is why anybody still thinks that Windows is suitable for a production control environment. I can understand the pretty gui for someone's desktop, but (and I'm serious when I ask this) what kind of utter cretin would think to put Windows, or any Microsoft product, in a fucking nuclear power plant, completely un-fucking-protected from this sort of stuff?
It doesn't make sense. Use a Unix/Linux machine, make sure it has only the access level needed from the outside (maybe sshd running, maybe), and keep the thing patched.
Why is this rocket science? Why do people who are building nuke plants and rail lines not know any better?
Sorry for going off on a rant, but damn it, somebody needs to say it.
They've been doing it for years. If this one email will just get around to 25,000 people, Bill Gates will send everybody a $1000 check. It shouldn't be surprising that they're monitoring Usenet, too, probably just to send checks to people there.
The SEC is the Securities Exchange Commission (http://www.sec.gov/). They do follow up on this sort of thing, but it sometimes takes awhile. Don't be too concerned, it's all public records at this point so it's not like the evidence will disappear. I'm guessing that you should expect to see them take any action for at least 6 months to a year, just based on past action.
To see how they work, look at the current action against Martha Stewart. If you read around on their site, you'll find that they also have taken action against several "pump & dump" spammers, some of whom profited less than SCO execs have. I wouldn't be surprised if they announce an investigation within a few months.
What you are proposing is breaking the 1st freedom; it is not because they claim the GPL is invalid that we believe so and should break it.
You need to be modded to (-1: Bullshit), but I don't have mod points. SCO says the GPL is invalid. The GPL provides the only right that they have to distribute code, such as the Linux kernel. They are actively breaking the terms of the GPL with respect to the Linux kernel. Therefore, they should be sued for copyright infringement.
...what is kneaded here is attack rather than passive defence.
I've been saying this (and getting modded up) since SCO started, but nobody who matters cares. Linus et al need to start caring, because this is a major problem that is not going to disappear overnight without their involvement. SCO is currently guilty of massive copyright infringement, literally enough to shut the company down and possibly "pierce the corporate veil" and allow the officers to be pursued to help pay up. But they'll keep using that money to trash Linux and threaten others until someone does something about it. A lawsuit by Linus alleging that SCO is improperly using Linux code would allow him to subpoena their code without the stupid NDA.
It seems that the open source community thinks copyright law is something for the RIAA and MPAA to wield against file sharers. It works just as well for us, likely better since nobody likes the entertainment industry outside of Congress.
Anyway, you're right, it's time we go on the offensive. My suggestion was the establishment of a legal fund for offense, which is much more needed than Red Hat's defensive fund. Winnings would be split 50/50, with the copyright holder getting 50% and the fund getting 50% of the winnings. We'd be able to grow it within a few years to the point that nobody would want to mess with us, but only if people (e.g. Linus) pulled their thumbs out of their asses and started defending their property.
11 million dollars PURE PROFIT is a lot of goddamn return if you ask me. "9%" justs aims to make it a small seeming amount of money.
Yes it is, but they don't have that much. If they took in $131M at the box office, which is what that number represents, then the theatres are taking half of it. So, $65.5M gets back to the studio. No profit, yet.
After foreign showings and later VHS/DVD sales, they'll likely make a profit. Truth is, though, most movies don't break even. Those that do tend to make such an insane profit that the deadbeats are barely noticed.
It depends. Most sites that I've written, and most sites that I've used, allow "unconfirmed subscriptions" if it's part of the ordering process, for instance. But for a pure email list signup, I have to agree.
Whaddya bet Howard Dean isn't confirming them, either?
All 'outsourced maillers' are listed on blacklists, most of them for good reason. There is absolutely no way that an outsourced email provider can know if an email list provided by a client is legit or spam.
Owning and running an ISP, I think I can respond rather well to this point.
Bullshit
My customers who send mass emails know that they are being watched. I have an idea of how many customers each has, and I correlate that to their list sizes. If one suddenly comes up with 1,000,000 names, guess what? I know it's not legit.
I had a telemarketing computer call one day with a message trying to rent mailing lists to the business. Near the end, the guy mentioned that I could rent their "35,000,000 piece opt-in email list". Bullshit. Nobody has the names of 35M people who want to receive trash in their email simply because there aren't 35M people like that on the entire planet.
My customers likewise know that I am prone to pick a random email address from their list and ask them for more information about that person. Real name, company name, and telephone number. And I occassionally call them to verify. I don't have to worry about spammers.
A little common sense goes a long way. You're obviously a Howard Dean fan, but let's face it, he's spamming. The argument that "he doesn't know any better", which is apparently what you're trying to make here, worked the first time.
Is a fund to help open source developers get a lawyer and go after people who are infringing on their copyrights.
It's high time (the SCO case should have made this obvious) that we in the OS community quit acting like laws only work for companies and start going on the offensive against companies that are infringing on our copyrights. The fact that SCO continues to distribute the Linux kernel even though they've rejected the GPL, for example, means that they're violating copyright law. There is talk of Linux code in SCO's operating system.
We need to start defending our IP. Perhaps the fund could specify that when you win, a percentage of the winnings go back into the fund.
The companies love to say "prove you didn't open the account."
And the proper response is "prove that I *did*". Remember, if you did, they should be able to show signatures, security photos, etc. If you want to get brutal, simply sue them for defamation and subpoena those items.
This stuff will stop when people start actually fighting back against the companies that are facilitating it.
Those of you who are sweating over whether the GPL will hold up need to answer one question: What legal right does SCO have to distribute the copyrighted works of Linus Torvalds et al? The answer: none.
The GPL simply says that the copyright holder will grant you the right to redistribute as long as you follow a few simple rules.
Copyright law is alive and well. The same law that gives the RIAA $150K/incident protects us. Don't worry, the GPL is irrelevant.
Regardless, the abstract says that Fries (note the mispelling) isn't selling Linux boxes, but the article makes no such claim. It looks like they're selling a cheap box with a bad Linux distro and hoping to make an upsell. But I see nothing to suggest that they aren't actually selling the box as-is.
Contrary to the popular belief, the SCO case never was and never will be about the GPL.
No, but it should be. Linus and other kernel developers should be suing sco for copyright violations since they are still distributing the Linux kernel without agreeing to the GPL.
Hey, enough of that! I'm married, to an asian babe no less, and I still have a Virtua Racing in the garage. Not like the glory days of Track & Field, Punchout, and some cheesy Sega game in the living room and a Wizard of Wor mini in a bedroom, but it still rocks...
If they developed the intelligent mail carrier, and put it to work in my neighborhood. If there's a car parked within 15 feet of my mailbox, I don't get mail that day (God forbid it would have to get out of the vehicle) and the next day I get a pissy note from the "Postmaster" explaining that the mailbox can't be blocked.
Acxiom is a Certified Participant in the BBBOnline Privacy Program.
It's sad, but my experience is that the BBB exists simply to collect money from members for a rubber stamp.
I was being spammed by www.inphonic.com, who had a BBB logo on their page. They weren't directly spamming, they were using 3rd party spamhausen (fantasticrewards.com, freeze.com, consumerpackage.net, etc.) Even after the BBB had forwarded my email address to them, and inphonic.com had replied *to me* saying "we'll take you off our list", I continued to receive email from them. (side note: this is why opt-out doesn't work; being off their list is irrelevant if the spammers that they hire don't do the same).
I sent their certifying BBB all the proof. The BBB's response was to literally change the written policy from disallowing spamming to allowing spamming as long as the merchant includes an opt-out mechanism. I pointed out that they weren't honoring opt-outs, either, since I kept getting spammed, but the BBB didn't care.
Anyway, I'm not convinced that the BBB really does anything aside from collect money. All organizations like that have the same problem: you can't shit on your customers. And ultimately, inphonic.com is their customer, not me.
Generally, I would say that linking to a 25 meg file from the front page of Slashdot is unconscionable. But in this case, perhaps it should be seen as an act of patriotism.
I'm still getting 172.9KB/sec on it, which is astounding. How big of a pipe do they have there?
I'm serious about this. After IBM & Red Hat finish these pathetic twits off in court, their stock will be probably no more than 10 cents per share. The open source community needs to buy them (hell, everybody throw in a dollar) and then throw open their "intellectual property" completely free to the world. While we're at it, let's publicly abandon the Unix trademark (which is likely unenforcable, anyway).
Their market cap before this was $25M. I suspect it'll be 1/10 that after this is done. It's not much money spread among all of us.
If you read about most spammers (i.e. Ralsky, Hardigree, etc.) the one thing that sticks out about all of them is that they're generally not very intelligent. Their choice is to spam and live in the million dollar house, or go back to McDonald's and the trailer park. Obviously, they're not going back to the trailer park without a fight.
It's obvious that they're making money; how else is Ralsky going to afford his house?
I wrote a bit called "Hurt Me Elmo" for Bob & Tom a few years back (on the FunHouse CD). I actually considered the possibility of having someone manufacture the little box to replace Tickle Me Elmo's factory installed laughing/jiggling box. The backlash could have generated some sales, and probably a lawsuit...
SCO will no doubt argue that, at the time, they didn't realise the source contained their copyrighted material.
For the 5000th time for the slow learners (you among them), SCO is still distributing the Linux kernel on their FTP site. Had they pulled it down when they first made the allegations, we might believe it. But they are still distributing it under the GPL months after they claim to have found the problems. They have no leg to stand on at this point.
Slashdot Mirror
is why anybody still thinks that Windows is suitable for a production control environment. I can understand the pretty gui for someone's desktop, but (and I'm serious when I ask this) what kind of utter cretin would think to put Windows, or any Microsoft product, in a fucking nuclear power plant, completely un-fucking-protected from this sort of stuff?
It doesn't make sense. Use a Unix/Linux machine, make sure it has only the access level needed from the outside (maybe sshd running, maybe), and keep the thing patched.
Why is this rocket science? Why do people who are building nuke plants and rail lines not know any better?
Sorry for going off on a rant, but damn it, somebody needs to say it.
They've been doing it for years. If this one email will just get around to 25,000 people, Bill Gates will send everybody a $1000 check. It shouldn't be surprising that they're monitoring Usenet, too, probably just to send checks to people there.
The SEC is the Securities Exchange Commission (http://www.sec.gov/). They do follow up on this sort of thing, but it sometimes takes awhile. Don't be too concerned, it's all public records at this point so it's not like the evidence will disappear. I'm guessing that you should expect to see them take any action for at least 6 months to a year, just based on past action.
To see how they work, look at the current action against Martha Stewart. If you read around on their site, you'll find that they also have taken action against several "pump & dump" spammers, some of whom profited less than SCO execs have. I wouldn't be surprised if they announce an investigation within a few months.
What you are proposing is breaking the 1st freedom; it is not because they claim the GPL is invalid that we believe so and should break it.
You need to be modded to (-1: Bullshit), but I don't have mod points. SCO says the GPL is invalid. The GPL provides the only right that they have to distribute code, such as the Linux kernel. They are actively breaking the terms of the GPL with respect to the Linux kernel. Therefore, they should be sued for copyright infringement.
I've been saying this (and getting modded up) since SCO started, but nobody who matters cares. Linus et al need to start caring, because this is a major problem that is not going to disappear overnight without their involvement. SCO is currently guilty of massive copyright infringement, literally enough to shut the company down and possibly "pierce the corporate veil" and allow the officers to be pursued to help pay up. But they'll keep using that money to trash Linux and threaten others until someone does something about it. A lawsuit by Linus alleging that SCO is improperly using Linux code would allow him to subpoena their code without the stupid NDA.
It seems that the open source community thinks copyright law is something for the RIAA and MPAA to wield against file sharers. It works just as well for us, likely better since nobody likes the entertainment industry outside of Congress.
Anyway, you're right, it's time we go on the offensive. My suggestion was the establishment of a legal fund for offense, which is much more needed than Red Hat's defensive fund. Winnings would be split 50/50, with the copyright holder getting 50% and the fund getting 50% of the winnings. We'd be able to grow it within a few years to the point that nobody would want to mess with us, but only if people (e.g. Linus) pulled their thumbs out of their asses and started defending their property.
Michael
11 million dollars PURE PROFIT is a lot of goddamn return if you ask me. "9%" justs aims to make it a small seeming amount of money.
Yes it is, but they don't have that much. If they took in $131M at the box office, which is what that number represents, then the theatres are taking half of it. So, $65.5M gets back to the studio. No profit, yet.
After foreign showings and later VHS/DVD sales, they'll likely make a profit. Truth is, though, most movies don't break even. Those that do tend to make such an insane profit that the deadbeats are barely noticed.
Michael
It depends. Most sites that I've written, and most sites that I've used, allow "unconfirmed subscriptions" if it's part of the ordering process, for instance. But for a pure email list signup, I have to agree.
Whaddya bet Howard Dean isn't confirming them, either?
Michael
Suprise, the Bush II relection machine also spammed. You can see it here on Cryptome.
It looks like someone signed him up as a joke or something. Spam seldom includes a "to" line with the correct name.
Michael
All 'outsourced maillers' are listed on blacklists, most of them for good reason. There is absolutely no way that an outsourced email provider can know if an email list provided by a client is legit or spam.
Owning and running an ISP, I think I can respond rather well to this point.
Bullshit
My customers who send mass emails know that they are being watched. I have an idea of how many customers each has, and I correlate that to their list sizes. If one suddenly comes up with 1,000,000 names, guess what? I know it's not legit.
I had a telemarketing computer call one day with a message trying to rent mailing lists to the business. Near the end, the guy mentioned that I could rent their "35,000,000 piece opt-in email list". Bullshit. Nobody has the names of 35M people who want to receive trash in their email simply because there aren't 35M people like that on the entire planet.
My customers likewise know that I am prone to pick a random email address from their list and ask them for more information about that person. Real name, company name, and telephone number. And I occassionally call them to verify. I don't have to worry about spammers.
A little common sense goes a long way. You're obviously a Howard Dean fan, but let's face it, he's spamming. The argument that "he doesn't know any better", which is apparently what you're trying to make here, worked the first time.
This is no longer "the first time". Understand?
Michael
AMD makes one single sale that's bigger than Intel's combined Itanic sales...
Is a fund to help open source developers get a lawyer and go after people who are infringing on their copyrights.
It's high time (the SCO case should have made this obvious) that we in the OS community quit acting like laws only work for companies and start going on the offensive against companies that are infringing on our copyrights. The fact that SCO continues to distribute the Linux kernel even though they've rejected the GPL, for example, means that they're violating copyright law. There is talk of Linux code in SCO's operating system.
We need to start defending our IP. Perhaps the fund could specify that when you win, a percentage of the winnings go back into the fund.
Michael
The companies love to say "prove you didn't open the account."
And the proper response is "prove that I *did*". Remember, if you did, they should be able to show signatures, security photos, etc. If you want to get brutal, simply sue them for defamation and subpoena those items.
This stuff will stop when people start actually fighting back against the companies that are facilitating it.
Those of you who are sweating over whether the GPL will hold up need to answer one question: What legal right does SCO have to distribute the copyrighted works of Linus Torvalds et al? The answer: none.
The GPL simply says that the copyright holder will grant you the right to redistribute as long as you follow a few simple rules.
Copyright law is alive and well. The same law that gives the RIAA $150K/incident protects us. Don't worry, the GPL is irrelevant.
Michael
Regardless, the abstract says that Fries (note the mispelling) isn't selling Linux boxes, but the article makes no such claim. It looks like they're selling a cheap box with a bad Linux distro and hoping to make an upsell. But I see nothing to suggest that they aren't actually selling the box as-is.
Contrary to the popular belief, the SCO case never was and never will be about the GPL.
No, but it should be. Linus and other kernel developers should be suing sco for copyright violations since they are still distributing the Linux kernel without agreeing to the GPL.
So... enjoying the single life, eh?
Hey, enough of that! I'm married, to an asian babe no less, and I still have a Virtua Racing in the garage. Not like the glory days of Track & Field, Punchout, and some cheesy Sega game in the living room and a Wizard of Wor mini in a bedroom, but it still rocks...
Michael
http://www.nsa.gov/selinux/
The US government is getting into it, and, quite frankly, kicking ass and taking names...
If they developed the intelligent mail carrier, and put it to work in my neighborhood. If there's a car parked within 15 feet of my mailbox, I don't get mail that day (God forbid it would have to get out of the vehicle) and the next day I get a pissy note from the "Postmaster" explaining that the mailbox can't be blocked.
Acxiom is a Certified Participant in the BBBOnline Privacy Program.
It's sad, but my experience is that the BBB exists simply to collect money from members for a rubber stamp.
I was being spammed by www.inphonic.com, who had a BBB logo on their page. They weren't directly spamming, they were using 3rd party spamhausen (fantasticrewards.com, freeze.com, consumerpackage.net, etc.) Even after the BBB had forwarded my email address to them, and inphonic.com had replied *to me* saying "we'll take you off our list", I continued to receive email from them. (side note: this is why opt-out doesn't work; being off their list is irrelevant if the spammers that they hire don't do the same).
I sent their certifying BBB all the proof. The BBB's response was to literally change the written policy from disallowing spamming to allowing spamming as long as the merchant includes an opt-out mechanism. I pointed out that they weren't honoring opt-outs, either, since I kept getting spammed, but the BBB didn't care.
Anyway, I'm not convinced that the BBB really does anything aside from collect money. All organizations like that have the same problem: you can't shit on your customers. And ultimately, inphonic.com is their customer, not me.
Michael
Generally, I would say that linking to a 25 meg file from the front page of Slashdot is unconscionable. But in this case, perhaps it should be seen as an act of patriotism.
I'm still getting 172.9KB/sec on it, which is astounding. How big of a pipe do they have there?
I'm serious about this. After IBM & Red Hat finish these pathetic twits off in court, their stock will be probably no more than 10 cents per share. The open source community needs to buy them (hell, everybody throw in a dollar) and then throw open their "intellectual property" completely free to the world. While we're at it, let's publicly abandon the Unix trademark (which is likely unenforcable, anyway).
Their market cap before this was $25M. I suspect it'll be 1/10 that after this is done. It's not much money spread among all of us.
Michael
If you read about most spammers (i.e. Ralsky, Hardigree, etc.) the one thing that sticks out about all of them is that they're generally not very intelligent. Their choice is to spam and live in the million dollar house, or go back to McDonald's and the trailer park. Obviously, they're not going back to the trailer park without a fight.
It's obvious that they're making money; how else is Ralsky going to afford his house?
I wrote a bit called "Hurt Me Elmo" for Bob & Tom a few years back (on the FunHouse CD). I actually considered the possibility of having someone manufacture the little box to replace Tickle Me Elmo's factory installed laughing/jiggling box. The backlash could have generated some sales, and probably a lawsuit...
Michael
I wonder if this is too late for Sun?
We can only hope. Seriously, after they initially jumped on the SCO FUD in order to push Solaris, I couldn't care less what happens to them.
SCO will no doubt argue that, at the time, they didn't realise the source contained their copyrighted material.
For the 5000th time for the slow learners (you among them), SCO is still distributing the Linux kernel on their FTP site. Had they pulled it down when they first made the allegations, we might believe it. But they are still distributing it under the GPL months after they claim to have found the problems. They have no leg to stand on at this point.