Zip Zaps and the like are this year's "hot toy" just like Tickle Me Elmo and Cabbage Patch Kids have been in years past. Kids love them, so parents have got to go find them... stores everywhere are selling out, they can't make these things fast enough.
This popularity is not the result of spam, instead spammers are jumping on board trying to sell the product that parents would do anything, include pay over-inflated prices to a spammer, to get. It wouldn't surprise me if half the "Get your Zip Zaps from me!" spam turns out to be scams, yet parents are willing to take that risk at the hope of getting the toy little Jimmy must have.
Whenever anything gets this popular, spammers will be there to exploit the image.
Napster crashed into bankruptcy and burned in RIAA hell, yet despite that Sean Fanning got to keep his pay and the money he got from selling off his company before the crash.
Free P2P sharing of RIAA music as a business is never going to be a legal business model. However, if you base yourself in a place where it's hard for the USA laws to get to you, and you're willing to be shameless with what spyware you inflict on your users, there is quite a bit of money available in the short term.
But to use the Gnutella name without permission would be a trademark violation... the intellectual property lawyers should be easily able to tear them apart.
Oh, yeah, that's right... these are all people who do nothing but violate intellectual property laws all day anyway...
The commercial interests do not want to be compatible with "truely free" clients because their business model is based completely on bundling spyware with their application. If a spyware-free program that has access to the same network exists, who'd download their spyware?
Huh? Guess what, your DSL line itself might not be shared bandwidth, but guess what happens on the other side when it meets it switch. If everybody maxes their DSL line at the same time, the switch doesn't have enough outbound for everybody.
OO is offering a consumer-class service that comes with huge download bandwidth and little upload bandwidth. If you want huge upload bandwidth, you have to pay for it.
Cable companies always do this. They word their statements so that there is always unclear defintions, where the reader tends to see what the cable company wants to communicate, but not what they actually said.
Of course, we know "the files" means "the files you have selected in the program to share", but the hacker-scared users will see "all the files" and be scared into going to do what they say.
Peer-to-peer isn't the problem, the Internet has been peer-to-peer since day one.
It's the fact that "P2P" has begun to stand for more than a network technology where information is transfered from computer to computer without another server in between, but also taken on the idea of obsfucation of the originator's identity so that those who wish to enforce copyright laws have a harder time doing so.
POP, SMTP (presuming you are smart enough to block spammers), HTTPS (presuming it is not a site that gets thousands of users) and SSH are all things that "aren't hurting anybody" and can be allowed to continue.
P2P-obsfucation apps however exist only to violate copyrights, and therefore the ISPs must shut down customers when notified or risk DMCA lawsuits.
A blatent majority of files going accross the named networks are illegal, and nobody is able to contradict that.
If you have something to share, share it with HTTP on port 80. Yeah, it's nice and traceable if you're sharing something you don't own, but that's the point.
The present model is sendering client -> Sender's ISP's SMTP server -> Adressee's ISP's POP server -> Adressee...
This would require the last former SMTP server be the one doing the holding... not the device that sends the message, but one that is paid for by the sender.
SMTP has a fundimental flaw that spammers have been able to exploit for years. It is far too easy to place false header information, making it impossible to identify the true source of spam.
The best way to isolate spammers is to require that the sender must continue to store the message and only send a smaller crypto checksum of the message with an the information about where the full message is available at the sender-provided server.
Yeah, spammers could still send out there trash this way... but this system does not allow them to lie about their IP address, because the IP address the sender specifies has to be where the full message lives. Once a server is being identified as spewing spam, the server would be quickly nuked by either ISPs pulling the plug or blacklisting. The remaining users would have a key that leads to a non-existant message, which client software can drop without ever needing to present the failure to the user. Effectively, spam is killed after its been sent, and the user never is bothered.
"Disruptive" to a business is something that threatens to force existing businesses to change what they're doing. The Internet has already done this to many catalog merchants... those who did not sucessfully adapt their prine catalog into a web site are no longer with us, meanwhile Amazon.com who never had a print catalog is now one of the top mail-order firms out there.
The two options for how to react to a disruptive technology is to either embrace it or to try to stomp it down. Embracing a flawed technology (or a flawed implementation of that technology) can bring down the company, but so can a failed attempt to ignore a technology.
Pud's constantly crossing the line and then retreating back when he gets a C&D that his lawyer tells him is going to stick. (Even though he'll gladly taunt anybody who sends a C&D when they can't follow it up.)
Everything on InternalMemos.com is leaked and confidential information that companies could sue to remove. However most companies would need to buy the rather expensive subscription and assign somebody to regularly checking the site to see if they've been violated. Worst of all, they wouldn't get any money out of their efforts, because Pud would pull the offending memo as soon as the C&D came in.
For most companies, the return isn't worth the investment, so they let it all slide.
On the top of every page of Slashdot comments is "The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way."
Which basically says if you're upset about something said on Slashdot, you sue the person who wrote it, not Slashdot.
So, if somebody wants to sue an Anon Cow, they just have to convince a judge to subpeona Slashdot to reveal what they know about the post... the date, time, and the IP it came from. Find out who owns that IP space, then find out what user account had that IP at the time the post was made, and get the billing information from the ISP. You've now tied it down to a household, and it should be easy to figure out who did it from there.
Yep, you can be sued for anything you say on Slashdot.
Companies don't like to admit when their sercurity fails, that'd make them look bad. Therefore, a good percentage of hack and virus damage gets "swept under the rug" while the company does its best to cover up the damage without telling the media or authorities. It's hard to get accurate reports on how often an event gets unreported, so nobody has a real idea of how bad this problem is.
What the government is basically asking for is traffic data from the ISPs, so when a DDOS happens the Feds can quickly process the data to connect the dots between the zombies and the victim site. With that information, the Feds know which ISPs to call, and which IP addresses within those ISPs need to be cut off immediately to end the DDOS.
No need to track the datagrams of the packet, just which lines are suddenly seeing an increase in usage for no good reason.
Aren't we jumping a bit far to assume this needs to monitor data?
When I read the article, I see this as the ISPs being required to ping around their network, and then send those ping results back to governement servers in real time. This would be a burdensome hassle for the ISPs, but it wouldn't be any data that would compromise user privacy.
And this data could be very effective... if Google can't be pinged, it's the first alert of a DOS attack on a vital piece of 'net infrastructure. If all of Los Angeles goes dark, this would be first notificaition that something's gone very wrong...
Technically, in most cities an "easement" is declared that creates a gray area of a few feet between your property and the road. It's your lawn, you're reponsible for maintaining it... but if the city wants to put a telephone poll or or a sidewalk in that zone, you can't stop them.
When you put your trash out for city collection, you usually are placing it right into that easement.
The reason is to break away from the "gotta rent the cable box" that was solved once before, but reintroduced when digital cable came around. You will be able to get a "digital cable ready TV" using this standard, and just need to throw in the access card that your cable company issues to authorize it.
Yes, they are trying to kill analog cable services, but it's going to be a slow and painful death.
You don't have to get "Digital Basic" in order to get access to "Digtal HBO". You can have the 5-7 HBO channels be the only channels your digital reciever gets.
You do, for the time being, have to pay to rent the decoder, but this standardization effort is required by the FCC so that you'll eventually able to buy a "digital cable ready TV" or a settop box of your own without a monthly rental of the box.
BTW, we all know the reason why they want to get rid of analog HBO... all of the analog TV encryption specs have been cracked for years, digital cable has yet to be reliably hacked.
Pirillo got his job by being noticed for writing a newsletter about how to use Windows... Call For Help is a newbie-level show about how to use Windows, with an occaisional nod that Mac and Linux are out there. If a Linux question makes it on CFH, a plug for The Screen Savers cannot be far behind.
If you're going to bash TechTV for a connection to Microsoft, get the facts straight.
TechTV is owned by Vulcan Ventures, who's primary investor is Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. TechTV disclaims this ownership whenever they report on Charter Cable or Allen's America's Cup team, but they do not disclaim it when they talk about Microsoft since Paul Allen doesn't control that company, Bill Gates does.
Slashdot Mirror
I think we have cause and effect backwards...
Zip Zaps and the like are this year's "hot toy" just like Tickle Me Elmo and Cabbage Patch Kids have been in years past. Kids love them, so parents have got to go find them... stores everywhere are selling out, they can't make these things fast enough.
This popularity is not the result of spam, instead spammers are jumping on board trying to sell the product that parents would do anything, include pay over-inflated prices to a spammer, to get. It wouldn't surprise me if half the "Get your Zip Zaps from me!" spam turns out to be scams, yet parents are willing to take that risk at the hope of getting the toy little Jimmy must have.
Whenever anything gets this popular, spammers will be there to exploit the image.
Napster crashed into bankruptcy and burned in RIAA hell, yet despite that Sean Fanning got to keep his pay and the money he got from selling off his company before the crash.
Free P2P sharing of RIAA music as a business is never going to be a legal business model. However, if you base yourself in a place where it's hard for the USA laws to get to you, and you're willing to be shameless with what spyware you inflict on your users, there is quite a bit of money available in the short term.
But to use the Gnutella name without permission would be a trademark violation... the intellectual property lawyers should be easily able to tear them apart.
Oh, yeah, that's right... these are all people who do nothing but violate intellectual property laws all day anyway...
The commercial interests do not want to be compatible with "truely free" clients because their business model is based completely on bundling spyware with their application. If a spyware-free program that has access to the same network exists, who'd download their spyware?
Kinda a race... which will happen first, the stream finishes or they get a new kernel out?
I've noticed I post a lot more on /. since I've been unemployed...
Huh? Guess what, your DSL line itself might not be shared bandwidth, but guess what happens on the other side when it meets it switch. If everybody maxes their DSL line at the same time, the switch doesn't have enough outbound for everybody.
So pay the higher prices.
OO is offering a consumer-class service that comes with huge download bandwidth and little upload bandwidth. If you want huge upload bandwidth, you have to pay for it.
Actually, the right to sue somebody for false assertion of DMCA rights belongs to the wrongly accused infriger, not the ISP who got the notice.
Cable companies always do this. They word their statements so that there is always unclear defintions, where the reader tends to see what the cable company wants to communicate, but not what they actually said.
Of course, we know "the files" means "the files you have selected in the program to share", but the hacker-scared users will see "all the files" and be scared into going to do what they say.
Peer-to-peer isn't the problem, the Internet has been peer-to-peer since day one.
It's the fact that "P2P" has begun to stand for more than a network technology where information is transfered from computer to computer without another server in between, but also taken on the idea of obsfucation of the originator's identity so that those who wish to enforce copyright laws have a harder time doing so.
POP, SMTP (presuming you are smart enough to block spammers), HTTPS (presuming it is not a site that gets thousands of users) and SSH are all things that "aren't hurting anybody" and can be allowed to continue.
P2P-obsfucation apps however exist only to violate copyrights, and therefore the ISPs must shut down customers when notified or risk DMCA lawsuits.
A blatent majority of files going accross the named networks are illegal, and nobody is able to contradict that.
If you have something to share, share it with HTTP on port 80. Yeah, it's nice and traceable if you're sharing something you don't own, but that's the point.
The present model is sendering client -> Sender's ISP's SMTP server -> Adressee's ISP's POP server -> Adressee...
This would require the last former SMTP server be the one doing the holding... not the device that sends the message, but one that is paid for by the sender.
SMTP has a fundimental flaw that spammers have been able to exploit for years. It is far too easy to place false header information, making it impossible to identify the true source of spam. The best way to isolate spammers is to require that the sender must continue to store the message and only send a smaller crypto checksum of the message with an the information about where the full message is available at the sender-provided server. Yeah, spammers could still send out there trash this way... but this system does not allow them to lie about their IP address, because the IP address the sender specifies has to be where the full message lives. Once a server is being identified as spewing spam, the server would be quickly nuked by either ISPs pulling the plug or blacklisting. The remaining users would have a key that leads to a non-existant message, which client software can drop without ever needing to present the failure to the user. Effectively, spam is killed after its been sent, and the user never is bothered.
"Disruptive" to a business is something that threatens to force existing businesses to change what they're doing. The Internet has already done this to many catalog merchants... those who did not sucessfully adapt their prine catalog into a web site are no longer with us, meanwhile Amazon.com who never had a print catalog is now one of the top mail-order firms out there.
The two options for how to react to a disruptive technology is to either embrace it or to try to stomp it down. Embracing a flawed technology (or a flawed implementation of that technology) can bring down the company, but so can a failed attempt to ignore a technology.
Pud's constantly crossing the line and then retreating back when he gets a C&D that his lawyer tells him is going to stick. (Even though he'll gladly taunt anybody who sends a C&D when they can't follow it up.)
Everything on InternalMemos.com is leaked and confidential information that companies could sue to remove. However most companies would need to buy the rather expensive subscription and assign somebody to regularly checking the site to see if they've been violated. Worst of all, they wouldn't get any money out of their efforts, because Pud would pull the offending memo as soon as the C&D came in.
For most companies, the return isn't worth the investment, so they let it all slide.
On the top of every page of Slashdot comments is "The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way."
Which basically says if you're upset about something said on Slashdot, you sue the person who wrote it, not Slashdot.
So, if somebody wants to sue an Anon Cow, they just have to convince a judge to subpeona Slashdot to reveal what they know about the post... the date, time, and the IP it came from. Find out who owns that IP space, then find out what user account had that IP at the time the post was made, and get the billing information from the ISP. You've now tied it down to a household, and it should be easy to figure out who did it from there.
Yep, you can be sued for anything you say on Slashdot.
Companies don't like to admit when their sercurity fails, that'd make them look bad. Therefore, a good percentage of hack and virus damage gets "swept under the rug" while the company does its best to cover up the damage without telling the media or authorities. It's hard to get accurate reports on how often an event gets unreported, so nobody has a real idea of how bad this problem is.
What the government is basically asking for is traffic data from the ISPs, so when a DDOS happens the Feds can quickly process the data to connect the dots between the zombies and the victim site. With that information, the Feds know which ISPs to call, and which IP addresses within those ISPs need to be cut off immediately to end the DDOS.
No need to track the datagrams of the packet, just which lines are suddenly seeing an increase in usage for no good reason.
Aren't we jumping a bit far to assume this needs to monitor data?
When I read the article, I see this as the ISPs being required to ping around their network, and then send those ping results back to governement servers in real time. This would be a burdensome hassle for the ISPs, but it wouldn't be any data that would compromise user privacy.
And this data could be very effective... if Google can't be pinged, it's the first alert of a DOS attack on a vital piece of 'net infrastructure. If all of Los Angeles goes dark, this would be first notificaition that something's gone very wrong...
Technically, in most cities an "easement" is declared that creates a gray area of a few feet between your property and the road. It's your lawn, you're reponsible for maintaining it... but if the city wants to put a telephone poll or or a sidewalk in that zone, you can't stop them.
When you put your trash out for city collection, you usually are placing it right into that easement.
The reason is to break away from the "gotta rent the cable box" that was solved once before, but reintroduced when digital cable came around. You will be able to get a "digital cable ready TV" using this standard, and just need to throw in the access card that your cable company issues to authorize it.
Yes, they are trying to kill analog cable services, but it's going to be a slow and painful death.
You don't have to get "Digital Basic" in order to get access to "Digtal HBO". You can have the 5-7 HBO channels be the only channels your digital reciever gets.
You do, for the time being, have to pay to rent the decoder, but this standardization effort is required by the FCC so that you'll eventually able to buy a "digital cable ready TV" or a settop box of your own without a monthly rental of the box.
BTW, we all know the reason why they want to get rid of analog HBO... all of the analog TV encryption specs have been cracked for years, digital cable has yet to be reliably hacked.
Pirillo got his job by being noticed for writing a newsletter about how to use Windows... Call For Help is a newbie-level show about how to use Windows, with an occaisional nod that Mac and Linux are out there. If a Linux question makes it on CFH, a plug for The Screen Savers cannot be far behind.
If you're going to bash TechTV for a connection to Microsoft, get the facts straight.
TechTV is owned by Vulcan Ventures, who's primary investor is Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. TechTV disclaims this ownership whenever they report on Charter Cable or Allen's America's Cup team, but they do not disclaim it when they talk about Microsoft since Paul Allen doesn't control that company, Bill Gates does.