Everyone with power to do something about the situation always wants to limit the distribution of SS#'s, credit card numbers, and other personally identifiable information, as if somehow this will solve identity theft. That's security through obscurity - your SS# is not a password, and trying to keep it secret and keep it safe only leads to failed security.
The solution is to implement a scheme whereby we can still use SS#'s as an identification number, but where we don't use it as a verification of identity.
I'm in favor of a voluntary scheme where people can register with a (currently hypothetical) government "identity clearinghouse" that checks with the registrant upon any request by a financial institution to determine whether a request for credit is legitimate or not. Financial institutions would be forbidden by law to extend credit or open an account in the name of someone who is registered with the clearinghouse if the identity of a credit requestor can't be confirmed as being the same as the clearinghouse registrant. To change your registration information, you would have to show up in person with a photo ID at an appropriate government office (e.g., DMV).
It wouldn't completely eliminate all possibility of identity theft, but it would make these sorts of wholesale raids on identity information worthless, especially when done from outside the country. And if personally identifiable information becomes worthless due to proper identity verification, people will stop bothering to steal it.
My biggest concern would be the pervasiveness of magic and other factors that cause the game to depart from its roots. Yeah, I'm one of those purists that still gets annoyed at all the gratuitous changes PJ and Friends made when doing the LotR movies (although I still think those movies were teh bomb).
Magic was always subtle throughout the trilogy, the Hobbit, and even the Silmarillion. Well, far subtler than D&D magic, anyway, and certainly rarer. The passing of the Elves meant that mundane Men were in charge, and while some of them were very talented at war, and a select few had a divine bloodline, they were still just using natural human ability to do what they did.
Now, I'm not necessarily opposed to shoving a massive damage spell up the arse of the nearest Balrog, and I realize that it's far, far too late to change the design of this game if they have made magic overt and pervasive. Much as with the movies, it's a game I'd still consider playing. But I'd still cringe every time my loser groupmates Araporn and Legolass started lobbing fireballs around the room.
There's a lot of good news in this bill. The bad news is that with statutory limitations on infringement damages, large companies who are experts in the art of accounting for legal judgments as just another business expense (cough, Microsoft, cough) won't let a little thing like a patent stand in the way of profit.
Still, if Big Pharma is against it, it's probably a good thing overall.
I don't know what grounds they would use in court to oppose it, but then again, I'm not an expert in Constitutional law.
But you're probably right that the law will get repealed before a court challenge gets very far. That's really the point of some states moving to oppose the law, to get it repealed, but it does involve calling the bluff of Congress, which could prove very damaging to the residents of those states if the bluff fails.
If you read the Real ID act, the law states that if a state doesn't meet the requirements of Real ID, then any ID issued by that state can't be accepted by a federal agency. No grandfathering, no nothing.
(1) In general. --Beginning 3 years after the date of the enactment of this division, a Federal agency may not accept, for any official purpose, a driver's license or identification card issued by a State to any person unless the State is meeting the requirements of this section.
By enacting this legislation, Montana has denied its residents access to any federal programs that require the presentation of government-issued photo identification. One notable example is your passport: a photo ID is required to get a passport. No skin off the nose of the feds - in fact, it's less work for them to round-file all the passport applications from Montana once the ID requirements roll around.
And good luck getting back into the country when you head up to Alberta for cheap prescription drugs. You may be required to show a passport or other photo ID to re-enter the country across the Canadian border (and a passport is required when traveling by air), and since DHS is in charge of that, they can take one look at your Montana driver's license and turn you away.
The important message here is that (a) they flinched, and (b) they flinched bad enough that they whipped out some phony/misleading statistic to try to defend their failed policy of sticking DRM on everything.
This would seem to work against their claims of safe harbor under the DMCA, since a plaintiff could argue that with this system, Google should generally be aware of a particular instance of copyrighted material. Ignorance actually is an excuse in this case, and Google would have been much better off handling DMCA takedown requests rather than trying to resolve the problem themselves.
Firstly, should this really be posted on/. ? This is a support/hardware forum posting.
Yes. It's definitely news for nerds. I'm a pretty big nerd, and I wouldn't have known about this had it not shown up on/. Now I know to research IDE bootability before I buy my next mobo, whereas before, I would have taken it for granted since it's something I've been able to do for well over a decade.
Not to mention wrong concept. "Defective by Design" refers to systems intentionally created with defects such as DRM that make them less functional, and then have those defects touted as features.
I'm pretty sure that if you were selling stuff you had used rather than goods that were strictly inventory, you would have to claim the depreciated value of the stuff rather than what you originally paid for them. In the case of much of the stuff in your attic, this would be zero.
By the way, most Africans who were sold as slaves to Europeans in the Americas were captured by other Africans from neighboring tribes. Their treatment by Europeans was wrong, but according to your faulty logic, their African captors did nothing wrong.
If you don't know anything about American history, don't start spouting off about it. While the total numbers of deaths in the American Civil War and the Darfur ethnic cleansing are similar, most of the deaths in the ACW were soldiers, and the deaths were in the same range on each side (around 300k). Most of the deaths in Darfur are civilians. The Confederacy proclaimed independence and was willing to fight to back it up. They had the resources and technology to wage a strong battle, though they eventually lost, in part due to international assistance provided to the Union.
A better comparison would be the killing of native Americans throughout the 19th century, where hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed and many more displaced from their homes. While the native Americans certainly tried to fight back (as I'm sure the civilians of Darfur are trying to do against the Janjaweed soldiers), it was largely a slaughter due to the overwhelming technology, tactics, numbers, and government support of the United States military.
And guess what? It was wrong then, and such things are still wrong now.
If the independent Islamic government of Sudan doesn't wish to be undermined, it should stop supporting the extermination of civilians and actually resolve this "internal conflict". They do nothing to prevent it - to the contrary, they support the killing - and that's why much of the West is pushing the issue.
Maybe I have my terminology wrong, but there's certainly some wrong being done by Glider's developers against Blizzard through interference with the contract between Blizzard and its players.
Blizzard and the player have a contract (whether you like it or not, some EULAs and clickthrough agreements have been upheld by the courts) in which, among other things, the player agrees not to use third party programs to cheat (paraphrased). A third party develops and sells a program to the player. They induce the player to cheat, which breaches the contract.
There doesn't have to be malice involved, merely intent to cause a breach of the contract. Blizzard may be able to claim intent since the Glider developers demonstrate continued efforts to cause Glider to evade the Warden software. They aren't merely selling software that happens to be usable to cheat at WoW - they're developing software specifically and solely for that purpose.
There doesn't even have to be intent, although that's a different tort. Blizzard could assert that the third party was negligent in selling the software because it was obvious that people using the software would use it to cheat (and breach their contract with Blizzard). It's a different tort, but there's still some potential for injunctive remedy to be granted here, all without resorting to copyright claims.
I ANAL, but this stuff also hasn't been tested in court AFAIK, so it will be interesting to see what happens in this case, since tortious interference is one of the things the Glider developers have sought a declaratory judgment on.
As I said, they calculate the hash on the client machine. They do this so that they don't send any private info back to the server. If there's a match to the library of known hashes (the ones they calculate in the office by analyzing offending software), then they report that info back.
The article summary doesn't stop there, though, which makes this more than just an argument about abuse of copyright. It goes the extra mile to spread FUD about what Warden does, without making even a passing mention to the fact that using Glider violates the World of Warcraft terms of service because it's a cheat program.
Slashdot Mirror
Everyone with power to do something about the situation always wants to limit the distribution of SS#'s, credit card numbers, and other personally identifiable information, as if somehow this will solve identity theft. That's security through obscurity - your SS# is not a password, and trying to keep it secret and keep it safe only leads to failed security.
The solution is to implement a scheme whereby we can still use SS#'s as an identification number, but where we don't use it as a verification of identity.
I'm in favor of a voluntary scheme where people can register with a (currently hypothetical) government "identity clearinghouse" that checks with the registrant upon any request by a financial institution to determine whether a request for credit is legitimate or not. Financial institutions would be forbidden by law to extend credit or open an account in the name of someone who is registered with the clearinghouse if the identity of a credit requestor can't be confirmed as being the same as the clearinghouse registrant. To change your registration information, you would have to show up in person with a photo ID at an appropriate government office (e.g., DMV).
It wouldn't completely eliminate all possibility of identity theft, but it would make these sorts of wholesale raids on identity information worthless, especially when done from outside the country. And if personally identifiable information becomes worthless due to proper identity verification, people will stop bothering to steal it.
My biggest concern would be the pervasiveness of magic and other factors that cause the game to depart from its roots. Yeah, I'm one of those purists that still gets annoyed at all the gratuitous changes PJ and Friends made when doing the LotR movies (although I still think those movies were teh bomb).
Magic was always subtle throughout the trilogy, the Hobbit, and even the Silmarillion. Well, far subtler than D&D magic, anyway, and certainly rarer. The passing of the Elves meant that mundane Men were in charge, and while some of them were very talented at war, and a select few had a divine bloodline, they were still just using natural human ability to do what they did.
Now, I'm not necessarily opposed to shoving a massive damage spell up the arse of the nearest Balrog, and I realize that it's far, far too late to change the design of this game if they have made magic overt and pervasive. Much as with the movies, it's a game I'd still consider playing. But I'd still cringe every time my loser groupmates Araporn and Legolass started lobbing fireballs around the room.
Howard Stern had similar remarks to make.
Howard Stern and Rush Limbaugh agreeing on something?! What's next, dogs and cats living together?
Three cheers for virtual credit card numbers.
Oh, and Michael Dell's gaming system uses XP Media Center edition.
Get back to work, you slacker!
There's a lot of good news in this bill. The bad news is that with statutory limitations on infringement damages, large companies who are experts in the art of accounting for legal judgments as just another business expense (cough, Microsoft, cough) won't let a little thing like a patent stand in the way of profit.
Still, if Big Pharma is against it, it's probably a good thing overall.
Hilarious! It's almost like getting paid for using a ripped-off copy of Windows for all those years.
I don't know what grounds they would use in court to oppose it, but then again, I'm not an expert in Constitutional law.
But you're probably right that the law will get repealed before a court challenge gets very far. That's really the point of some states moving to oppose the law, to get it repealed, but it does involve calling the bluff of Congress, which could prove very damaging to the residents of those states if the bluff fails.
By enacting this legislation, Montana has denied its residents access to any federal programs that require the presentation of government-issued photo identification. One notable example is your passport: a photo ID is required to get a passport. No skin off the nose of the feds - in fact, it's less work for them to round-file all the passport applications from Montana once the ID requirements roll around.
And good luck getting back into the country when you head up to Alberta for cheap prescription drugs. You may be required to show a passport or other photo ID to re-enter the country across the Canadian border (and a passport is required when traveling by air), and since DHS is in charge of that, they can take one look at your Montana driver's license and turn you away.
The important message here is that (a) they flinched, and (b) they flinched bad enough that they whipped out some phony/misleading statistic to try to defend their failed policy of sticking DRM on everything.
That's fine, as long as they bring me a glass of water.
This would seem to work against their claims of safe harbor under the DMCA, since a plaintiff could argue that with this system, Google should generally be aware of a particular instance of copyrighted material. Ignorance actually is an excuse in this case, and Google would have been much better off handling DMCA takedown requests rather than trying to resolve the problem themselves.
AOL sends free DVD keepcases these days to hold their free microwaveable coasters, which is a pretty nice thing for them to do.
Firstly, should this really be posted on /. ? This is a support/hardware forum posting.
/. Now I know to research IDE bootability before I buy my next mobo, whereas before, I would have taken it for granted since it's something I've been able to do for well over a decade.
Yes. It's definitely news for nerds. I'm a pretty big nerd, and I wouldn't have known about this had it not shown up on
Not to mention wrong concept. "Defective by Design" refers to systems intentionally created with defects such as DRM that make them less functional, and then have those defects touted as features.
Could it be Richard Stallman in the conservatory with the wrench?
Nah. Communism was just a red herring.
I'm pretty sure that if you were selling stuff you had used rather than goods that were strictly inventory, you would have to claim the depreciated value of the stuff rather than what you originally paid for them. In the case of much of the stuff in your attic, this would be zero.
But there's no money to be made by deleting Grandma's photos of the grandkids, and money is what malware authors are all about these days.
Then be enlightened:
8 _txt.htm. htm
http://hrw.org/english/docs/2005/03/02/darfur1022
http://hrw.org/english/docs/2004/07/19/darfur9096
By the way, most Africans who were sold as slaves to Europeans in the Americas were captured by other Africans from neighboring tribes. Their treatment by Europeans was wrong, but according to your faulty logic, their African captors did nothing wrong.
If you don't know anything about American history, don't start spouting off about it. While the total numbers of deaths in the American Civil War and the Darfur ethnic cleansing are similar, most of the deaths in the ACW were soldiers, and the deaths were in the same range on each side (around 300k). Most of the deaths in Darfur are civilians. The Confederacy proclaimed independence and was willing to fight to back it up. They had the resources and technology to wage a strong battle, though they eventually lost, in part due to international assistance provided to the Union.
A better comparison would be the killing of native Americans throughout the 19th century, where hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed and many more displaced from their homes. While the native Americans certainly tried to fight back (as I'm sure the civilians of Darfur are trying to do against the Janjaweed soldiers), it was largely a slaughter due to the overwhelming technology, tactics, numbers, and government support of the United States military.
And guess what? It was wrong then, and such things are still wrong now.
If the independent Islamic government of Sudan doesn't wish to be undermined, it should stop supporting the extermination of civilians and actually resolve this "internal conflict". They do nothing to prevent it - to the contrary, they support the killing - and that's why much of the West is pushing the issue.
Maybe I have my terminology wrong, but there's certainly some wrong being done by Glider's developers against Blizzard through interference with the contract between Blizzard and its players.
Blizzard and the player have a contract (whether you like it or not, some EULAs and clickthrough agreements have been upheld by the courts) in which, among other things, the player agrees not to use third party programs to cheat (paraphrased). A third party develops and sells a program to the player. They induce the player to cheat, which breaches the contract.
There doesn't have to be malice involved, merely intent to cause a breach of the contract. Blizzard may be able to claim intent since the Glider developers demonstrate continued efforts to cause Glider to evade the Warden software. They aren't merely selling software that happens to be usable to cheat at WoW - they're developing software specifically and solely for that purpose.
There doesn't even have to be intent, although that's a different tort. Blizzard could assert that the third party was negligent in selling the software because it was obvious that people using the software would use it to cheat (and breach their contract with Blizzard). It's a different tort, but there's still some potential for injunctive remedy to be granted here, all without resorting to copyright claims.
I ANAL, but this stuff also hasn't been tested in court AFAIK, so it will be interesting to see what happens in this case, since tortious interference is one of the things the Glider developers have sought a declaratory judgment on.
As I said, they calculate the hash on the client machine. They do this so that they don't send any private info back to the server. If there's a match to the library of known hashes (the ones they calculate in the office by analyzing offending software), then they report that info back.
The article summary doesn't stop there, though, which makes this more than just an argument about abuse of copyright. It goes the extra mile to spread FUD about what Warden does, without making even a passing mention to the fact that using Glider violates the World of Warcraft terms of service because it's a cheat program.
Does Warden use MD5, or was the grandparent poster just using that scheme as an example?