I'm Gimli and I'm a fuckin' dwarf
Killin' motherfuckers from the south to the north
That's not Mirkwood I'm chopping with my battle axe
And I'm on an orc stampede like Shadowfax
I think things like this need to be encouraged as much as possible. They have an MP3 download. And they also sample the immortal Ballad of Bilbo Baggins by Leonard Nimoy.
Just don't set up a wireless network without actually being able to secure it. What part of this is difficult to understand?
Yes, I can see potential for "homeland security" abuse here (as anywhere). Gotta love the hysterical soundbite from the fed they quoted in the article -- "We know that (an attack) could bring down the network of this country very quickly. Once you're on the network, it doesn't matter where you got in," said Daniel Devasirvatham, who headed the Homeland Security task force for the Wireless Communications Association.
But it's still just dumb. I'm surprised warchalking hasn't spread much faster.
What? Don't you realize that is how a lot of science actually gets done?
Ex. "This relation between temperature and resistivity can be shown to be exponential in certain temperature regimes by waving your hands and chanting "to first order".
After a certain point though, spammers are pretty much stuck with a few basic "selling points" -- it's hard to sell something if you don't include a product description or URL or address/phone of some sort, and spam filters will evolve to catch those kinds of things unless they're stripped down to their bare bones (as in, just a random bare URL.... hey, wait, that sounds like half the e-mail I send to my friends;).
Even then, a hypothetical "widely used" spam filter will probably include a user-specific Bayesian filter, so you can create your own local database of what tends to be spam, and more importantly, what tends not to be spam -- and your own "real mail" keywords will probably be highly specific to your interests/career. So you're basically "evolving" a personal blacklist/whitelist to go along with the global filter.
But probably the most interesting thing about "spam evolution" is that if spam can get through a spam filter, it's going to be really toned-down and bland. That may not make a difference to you, but it'll drastically lower the spammers' response rates because their ads aren't as flashy. Less profit = less spammers. (This last paragraph wasn't "my idea" -- forget where on the web I saw it.)
There have been a lot of comments about "if you don't like hard usage caps, vote with your dollars and go to another service," but as other posters have noted, it's not that simple.
If you just up and leave, the cable providers won't know why you're doing this unless you explicitly tell them -- and not that many people may do this -- and even then, the result is only a sprinkling of isolated instances fielded by bored, underpaid, front-line customer service reps.
A better idea may be creating a pre-emptive petition -- not one of the useless petitiononline.com things, but rather a petition signed by current AT&T Broadband or Comcast subscribers, with their AT&T or Comcast e-mail addresses attached, stating unequivocally that you are opposed to broadband usage caps, and will cancel your service for that exact reason if caps are ever implemented. Send this regularly as it grows to as many AT&T/Comcast corporate marketing/customer service/decision-making addresses as you can find. Add a note to the effect that each signer is perfectly willing to verify his or her position if contacted by AT&T.
(Obviously, there's a logistics problem of how to handle the upkeep without having everyone's e-mail being picked up by spammers. Some sort of moderated listserv would probably work.)
I wouldn't mind seeing a lot more cooperative networks like this one (in Palo Alto, California), but not because the situation was forced by gluttonous corporations who try to fix a problem by creating an even bigger problem.
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I generally agree with the posts about how current single-tier broadband pricing is inefficient, and that people who just want the convenience of a reasonably fast, always-on internet connection without using a whole lot of bandwidth don't have any logical options. But usage caps are not the way to go. Most of the problem probably lies in "peak hours" -- so find a technical solution that deals with that specific problem. Restrict bandwidth capacity for everyone during peak hours (defined by relative network overload) -- or during those peak hours, just restrict the capacity of users who have gone over a particular usage cap.
Saying "if you value your P2P and streaming radio and ISO downloads that much, that's fine, they're just going to get really hamstrung around 7pm--10pm on weeknights" is MUCH better than saying "up yours, better count those kilobytes."
Sorry if I'm waving my hands too much about "find a technical fix to address the specific problem," but after a certain point you just have to ask for some level of accomodation on the part of the service provider towards its customers.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm Gimli and I'm a fuckin' dwarf
Killin' motherfuckers from the south to the north
That's not Mirkwood I'm chopping with my battle axe
And I'm on an orc stampede like Shadowfax
I think things like this need to be encouraged as much as possible. They have an MP3 download. And they also sample the immortal Ballad of Bilbo Baggins by Leonard Nimoy.
Yes, I can see potential for "homeland security" abuse here (as anywhere). Gotta love the hysterical soundbite from the fed they quoted in the article -- "We know that (an attack) could bring down the network of this country very quickly. Once you're on the network, it doesn't matter where you got in," said Daniel Devasirvatham, who headed the Homeland Security task force for the Wireless Communications Association.
But it's still just dumb. I'm surprised warchalking hasn't spread much faster.
Ex. "This relation between temperature and resistivity can be shown to be exponential in certain temperature regimes by waving your hands and chanting "to first order".
http://www.geekculture.com/geekculturestore/websto re/prints.html is what I meant to type.
I was thinking of picking up one of the linux anatomy charts that my google search picked up, but apparently they're only available at trade shows.
http://linux.oreilly.com/news/linuxanatomy_0101.ht ml
Where is "Star Wars Galaxies: Hot Date"?
Even then, a hypothetical "widely used" spam filter will probably include a user-specific Bayesian filter, so you can create your own local database of what tends to be spam, and more importantly, what tends not to be spam -- and your own "real mail" keywords will probably be highly specific to your interests/career. So you're basically "evolving" a personal blacklist/whitelist to go along with the global filter.
But probably the most interesting thing about "spam evolution" is that if spam can get through a spam filter, it's going to be really toned-down and bland. That may not make a difference to you, but it'll drastically lower the spammers' response rates because their ads aren't as flashy. Less profit = less spammers. (This last paragraph wasn't "my idea" -- forget where on the web I saw it.)
If you just up and leave, the cable providers won't know why you're doing this unless you explicitly tell them -- and not that many people may do this -- and even then, the result is only a sprinkling of isolated instances fielded by bored, underpaid, front-line customer service reps.
A better idea may be creating a pre-emptive petition -- not one of the useless petitiononline.com things, but rather a petition signed by current AT&T Broadband or Comcast subscribers, with their AT&T or Comcast e-mail addresses attached, stating unequivocally that you are opposed to broadband usage caps, and will cancel your service for that exact reason if caps are ever implemented. Send this regularly as it grows to as many AT&T/Comcast corporate marketing/customer service/decision-making addresses as you can find. Add a note to the effect that each signer is perfectly willing to verify his or her position if contacted by AT&T.
(Obviously, there's a logistics problem of how to handle the upkeep without having everyone's e-mail being picked up by spammers. Some sort of moderated listserv would probably work.)
I wouldn't mind seeing a lot more cooperative networks like this one (in Palo Alto, California), but not because the situation was forced by gluttonous corporations who try to fix a problem by creating an even bigger problem.
-------
I generally agree with the posts about how current single-tier broadband pricing is inefficient, and that people who just want the convenience of a reasonably fast, always-on internet connection without using a whole lot of bandwidth don't have any logical options. But usage caps are not the way to go. Most of the problem probably lies in "peak hours" -- so find a technical solution that deals with that specific problem. Restrict bandwidth capacity for everyone during peak hours (defined by relative network overload) -- or during those peak hours, just restrict the capacity of users who have gone over a particular usage cap.
Saying "if you value your P2P and streaming radio and ISO downloads that much, that's fine, they're just going to get really hamstrung around 7pm--10pm on weeknights" is MUCH better than saying "up yours, better count those kilobytes."
Sorry if I'm waving my hands too much about "find a technical fix to address the specific problem," but after a certain point you just have to ask for some level of accomodation on the part of the service provider towards its customers.