home Subscriber Agreement.
The clause referred to:
g) restrict, inhibit or otherwise interfere with the ability of any other person to use or enjoy the AT&T Equipment or the Service, including, without limitation, posting or transmitting any information or software which contains a virus or other harmful feature; or generating levels of traffic sufficient to impede others' ability to send or retrieve information;
So, where do they get off filtering a small, low-bandwidth server that doesn't do what "clause g" prohibits?
Megapath - expensiveish, if you compare to the crap you get from others - issues static IPs - and will sell you extra ones - and doesn't hassle about servers. They assume you are connecting a LAN on your end, not just a Windows box.
No complaints here about anything from them, except when they scared me at first by only promising a connection in 5 weeks - but put it in in six days instead. Since part of this involved waiting for PacBell to connect, I guess they didn't want to promise anything they couldn't be sure to supply because of the third party's involvement.
Yep. Next thing you know, astronomers will start claiming there's some strange repulsive force making the expansion of the universe accelerate or something, that isn't accounted for by GR.
Bringing up vacuum fluctuations and quantum gravity certainly makes it look like crackpot science.Huh? You don't believe in these? Are you stuck back at Maxwell's equations, or do you equate "recently discovered/theorized" with "crackpot"?
You run port 80 requests through procmail? Code Red doesn't spread though email, you know.
In any case, since Microsoft doesn't insall it easily, too few Win9x/Me boxes are running Personal Web Server. I don't think it even includes the vulnerable Index Server component.
Is that Miscrosoft's patch only works if you have service packs installed (Read: rebooting the machine at the least).
Because those who are most vulnerable to the wormvirus are the companies with the most clueless sysadmins, the set of machines with uninstalled service packs (and running Index Server by out-of-the-box default, the vulnerable component) probably largely overlaps the set of Code Red machines.
Yes, having to administer one of these along with Solaris and Linux boxen, I've patched mine; trivial).
Is there no way that companies could sue Microsoft due to loss of business / bandwidth charges, caused indirectly by poorly written software?
Nope, look at your EULA
Microsoft's EULA prohibits me from suing them for bandwith charges for the stuff their crap throws at my Linux/Apache setup?
Wow, they must have better lawyers than I thought.
Re:Coming soon to the Darwin awards.....
on
Pulse Jet Go-kart
·
· Score: 1
Ever hear of vectored thrust? Take a look at the US Space shuttle as it is launched and at the various stages where it discards the boosters and the external fuel tank. Think the center of gravity doesn't shift about some?
I prefer to not know user's passwords. If they forget them I replace the password with one thay have to change immediately, with automatic checking for crackable ones.
[...]However, one company I host email for found that their ISP started blocking outgoing port 25 - they couldn't use our server anymore - till we just redirected a high port (like 3000 or something) to port 25 on their email server - they updated their clients and it works fine - ISPs can't block ports > 1024 without causing major disruptions in client traffic.
I assume you mean they can't block all the high ports. Blocking a few, e.g. Xindows' favorite ports, has little noticable effect. Note that there isn't any really valid reason to block other ports even if they somehow detect SMTP traffic to them, because spammers aren't going to be using them - said spammers won't be scanning high ports for open relays, and anyone with enough technical cluefulness to set this up probably isn't going to leave their mail server open anyway.
If you really want to give a spiteful IP that just wants to force you to both use their email domain in addresses and use only their servers, put your external SMTP server on port 80. Or 880, et cetra.
SuperMicro's 370DLE (ServerWorks ServerSet III LE Chipset) appears to be the low price point for these, with two 64 bit, 66MhZ PCI slots and a 4-slot 32-bit PCI bus, starting around $270 street price. Requires ECC registered SDRAM but supports up to 4GB of it, and up to dual Intel P3/933s.
Interesting what happens when you search on Altavista, Infoseek, Lycos, and goto.com for the single word "penis". All these serve up the same penis enlargement site with the scary page title, "Hey! Don't get ripped off!". Ouch.
According to goto.com's listing, the page owner pays $0.48 per click-through.
See how it specifically points out Google, which has clearly marked "SPONSORED LINKS" at the top of your query results, with the actual relevant results below that? That is perfectly fine.
Did you notice how rare those "sponsored links" are on Google?
I searched for "bookstores", and "books" and got exactly one sponsored link each (and neither was Amazon.com).
An engineer in the purest sense follows certain procedures, guidelines, ethics and rules in order to develop scientifically sound solutions to complicated problems. They systematically design, implement and test these solutions with the intent that what they have built will function in a manner that is efficient, robust and easily monitored.
And so does any competent software developer, IMHO. Though I'd replace "scientifically sound" with "practical". I've seen neither the inclination or the ability in most of those of those who've received "formal training" in programming to the level of, say, BSCS to apply the principles you mention in a practical sense. Which is what matters.
If there was indeed a formal structure by which one would, over the years after leaving classes, be an apprentice, journeyman, and finally when ready take the final tests to become a real "Software Engineer" I might agree with you. But I don't see this happening, the idea with software usually seems to be to test for merely "principles" or even "theory" and grant the "professional status" on that. With the notable exception of Cisco's certifications. Admittedly this Ivory Tower Syndrome is becoming a problem with the courses taught for other engineering fields as well.
Note how for nearly every software development job a "software engineer" is sought - or even just considered a better candidate - as if for every culinary job from short-order cook to master chef, a degreed "culinary chemical engineer" was expected. The wrong training is being specified for (not necessarily too much). Training someone on the details of how a Grignard reaction converts sugar to caramel isn't going to help make a better flan, and the percentage of programming jobs in which the knowledge taught in engineering programs is needed is about the same as the percentage of those food preparation jobs that require you to be a degreed dietician (running hospital kitchens, say).
What is needed is more the programming equivalent of good cooking schools, that would teach the "Certified Hacker" (in the original sense of hacker) how to produce their efficient, robust, and easily monitored product. Without complaining it wasn't supposed to happen and going nonfunctional or into "program madly in all directions" mode when the theory they've been taught needs a bit of tweaking to fit into the real world.
Okay, the major complaint people have is that there was misrepresentation of the amount of law school this person had taken (zero). As far as I can tell he never said he passed a bar exam (these used to be kept oral and judged subjectively to keep persons of undesirable races and sexes from getting credentials and thereby besmirching the legal profession's image, IIRC).
To avoid this, why not simply create new titles for people who are not formally educated to the standards required to call themselves "lawyers" (for the British, as I understand it, these are divided into barrister and solicitor professions), or other professional titles? Such as:
Bar Member: Someone who passed the Bar Exams. Lawyer: Someone who graduated law school. Shyster: Someone like the 15 year old, or anyone else dispensing legal advice without formal education.
This could be extended to several other professions (and partly is):
M.D., G.P., Intern, Quack; Certified Engineer, Engineer, Technician; Certified Hacker, Software Engineer (sorry, I don't buy that these are actual engineers), Programmer; Topiarist, Gardener, Lawn Cutter; Barber, Hair Stylist, Lawn Cutter (oops, used that already)...
Anyway, except in the rare cases (and they are rare) where the safety of the uninvolved public is truly at risk, let the market choose according to the customer's own decision as to his possible liability, the seriousness of the situation, and ability to pay, and let the customer assume any liability for choosing the wrong level of service.
Or for picking the info off the internet themselves, if they want.
Re:The US was created BY amateurs FOR amateurs.
on
IANAL
·
· Score: 2
Tsk!
Where would barbers, lawyers, and swimming-pool cleaners be without their guilds and licensing to keep down the competition?
Why, I read just a month or so ago about a person being convicted of fraudulently representing himself as a Feng Shui expert to sell his services to unsuspecting California corporations! Just imagine how the bad luck generated by this person may have contributed to the current slowdown in the economy there!
(No, I'm not kidding about the conviction. Yes, I am about the economic effect).
Quote from UCE: "Under U.S. Law (Bill s.1618 Title III passed by the 105th U.S. Congress) you are prohibited from considering this mail Spam because we include contact information and a link for removal from our mailing list.
Apparently some spammers feel filters that exclude them are now illegal. I suppose next the subject lines will start exclaiming "You are required by law to read this!"
"Our average graduate earns anywhere from $500 to $2500 per week".
It seems like most of the graduates have a very unsteady income. If you include a fraction that make a more consistent paycheck, does that mean the rest have salaries that vary between, say, $100 and $10000 a week?
That could make calculating withholding taxes kind of iffy.
In software engineering the "I gots a piece of paper from the University that says I'se a engineer now" is virtually meaningless (I must admit those years were fun, however). I wouldn't have any problem with licensing programmers on their actual capacity to apply algorithms and produce useful, efficient programs.
Of course, neophyte programmers would have to work their way through some years as apprentices and journeymen before they would qualify in a realistic licensing system.
Slashdot Mirror
And the telling fact that shows this is true, that the prosecutor is working entirely on bluff and knows himself that he has no case, is that that prosecutor is threatening to accuse him under the "Wire Fraud" statute. Since there is no actual person being decieved by false statements from the accused in this case, the prosecutor is trying to use the "wire fraud is anything we don't like you to have done over communications facilities, even if it isn't actual fraud" theory. Which happily US courts have looked at and effectively told the US Jstice Department "Uh, no. Nice try but the law doesn't say that".
My question is if with such a variety of AUPs, which one applies to a particular customer? I would presume only those ones presented to them.
It appears some of AT&T's customers have an AUP that doesn't support the poster I was replying to's "Hello, read your contract" sarcasm, though, if they were only given pointed at the same apparently official AT&T AUP document I quoted. If AT&T Broadband has such a clear statement elsewhere that would apply to all (noncommercial) customers, I can only wonder why they pointed at one that only makes a half=assed excuse for their actions...
Could you provide a URL for what you are quoting?
The explanation given and the clause given as an excuse are (quoting from the above links) an extremely long stretch in IMO:
Why Can't AT&T@Home Residential Customers Run Web Servers?
The AT&T@Home residential service offering is a consumer product designed for your personal use of the Internet. Customers must ensure that their activity does not improperly restrict, inhibit, or degrade any other user's use of the Services, nor represent (in the sole judgment of AT&T Broadband) an unusually large burden on the network itself.
The benefits and privileges available from the AT&T@Home, and the Internet in general, must be balanced with duties and responsibilities so that other customers can also have a productive experience.
Under the terms of the AT&T Broadband Subscriber Agreement customers are not to restrict, inhibit or otherwise interfere with the ability of any other person to use or enjoy the AT&T Equipment or the Service. See Prohibited Uses of Service (g) in the AT&T@Home Subscriber Agreement.
The clause referred to:
g) restrict, inhibit or otherwise interfere with the ability of any other person to use or enjoy the AT&T Equipment or the Service, including, without limitation, posting or transmitting any information or software which contains a virus or other harmful feature; or generating levels of traffic sufficient to impede others' ability to send or retrieve information;
So, where do they get off filtering a small, low-bandwidth server that doesn't do what "clause g" prohibits?
No complaints here about anything from them, except when they scared me at first by only promising a connection in 5 weeks - but put it in in six days instead. Since part of this involved waiting for PacBell to connect, I guess they didn't want to promise anything they couldn't be sure to supply because of the third party's involvement.
Yep. Next thing you know, astronomers will start claiming there's some strange repulsive force making the expansion of the universe accelerate or something, that isn't accounted for by GR.
Nope. It was just found to be difficult and complex to deal with.
Bringing up vacuum fluctuations and quantum gravity certainly makes it look like crackpot science.Huh? You don't believe in these? Are you stuck back at Maxwell's equations, or do you equate "recently discovered/theorized" with "crackpot"?
In any case, since Microsoft doesn't insall it easily, too few Win9x/Me boxes are running Personal Web Server. I don't think it even includes the vulnerable Index Server component.
Because those who are most vulnerable to the wormvirus are the companies with the most clueless sysadmins, the set of machines with uninstalled service packs (and running Index Server by out-of-the-box default, the vulnerable component) probably largely overlaps the set of Code Red machines.
Yes, having to administer one of these along with Solaris and Linux boxen, I've patched mine; trivial).
Microsoft's EULA prohibits me from suing them for bandwith charges for the stuff their crap throws at my Linux/Apache setup?
Wow, they must have better lawyers than I thought.
Ever hear of vectored thrust? Take a look at the US Space shuttle as it is launched and at the various stages where it discards the boosters and the external fuel tank. Think the center of gravity doesn't shift about some?
I prefer to not know user's passwords. If they forget them I replace the password with one thay have to change immediately, with automatic checking for crackable ones.
I assume you mean they can't block all the high ports. Blocking a few, e.g. Xindows' favorite ports, has little noticable effect. Note that there isn't any really valid reason to block other ports even if they somehow detect SMTP traffic to them, because spammers aren't going to be using them - said spammers won't be scanning high ports for open relays, and anyone with enough technical cluefulness to set this up probably isn't going to leave their mail server open anyway.
If you really want to give a spiteful IP that just wants to force you to both use their email domain in addresses and use only their servers, put your external SMTP server on port 80. Or 880, et cetra.
SuperMicro's 370DLE (ServerWorks ServerSet III LE Chipset) appears to be the low price point for these, with two 64 bit, 66MhZ PCI slots and a 4-slot 32-bit PCI bus, starting around $270 street price. Requires ECC registered SDRAM but supports up to 4GB of it, and up to dual Intel P3/933s.
According to goto.com's listing, the page owner pays $0.48 per click-through.
Did you notice how rare those "sponsored links" are on Google?
I searched for "bookstores", and "books" and got exactly one sponsored link each (and neither was Amazon.com).
When I searched for "linux" I got none.
Thanks for the correction - IANAL of course. For that matter, IANAJD either. :-)
And so does any competent software developer, IMHO. Though I'd replace "scientifically sound" with "practical". I've seen neither the inclination or the ability in most of those of those who've received "formal training" in programming to the level of, say, BSCS to apply the principles you mention in a practical sense. Which is what matters.
If there was indeed a formal structure by which one would, over the years after leaving classes, be an apprentice, journeyman, and finally when ready take the final tests to become a real "Software Engineer" I might agree with you. But I don't see this happening, the idea with software usually seems to be to test for merely "principles" or even "theory" and grant the "professional status" on that. With the notable exception of Cisco's certifications. Admittedly this Ivory Tower Syndrome is becoming a problem with the courses taught for other engineering fields as well.
Note how for nearly every software development job a "software engineer" is sought - or even just considered a better candidate - as if for every culinary job from short-order cook to master chef, a degreed "culinary chemical engineer" was expected. The wrong training is being specified for (not necessarily too much). Training someone on the details of how a Grignard reaction converts sugar to caramel isn't going to help make a better flan, and the percentage of programming jobs in which the knowledge taught in engineering programs is needed is about the same as the percentage of those food preparation jobs that require you to be a degreed dietician (running hospital kitchens, say).
What is needed is more the programming equivalent of good cooking schools, that would teach the "Certified Hacker" (in the original sense of hacker) how to produce their efficient, robust, and easily monitored product. Without complaining it wasn't supposed to happen and going nonfunctional or into "program madly in all directions" mode when the theory they've been taught needs a bit of tweaking to fit into the real world.
To avoid this, why not simply create new titles for people who are not formally educated to the standards required to call themselves "lawyers" (for the British, as I understand it, these are divided into barrister and solicitor professions), or other professional titles? Such as:
Bar Member: Someone who passed the Bar Exams.
Lawyer: Someone who graduated law school.
Shyster: Someone like the 15 year old, or anyone else dispensing legal advice without formal education.
This could be extended to several other professions (and partly is):
M.D., G.P., Intern, Quack;
Certified Engineer, Engineer, Technician;
Certified Hacker, Software Engineer (sorry, I don't buy that these are actual engineers), Programmer;
Topiarist, Gardener, Lawn Cutter;
Barber, Hair Stylist, Lawn Cutter (oops, used that already)...
Anyway, except in the rare cases (and they are rare) where the safety of the uninvolved public is truly at risk, let the market choose according to the customer's own decision as to his possible liability, the seriousness of the situation, and ability to pay, and let the customer assume any liability for choosing the wrong level of service.
Or for picking the info off the internet themselves, if they want.
Where would barbers, lawyers, and swimming-pool cleaners be without their guilds and licensing to keep down the competition?
Why, I read just a month or so ago about a person being convicted of fraudulently representing himself as a Feng Shui expert to sell his services to unsuspecting California corporations! Just imagine how the bad luck generated by this person may have contributed to the current slowdown in the economy there!
(No, I'm not kidding about the conviction. Yes, I am about the economic effect).
With all respect, boy does this show you to be full of shit.
Apparently some spammers feel filters that exclude them are now illegal. I suppose next the subject lines will start exclaiming "You are required by law to read this!"
What if your milkweed-based clothing were infested by ravenous mutant Monarch butterfly larvae?
"Our average graduate earns anywhere from $500 to $2500 per week".
It seems like most of the graduates have a very unsteady income. If you include a fraction that make a more consistent paycheck, does that mean the rest have salaries that vary between, say, $100 and $10000 a week?
That could make calculating withholding taxes kind of iffy.
Of course, neophyte programmers would have to work their way through some years as apprentices and journeymen before they would qualify in a realistic licensing system.