We'll all be paying more for CDs. Since the big players own the market, they can do whatever they want, and they'll just sue everyone else. The little guys don't have the big name artists so nobody cares about them anyway. They'll continue to make non-DRMed-up-the-ass CDs and no one will buy them, but if you want the new Outkast CD, welcome back $21.99! But hey, they're doing this for the artists, remember?
And no, the big guys will NOT pay the artists more, they'll slip one by or change their contracts or whatever. Money Power.
link To buy a Weed file, get the Weed software, find the file you want to buy, and click on the title. Buying lets you play the song on up to 3 computers, burn it to a CD, or copy to a portable player. You can also share the song with anybody you like.
I was capped at 15kbps for using "excessive" bandwidth. No letter or notification. When I called them (after 3 hours on hold-- literally), I was told they'd have to get back to me. Finally I spoke to someone and they told me that according to "some formula" I had used too much bandwidth. They could not tell me what the formula, only that it would not get triggered unless I was using "lots of bandwidth for hours and hours". They uncapped me, but told me that they could terminate my service if I exceeeded their cap again.
Optimum Online is a division of Cablevision, which is big in the Long Island area.
I wasn't using more than 75-80kbsp on average for perhaps 5 or 6 days (torrents) before they capped me.
So if you're wondering why your uploads are going so slow, this might be it. Is anyone else's service doing this too? I find it very underhanded. I should at least be told exactly what the cap is? 50kbps? Fine, just tell me.
Average Time Served: (from http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/psatsfv.pdf)
Homicide: 71 months
Rape: 65 months
Sexual Assault: 35 months ---------------
Recording a movie
in a cinema in Michigan: 60 months
" in California: 12 months
Is it just me? Yes, I know that these are the maximum sentences, but many violent crimes carry maximum sentences around only 10 years, and they are often less than that anyway.
<sarcasm>Basically, the message here is that if someone tries to arrest you in a theater for videotaping the screen, you should shoot them, cause hey, it would only be another few months in jail if you get caught. </sarcasm>
Ok, so unless the RIAA can obtain logs from the ISPs of {G,H,J}, then they'll never know about {A,B,C} (sort of how Freenet works, I believe).
If the RIAA is Z, then it can easily determine that it received infringing material from G, H, and J. And actually, when you download from Kazaa, it breaks up the file sometimes between multiple uploaders, so from their perspective, there's little difference. {G,H,J} could all say, "But I wasn't sharing that file!" and then the logs come out to show that they were partially hosting it, and they're guilty.
The RIAA could also pose as A and find that G downloaded part of a file through them, and G is liable there too.
The RIAA hasn't sued downloaders yet, as far as I know, but that's just a feasbility issue, there's nothing much different between giving away kiddie porn and having it on your hard drive on a computer with no NIC, and there doesn't seem to be much difference between kiddie porn and mp3s in this matter.
I don't think it's fair, moral, ethical, right, good, proper, decent, or a Good Thing, but I believe there's legal precedent. I don't think you can go after ISPs, or, say, an entire country if the packets get routed all over the place, but if I give you a bomb and you give it to a terrorist, aren't you just as liable as I would be if I gave it to them directly?
If you have knowledge that the contents are likely infringing and you transmit them to someone else, you are liable. I believe that "Oh, I didn't know what I was routing" will hold as much water as "But I didn't know that 'share my 40 gig mp3 collection with everyone in the world'-option was turned on"
Why do you think that you are required to hold the entire file to be accountable for it? If that was the case, then you and your friend could each store half of each mp3 and exchange them back and forth so you never actually hold the entire mp3. No way, it's not going to stand up in court.
No matter what, you can ALWAYS see who you are connected to. If A gives a file to B, but it actually goes through C, D, and E, then if it is determines that the content is infringing, then C, D, and E are all responsible too. Ingnorance is no excuse. Of course, IANAL, but I think this would be great for the RIAA, since they could theoretically sue just about anyone who RUNS this, since they're essentially ALL uploaders.
I would disagree strongly. Programmers are more like architects (the good ones, anyway). I walked past a room in college teaching VB programming. That's carpentry for the most part, but the line that separates "Make me a web-site in front-page and put in a message board" versus the more advanced stuff is a line that management NEEDS to see. Some companies treat their developers as stock-- these companies seldom produce the same quality products as do companies who realize the dynamics and creativity that is required to engineer a product, and not just put it together.
M
I wouldn't expect every car driver to know how an internal combustion engine works, or even to know how to change their oil. Think about cell phones, they're so frickin' easy to use (the good ones)-- you type in the number, you press the little picture of a phone that's off the hook, and you talk. If Linux was a cell phone, you'd have to configure what network to connect to, how you want the screen to look, and it'd have 400 buttons. It'd be far more powerful, but is that really what's best for the ACU?
Some programs really have UI down pat. 3D Studio Max had almost no learning curve (for the interface), everything was apparent. That's also one of the reasons why the web is so popular-- it's powerful under the sheets, and easy to use above them.
It's silly to expect 40 year old Joan from Accounting to take a month to learn an O/S if she only needs to keep tallies of sprockets and send an email every once in a while.
I think the point is that yes, my mom IS a GUI usability guru, for the simple fact that she has no technical expertise. The "average" computer user should not need to know anything about editing text-files in/etc, or using rpm or make to unzip/install new applications. Of course for the/. crowd, more power is better, and it shouldn't be taken away, but there must be a usability layer that those with a very tiny amount of computer-knowledge can use.
I'm going to go against the grain and NOT make this an "I told ya so" MS-bash. From a business perspective, it makes sense for them to learn from Linux, just as it would make sense for Linux to learn things from MS. Each do things differently that work. It's generally regarded that Linux has a better core, better security, and fewer bloat-features that introduce vulnerabilities. It's also generally regarded that Microsoft has superior usability/UI. In the end, for my mom, Microsoft wins. If this new MS team can improve the core to the point where it's as good or better than Linux, then the only reason anyone would use Linux would be cost.
At the same time, Linux's usability has been improving, it'll be interesting to see what happens when MS and Linux converge to the point where they're both as usable AND both as secure/stable/etc.
You can read the paper and skip the ads, or walk into the kitchen when a commercial comes on. How is that any different than blocking spam? I don't think spammers have any legal recourse, which is why it's such a terrible thing-- it's an abuse of the way the internet works.
I'm now up to around 250 spam messages a day on my home account. Why won't ISPs switch to a more secure version of SMTP? Are there any technical, server-end alternatives?
Google is tracking clicked URLs by making the links all redirect to the destination site THROUGH a Google page.
Is anyone else as concerned about this as I am? Sure, Google, might just want to use the data to optimize their engine or provide a service to customers, but do I really want Google knowing WHICH of their sites I (based on my IP) navigate to? They should at least have put up some notification.
The problem is that the spammers would use the do-not-email registry as their do-email registry. Most spammers are not acting with the blessing of their ISPs, so they're more-or-less "illegal" (loosely defined). Legally making them jump through hoops would make it easier to prosecute, but finding them is part of the problem. Plus what about zombie machines/worms/etc?--
Just in case you didn't you didn't know, the OSDL is funded by a variety of corporations including (but not limitied to) IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Sun Microsystems, Red Hat, Cisco, Computer Associates, Fujitsu, Hitachi, and Nokia.
I really thought SCO was going to be on that list!
I think that this is actually a Good Thing. Sure, there are dangers of creating super-viruses, but then we can make super-anti-viruses to beat up the super-viruses, ya know? Imagine injecting AIDS-infected people with a virus that targets infected cells and destroys the cell, or even replaces the DNA with "good" DNA. The possibilities really ARE endless. As soon as we can create a Thing that you put in your body and you can manipulate your cells at the genetic or even molecular level, things open up. You've got SoftICE running on the human body.
You have how many users on AIM and Yahoo combined? 50 million? I don't know, but it has to be around that many. Even if 1% allow IMs from "anyone", that's a nice target base. Not to mention that, but the harvesting of IM-screen-names is starting to become serious-- how many times have you clicked on a link in someone's profile? That damned %n may be the death of us all. Of course, the answer is to just not allow IMs from people off of your list, but this just goes to show that we NEED some legislation that will take the "low-risk" out of sp[ai]mming. California has done a good start, but we need something to start with. Yes, I know that sp[ai]mmers are acting in many ways illegally, but there isn't much precedent for me tracking down a spammer by affiliate ID on a V1agra site and suing him. Maybe that's all we need...
If you're driving a car, and the car malfunctions and you hit and kill someone, you shouldn't be held responsible. If you say the car was broken and it wasn't, then it's fraud and you get charged with vehicular manslaughter or whatever.
If your computer was hijacked and you did nothing to prevent it, its YOUR fault. If you ran antivirus/firewall/whatever, then it's the fault of the hacker, and you shouldn't be held responsible.
Of course, we need a good definition of a "good faith attempt at computer security", but that's a grey legal line. Personally, I think that if a patch has been available for more than, say, 2 months, and you aren't patched, its your damn fault. If you installed a program explicitly, then it's your fault (even if it was spyware)-- the analogy, if you get super-duper-hood-attachments for your car and they fly off and impale someone, its your fault.
Of course, that sucks, but it's the only way I can see to segment culpability for crimes in this case.
5 years in a very short time on the market as pervasive as the music industry. I still buy videotapes (no, not Betamax), but how long have DVDs been available? Consumer demand will keep CDs rolling until either (a) the quality of this new media is much better, (b) they offer some added value (cheaper?), or (c) CDs are simply no longer produced. I doubt that (c) would happen because the RIAA goes into fits if their revenue drops 10%, how'd they like a 50-60% drop because people don't want to buy chip players (for their homes, cars, walkmans, etc)-- it's too big of a change, too soon. Maybe 10 years...
I think Apache has an anti-DOS feature now, pretty simple, if you send it too many requests in too short a time, it drops everything you send for X amount of time. I can't see it being very difficult to keep a buffer of source IPs and a counter at the router level and stop things that way-- How many systems are used in a DDOS attack? Even a few thousand shouldn't be difficult to spot, flag, and then drop. I presume the bottleneck is on a server doing processing, so just nab it before it gets there. I never understood why DDOS was still a big deal, seems like a solvable problem to me...
Why don't they just build huge money printing machines on the moon and send us packs of $100's? Then we could all be making $150,000,000 a year and living in luxury!
</sarcasm>
Slashdot Mirror
We'll all be paying more for CDs. Since the big players own the market, they can do whatever they want, and they'll just sue everyone else. The little guys don't have the big name artists so nobody cares about them anyway. They'll continue to make non-DRMed-up-the-ass CDs and no one will buy them, but if you want the new Outkast CD, welcome back $21.99! But hey, they're doing this for the artists, remember?
And no, the big guys will NOT pay the artists more, they'll slip one by or change their contracts or whatever. Money Power.
link
To buy a Weed file, get the Weed software, find the file you want to buy, and click on the title. Buying lets you play the song on up to 3 computers, burn it to a CD, or copy to a portable player. You can also share the song with anybody you like.
I was capped at 15kbps for using "excessive" bandwidth. No letter or notification. When I called them (after 3 hours on hold-- literally), I was told they'd have to get back to me. Finally I spoke to someone and they told me that according to "some formula" I had used too much bandwidth. They could not tell me what the formula, only that it would not get triggered unless I was using "lots of bandwidth for hours and hours". They uncapped me, but told me that they could terminate my service if I exceeeded their cap again.
Optimum Online is a division of Cablevision, which is big in the Long Island area.
I wasn't using more than 75-80kbsp on average for perhaps 5 or 6 days (torrents) before they capped me.
So if you're wondering why your uploads are going so slow, this might be it. Is anyone else's service doing this too? I find it very underhanded. I should at least be told exactly what the cap is? 50kbps? Fine, just tell me.
Average Time Served: (from http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/psatsfv.pdf)
Homicide: 71 months
Rape: 65 months
Sexual Assault: 35 months
---------------
Recording a movie
in a cinema in Michigan: 60 months
" in California: 12 months
Is it just me? Yes, I know that these are the maximum sentences, but many violent crimes carry maximum sentences around only 10 years, and they are often less than that anyway.
<sarcasm>Basically, the message here is that if someone tries to arrest you in a theater for videotaping the screen, you should shoot them, cause hey, it would only be another few months in jail if you get caught.
</sarcasm>
Ok, so unless the RIAA can obtain logs from the ISPs of {G,H,J}, then they'll never know about {A,B,C} (sort of how Freenet works, I believe).
If the RIAA is Z, then it can easily determine that it received infringing material from G, H, and J. And actually, when you download from Kazaa, it breaks up the file sometimes between multiple uploaders, so from their perspective, there's little difference. {G,H,J} could all say, "But I wasn't sharing that file!" and then the logs come out to show that they were partially hosting it, and they're guilty.
The RIAA could also pose as A and find that G downloaded part of a file through them, and G is liable there too.
The RIAA hasn't sued downloaders yet, as far as I know, but that's just a feasbility issue, there's nothing much different between giving away kiddie porn and having it on your hard drive on a computer with no NIC, and there doesn't seem to be much difference between kiddie porn and mp3s in this matter.
I don't think it's fair, moral, ethical, right, good, proper, decent, or a Good Thing, but I believe there's legal precedent. I don't think you can go after ISPs, or, say, an entire country if the packets get routed all over the place, but if I give you a bomb and you give it to a terrorist, aren't you just as liable as I would be if I gave it to them directly?
If you have knowledge that the contents are likely infringing and you transmit them to someone else, you are liable. I believe that "Oh, I didn't know what I was routing" will hold as much water as "But I didn't know that 'share my 40 gig mp3 collection with everyone in the world'-option was turned on"
Why do you think that you are required to hold the entire file to be accountable for it? If that was the case, then you and your friend could each store half of each mp3 and exchange them back and forth so you never actually hold the entire mp3. No way, it's not going to stand up in court.
No matter what, you can ALWAYS see who you are connected to. If A gives a file to B, but it actually goes through C, D, and E, then if it is determines that the content is infringing, then C, D, and E are all responsible too. Ingnorance is no excuse. Of course, IANAL, but I think this would be great for the RIAA, since they could theoretically sue just about anyone who RUNS this, since they're essentially ALL uploaders.
I would disagree strongly. Programmers are more like architects (the good ones, anyway). I walked past a room in college teaching VB programming. That's carpentry for the most part, but the line that separates "Make me a web-site in front-page and put in a message board" versus the more advanced stuff is a line that management NEEDS to see. Some companies treat their developers as stock-- these companies seldom produce the same quality products as do companies who realize the dynamics and creativity that is required to engineer a product, and not just put it together. M
I wouldn't expect every car driver to know how an internal combustion engine works, or even to know how to change their oil. Think about cell phones, they're so frickin' easy to use (the good ones)-- you type in the number, you press the little picture of a phone that's off the hook, and you talk. If Linux was a cell phone, you'd have to configure what network to connect to, how you want the screen to look, and it'd have 400 buttons. It'd be far more powerful, but is that really what's best for the ACU?
Some programs really have UI down pat. 3D Studio Max had almost no learning curve (for the interface), everything was apparent. That's also one of the reasons why the web is so popular-- it's powerful under the sheets, and easy to use above them.
It's silly to expect 40 year old Joan from Accounting to take a month to learn an O/S if she only needs to keep tallies of sprockets and send an email every once in a while.
Thanks, yes, she's a very fine lady.
/etc, or using rpm or make to unzip/install new applications. Of course for the /. crowd, more power is better, and it shouldn't be taken away, but there must be a usability layer that those with a very tiny amount of computer-knowledge can use.
I think the point is that yes, my mom IS a GUI usability guru, for the simple fact that she has no technical expertise. The "average" computer user should not need to know anything about editing text-files in
I'm going to go against the grain and NOT make this an "I told ya so" MS-bash. From a business perspective, it makes sense for them to learn from Linux, just as it would make sense for Linux to learn things from MS. Each do things differently that work. It's generally regarded that Linux has a better core, better security, and fewer bloat-features that introduce vulnerabilities. It's also generally regarded that Microsoft has superior usability/UI. In the end, for my mom, Microsoft wins. If this new MS team can improve the core to the point where it's as good or better than Linux, then the only reason anyone would use Linux would be cost.
At the same time, Linux's usability has been improving, it'll be interesting to see what happens when MS and Linux converge to the point where they're both as usable AND both as secure/stable/etc.
You can read the paper and skip the ads, or walk into the kitchen when a commercial comes on. How is that any different than blocking spam? I don't think spammers have any legal recourse, which is why it's such a terrible thing-- it's an abuse of the way the internet works.
I'm now up to around 250 spam messages a day on my home account. Why won't ISPs switch to a more secure version of SMTP? Are there any technical, server-end alternatives?
I don't own a cell-phone, you insensitive clod!
Google is tracking clicked URLs by making the links all redirect to the destination site THROUGH a Google page.
Is anyone else as concerned about this as I am? Sure, Google, might just want to use the data to optimize their engine or provide a service to customers, but do I really want Google knowing WHICH of their sites I (based on my IP) navigate to? They should at least have put up some notification.
The problem is that the spammers would use the do-not-email registry as their do-email registry. Most spammers are not acting with the blessing of their ISPs, so they're more-or-less "illegal" (loosely defined). Legally making them jump through hoops would make it easier to prosecute, but finding them is part of the problem. Plus what about zombie machines/worms/etc?--
Apple: "We'll give you your old job back if you give us the program"
Developer: "What do you mean?... oh.."
Just in case you didn't you didn't know, the OSDL is funded by a variety of corporations including (but not limitied to) IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Sun Microsystems, Red Hat, Cisco, Computer Associates, Fujitsu, Hitachi, and Nokia.
I really thought SCO was going to be on that list!
I think that this is actually a Good Thing. Sure, there are dangers of creating super-viruses, but then we can make super-anti-viruses to beat up the super-viruses, ya know? Imagine injecting AIDS-infected people with a virus that targets infected cells and destroys the cell, or even replaces the DNA with "good" DNA. The possibilities really ARE endless. As soon as we can create a Thing that you put in your body and you can manipulate your cells at the genetic or even molecular level, things open up. You've got SoftICE running on the human body.
You have how many users on AIM and Yahoo combined? 50 million? I don't know, but it has to be around that many. Even if 1% allow IMs from "anyone", that's a nice target base. Not to mention that, but the harvesting of IM-screen-names is starting to become serious-- how many times have you clicked on a link in someone's profile? That damned %n may be the death of us all. Of course, the answer is to just not allow IMs from people off of your list, but this just goes to show that we NEED some legislation that will take the "low-risk" out of sp[ai]mming. California has done a good start, but we need something to start with. Yes, I know that sp[ai]mmers are acting in many ways illegally, but there isn't much precedent for me tracking down a spammer by affiliate ID on a V1agra site and suing him. Maybe that's all we need...
If you're driving a car, and the car malfunctions and you hit and kill someone, you shouldn't be held responsible. If you say the car was broken and it wasn't, then it's fraud and you get charged with vehicular manslaughter or whatever.
If your computer was hijacked and you did nothing to prevent it, its YOUR fault. If you ran antivirus/firewall/whatever, then it's the fault of the hacker, and you shouldn't be held responsible.
Of course, we need a good definition of a "good faith attempt at computer security", but that's a grey legal line. Personally, I think that if a patch has been available for more than, say, 2 months, and you aren't patched, its your damn fault. If you installed a program explicitly, then it's your fault (even if it was spyware)-- the analogy, if you get super-duper-hood-attachments for your car and they fly off and impale someone, its your fault.
Of course, that sucks, but it's the only way I can see to segment culpability for crimes in this case.
Sorry, I guess tinyurl doesn't inspire confidence, the actual link is: http://peer.gomez.com/peernetwork/jsp/application. jsp?Referrer=scovetta. I'll change the link on here. Sorry 'bout that. No goatse.cx there.
5 years in a very short time on the market as pervasive as the music industry. I still buy videotapes (no, not Betamax), but how long have DVDs been available? Consumer demand will keep CDs rolling until either (a) the quality of this new media is much better, (b) they offer some added value (cheaper?), or (c) CDs are simply no longer produced. I doubt that (c) would happen because the RIAA goes into fits if their revenue drops 10%, how'd they like a 50-60% drop because people don't want to buy chip players (for their homes, cars, walkmans, etc)-- it's too big of a change, too soon. Maybe 10 years...
I think Apache has an anti-DOS feature now, pretty simple, if you send it too many requests in too short a time, it drops everything you send for X amount of time. I can't see it being very difficult to keep a buffer of source IPs and a counter at the router level and stop things that way-- How many systems are used in a DDOS attack? Even a few thousand shouldn't be difficult to spot, flag, and then drop. I presume the bottleneck is on a server doing processing, so just nab it before it gets there. I never understood why DDOS was still a big deal, seems like a solvable problem to me...
Why don't they just build huge money printing machines on the moon and send us packs of $100's? Then we could all be making $150,000,000 a year and living in luxury!
</sarcasm>
1. Engage in unfair business practices
2. Lose class action lawsuits
3. Profit!