The following is an actual FBI wiretapped call to a known terrorist from a domestic airline.
Captain: What happen ?
Mechanic: Somebody set up us the bomb.
Operator: We get signal.
Captain: What !
Operator: Main screen turn on.
Captain: It's you !!
CATS: How are you gentlemen !!
CATS: All your base are belong to us.
CATS: You are on the way to destruction.
Captain: What you say !!
CATS: You have no chance to survive make your time.
CATS: Ha Ha Ha Ha....
Operator: Captain !!
Captain: Take off every 'Zig'!!
Captain: You know what you doing.
Captain: Move 'Zig'.
Captain: For great justice.
FBI. We make the world safer for you. Sign up today!
They were "merged" with Sprint. Sprint is already going with EV-DO (like Verizon) for everything...Sprint is the "parent" company of the merger so I wouldn't be betting on anything from Nextel for a while...
Gah. I really don't understand why I got modded as a troll. Maybe the person that modded me is related to Tim in some way?
Timothy Roberts is a con artist, plain and simple. The only difference between him and the folks in Nigeria is he succeeded where others has failed. I like how the cops in Nigeria deal with con artist. When they find one, they just blow them away right there.
I feel sorry for anyone that bought IFLB.OB shares thinking it was gonna hit $1.00...$2.00...or more and watch it sink back down to $0.1250 along with part of their life saivngs...Read the message boards on Yahoo if you wanna see some horror stories that Tim has wrought.
For Immediate Release
CONTACT:
Timothy Roberts
Infinium Labs
www.phantom.net
SOMEWHERE,NIGERIA,5/20/2005
We might be going out of business like there is no tomorrow...But we sure made a killing on the market!
Why my stock went all the way up to $1.00 a share and we made millions off of those stupid stock traders.
With all our newfound money that we swindled from the market, we'll just probably go startup another company to steal money from people...I hear Nigeria is a good place to do stuff like this.
ABOUT INFINIUM LABS
We're a company that has produced nothing and made millions doing it. Now we're going to take all our money and run.
Well....Considering that we can detect "winks" of planets orbiting other stars from pretty vast distances, why don't we build a giant jupiter-sized mesh that is solar powered and use it to block out or amplify the sunlight at varying intervals?
For one (admittedly, minor), not every company needs to permit access on a global basis to it's network. For instance, an e-commerce company located in New York might only be interested in selling to U.S. customers. Because of the complicated export rules, difficult credit card security measures and more, this company may be interested in only serving the customers of a particular geographic location. For what reason then, would they want to allow access beyond a particular segment of the internet?
There is another aspect to this, however, and it relates to the inability of the internet community to catch up with the phenomenon that it unwittingly created. There are problems in the following areas that have an adverse effect on the internet and ecommerce in general:
* Credit Card / Banking Security
For the last seven years, despite being aware of the security problems and despite losing in excess of USD 100 BILLION (in the last seven years) due to credit card and bank account fraud, the banking industry and the internet community STILL has not fixed the problems with security in this area. Consider this: $100 BILLION dollars would have been more than enough to hire experts, have those experts revamp the entire system and provide FREE security devices (whatever that may be) to all the people of the system and furthering internet security. Instead, the banking industry and the internet community has allowed $100 BILLION dollars to be lost...possibly to terrorists.
* "SPAM"
Despite being aware of the spam problem, all the major companies, as well as many of the "open-source" companies have been slow to respond to combatting the problem. Only recently has one minor "open standard" alternative been made available: SPF. There are several commercial altneratives that really don't work very well, such as "Cloudmark". But the real problem remains: Verification of Sender Identity and Verification of Message Authenticity. It's amazing that one can still send mail as billg@microsoft.com, sign up at websites using that email address and more. There is no "Internet ID" for individuals to "carry" that would allow simple verification of one's identity. Think of it this way, I can go to Starbucks and try to buy a $4.95 latte and I am carded, but I go online and buy a $300 Ebay item and there is no real verification of my identity. None. CVV2 doesn't do squat. Anyone can enter the entire MICR line without the banks doing any verification at all. This is why billions are lost every year. And how does the internet community respond? They don't.
I might point out that a mechanism for fixing this is already in place. The RFC system provides a mechanism for communities of people to come together and to invent, develop and distribute comprehensive standards that can then be adopted by the entire internet community. If the internet community would spend time working up a solution using the mechanism that is already there, instead of whining about them or just plain pointing it out and then expecting someone else to fix it, then we would be living in a secure world today.
Think of it this way: It's our internet. YOU are in part responsible for the security of the internet. Collectively, we decide what standards are allowed on the internet. If we don't like DRM, then we should develop a protocol that bans DRM and make it so that Apache and IIS cannot serve DRM-enabled content. If we like more security on our credit cards, then we should create an RFC and build it into Apache and every other web server. If we want Spam to end, we should devise a protocol through the RFC process that is incorporated into Sendmail, MDaemon and every other product.
We netzins can vote with our mouseclicks which products we favor over other products. If we don't like a DRM-enabled webserver, then we put up one that doesn't allow DRM content. If we don't like a DRM-enabled music browser, then we can use a web-browser that doesn't allow DRM content.
1) TCP/IP
2) SMTP (MIME encoding and the overhead)
3) AntiVirus )
4) Spam Filters (choking your bandwidth down to next to nothing like AOL does for mass mailings)
Actually, there's an easier way. Just setup 1tb JBOD IDE Servers. You can get 250gb Maxtors for cheap. Total cost of each server is less than $5,000. Who cares about redundancy on the same machine at that point. You can just setup a Network-aware redundant file system and cache stuff on multiple servers. Likewise, who cares about tape backup. You have redundant data centers. So, cost per tb at that point is $5k. Still, it's way more than what Google can make back in ads, though.
Well, let's see. Assuming 1.544Mb T-1 is available for use 24/7 and it's dedicated to sending 1mb attachments at a time (and you can send 1,000,000 of those). Figure about 60 megabytes an hour (or 60 messages an hour) it would take 16,667 hours or 694 days.
Google has nothing to worry about by offering 1tb of storage. They have two years to get it online...
Only if you go Mac. They're probably a linux shop. Think small with redundancy. Something like 100,000 $150 computers with 40gb IDE hard drives. Think distributed XBox (r)(tm)(c)(sm)(bs). Put the boxes all over the world and add in a layer of redundancy via one of those trendy network storage redunancy protocols. You're done for less than 15 million. My god, who would spend $300million to $500million today unless you're flying on some Pork Barrel project?
Scientists: Earth Travel Time on Schedule
Scientists Say Earth Is on Schedule in Regards to Rate at Which It Travels Through Space
The Associated Press
BOULDER, Colo. Dec. 30 -- In a phenomenon that has scientists puzzled, the Earth is right on schedule for a fifth straight year.
Experts agree that the rate at which the Earth travels through space has slowed ever so slightly for millennia. To make the world's official time agree with where the Earth actually is in space, scientists in 1972 started adding an extra "leap second" on the last day of the year.
For 28 years, scientists repeated the procedure. But in 1999, they discovered the Earth was no longer lagging behind.
At the National Institute for Science and Technology in Boulder, spokesman Fred McGehan said most scientists agree the Earth's orbit around the sun has been gradually slowing for millennia. But he said they don't have a good explanation for why it's suddenly on schedule.
Possible explanations include the tides, weather and changes in the Earth's core, he said.
The leap second was an unexpected consequence of the 1955 invention of the atomic clock, which use the electromagnetic radiation emanated by Cesium atoms to measure time. It is extremely reliable.
Atomic-based Coordinated Universal Time was implemented in 1972, superseding the astronomically determined Greenwich Mean Time.
Leap seconds can be a big deal, affecting everything from communication, navigation and air traffic control systems to the computers that link global financial markets.
Only by switching to nuclear, solar, or convection power will we end our need for hydrocarbons
The best idea I've heard about to date was putting solar collectors in orbit and using microwave (the safe kind, not the thing in your kitchen) to beam that power down. Of course, Hydrogen is a energy carrier and not an energy source. Unless Chevron opens a trucking facility from Jupiter to Earth in the next few years, this is about the only way it can work. In any case, this is why I said "Hydrogen-based" (like 'ethernet-based') and not "Hydrogen-sourced" (like 'ethernet-sourced'). Using Hydrogen as a energy transport mechanism would be far better and cleaner than gasoline. You cannot, for instance, covert solar power to gasoline.
Actually, it's a 5nM limit, and no, nanotechnology will not overcome the laws of physics.
Who said anything about trashing the laws of physics? Think about it this way: We are, right now, this very moment, using microscale technologies to create nanoscale technologies. Okay...So what's going to happen when we use nanoscale technologies to create quantum techologies? Or better, use quantum technologies to create...hmm...here's a new frontier! My point was, we will continue to meet or exceed Moore's law for the forseeable future, as long as we continue to pour money (read: billions) into the research and development of better processors..
I've heard this story with "The End is in Sight" with lots of things. For instance, they say we will run out of oil by the year 2048 (give or take a few decades), but we are already switching the fuel technology backbone to Hydrogen. This will dramatically decrease our dependance on oil and probably extend the life of oil until the year 2200 or something.
Likewise, with "Moore's law", we will definately steamroll right past the 16 nanometer limit with Nanotechnology by dealing with stuff in picometers(!).
Now, whether something is technically feasible and whether it is cost effective are two different stories. As long as we continue to pour the billions of dollars into this advancement of technology, we will continue to blow past any barrier placed in front of us. Because we have been interested in what is done, rather that how something is done (read:Rome falling), we will continue to develop technologies at the rate we are going at.
Now, everyone is afraid that Moore's Law will fail. I don't think enough people have realized how it will fail. I believe that Nanotechnology will actually break Moore's law in an unusual way -- by increasing the rate of advacement. Instead of the usual eighteen months between advancements, I believe that we will rapidly see shorter and shorter advacement rates.
Oh great. I can see the phone calls from my ex now...
Answering machine: "Thank you for calling. Leave a message. (BEEP)"
Ex: "Hello? I know you're there! I just checked your tracking web blog and it says you're there! Pick up the damn phone! I want to talk to you now! Pick it up! Pick it up! God damn you pick up the damn phone now! Your tracking web blog says you're three feet from this answering machine so pick up the god damn phone now!"
Heh. McClintock voted to allow spam. And you want a technoidiot like that running the state?
In any case, it doesn't matter. Modern day spammers utilize offshore locations to spam. Locations such as Russia and Taiwan.
This is just another case of the lawmakers finally catching up...ten years too late. But they're probably doing it to try to make it look like they're doing their jobs by making headlines.
About the only thing that will end spam forever is to fix the SMTP protocol. Something that will probably take as long as IPv6. I know there's a bunch of so-called working groups working on it, but it ain't gonna happen any time soon.
It always amazes me when the recording industry sets up a shell game to hide where they get their money. They most certainly don't get their money from the people that they're suing. They must love the publicity that they're getting by trashing students and taking their life savings. In reality, these overpaid, overstuffed and overcredited group of lawyers are paid by companies like Sony, Universal and others on the basis that they are entitled to compensation for the rights of use of their properties. These companies are paid by us every time that we buy a CD or watch or listen to something with their music assets on it.
Perhaps we should threaten the RIAA's monetary revenue stream by cutting off revenues to the upstream source. Well, it would seem to me that the music listeners and the music creators needs to get together using the internet as a transport tool. About the only way to do that is to setup a website and distribution network that allowed the music listeners to interact with and support the artists. Musicians have been complaining for years that the studios screw them over on a regular basis. Music listeners have been complaining for years that their choices for music have remained unavailable. If a non-profit, public-benefit, independant-reviewed, regularly audited company were to spring into existance, it would change the face of music forever.
Consider this, musicians need to have a way to connect with their listeners. They do this by creating songs and going on tour to play for their listeners. So, if this non-profit company were to contract with every single artist on the planet to provide this valuable service to their listeners, the RIAA would then be obsolete. Granted, songs created prior to the date that the company signs the artists would still remain in the RIAA's evil graps however, any new songs would remain in the public's hands. In that case, it would remain in the best interest of the public for the music to remain free. We could use the tools that are already available, such as GPL, shareware and freeware to develop the legal structure of the system. In addition, music listeners would be able to interact directly with the artists via the usual internet communication methods of email, forums and chatrooms. Personally, I wouldn't mind paying a subscription to a service that paid the artist directly so that I could listen to the music I wanted and get the new stuff the day it is published by the artist.
I don't think that the traditional music industry will ever understand what the music listeners are really desiring. They will continue to provide a facless entity that continues to destroy our right to support and interact with our musicians and artists. It is in their best financial interests to do so. The only way to resolve this difference between our interest in listening to music that we like and the musicians interests in creating that music is to provide a system that directly connects the two. This way, our support of the music doesn't pass through a pile of greedy hands, including the RIAA.
Once a system like this is in place, the court system can then go back to going after real criminals, such as bin Laden, instead of John and Jane Q. Public, whose only crime in life was really liking their favorite musicians. Musicians would have a huge venue through which they can publish their music. And we would have the richness in art that we deserve.
Slashdot Mirror
http://www.robinsloan.com/epic/
It all makes sense after that.
The following is an actual FBI wiretapped call to a known terrorist from a domestic airline.
Captain: What happen ?
Mechanic: Somebody set up us the bomb.
Operator: We get signal.
Captain: What !
Operator: Main screen turn on.
Captain: It's you !!
CATS: How are you gentlemen !!
CATS: All your base are belong to us.
CATS: You are on the way to destruction.
Captain: What you say !!
CATS: You have no chance to survive make your time.
CATS: Ha Ha Ha Ha
Operator: Captain !!
Captain: Take off every 'Zig'!!
Captain: You know what you doing.
Captain: Move 'Zig'.
Captain: For great justice.
FBI. We make the world safer for you. Sign up today!
They were "merged" with Sprint. Sprint is already going with EV-DO (like Verizon) for everything...Sprint is the "parent" company of the merger so I wouldn't be betting on anything from Nextel for a while...
Inside the US it's Gangs. Outside the US it's Terrorists. WTH??
I can't wait to hear the crunching sound...
Gah. I really don't understand why I got modded as a troll. Maybe the person that modded me is related to Tim in some way?
Timothy Roberts is a con artist, plain and simple. The only difference between him and the folks in Nigeria is he succeeded where others has failed. I like how the cops in Nigeria deal with con artist. When they find one, they just blow them away right there.
I feel sorry for anyone that bought IFLB.OB shares thinking it was gonna hit $1.00...$2.00...or more and watch it sink back down to $0.1250 along with part of their life saivngs...Read the message boards on Yahoo if you wanna see some horror stories that Tim has wrought.
For Immediate Release
CONTACT:
Timothy Roberts
Infinium Labs
www.phantom.net
SOMEWHERE,NIGERIA,5/20/2005
We might be going out of business like there is no tomorrow...But we sure made a killing on the market!
Why my stock went all the way up to $1.00 a share and we made millions off of those stupid stock traders.
With all our newfound money that we swindled from the market, we'll just probably go startup another company to steal money from people...I hear Nigeria is a good place to do stuff like this.
ABOUT INFINIUM LABS
We're a company that has produced nothing and made millions doing it. Now we're going to take all our money and run.
Uhh...Aren't we forgetting Nanotechnology? When that comes around, we will have nothing *but* materials science.
But I have to go to India to get it :-(
Well....Considering that we can detect "winks" of planets orbiting other stars from pretty vast distances, why don't we build a giant jupiter-sized mesh that is solar powered and use it to block out or amplify the sunlight at varying intervals?
It would give new meaning to S...O...S...
The Secret Service has been responsible for "wire fraud" for quite a long time...like since it's inception.
There's a couple of issues here:
For one (admittedly, minor), not every company needs to permit access on a global basis to it's network. For instance, an e-commerce company located in New York might only be interested in selling to U.S. customers. Because of the complicated export rules, difficult credit card security measures and more, this company may be interested in only serving the customers of a particular geographic location. For what reason then, would they want to allow access beyond a particular segment of the internet?
There is another aspect to this, however, and it relates to the inability of the internet community to catch up with the phenomenon that it unwittingly created. There are problems in the following areas that have an adverse effect on the internet and ecommerce in general:
* Credit Card / Banking Security
For the last seven years, despite being aware of the security problems and despite losing in excess of USD 100 BILLION (in the last seven years) due to credit card and bank account fraud, the banking industry and the internet community STILL has not fixed the problems with security in this area. Consider this: $100 BILLION dollars would have been more than enough to hire experts, have those experts revamp the entire system and provide FREE security devices (whatever that may be) to all the people of the system and furthering internet security. Instead, the banking industry and the internet community has allowed $100 BILLION dollars to be lost...possibly to terrorists.
* "SPAM"
Despite being aware of the spam problem, all the major companies, as well as many of the "open-source" companies have been slow to respond to combatting the problem. Only recently has one minor "open standard" alternative been made available: SPF. There are several commercial altneratives that really don't work very well, such as "Cloudmark". But the real problem remains: Verification of Sender Identity and Verification of Message Authenticity. It's amazing that one can still send mail as billg@microsoft.com, sign up at websites using that email address and more. There is no "Internet ID" for individuals to "carry" that would allow simple verification of one's identity. Think of it this way, I can go to Starbucks and try to buy a $4.95 latte and I am carded, but I go online and buy a $300 Ebay item and there is no real verification of my identity. None. CVV2 doesn't do squat. Anyone can enter the entire MICR line without the banks doing any verification at all. This is why billions are lost every year. And how does the internet community respond? They don't.
I might point out that a mechanism for fixing this is already in place. The RFC system provides a mechanism for communities of people to come together and to invent, develop and distribute comprehensive standards that can then be adopted by the entire internet community. If the internet community would spend time working up a solution using the mechanism that is already there, instead of whining about them or just plain pointing it out and then expecting someone else to fix it, then we would be living in a secure world today.
Think of it this way: It's our internet. YOU are in part responsible for the security of the internet. Collectively, we decide what standards are allowed on the internet. If we don't like DRM, then we should develop a protocol that bans DRM and make it so that Apache and IIS cannot serve DRM-enabled content. If we like more security on our credit cards, then we should create an RFC and build it into Apache and every other web server. If we want Spam to end, we should devise a protocol through the RFC process that is incorporated into Sendmail, MDaemon and every other product.
We netzins can vote with our mouseclicks which products we favor over other products. If we don't like a DRM-enabled webserver, then we put up one that doesn't allow DRM content. If we don't like a DRM-enabled music browser, then we can use a web-browser that doesn't allow DRM content.
Well, Infinium Labs had one demoed at E3 for their console. I'm not sure if it works on a regular PC.
There's the which is nice (RF versus Infrared is always better). It has a built in thumbilina (thumb mouse).
Beyond that...Remote desktop via a Tablet PC works...
Don't forget the overhead of:
1) TCP/IP
2) SMTP (MIME encoding and the overhead)
3) AntiVirus
) 4) Spam Filters (choking your bandwidth down to next to nothing like AOL does for mass mailings)
Actually, there's an easier way. Just setup 1tb JBOD IDE Servers. You can get 250gb Maxtors for cheap. Total cost of each server is less than $5,000. Who cares about redundancy on the same machine at that point. You can just setup a Network-aware redundant file system and cache stuff on multiple servers. Likewise, who cares about tape backup. You have redundant data centers. So, cost per tb at that point is $5k. Still, it's way more than what Google can make back in ads, though.
Well, let's see. Assuming 1.544Mb T-1 is available for use 24/7 and it's dedicated to sending 1mb attachments at a time (and you can send 1,000,000 of those). Figure about 60 megabytes an hour (or 60 messages an hour) it would take 16,667 hours or 694 days.
Google has nothing to worry about by offering 1tb of storage. They have two years to get it online...
Only if you go Mac. They're probably a linux shop. Think small with redundancy. Something like 100,000 $150 computers with 40gb IDE hard drives. Think distributed XBox (r)(tm)(c)(sm)(bs). Put the boxes all over the world and add in a layer of redundancy via one of those trendy network storage redunancy protocols. You're done for less than 15 million. My god, who would spend $300million to $500million today unless you're flying on some Pork Barrel project?
C:\> Ping 134847.homeless.us
Pinging 134847.homeless.us [216.116.96.206] with 32 bytes of Soylent Green
Reply from 216.116.96.206: SG=32 time=2234ms TTL=255
Reply from 216.116.96.206: SG=32 time=3239ms TTL=255
Reply from 216.116.96.206: SG=32 time=1348ms TTL=255
Reply from 216.116.96.206: SG=32 time=4382ms TTL=255
Ping statistics for 216.116.96.206:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% Loss),
Yep. A new way to feed people too. Cool.
Scientists: Earth Travel Time on Schedule Scientists Say Earth Is on Schedule in Regards to Rate at Which It Travels Through Space
The Associated Press
BOULDER, Colo. Dec. 30 -- In a phenomenon that has scientists puzzled, the Earth is right on schedule for a fifth straight year. Experts agree that the rate at which the Earth travels through space has slowed ever so slightly for millennia. To make the world's official time agree with where the Earth actually is in space, scientists in 1972 started adding an extra "leap second" on the last day of the year.
For 28 years, scientists repeated the procedure. But in 1999, they discovered the Earth was no longer lagging behind.
At the National Institute for Science and Technology in Boulder, spokesman Fred McGehan said most scientists agree the Earth's orbit around the sun has been gradually slowing for millennia. But he said they don't have a good explanation for why it's suddenly on schedule.
Possible explanations include the tides, weather and changes in the Earth's core, he said.
The leap second was an unexpected consequence of the 1955 invention of the atomic clock, which use the electromagnetic radiation emanated by Cesium atoms to measure time. It is extremely reliable.
Atomic-based Coordinated Universal Time was implemented in 1972, superseding the astronomically determined Greenwich Mean Time.
Leap seconds can be a big deal, affecting everything from communication, navigation and air traffic control systems to the computers that link global financial markets.
Only by switching to nuclear, solar, or convection power will we end our need for hydrocarbons
The best idea I've heard about to date was putting solar collectors in orbit and using microwave (the safe kind, not the thing in your kitchen) to beam that power down. Of course, Hydrogen is a energy carrier and not an energy source. Unless Chevron opens a trucking facility from Jupiter to Earth in the next few years, this is about the only way it can work. In any case, this is why I said "Hydrogen-based" (like 'ethernet-based') and not "Hydrogen-sourced" (like 'ethernet-sourced'). Using Hydrogen as a energy transport mechanism would be far better and cleaner than gasoline. You cannot, for instance, covert solar power to gasoline.
Actually, it's a 5nM limit, and no, nanotechnology will not overcome the laws of physics.
Who said anything about trashing the laws of physics? Think about it this way: We are, right now, this very moment, using microscale technologies to create nanoscale technologies. Okay...So what's going to happen when we use nanoscale technologies to create quantum techologies? Or better, use quantum technologies to create...hmm...here's a new frontier! My point was, we will continue to meet or exceed Moore's law for the forseeable future, as long as we continue to pour money (read: billions) into the research and development of better processors..
I've heard this story with "The End is in Sight" with lots of things. For instance, they say we will run out of oil by the year 2048 (give or take a few decades), but we are already switching the fuel technology backbone to Hydrogen. This will dramatically decrease our dependance on oil and probably extend the life of oil until the year 2200 or something.
Likewise, with "Moore's law", we will definately steamroll right past the 16 nanometer limit with Nanotechnology by dealing with stuff in picometers(!).
Now, whether something is technically feasible and whether it is cost effective are two different stories. As long as we continue to pour the billions of dollars into this advancement of technology, we will continue to blow past any barrier placed in front of us. Because we have been interested in what is done, rather that how something is done (read:Rome falling), we will continue to develop technologies at the rate we are going at.
Now, everyone is afraid that Moore's Law will fail. I don't think enough people have realized how it will fail. I believe that Nanotechnology will actually break Moore's law in an unusual way -- by increasing the rate of advacement. Instead of the usual eighteen months between advancements, I believe that we will rapidly see shorter and shorter advacement rates.
Here's to the future!
Granted, it's offtopic, but the future is in Nanotechnology. It's a promising future for folks that stayed awake during materials science classes.
Of course, this gives new meaning to BSOD.
Oh great. I can see the phone calls from my ex now...
Answering machine: "Thank you for calling. Leave a message. (BEEP)"
Ex: "Hello? I know you're there! I just checked your tracking web blog and it says you're there! Pick up the damn phone! I want to talk to you now! Pick it up! Pick it up! God damn you pick up the damn phone now! Your tracking web blog says you're three feet from this answering machine so pick up the god damn phone now!"
Heh. McClintock voted to allow spam. And you want a technoidiot like that running the state?
In any case, it doesn't matter. Modern day spammers utilize offshore locations to spam. Locations such as Russia and Taiwan.
This is just another case of the lawmakers finally catching up...ten years too late. But they're probably doing it to try to make it look like they're doing their jobs by making headlines.
About the only thing that will end spam forever is to fix the SMTP protocol. Something that will probably take as long as IPv6. I know there's a bunch of so-called working groups working on it, but it ain't gonna happen any time soon.
It always amazes me when the recording industry sets up a shell game to hide where they get their money. They most certainly don't get their money from the people that they're suing. They must love the publicity that they're getting by trashing students and taking their life savings. In reality, these overpaid, overstuffed and overcredited group of lawyers are paid by companies like Sony, Universal and others on the basis that they are entitled to compensation for the rights of use of their properties. These companies are paid by us every time that we buy a CD or watch or listen to something with their music assets on it.
Perhaps we should threaten the RIAA's monetary revenue stream by cutting off revenues to the upstream source. Well, it would seem to me that the music listeners and the music creators needs to get together using the internet as a transport tool. About the only way to do that is to setup a website and distribution network that allowed the music listeners to interact with and support the artists. Musicians have been complaining for years that the studios screw them over on a regular basis. Music listeners have been complaining for years that their choices for music have remained unavailable. If a non-profit, public-benefit, independant-reviewed, regularly audited company were to spring into existance, it would change the face of music forever.
Consider this, musicians need to have a way to connect with their listeners. They do this by creating songs and going on tour to play for their listeners. So, if this non-profit company were to contract with every single artist on the planet to provide this valuable service to their listeners, the RIAA would then be obsolete. Granted, songs created prior to the date that the company signs the artists would still remain in the RIAA's evil graps however, any new songs would remain in the public's hands. In that case, it would remain in the best interest of the public for the music to remain free. We could use the tools that are already available, such as GPL, shareware and freeware to develop the legal structure of the system. In addition, music listeners would be able to interact directly with the artists via the usual internet communication methods of email, forums and chatrooms. Personally, I wouldn't mind paying a subscription to a service that paid the artist directly so that I could listen to the music I wanted and get the new stuff the day it is published by the artist.
I don't think that the traditional music industry will ever understand what the music listeners are really desiring. They will continue to provide a facless entity that continues to destroy our right to support and interact with our musicians and artists. It is in their best financial interests to do so. The only way to resolve this difference between our interest in listening to music that we like and the musicians interests in creating that music is to provide a system that directly connects the two. This way, our support of the music doesn't pass through a pile of greedy hands, including the RIAA.
Once a system like this is in place, the court system can then go back to going after real criminals, such as bin Laden, instead of John and Jane Q. Public, whose only crime in life was really liking their favorite musicians. Musicians would have a huge venue through which they can publish their music. And we would have the richness in art that we deserve.