Assuming very low contention, you can videocast over an 802.11b link. Some guy brings in his shiny new Sony VAIO PCG-TR1A with built-in camera and 802.11b, and starts broadcasting the game from his seat in the stadium. (Yeah, it'll suck, but that won't matter, as we shall shortly see.)
This will piss off a number of people:
Major League Baseball (TM)(R)(C)(BFD), who claim copyright to the "performance" embodied by the baseball game, and assert exclusive rights to control all access to those "performances",
The local and national television network, who have cut an "exclusive" broadcasting contract with MLB and the stadium,
The stadium owner whose television blackout radius of 10 miles (negotiated "exclusively" with the television network) is being violated by the smartass in Section 12, seat 13-E, thereby undercutting attendance revenues.
They've built for themselves a cozy little relationship that doesn't involve competition or, indeed, people thinking for themselves at all (sit down, shut up, buy the $6.50 hot dogs, oh, and enjoy the game). Expect shrill whining from Entrenched Interests the moment they even suspect anything like this might happen.
About editing stylesheets, you were probably on another planet during the last year and a half;-) I recommend you take a look at http://cascades.mozdev.org/ or build yourself the editor in mozilla/extensions/editor/cascades.
Holy crap!
I had no idea this existed. I just installed it and, while it's a bit clunky and confusing, it exposes everything I wanted to see and lets me play with CSS in almost the very way I wanted to. Thanks for pointing this out!
As for the <BR> issue: Have you considered creating a "meta-frame" which sits on top of the main page? The caret lives in the meta-frame and, once concrete HTML can be compiled, the HTML gets moved to the main page. The caret never enters the main page -- a meta-frame is built out out of whatever paragraph/element the caret's placed in, which overlays the main page.
Just thinking off the bottom of my ass here (as opposed to the top of my head, whose ideas are usually of higher quality).
I've been doing a fair amount of mucking around in Mozilla Composer lately and, while it's okay for writing first-approximation Web pages, I've found the UI to be really inconvenient for some things.
The thing likes to pollute the document with line breaks (<BR>) everywhere, which is darned annoying. Creation and maintenance of directory lists (<DL> <DT> <DD>) is really finicky -- do things in the wrong sequence and the formatting will be ruined. I find myself making constant trips to the source window, fixing up broken or unnecessary HTML. It also offers no help at all in composing and previewing style sheets.
I'd really like Composer to be a good WYSIWYG HTML editor, but it seems to be sorely lacking. Is it just me? Is there some Secret Book of Composer Power Usage Tips that I haven't found yet, or does it really fall as short as I think it does?
Yes, but where's the opportunity for counterpoint? Are we also going to see public service spots with the message, "Unsanctioned copying isn't a big deal?"
Somehow, I don't think so. The media corporations are all colluding on this one. Only one message will be permitted to be broadcast -- "Copying is bad" -- and "debate", if there is any at all, will be slanted and presented so as to intrinsically discredit any view not in accord with the Party Line.
Yes, you are correct when you say this issue should be fought in the marketplace of ideas. But only one idea is being presented. This is a bug, and it needs to be fixed.
It may not damage the computer itself, but it will seriously damage the reputation of the computer's owner, who will be falsely branded a spammer and get cut off the net. This should be of serious concern to computer owners and, as such, the virus should be rated as highly dangerous.
I never cared for the term either. It's obviously a combination of the words "machine" and "cinema", but the result is ungainly and ugly.
I cooked up my own word for the same thing, a combination of the words "mechanical" and "animation": Mechanime. Sadly, this term may not be good, either, as the "anime" half of the word may tend to connote Japanese animation, which is not intended. But it scans a hell of a lot better than, "Machinima."
Have they removed the copy protection from Quake 3 yet?
No, not the "check the CD in the drive" copy protection. That was removed years ago. I'm talking about the copy protection that sends your "authorization" key to your_papers_please.idsoftware.com (note: may not be actual site name).
I have nothing but the utmost respect for Mr. Carmack and all he has done, but there is no way I'm going to support this kind of unjustifiable waste of engineering and network resources (how much does it cost to run those servers each year?), the invasion of privacy (when I play the game, and with whom, is no one's business but my own), or the outright insult to my character to presume I'd be playing with an unsanctioned copy. (Unsanctioned copies? In this age of viruses and spyware? Are you out of your mind?)
Copy protection in any form should not be tolerated, much less supported. So, until I hear that the client authentication requirement is gone -- not merely disabled, not made optional, gone -- my money shall remain firmly in my pocket. Yours should, too.
Schwab
P.S: Mind you, once it's confirmed client authentication is gone, I'll be off to buy a copy at Fry's so fast, you'll see a red-shift on my butt.
Seconded!! Here's the Web site of the Quake Done Quick crew.
Of special note is Scourge Done Slick, a speed run through the Quake add-on pack Scourge of Armagon. It has remarkably good voice acting, some good lines (including a cameo by The Levelord), good camera work, and some astonishing moves and play tactics. As a Quake afficianado, I regard this as required viewing.
No matter how you slice it, it's good stuff. Recommended.
WARNING: This post contains half-remembered incidents of years ago, learned second-hand. Until somone more dilligent than I provides factual backup, it should be regarded as rumor.
I recall a court case of many years ago, where some packager was selling a CD-ROM collection of user-created maps for Duke Nukem 3D (often without the map maker's permission). 3D Realms sued them for copyright infringement, and won.
Now, on its face, this seems absurd. The CD-ROM contained only user-created data. None of 3D Realms' copyrighted data appeared on the disc -- not the engine, none of the maps, none of the textures, none of the sounds. It's true that the user-created maps did utilize 3D Realms' datasets, but the only way you could do that was to buy a legit copy of DN3D. The user-created maps would then use the installed, lawfully-obtained datasets. No problem, right?
3D Realms didn't argue that. What they argued was that they held the copyright on the character of Duke Nukem himself (fictional characters are copyrightable -- just ask Disney about Mickey Mouse) and, as such, 3D Realms held the exclusive right to craft new "stories" (i.e. maps) involving that character. That meant the firm selling the collection disc was, argued 3D Realms, distributing a collection of Duke Nukem stories that had not been authorized by the holders of the Duke Nukem character copyright.
The court swallowed it, and found in favor of 3D Realms.
So that means that 3D Realms went after all map-makers, right? Wrong. See, 3D Realms had this little clause in their (ha ha) "license agreement" forbidding commercial distribution of user-made maps without paying them tribute. But trying to enforce a shrinkwrap "license" is shaky legal ground. So they dreamt up the character copyright angle, and selectively enforced it against the CD publisher.
Apparently, no one was sad to see the CD publisher crushed, as they had apparently misappropriated a large number of user-made maps, gambling that their creators were too small to sue them. But in shutting them down, a rather hazardous legal precedent was created. I imagine it's only a matter of time before it bites someone.
BTW: Gordon Freeman, the central fictional character in Half-Life, is copyrighted by Valve/Sierra.
Schwab
Mod Parent Down: Stock Troll
on
Open Source Law
·
· Score: 1
The parent post is a stock troll, originally appearing on Kuro5hin, and gets slipped in here from time to time. It is a willful misrepresentation of Jefferson's views.
I didn't realize this until recently: Win2K has a built-in NTP client. If you are on an NT domain or other corporate LAN, this has probably already been set up for you:
Open a Command Prompt.
Enter the command: net time/setsntp:servername where servername is the name of your preferred NTP server (your ISP should be able to provide this; typically something like ntp.my-isp.com).
Close the Command Prompt.
Right-click on My Computer; select Manage.
In the left-hand pane, select Services & Applications.
In the right-hand pane, double-click on Services.
Double-click on Windows Time (near the bottom).
In the configuration window, click the Start button. Your clock will be synchronized to the NTP time server.
In the drop-down menu Startup Type, select Automatic. This will start the NTP client each time you boot Windows.
Click OK. Close the Management interface.
There. No cheesy spy-ware necessary. Also, performance-conscious gamers needn't worry. NTP synchronization requires, at worst, perhaps one packet per hour to keep things straight.
Yet, when people drink water from the taps, or catch rainwater in their back yard, you don't hear the bottled water industry whining about "thieves" "stealing" income from them.
Despite incredible improvements over the last decade, LCDs still smear. (Yes, they do. It's a much briefer smear, but it's there.) This makes them unacceptable for high-framerate games.
Even the best LCD panels still have a more limited viewing angle than CRTs.
You can't "dial-a-resolution" on an LCD panel. Basically, your display is crisp at only one resolution. Anything else, and the filtering makes the entire display fuzzy (or worse, blocky). CRTs, on the other hand, tend to remain crisp right up to their bandwidth limit (given a decent cable).
Also, as a previous poster pointed out, LCD color purity isn't anywhere near the level of CRTs. In fact, last I checked, no one actually knows what the gamma curve of an LCD panel actually is.
And finally, the price of LCD panels remains prohibitive for "interesting" panel sizes (that is, 19" diagonal or larger). I have no doubt prices will continue to fall, but the previous shortcomings will remain.
Forget 802.1x. It was cracked over a year ago. Here's an article reporting on the vulnerability. WEP (any bit length) is even worse; cracks have been out for it for ages.
Your best bet is to deploy IPSec. Yes, as an earlier poster points out, there are some vulnerabilities that IPSec doesn't address, but if you build your network properly (keep all APs on a spur in the DMZ; make sure the spur router(s) refuse all hostile Ethernet frames), you can mitigate or eliminate those problems.
I wrote this in a fit of pique some years back. I've never tried actually putting into practice, though.
If, using nothing more than a, "license," these companies can absolve themselves of social responsibility with the stroke of a pen -- or the tap of a key -- then surely you can drag them back to civilized behavior using the same methods.
Cellular networks are run by companies that most emphatically do not have your best interests at heart. These are the same companies that, to pick the most contemporaneous example, spent millions of your talk-time dollars fighting number portability.
But getting soaked on per-byte and per-minute rates isn't the real issue. The bigger issue is that the cellular networks are end-to-end controlled by the telcos. No service flows over their waves or wires without their approval. Nothing happens on "your" handset that they didn't explicitly pre-authorize -- the exact opposite of the Internet.
If you want to experiment with a new idea in networking, and you're on the Internet, just park a machine on the net with an open port, and try it out. You don't have to get anyone's permission.
On the other hand, if you want to try something out on the cellular network, you first have to get "permission" to write software to run on your own damn phone, then you have to get the Service Provider du Jour to agree to send you the bits you're interested in (for a nominal fee, of course, assuming they know what the hell you're talking about at all). For an example of this idiocy, check out the API for BREW (Basic Runtime Environment for Wireless). It's the only API I've ever seen that expressly has a political layer in its networking stack.
802.11b, OTOH, is just Ethernet-like frames over the air (typically used to carry Internet protocol, but can be used for any other Ethernet-y thing). No permission, no politics, no fellating the local telco to give you "permission" to experiment. Just squirt packets out the interface and see what happens. Yeah, it carries data, but where is it written it can't carry voice as well?
Cell phones are darned useful, but believe me, you do not want the cell phone providers to become the dominant force in wireless data transport. They will screw you.
Note: The information transmitted in this Notice is intended only for the person or entity to which it is addressed and may contain confidential and/or privileged material. Any review, reproduction, retransmission, dissemination or other use of, or taking of any action in reliance upon, this information by persons or entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited. [... ]
Prohibited by what?
The recipient received this notice unsolicited. There was no prior agreement in place that the recipient would maintain the contents of the notice in confidence. Therefore, barring national security interests, I can't see any reason why the recipient shouldn't be free to do anything they want with the notice, including expose the sender to public ridicule and derision.
So what happens under this scheme when a harvester bounces all their page requests through an open proxy? Does the recorded IP address mis-identify the proxy as the harvester?
I have Zope running on an unpublished IP address and port on one of my machines. About once a day, someone tries to reflect a connection through it, like so:
Apparently there are enough mis-configured Web proxies out there (like older RedHats running Squid) to make this type of probing worthwhile. Does this honeypot account for this?
Isn't this, like, the fourth time (at least) that Micron has gone whining to the Feds about their products being undercut by foreign competitors? The first time I recall them doing this (back in the mid 1980's), their DRAMs were $#!+. At least this time, they have a product that's well worth buying.
I always wondered if the protective tariffs gave them the breathing space they needed to get their asses in gear. So I don't know quite how I feel about this.
The RIAA guy responds to the proposition that the RIAA's file scanning activities constitute trespass:
When the RIAA searches the Internet to find infringing recordings that are being distributed, it is looking in exactly the same types of places that anybody else on the Internet may go.
We are not accessing anybody's "property," and we are certainly not violating anybody's personal rights. [emphasis mine]
Excuse me? By the terms of the Berne Convention, adopted by the United States in the mid-1980's, once a work becomes "fixed" in a concrete form, it automatically becomes copyrighted, with the copyright held by the creator. Your rights are strengthened if you register it, but you hold a defensible copyright in anything and everything you write, draw, or otherwise create.
Copyrights are commonly lumped under ill-conceived term of, "Intellectual Property."
Oh, look, there's that word: "Property." The word the RIAA loves to throw around with such reckless abandon as it shrilly decries unsanctioned copying:
"Our property rights are being violated!"
"Would you let millions of people into your home and steal your property?"
"We need copy protection to protect our property from thieves."
But, according to the Berne Convention... Everything is copyrighted -- therefore, everything is someone's property, including those Web sites the RIAA is scanning (without permission). So how is it okay for the RIAA to scan and make use of a Web site's copyrighted material without the copyright holder's permission, while it's not okay for millions of peaceable citizens to do the same thing with music files?
"Consistent" is not a word that can be applied to their arguments.
The RIAA rep shot their entire propoganda campaign in the foot with this gem:
The idea of a virtual community that "shares" music is a great idea. Unfortunately, that is not what is happening on P2P [peer-to-peer] networks these days. Networks like Kazaa, Gnutella, iMesh, Grokster and Morpheus, among others, are encouraging and helping individuals to distribute perfect digital copies of music to millions of strangers simultaneously. Nobody is really "sharing" as we traditionally think of the term. Sharing involves lending something to somebody, and while it is on loan, the owner no longer has it. "Sharing" in the P2P context has become a euphemism for "copying." [... ]
So, according to this guy, "sharing" only takes place when the lender doesn't have the shared book/CD/whatever available for their use. If the lender retains a copy, or the original, then it's not, "sharing," but, "copying."
However, the RIAA -- and, to be fair, just about every other intellectual "property" advocate -- often refer to unsanctioned copying as, "stealing."
Except... Wait a minute. Isn't stealing where you take a thing from someone such that, as the RIAA guys said, "the owner no longer has it?" Indeed, isn't the primary distinction between lending and stealing the consent of the owner?
So if, because the owner retains a copy, it's therefore not sharing, then how can they possibly make the argument in the same breath that's it is stealing?
Answer: They can't. They're trying to have it both ways. It's not stealing, it's copying, a distinct activity.
That copying is neither legal nor ethical.
There's little question that it's illegal -- the lobbying dollars of the RIAA and like organizations have ensured this. Whether or not it's ethical is a question that is still being discussed, and is by no means a closed subject.
Slashdot Mirror
What's even stupider is that at least 20 other people tried for the same name before this guy.
Schwab
This could actually become a very messy issue.
Assuming very low contention, you can videocast over an 802.11b link. Some guy brings in his shiny new Sony VAIO PCG-TR1A with built-in camera and 802.11b, and starts broadcasting the game from his seat in the stadium. (Yeah, it'll suck, but that won't matter, as we shall shortly see.)
This will piss off a number of people:
They've built for themselves a cozy little relationship that doesn't involve competition or, indeed, people thinking for themselves at all (sit down, shut up, buy the $6.50 hot dogs, oh, and enjoy the game). Expect shrill whining from Entrenched Interests the moment they even suspect anything like this might happen.
Schwab
Holy crap!
I had no idea this existed. I just installed it and, while it's a bit clunky and confusing, it exposes everything I wanted to see and lets me play with CSS in almost the very way I wanted to. Thanks for pointing this out!
As for the <BR> issue: Have you considered creating a "meta-frame" which sits on top of the main page? The caret lives in the meta-frame and, once concrete HTML can be compiled, the HTML gets moved to the main page. The caret never enters the main page -- a meta-frame is built out out of whatever paragraph/element the caret's placed in, which overlays the main page.
Just thinking off the bottom of my ass here (as opposed to the top of my head, whose ideas are usually of higher quality).
Schwab
I've been doing a fair amount of mucking around in Mozilla Composer lately and, while it's okay for writing first-approximation Web pages, I've found the UI to be really inconvenient for some things.
The thing likes to pollute the document with line breaks (<BR>) everywhere, which is darned annoying. Creation and maintenance of directory lists (<DL> <DT> <DD>) is really finicky -- do things in the wrong sequence and the formatting will be ruined. I find myself making constant trips to the source window, fixing up broken or unnecessary HTML. It also offers no help at all in composing and previewing style sheets.
I'd really like Composer to be a good WYSIWYG HTML editor, but it seems to be sorely lacking. Is it just me? Is there some Secret Book of Composer Power Usage Tips that I haven't found yet, or does it really fall as short as I think it does?
Schwab
Yes, but where's the opportunity for counterpoint? Are we also going to see public service spots with the message, "Unsanctioned copying isn't a big deal?"
Somehow, I don't think so. The media corporations are all colluding on this one. Only one message will be permitted to be broadcast -- "Copying is bad" -- and "debate", if there is any at all, will be slanted and presented so as to intrinsically discredit any view not in accord with the Party Line.
Yes, you are correct when you say this issue should be fought in the marketplace of ideas. But only one idea is being presented. This is a bug, and it needs to be fixed.
Schwab
The Sony has a higher resolution LCD panel (1280 * 768). The Dell's only 1024 * 768.
Schwab
It may not damage the computer itself, but it will seriously damage the reputation of the computer's owner, who will be falsely branded a spammer and get cut off the net. This should be of serious concern to computer owners and, as such, the virus should be rated as highly dangerous.
Schwab
I never cared for the term either. It's obviously a combination of the words "machine" and "cinema", but the result is ungainly and ugly.
I cooked up my own word for the same thing, a combination of the words "mechanical" and "animation": Mechanime. Sadly, this term may not be good, either, as the "anime" half of the word may tend to connote Japanese animation, which is not intended. But it scans a hell of a lot better than, "Machinima."
Schwab
Have they removed the copy protection from Quake 3 yet?
No, not the "check the CD in the drive" copy protection. That was removed years ago. I'm talking about the copy protection that sends your "authorization" key to your_papers_please.idsoftware.com (note: may not be actual site name).
I have nothing but the utmost respect for Mr. Carmack and all he has done, but there is no way I'm going to support this kind of unjustifiable waste of engineering and network resources (how much does it cost to run those servers each year?), the invasion of privacy (when I play the game, and with whom, is no one's business but my own), or the outright insult to my character to presume I'd be playing with an unsanctioned copy. (Unsanctioned copies? In this age of viruses and spyware? Are you out of your mind?)
Copy protection in any form should not be tolerated, much less supported. So, until I hear that the client authentication requirement is gone -- not merely disabled, not made optional, gone -- my money shall remain firmly in my pocket. Yours should, too.
Schwab
P.S: Mind you, once it's confirmed client authentication is gone, I'll be off to buy a copy at Fry's so fast, you'll see a red-shift on my butt.
Seconded!! Here's the Web site of the Quake Done Quick crew.
Of special note is Scourge Done Slick, a speed run through the Quake add-on pack Scourge of Armagon. It has remarkably good voice acting, some good lines (including a cameo by The Levelord), good camera work, and some astonishing moves and play tactics. As a Quake afficianado, I regard this as required viewing.
No matter how you slice it, it's good stuff. Recommended.
Schwab
WARNING: This post contains half-remembered incidents of years ago, learned second-hand. Until somone more dilligent than I provides factual backup, it should be regarded as rumor.
I recall a court case of many years ago, where some packager was selling a CD-ROM collection of user-created maps for Duke Nukem 3D (often without the map maker's permission). 3D Realms sued them for copyright infringement, and won.
Now, on its face, this seems absurd. The CD-ROM contained only user-created data. None of 3D Realms' copyrighted data appeared on the disc -- not the engine, none of the maps, none of the textures, none of the sounds. It's true that the user-created maps did utilize 3D Realms' datasets, but the only way you could do that was to buy a legit copy of DN3D. The user-created maps would then use the installed, lawfully-obtained datasets. No problem, right?
3D Realms didn't argue that. What they argued was that they held the copyright on the character of Duke Nukem himself (fictional characters are copyrightable -- just ask Disney about Mickey Mouse) and, as such, 3D Realms held the exclusive right to craft new "stories" (i.e. maps) involving that character. That meant the firm selling the collection disc was, argued 3D Realms, distributing a collection of Duke Nukem stories that had not been authorized by the holders of the Duke Nukem character copyright.
The court swallowed it, and found in favor of 3D Realms.
So that means that 3D Realms went after all map-makers, right? Wrong. See, 3D Realms had this little clause in their (ha ha) "license agreement" forbidding commercial distribution of user-made maps without paying them tribute. But trying to enforce a shrinkwrap "license" is shaky legal ground. So they dreamt up the character copyright angle, and selectively enforced it against the CD publisher.
Apparently, no one was sad to see the CD publisher crushed, as they had apparently misappropriated a large number of user-made maps, gambling that their creators were too small to sue them. But in shutting them down, a rather hazardous legal precedent was created. I imagine it's only a matter of time before it bites someone.
BTW: Gordon Freeman, the central fictional character in Half-Life, is copyrighted by Valve/Sierra.
Schwab
The parent post is a stock troll, originally appearing on Kuro5hin, and gets slipped in here from time to time. It is a willful misrepresentation of Jefferson's views.
Schwab
There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.
...Especially when Microsoft's offering it.
Schwab
I didn't realize this until recently: Win2K has a built-in NTP client. If you are on an NT domain or other corporate LAN, this has probably already been set up for you:
There. No cheesy spy-ware necessary. Also, performance-conscious gamers needn't worry. NTP synchronization requires, at worst, perhaps one packet per hour to keep things straight.
Schwab
Hrm. Sorta like music CDs these day, hm?
Yet, when people drink water from the taps, or catch rainwater in their back yard, you don't hear the bottled water industry whining about "thieves" "stealing" income from them.
Being commoditized isn't necessarily a bad thing.
Schwab
Nope, sorry, must disagree.
Despite incredible improvements over the last decade, LCDs still smear. (Yes, they do. It's a much briefer smear, but it's there.) This makes them unacceptable for high-framerate games.
Even the best LCD panels still have a more limited viewing angle than CRTs.
You can't "dial-a-resolution" on an LCD panel. Basically, your display is crisp at only one resolution. Anything else, and the filtering makes the entire display fuzzy (or worse, blocky). CRTs, on the other hand, tend to remain crisp right up to their bandwidth limit (given a decent cable).
Also, as a previous poster pointed out, LCD color purity isn't anywhere near the level of CRTs. In fact, last I checked, no one actually knows what the gamma curve of an LCD panel actually is.
And finally, the price of LCD panels remains prohibitive for "interesting" panel sizes (that is, 19" diagonal or larger). I have no doubt prices will continue to fall, but the previous shortcomings will remain.
Schwab
Forget 802.1x. It was cracked over a year ago. Here's an article reporting on the vulnerability. WEP (any bit length) is even worse; cracks have been out for it for ages.
Your best bet is to deploy IPSec. Yes, as an earlier poster points out, there are some vulnerabilities that IPSec doesn't address, but if you build your network properly (keep all APs on a spur in the DMZ; make sure the spur router(s) refuse all hostile Ethernet frames), you can mitigate or eliminate those problems.
Schwab
I wrote this in a fit of pique some years back. I've never tried actually putting into practice, though.
If, using nothing more than a, "license," these companies can absolve themselves of social responsibility with the stroke of a pen -- or the tap of a key -- then surely you can drag them back to civilized behavior using the same methods.
Schwab
How long do you think we have until the Butlerian Jihad?
Schwab
Cellular networks are run by companies that most emphatically do not have your best interests at heart. These are the same companies that, to pick the most contemporaneous example, spent millions of your talk-time dollars fighting number portability.
But getting soaked on per-byte and per-minute rates isn't the real issue. The bigger issue is that the cellular networks are end-to-end controlled by the telcos. No service flows over their waves or wires without their approval. Nothing happens on "your" handset that they didn't explicitly pre-authorize -- the exact opposite of the Internet.
If you want to experiment with a new idea in networking, and you're on the Internet, just park a machine on the net with an open port, and try it out. You don't have to get anyone's permission.
On the other hand, if you want to try something out on the cellular network, you first have to get "permission" to write software to run on your own damn phone, then you have to get the Service Provider du Jour to agree to send you the bits you're interested in (for a nominal fee, of course, assuming they know what the hell you're talking about at all). For an example of this idiocy, check out the API for BREW (Basic Runtime Environment for Wireless). It's the only API I've ever seen that expressly has a political layer in its networking stack.
802.11b, OTOH, is just Ethernet-like frames over the air (typically used to carry Internet protocol, but can be used for any other Ethernet-y thing). No permission, no politics, no fellating the local telco to give you "permission" to experiment. Just squirt packets out the interface and see what happens. Yeah, it carries data, but where is it written it can't carry voice as well?
Cell phones are darned useful, but believe me, you do not want the cell phone providers to become the dominant force in wireless data transport. They will screw you.
Schwab
Prohibited by what?
The recipient received this notice unsolicited. There was no prior agreement in place that the recipient would maintain the contents of the notice in confidence. Therefore, barring national security interests, I can't see any reason why the recipient shouldn't be free to do anything they want with the notice, including expose the sender to public ridicule and derision.
It's meaningless boilerplate.
Schwab
So what happens under this scheme when a harvester bounces all their page requests through an open proxy? Does the recorded IP address mis-identify the proxy as the harvester?
I have Zope running on an unpublished IP address and port on one of my machines. About once a day, someone tries to reflect a connection through it, like so:
66.118.187.8 - Anonymous [30/May/2003:09:10:05 -0700] "CONNECT 64.12.136.89:25 HTTP/1.0" 404 264 "" ""
Apparently there are enough mis-configured Web proxies out there (like older RedHats running Squid) to make this type of probing worthwhile. Does this honeypot account for this?
Schwab
Isn't this, like, the fourth time (at least) that Micron has gone whining to the Feds about their products being undercut by foreign competitors? The first time I recall them doing this (back in the mid 1980's), their DRAMs were $#!+. At least this time, they have a product that's well worth buying.
I always wondered if the protective tariffs gave them the breathing space they needed to get their asses in gear. So I don't know quite how I feel about this.
Schwab
The RIAA guy responds to the proposition that the RIAA's file scanning activities constitute trespass:
Excuse me? By the terms of the Berne Convention, adopted by the United States in the mid-1980's, once a work becomes "fixed" in a concrete form, it automatically becomes copyrighted, with the copyright held by the creator. Your rights are strengthened if you register it, but you hold a defensible copyright in anything and everything you write, draw, or otherwise create.
Copyrights are commonly lumped under ill-conceived term of, "Intellectual Property."
Oh, look, there's that word: "Property." The word the RIAA loves to throw around with such reckless abandon as it shrilly decries unsanctioned copying:
But, according to the Berne Convention... Everything is copyrighted -- therefore, everything is someone's property, including those Web sites the RIAA is scanning (without permission). So how is it okay for the RIAA to scan and make use of a Web site's copyrighted material without the copyright holder's permission, while it's not okay for millions of peaceable citizens to do the same thing with music files?
"Consistent" is not a word that can be applied to their arguments.
Schwab
The RIAA rep shot their entire propoganda campaign in the foot with this gem:
So, according to this guy, "sharing" only takes place when the lender doesn't have the shared book/CD/whatever available for their use. If the lender retains a copy, or the original, then it's not, "sharing," but, "copying."
However, the RIAA -- and, to be fair, just about every other intellectual "property" advocate -- often refer to unsanctioned copying as, "stealing."
Except... Wait a minute. Isn't stealing where you take a thing from someone such that, as the RIAA guys said, "the owner no longer has it?" Indeed, isn't the primary distinction between lending and stealing the consent of the owner?
So if, because the owner retains a copy, it's therefore not sharing, then how can they possibly make the argument in the same breath that's it is stealing?
Answer: They can't. They're trying to have it both ways. It's not stealing, it's copying, a distinct activity.
There's little question that it's illegal -- the lobbying dollars of the RIAA and like organizations have ensured this. Whether or not it's ethical is a question that is still being discussed, and is by no means a closed subject.
Schwab