An AC says that this incident proves that Linux is not immune, that this is a wakeup call blah blah blah.
Linux is immune to this Gnutella worm. Wanna know why? If you had read the Trend Micro alert linked from the article, you would see that if executed, the file looks for C:\PROGRAM FILES\GNUTELLA. Got that on your Linux box? I think not. Even if you dual-boot, there would be no way to infect Linux while in the Windows partition or vice versa. As an extra bonus, the technical details page says that the affected OS is Windows 98. And it modifies the GNUTELLA.INI file. Got one of those on your Linux box? Again, I think not.
And it spreads by people executing downloaded copies with file extension.vbs. If you were in Linux, you'd see the extension. What with other recent outbreaks, you'd be a fool to run an unknown, unchecked VBS file in Windows.
1516dcl asked about the annoying, unprofessional appearance of "?" where the apostrophe/single quotation (') should be in Microsoftized documents.
They are using a proprietary Windoze-only character mapping. Dec characters 128-159 (hex 80-9F) are undefined in ASCII, ISO-Latin 1, and Unicode but used by Microsoft (only) for so-called smart quotes, the oe ligature, s with a hacek, dagger, florin symbol.
In this particular case, you've been bitten by dec 146 == hex 92, Microsoft's proprietary symbol for right single quote.
Could be worse. FrontPlague automagically inserts <font FACE="WP TypographicSymbols">=</font> every time it hits a single quote.
Indeed. What an apt analogy for the intellectual and political horizon of Mr. Bronfman and his peers. A vision of technology harnessed to preserve the privileges of a small elite class, while eliminating choice and squashing any true individual initiative for the many. I would say also, with a touch of 1984 thrown in, via the doublespeak and invasion of privacy.
there are those who believe that because technology can access property and appropriate it, then somehow that which is yours is no longer yours
Strawman argument. No one (that I know of) asserts such a thing. The real issue is much more complicated. If I took for my own use a physical book, without permission, it would be stealing. But if I copied a book for my own use, again without permission, it is not exactly theft pure and simple, because the item still exists, is still in the possession of the original holder, and can still be used by others. Once computerized data has been produced, the cost of reproduction approaches zero, and reproduction does not hinder the original owner or user. Granted, there is an ethical question of compensation, but digital copying cannot be simply equated with theft.
For the great ferment of works and ideas, including your own, if taken at will and without restraint, have no chance of surviving any better than did the buffalo
This is backwards. The usefulness of an idea increases if shared with others.
Passing over the paragraph where he is warring against the culture of the Internet for its own good...
What would the Internet be without "content?"
Not much. But I suspect he means corporately produced and controlled content. The Internet would be fine without that, thankyouverymuch. Many of us would see it as an improvement.
we are focused on creating and launching a consumer-preferred and legal system for consumers to access the media they desire
Doublespeak. Hands up, everyone who has been begging the multinational conglomerates to raise their prices, block access to materials already purchased, and invade our privacy in the bargain.
consumers' privacy will also benefit because their files and their systems won't be corrupted.
You mean like the way Real associates file types with itself so that after I uninstalled RealJukebox (never wanted, never used), the computer no longer knows how to play audio CDs?
technology will offer the owners of property at least as much comfort as it may currently offer to hackers and spies, pirates and pedophiles.
Ad hominem, at best. Basically, this is the tired argument that you don't need privacy if you're not doing anything wrong.
We must restrict the anonymity behind which people hide to commit crimes. Anonymity must not be equated with privacy. As citizens, we have a right to privacy. We have no such right to anonymity.
What about that little thing in the U.S. Constitution about unreasonable search and seizure? As other have pointed out, if I walk into a retail store and pay cash for a CD, I am under no legal or moral obligation to tell them my name, address, date of birth, credit card number, or any other personal information.
Privacy is getting your e-mail address taken off of "spam" mailing lists
He must not realize whom he's addressing. Real are notorious spammers. They have invaded privacy before by grabbing identifying numbers on users' computers--without notification, let alone permission. RealJukebox reported on tracks. And it wasn't so long ago that the cover was blown on their Download Daemon's recording of transactions, again without permission.
Anonymity, on the other hand, means being able to get away with stealing
This is over the top. Anonymity means that I should not be forced to give my name or other identifying information which can be tied to me personally. The Net is not as anonymous as many think, but without some level of anonymity there is no privacy.
What of the extraordinary gifts of software and whole operating systems of which we sometimes read?... Some of the donors may regret their generosity when later they are confronted with their children's college tuition and orthodontic bills
At first I thought he was talking about corporate philanthropy, but evidently he is laughing at idealists. Well, Mr. Multinational Corporation, if you are true to your principles, you should get off the Internet immediately. You are stealing food and college tuition from the prgrammers who wrote the IP protocol and in particular from Tim Berners-Lee, who invented http and HTML. Oftentimes you are also stealing from programmers who wrote or use the gcc. Your concern is touching, but I don't think that TBL, Linus Torvalds, or RMS are starving in the streets, nor do I think that they will, older and wiser, be converted to the religion of the Almighty Dollar and regret their past generosity and inventiveness.
All in all, Mr. Bronfman offers a bleak vision of unprecedented corporate control, unfettered by silly little things like civil rights or moral principles. May it never come to pass.
For those of you saying, "Story? What story?" it can also be reached minus frames and ads, and/or while using a proxy like Internet Junkbuster. But disable JavaScript before you read the story here.
Seth Finkelstein winds up by asking how many people will read through the mountains of fine print.
If I understand the article correctly, Download Demon is bundled with some other Real programs and sets itself up automatically. So some people did not ask for the Download Demon, might not even know it's on their system, and so would never have thought to read its Privacy Statement.
Not saying there are no grounds for concern, but I don't think a breakup of Microsoft would have results similar to the breakup of Ma Bell.
1. The baby Bells are regional. They can be de facto regional monopolies. I haven't heard any suggestion to split Microsoft into "West of the Mississippi", "East of the Mississippi", etc.
2. The nature of the industry is different. If, for example, Microsoft is split into OS vs. applications, it should lead to greater competition in the Windows applications market. Sure, lots of people will still go with the brand name. But others, if applications aren't bundled with the OS, would decide on the merits which mail client to use, which word processor, which spreadsheet program, etc. Who knows, they might even decide to go with another OS entirely.
I think the judge is exactly right: Microsoft is not serious.
First, they say they plan to appeal the judge's findings, no matter what. Not the remedy, the findings. On the findings of fact, it it highly unlikely that another court would overturn the findings of the judge who actually heard the case. On the findings of law, on what grounds would Microsoft appeal?
And their offer is ludicrous. Manufacturers of personal computers with Windows pre-installed can have a splash screen or something. Wow. And Microsoft won't restrict distributors of software for non-Microsoft platforms, whatever that means. For all we know, they could be thinking that anything that Microsoft programs can run on is a Microsoft platform. So they won't tell RedHat which software packages they can offer for Sparc, huh? Double wow.
The company seems not to realize that they are not in a strong position legally. I wonder why.
You also weaken your own point, by telling us that the only person who'd emailed you negatively so far is someone who didn't even post on that series of stories! Considering... your (admittedly non-scientific) report above of a 100:1 positive to negative reaction ratio, it would seem that Slashdot readers are giving you a thumbs up on whether publishing the book would be ethical.
Nope. The e-mail said to write back if you granted permission to reprint in dead-tree form. "Hundreds" of people may have said OK. Which could be anything from 101 on up. But how many of those letters do you suppose Hemos sent out? The rest, who didn't reply, have not granted permission. Perhaps the number of "yes" replies were disappointing, a low enough percentage to make publication in print unappealing.
Hell, why doesn't the Virginia court just give NSI a license to print money?
In the recent discussion of "... for Complete Morons" trademark claims, it was pointed out that phantom marks are not granted, e.g., someone cannot possibly tie up in advance all trademarks of two words where the second word is "Services".
So exactly how much hubris does it take for NSI to claim that they own all possible domain names, present and future? I can't say that I'm surprised, but I can say that I continue to be disgusted by NSI's megalomania.
The DMCA does declare it illegal to circumvent reasonable copy protection except in very restricted circumstances.
However, to make WinZip (and other similar utilities that can extract files from archives) illegal, the purpose of the software would have to be to defeat copyright protection. I think we can all agree that WinZip, PKZIP/PKUNZIP, GZIP/GUNZIP, tar, etc. have a far wider range of usefulness than "made to defeat copyright protection".
I personally cannot think of another instance where a copyright holder thought that the way to protect copyright was to compress a file.
I realize that I am chiming in late, but you did ask for readers' opinions. Here's mine.
Only one of the posts referenced was a violation of copyright. Seek competent legal counsel about what to do about it. Is Slashdot responsible for posters' comments? Is Andover.net responsible? What are the implications if you remove the post? Are you then legally liable in the future for any comment by a poster?
The letter from Microsoft under penalty of perjury identified one other post as containing a copy of Microsoft's copyrighted material when it instead asked about SAMBA. Microsoft has therefore perjured themselves. What are the legal implications of this? How does this affect the rest of the complaint?
Regarding posts pointing to other sites: If your legal counsel is willing to go along with you, leave them up. This would be a very interesting test case of the DMCA, because one of the servers (mentioned twice) is in Luxembourg. How does U.S. law govern the conduct of citizens of other nations?
Regarding suggested means to circumvent the (clickthrough/shrinkwrap) EULA apparently distributed with the spec, Microsoft, IMHO, is blowing smoke. It is ridiculous of them to assert that it is illegal to mention the existence of common software programs which extract compressed files. It is also ridiculous for Microsoft to assert that it is illegal for a person to state as a matter of fact how their configuration works, i.e., that their normal practice is to "drop" a file into WinZip or another extraction utility and that they did not read any other file than the spec itself.
Check the radio button at the bottom for "Custom".
Use the Settings button.
Scroll wayyyyy down. Last set of radio buttons, for Scripting/Active Scripting.
Disable.
OK.
OK.
Microsoft innovation in action again. Like "friendly URLs". Furrfu. They couldn't call it JavaScript, noooooo... they had to give it a cutesy obscure name.
This will include the opportunity to register for free listings in the Netscape Business Directory, which will include data from NSI.
Umm, maybe I've been living under a rock, but WTF is the Netscape Business Directory?
If it is their Business "channel", that is merely a slick repackaging of the Open Directory Project. There is no fee to submit URLs to the ODP. As far as I know, Netscape doesn't charge a fee to keep sites listed in ODP's Business section when Netscape repackages the data.
Or is this perhaps a future service? The utility of a FREE listing in something promised Real Soon Now is unknown. Could turn out to be vapor, for all we know. Or a vehicle that no self-respecting person would use anyway.
And a damned sight better than IDG's FOR DUMMIES(R) books too. Doesn't tell you how to rebuild the carburetor, but gets people who are initially nervous about tinkering to the point where they could do a tuneup or a brake job. Compare and contrast IDG's books, if you have ever read one.
One of the things that the LOVELETTER.TXT.vbs script did was to set the default home page in Internet Explorer to one of four pages at Sky Internet. They are an ISP that offers pre-paid access.
On each of the four pages was a file called WIN-BUGSFIX.exe. This was a password-stealing program.
Sky Internet was getting hammered by all the requests, was unreachable by ping. When another ISP alerted Sky Internet to the pages with the password-stealing program, Sky Internet yanked all of them. Within 15 minutes of notification, if I remember right from alt.comp.virus, and about 4 hours after the worm first appeared.
Now Sky Internet is using their logs to find who downloaded the program, to notify them.
You can argue that Sky Internet's pre-paid access model invites Net abuse, like the omnipresent AOHell coasters. They claim their system was cracked by a person who had been previously banned for abuse, FWIW. But you cannot (reasonably) blame them for knowingly distributing a virus.
You have to go with your gut. Nothing is forever on the Internet. But I don't know how the Open Directory Project could be much clearer that they have no eeeevil intent. You can use the ODP data pretty much as is. You can grab the whole RDF dump and frame it and repackage it with advertising revenue going to you. You can make derivative works. And the FAQ says that your right to do so is perpetual. Even if Netscape discontinues the project. All they ask is that you acknowledge your use of the volunteer editors' work by putting up a small notice inviting people to become editors.
IMHO, the only reason that the ODP was able to get as big as it is, is precisely because it is not commercial. There is no advertising on ODP. There is no fee for licensing. Ordinary netizens can make a difference just by adding links and describing them, in areas of their interest and expertise.
So, if you are a cynic, you will stay away, because it is already owned by AOL/Time Warner, and you can never put your trust in institutions.
But if you have an ounce of idealism left, you'll apply in hopes of making the Net a better place, for as long as this project remains free of corporate agendas, or until your own interest in helping other surfers find the "good stuff" this way wanes.
"Let the market slug it out, its already making Windows obsolete anyway"
You don't seem to be getting it. The judge has stated in his findings of fact and now in his findings of law that
Microsoft enjoys monopoly power in the Intel-compatible computer market (OS and applications).
Microsoft illegally used that monopoly power in violation of the Sherman antitrust law, to attempt to maintain their monopoly not by legal means but by injuring potential competitors, and to attempt to leverage that monopoly to gain a monopoly in a second market, again by coercion.
In other words, it is too late to say, "let the market decide," because Microsoft has so much power in the market that it can crush competitors, and Microsoft has indeed shown itself eager to ruthlessly squash any perceived competition by any means.
I think that this particular law is similar to the one about tampering with smoke detectors in airplane lavatories. It is a law to help enforce another law.
I disagree.
In this context (law), "obscenity" has a definition (patently offensive, prurient interest, no redeeming social value, etc.). And it is illegal for everyone, not just for minors. Pornography is a different thing. It is not synonymous with obscenity. At any rate, pornography is also illegal for minors.
My analogy limped, but yours is worse. The law says you have to have smoke detectors in certain places. The law also forbids tampering with them. One part of law is making another clearer. But in the case of this Utah bill, IMHO and IANAL, this is either censorship or useless grandstanding. It says, "Kids! Don't do anything illegal in libraries!" They are taking a general law, which applies to everyone everywhere in their juridiction, and piling on top of it a burden on a third party to enforce it based on age and location. And of course they are doing it "for the children". Puke.
"Do you want one more new feature," Lucovsky concurs, "or do you want to fix more bugs?
Well, if you work for Micros~1, the answer is clear.
My personal favorite from the worshipful OS/2-becomes-Needs-Towing was this gem:
"What I think is cool," Cutler interjects, "is that the system doesn't crash, and it doesn't lose my work, and it has functionality. I could care less that the visuals are flashy if my 32-gig hard drive goes away."
My employer-mandated NT4 workstation crashed 10 times in February. And I hate to tell these Olympian gods, but it does lose work. Mebbe I need a 32G HD like them to prevent crashes, huh? Sorry, boys, I ain't that suggestible.
The usual prohibitions: nothing illegal, nothing that violates university policy.
But the one that hurts most is no telnet from outside campus network. Combined with no dialup to the UN*X, this makes reading mail painful and compiling/debugging/setting permissions positively excruciating.
The bill doesn't require software filters; it requires a policy.
No state funds shall be provided to any public library that offers use of the Internet or an online service to the public unless the library adopts and enforces a policy to restrict access by minors to Internet or online sites that contain obscene material.
So, a library could just put up a notice about not accessing illegal materials.
They can hardly be expected to
Make Internet access available only to adults,
Prevent minors from accessing all systems that might contain obscene materials by community standards, or
Effectively filter terminals to which minors have access.
Some people might think 2. or 3. is feasible, but here's why not: many library catalogs are online today. How are they supposed to keep minors from seeing the records for material owned by that library or by other libraries that may share the catalog? Have you seen any software filter which claims to work on online library catalogs? (And if the software companies do make this claim, I, for one, would be horrified at implementation of the capability, doubly so if imposed by law.)
Filter or not, grandstanding or not, this is a bad law.
They might just as well say,
No state funds shall be provided to any public school that offers use of the telephone to the public unless the school adopts and enforces a policy to restrict access by minors to calls that contain obscene material
Most interesting paragraph in the article was the last:
"They could let ISPs bill people, but they didn't say what kind of prices they could charge them," Kasrel said. "They've still got the issue of what an ISP has to do to get access to their system. Are they going to kick ISPs off if they don't do a good job?"
Call me cynical, but I doubt that AOL Time Warner is doing this out of the goodness of their hearts.
The official statement says little about the conditions ISPs must meet, and nothing about how this will really shake down for users. The terms might be odious, just as some current arrangements are.
Slashdot Mirror
An AC says that this incident proves that Linux is not immune, that this is a wakeup call blah blah blah.
Linux is immune to this Gnutella worm. Wanna know why? If you had read the Trend Micro alert linked from the article, you would see that if executed, the file looks for C:\PROGRAM FILES\GNUTELLA. Got that on your Linux box? I think not. Even if you dual-boot, there would be no way to infect Linux while in the Windows partition or vice versa. As an extra bonus, the technical details page says that the affected OS is Windows 98. And it modifies the GNUTELLA.INI file. Got one of those on your Linux box? Again, I think not.
And it spreads by people executing downloaded copies with file extension .vbs. If you were in Linux, you'd see the extension. What with other recent outbreaks, you'd be a fool to run an unknown, unchecked VBS file in Windows.
1516dcl asked about the annoying, unprofessional appearance of "?" where the apostrophe/single quotation (') should be in Microsoftized documents.
They are using a proprietary Windoze-only character mapping. Dec characters 128-159 (hex 80-9F) are undefined in ASCII, ISO-Latin 1, and Unicode but used by Microsoft (only) for so-called smart quotes, the oe ligature, s with a hacek, dagger, florin symbol.
In this particular case, you've been bitten by dec 146 == hex 92, Microsoft's proprietary symbol for right single quote.
Could be worse. FrontPlague automagically inserts <font FACE="WP TypographicSymbols">=</font> every time it hits a single quote.
Indeed. What an apt analogy for the intellectual and political horizon of Mr. Bronfman and his peers. A vision of technology harnessed to preserve the privileges of a small elite class, while eliminating choice and squashing any true individual initiative for the many. I would say also, with a touch of 1984 thrown in, via the doublespeak and invasion of privacy.
Strawman argument. No one (that I know of) asserts such a thing. The real issue is much more complicated. If I took for my own use a physical book, without permission, it would be stealing. But if I copied a book for my own use, again without permission, it is not exactly theft pure and simple, because the item still exists, is still in the possession of the original holder, and can still be used by others. Once computerized data has been produced, the cost of reproduction approaches zero, and reproduction does not hinder the original owner or user. Granted, there is an ethical question of compensation, but digital copying cannot be simply equated with theft.
This is backwards. The usefulness of an idea increases if shared with others.
Passing over the paragraph where he is warring against the culture of the Internet for its own good...
Not much. But I suspect he means corporately produced and controlled content. The Internet would be fine without that, thankyouverymuch. Many of us would see it as an improvement.
Doublespeak. Hands up, everyone who has been begging the multinational conglomerates to raise their prices, block access to materials already purchased, and invade our privacy in the bargain.
You mean like the way Real associates file types with itself so that after I uninstalled RealJukebox (never wanted, never used), the computer no longer knows how to play audio CDs?
Ad hominem, at best. Basically, this is the tired argument that you don't need privacy if you're not doing anything wrong.
What about that little thing in the U.S. Constitution about unreasonable search and seizure? As other have pointed out, if I walk into a retail store and pay cash for a CD, I am under no legal or moral obligation to tell them my name, address, date of birth, credit card number, or any other personal information.
He must not realize whom he's addressing. Real are notorious spammers. They have invaded privacy before by grabbing identifying numbers on users' computers--without notification, let alone permission. RealJukebox reported on tracks. And it wasn't so long ago that the cover was blown on their Download Daemon's recording of transactions, again without permission.
This is over the top. Anonymity means that I should not be forced to give my name or other identifying information which can be tied to me personally. The Net is not as anonymous as many think, but without some level of anonymity there is no privacy.
At first I thought he was talking about corporate philanthropy, but evidently he is laughing at idealists. Well, Mr. Multinational Corporation, if you are true to your principles, you should get off the Internet immediately. You are stealing food and college tuition from the prgrammers who wrote the IP protocol and in particular from Tim Berners-Lee, who invented http and HTML. Oftentimes you are also stealing from programmers who wrote or use the gcc. Your concern is touching, but I don't think that TBL, Linus Torvalds, or RMS are starving in the streets, nor do I think that they will, older and wiser, be converted to the religion of the Almighty Dollar and regret their past generosity and inventiveness.
All in all, Mr. Bronfman offers a bleak vision of unprecedented corporate control, unfettered by silly little things like civil rights or moral principles. May it never come to pass.
For those of you saying, "Story? What story?" it can also be reached minus frames and ads, and/or while using a proxy like Internet Junkbuster. But disable JavaScript before you read the story here.
Seth Finkelstein winds up by asking how many people will read through the mountains of fine print.
If I understand the article correctly, Download Demon is bundled with some other Real programs and sets itself up automatically. So some people did not ask for the Download Demon, might not even know it's on their system, and so would never have thought to read its Privacy Statement.
Not saying there are no grounds for concern, but I don't think a breakup of Microsoft would have results similar to the breakup of Ma Bell.
1. The baby Bells are regional. They can be de facto regional monopolies. I haven't heard any suggestion to split Microsoft into "West of the Mississippi", "East of the Mississippi", etc.
2. The nature of the industry is different. If, for example, Microsoft is split into OS vs. applications, it should lead to greater competition in the Windows applications market. Sure, lots of people will still go with the brand name. But others, if applications aren't bundled with the OS, would decide on the merits which mail client to use, which word processor, which spreadsheet program, etc. Who knows, they might even decide to go with another OS entirely.
<aol>Me too!</aol> I agree. Excellent post.
I think the judge is exactly right: Microsoft is not serious.
First, they say they plan to appeal the judge's findings, no matter what. Not the remedy, the findings. On the findings of fact, it it highly unlikely that another court would overturn the findings of the judge who actually heard the case. On the findings of law, on what grounds would Microsoft appeal?
And their offer is ludicrous. Manufacturers of personal computers with Windows pre-installed can have a splash screen or something. Wow. And Microsoft won't restrict distributors of software for non-Microsoft platforms, whatever that means. For all we know, they could be thinking that anything that Microsoft programs can run on is a Microsoft platform. So they won't tell RedHat which software packages they can offer for Sparc, huh? Double wow.
The company seems not to realize that they are not in a strong position legally. I wonder why.
alleria wrote:
Nope. The e-mail said to write back if you granted permission to reprint in dead-tree form. "Hundreds" of people may have said OK. Which could be anything from 101 on up. But how many of those letters do you suppose Hemos sent out? The rest, who didn't reply, have not granted permission. Perhaps the number of "yes" replies were disappointing, a low enough percentage to make publication in print unappealing.
Hell, why doesn't the Virginia court just give NSI a license to print money?
In the recent discussion of "... for Complete Morons" trademark claims, it was pointed out that phantom marks are not granted, e.g., someone cannot possibly tie up in advance all trademarks of two words where the second word is "Services".
So exactly how much hubris does it take for NSI to claim that they own all possible domain names, present and future? I can't say that I'm surprised, but I can say that I continue to be disgusted by NSI's megalomania.
The DMCA does declare it illegal to circumvent reasonable copy protection except in very restricted circumstances.
However, to make WinZip (and other similar utilities that can extract files from archives) illegal, the purpose of the software would have to be to defeat copyright protection. I think we can all agree that WinZip, PKZIP/PKUNZIP, GZIP/GUNZIP, tar, etc. have a far wider range of usefulness than "made to defeat copyright protection".
I personally cannot think of another instance where a copyright holder thought that the way to protect copyright was to compress a file.
I realize that I am chiming in late, but you did ask for readers' opinions. Here's mine.
The letter from Microsoft under penalty of perjury identified one other post as containing a copy of Microsoft's copyrighted material when it instead asked about SAMBA. Microsoft has therefore perjured themselves. What are the legal implications of this? How does this affect the rest of the complaint?
... should be to make the best accessible page in under 5K.
First place: total blank without JavaScript.
Second place: total blank without JavaScript.
Third place: requires JavaScript to do anything. All it can say without it is, "Get a better browser, luser!"
Microsoft innovation in action again. Like "friendly URLs". Furrfu. They couldn't call it JavaScript, noooooo... they had to give it a cutesy obscure name.
Umm, maybe I've been living under a rock, but WTF is the Netscape Business Directory?
If it is their Business "channel", that is merely a slick repackaging of the Open Directory Project. There is no fee to submit URLs to the ODP. As far as I know, Netscape doesn't charge a fee to keep sites listed in ODP's Business section when Netscape repackages the data.
Or is this perhaps a future service? The utility of a FREE listing in something promised Real Soon Now is unknown. Could turn out to be vapor, for all we know. Or a vehicle that no self-respecting person would use anyway.
Heh. I can beat that.
Deanna Sclar,
Auto Repair for Dummies,
Revised McGraw-Hill Paperback edition, 1983
New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company
ISBN: 0070558752 (pbk.)
In teeny type on the copyright page,
from the back seat of my car
And a damned sight better than IDG's FOR DUMMIES(R) books too. Doesn't tell you how to rebuild the carburetor, but gets people who are initially nervous about tinkering to the point where they could do a tuneup or a brake job. Compare and contrast IDG's books, if you have ever read one.
Sorry, but it had to be said.
One of the things that the LOVELETTER.TXT.vbs script did was to set the default home page in Internet Explorer to one of four pages at Sky Internet. They are an ISP that offers pre-paid access.
On each of the four pages was a file called WIN-BUGSFIX.exe. This was a password-stealing program.
Sky Internet was getting hammered by all the requests, was unreachable by ping. When another ISP alerted Sky Internet to the pages with the password-stealing program, Sky Internet yanked all of them. Within 15 minutes of notification, if I remember right from alt.comp.virus, and about 4 hours after the worm first appeared.
Now Sky Internet is using their logs to find who downloaded the program, to notify them.
You can argue that Sky Internet's pre-paid access model invites Net abuse, like the omnipresent AOHell coasters. They claim their system was cracked by a person who had been previously banned for abuse, FWIW. But you cannot (reasonably) blame them for knowingly distributing a virus.
No, not obvious.
I guess you are too young to remember the 8-track tape. Or videotapes in Beta format.
CDs have been popular for about 15 years now, but what happens when the Next Big Thing hits?
You have to go with your gut. Nothing is forever on the Internet. But I don't know how the Open Directory Project could be much clearer that they have no eeeevil intent. You can use the ODP data pretty much as is. You can grab the whole RDF dump and frame it and repackage it with advertising revenue going to you. You can make derivative works. And the FAQ says that your right to do so is perpetual. Even if Netscape discontinues the project. All they ask is that you acknowledge your use of the volunteer editors' work by putting up a small notice inviting people to become editors.
IMHO, the only reason that the ODP was able to get as big as it is, is precisely because it is not commercial. There is no advertising on ODP. There is no fee for licensing. Ordinary netizens can make a difference just by adding links and describing them, in areas of their interest and expertise.
So, if you are a cynic, you will stay away, because it is already owned by AOL/Time Warner, and you can never put your trust in institutions.
But if you have an ounce of idealism left, you'll apply in hopes of making the Net a better place, for as long as this project remains free of corporate agendas, or until your own interest in helping other surfers find the "good stuff" this way wanes.
Hangtime says,
"Let the market slug it out, its already making Windows obsolete anyway"
You don't seem to be getting it. The judge has stated in his findings of fact and now in his findings of law that
In other words, it is too late to say, "let the market decide," because Microsoft has so much power in the market that it can crush competitors, and Microsoft has indeed shown itself eager to ruthlessly squash any perceived competition by any means.
Trent Oliphant wrote,
I think that this particular law is similar to the one about tampering with smoke detectors in airplane lavatories. It is a law to help enforce another law.
I disagree.
In this context (law), "obscenity" has a definition (patently offensive, prurient interest, no redeeming social value, etc.). And it is illegal for everyone, not just for minors. Pornography is a different thing. It is not synonymous with obscenity. At any rate, pornography is also illegal for minors.
My analogy limped, but yours is worse. The law says you have to have smoke detectors in certain places. The law also forbids tampering with them. One part of law is making another clearer. But in the case of this Utah bill, IMHO and IANAL, this is either censorship or useless grandstanding. It says, "Kids! Don't do anything illegal in libraries!" They are taking a general law, which applies to everyone everywhere in their juridiction, and piling on top of it a burden on a third party to enforce it based on age and location. And of course they are doing it "for the children". Puke.
"Do you want one more new feature," Lucovsky concurs, "or do you want to fix more bugs?
Well, if you work for Micros~1, the answer is clear.
My personal favorite from the worshipful OS/2-becomes-Needs-Towing was this gem:
"What I think is cool," Cutler interjects, "is that the system doesn't crash, and it doesn't lose my work, and it has functionality. I could care less that the visuals are flashy if my 32-gig hard drive goes away."
My employer-mandated NT4 workstation crashed 10 times in February. And I hate to tell these Olympian gods, but it does lose work. Mebbe I need a 32G HD like them to prevent crashes, huh? Sorry, boys, I ain't that suggestible.
The usual prohibitions: nothing illegal, nothing that violates university policy.
But the one that hurts most is no telnet from outside campus network. Combined with no dialup to the UN*X, this makes reading mail painful and compiling/debugging/setting permissions positively excruciating.
The bill doesn't require software filters; it requires a policy .
So, a library could just put up a notice about not accessing illegal materials.
They can hardly be expected to
Some people might think 2. or 3. is feasible, but here's why not: many library catalogs are online today. How are they supposed to keep minors from seeing the records for material owned by that library or by other libraries that may share the catalog? Have you seen any software filter which claims to work on online library catalogs? (And if the software companies do make this claim, I, for one, would be horrified at implementation of the capability, doubly so if imposed by law.)
Filter or not, grandstanding or not, this is a bad law.
They might just as well say,
Most interesting paragraph in the article was the last:
Call me cynical, but I doubt that AOL Time Warner is doing this out of the goodness of their hearts.
The official statement says little about the conditions ISPs must meet, and nothing about how this will really shake down for users. The terms might be odious, just as some current arrangements are.
Windoze 16- and 32-bit versions of Eudora Lite 3.06 here.
Found by going to FAST FTP Search and searching for Eudora . Sorted by date.