In Canada, everyone who makes a backup copy of their data is taxed for piracy. That means that buying blank recording media is equivalent to pleading "No Contest" to whatever piracy laws are in place and paying your fine.
As a recognized and convicted pirate, who has already paid his fines, I now feel free to copy whatever I want, whenever I want... why should I be an upstanding citizen when I've already been convicted and fined without facing my accusors, having a trial, and other legal nicities?
I've always believed Heinlien had it right - you know that the economy is in danger when too many of the 'little people' get directly involved.
Sure, you have some issues with economic power being concentrated in a few institutions, but I'd rather have 1K investment houses than 10M sheep using online trading.
I've seen a tech office where every manager had an online trading program running in the background so he could make trades based on the latest Nortel ticker news. Of course, all the other sheep watched the same ticker, and made the same decision - making uninformed decisions based on other sheep's uninformed decisions was a recipe for disaster.
Oops... unless there is a law against publishing materials a court has already declared must not be published. (Which assumes the original case goes beyond a C&D anyway)
That's bloody brilliant, and you posted as Anonymous Coward???
A Distributed Civil Disobediance Attack! DCD!
However, I'd suggest that everyone post it immediately after the first C&D and create all the targets right away. By the second iteration, you could hardly have any credibility claiming you were mirroring the original article without knowing about the original C&D. I suspect that would cause problems in court if the sender of the C&D decided that more than a C&D was in order.
We tell the kids, "Never throw the first punch, always throw the last one."
Note that we use the verb, 'throw' and not 'land'. There is, of course, no need for the guy swinging at you to connect with your nose before you take action.
If somebody punches me (and I didn't deserve it)... I'd do whatever it took to ensure he never hit me again.
What would you do, Mr. Idealist? Stand there and take it while saying, "Please don't do that!"? Perhaps if you one day end up lying on the ground in a pool of your own blood you'll rethink this and consider that MAYBE you should have defended yourself.
That if spammers had what most slashdotters considered a fully-functional mind, the old "giving them a dose of their own medicine" routine would wise them up.
Since spammers seem to have selective ethics at best, all we can really do is enjoy them drowning in their own kind of filth for a while without the warm fuzzy that they're actually learning their lesson.
I firmly believe that people who engage in anti-social behaviour that negatively affects their social group should be subjected to appropriate retribution from the affected group... I'm very disappointed that as I post this, I have yet to see someone suitably sleuthful track down and post the censored information.
leans so far to the left that if it were human it wouldn't be able to stand.
That would be OK if it didn't infect every word printed on its page with an obvious and irrational bias. To add to the intellectual insult, the staff pretend they're terribly impartial and unbiased. At least Toronto's less left-wing (and even most of the MORE left-wing) papers admit their bias.
Anyway, the point is I didn't even have to read the article to know it has a 99.99% chance of being crap. Save yourself the time and don't bother reading it.
Suppose that the legislation is passed, and is enforced in the worst possible way. You know what will happen?
The U.S.A. will no longer belong to the 'free' world. The rest of us will cluck our tongues and continue on in our vaguely socialist liberal pseudo-democracies. And in ten years or so, you'll get over it when the abuses become intolerable and you're no longer fearing the next terrorist attack.
OK, so our gov't is no longer so great at doing what's right when it comes to needing to go to war - we're still doing the whole personal freedom things a bit better in Canada than in the U.S. (At least for now)
Are the IP blocks or naming conventions of smaller ISPs really so well known to AOL that they might not be blocking CORPORATE DSL mailservers along with the residential?
I imagine I'll have a lot of bitching clients in the near future that I won't be able to help.
-Baron Yam
Couldn't you actually defeat the system if...
on
Users Conned by Cable Con
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
You made a device that not only filters the outbound datastream, but knows how to respond to the cable company polling?
It would be interesting to know if the cable company was bright enough to make the polling/response sequence an encrypted one.
I can also imagine someone figuring out how to blank the local viewing records on the decoder - use the filter, watch your show, blank the record, remove the filter.
To be fair, my total familiarity with *nix systems dates to a couple of weeks of Usenet use and UUdecoding porn in an X window in 1991... oh, and a bit of MUDing... so I'm having a fair bit of trouble getting up to speed.
I'm having enough trouble with Redhat 8.0 to convince me it's not ready to replace the Windows corporate OS for the desktop anytime soon. On the other hand, I'm hoping to soon have the ability to replace W2K server with Linux for building web, file, and mail servers. (And firewalls, routers, DHCP, DNS, etc, etc, etc.)
Reading Slashdot regularly is not a good way to remain an MS drone.
I read through all the comments about how horrid the Windows XP GUI is... and didn't understand until I remembered that whenever I'm forced to use XP, I set the GUI to 2000/98 mode.
Really, the whole XP GUI is just a theme that takes up a lot of RAM and CPU cycles and slows down the whole damn PC without providing any great benefit.
By the way, for those who care to count, you can add another Windows tech / user who is in the process of switching to Linux.
Actually, there is a good reason to upgrade to Windows XP... it cuts required support time over previous Windows workstation OSes, and makes remote admin a snap.
As a techie who mostly supports Windows (forgive me?) I gotta tell you that my support time at a site drops a LOT when a client finally upgrades to XP.
How about having a double-sided lock, where the regular keys move tumblers on the top, but the master key moves tumblers on the bottom - and rigging it so either set of tumblers can release the lock?
Then the unique keys need not have any relation to the master key at all, thus returning the security level of these devices back to where most people thought it already was.
Slashdot Mirror
Use fibre? No need to keep satellite antennae aligned!
I'll post something serious about the IPN when it has a practical use for the average techie.
I've got a simple argument!
In Canada, everyone who makes a backup copy of their data is taxed for piracy. That means that buying blank recording media is equivalent to pleading "No Contest" to whatever piracy laws are in place and paying your fine.
As a recognized and convicted pirate, who has already paid his fines, I now feel free to copy whatever I want, whenever I want... why should I be an upstanding citizen when I've already been convicted and fined without facing my accusors, having a trial, and other legal nicities?
Isn't it odd that most Vulans like wearing flowing, light hanging robes with lots of symbols sewn in... but T'Pol wears a bodysuit?
I've always believed Heinlien had it right - you know that the economy is in danger when too many of the 'little people' get directly involved.
Sure, you have some issues with economic power being concentrated in a few institutions, but I'd rather have 1K investment houses than 10M sheep using online trading.
I've seen a tech office where every manager had an online trading program running in the background so he could make trades based on the latest Nortel ticker news. Of course, all the other sheep watched the same ticker, and made the same decision - making uninformed decisions based on other sheep's uninformed decisions was a recipe for disaster.
Oops... unless there is a law against publishing materials a court has already declared must not be published. (Which assumes the original case goes beyond a C&D anyway)
Just in case, I repeat, "Oops."
That's bloody brilliant, and you posted as Anonymous Coward???
A Distributed Civil Disobediance Attack! DCD!
However, I'd suggest that everyone post it immediately after the first C&D and create all the targets right away. By the second iteration, you could hardly have any credibility claiming you were mirroring the original article without knowing about the original C&D. I suspect that would cause problems in court if the sender of the C&D decided that more than a C&D was in order.
Baseless prophecy? I prophesized nothing. I suggest that you'd rethink your attitude if you ever experienced your analogy in real life.
You asked the question, "If somebody punches you, do you punch them straight back? Do you think doing so would leave you with any credibility?"
I'd say that implies you wouldn't punch back.
We tell the kids, "Never throw the first punch, always throw the last one."
Note that we use the verb, 'throw' and not 'land'. There is, of course, no need for the guy swinging at you to connect with your nose before you take action.
If somebody punches me (and I didn't deserve it)... I'd do whatever it took to ensure he never hit me again.
What would you do, Mr. Idealist? Stand there and take it while saying, "Please don't do that!"? Perhaps if you one day end up lying on the ground in a pool of your own blood you'll rethink this and consider that MAYBE you should have defended yourself.
That if spammers had what most slashdotters considered a fully-functional mind, the old "giving them a dose of their own medicine" routine would wise them up.
Since spammers seem to have selective ethics at best, all we can really do is enjoy them drowning in their own kind of filth for a while without the warm fuzzy that they're actually learning their lesson.
I firmly believe that people who engage in anti-social behaviour that negatively affects their social group should be subjected to appropriate retribution from the affected group... I'm very disappointed that as I post this, I have yet to see someone suitably sleuthful track down and post the censored information.
I see a way to massively increase the density of servers in my server cabinet.
If it can run directly off a wall wort and accept a CAT5 cable instead of wireless, it's perfect as a (very) small office file server.
leans so far to the left that if it were human it wouldn't be able to stand.
That would be OK if it didn't infect every word printed on its page with an obvious and irrational bias. To add to the intellectual insult, the staff pretend they're terribly impartial and unbiased. At least Toronto's less left-wing (and even most of the MORE left-wing) papers admit their bias.
Anyway, the point is I didn't even have to read the article to know it has a 99.99% chance of being crap. Save yourself the time and don't bother reading it.
Suppose that the legislation is passed, and is enforced in the worst possible way. You know what will happen?
The U.S.A. will no longer belong to the 'free' world. The rest of us will cluck our tongues and continue on in our vaguely socialist liberal pseudo-democracies. And in ten years or so, you'll get over it when the abuses become intolerable and you're no longer fearing the next terrorist attack.
OK, so our gov't is no longer so great at doing what's right when it comes to needing to go to war - we're still doing the whole personal freedom things a bit better in Canada than in the U.S. (At least for now)
Are the IP blocks or naming conventions of smaller ISPs really so well known to AOL that they might not be blocking CORPORATE DSL mailservers along with the residential?
I imagine I'll have a lot of bitching clients in the near future that I won't be able to help.
-Baron Yam
You made a device that not only filters the outbound datastream, but knows how to respond to the cable company polling?
It would be interesting to know if the cable company was bright enough to make the polling/response sequence an encrypted one.
I can also imagine someone figuring out how to blank the local viewing records on the decoder - use the filter, watch your show, blank the record, remove the filter.
To be fair, my total familiarity with *nix systems dates to a couple of weeks of Usenet use and UUdecoding porn in an X window in 1991... oh, and a bit of MUDing... so I'm having a fair bit of trouble getting up to speed.
I'm having enough trouble with Redhat 8.0 to convince me it's not ready to replace the Windows corporate OS for the desktop anytime soon. On the other hand, I'm hoping to soon have the ability to replace W2K server with Linux for building web, file, and mail servers. (And firewalls, routers, DHCP, DNS, etc, etc, etc.)
Reading Slashdot regularly is not a good way to remain an MS drone.
I read through all the comments about how horrid the Windows XP GUI is... and didn't understand until I remembered that whenever I'm forced to use XP, I set the GUI to 2000/98 mode.
Really, the whole XP GUI is just a theme that takes up a lot of RAM and CPU cycles and slows down the whole damn PC without providing any great benefit.
By the way, for those who care to count, you can add another Windows tech / user who is in the process of switching to Linux.
It'd be nice if the process was something like:
Sending Server: Here, Receiver, this is my IP, call me back!
Receiving Server: Hey, Sender, I called back and you gave me your real IP. Can I pick up that email now?
That would prevent forged headers wouldn't it?
Actually, there is a good reason to upgrade to Windows XP... it cuts required support time over previous Windows workstation OSes, and makes remote admin a snap.
As a techie who mostly supports Windows (forgive me?) I gotta tell you that my support time at a site drops a LOT when a client finally upgrades to XP.
Perhaps a new Mod for this article:
Score:-5,Surprising
It's not like Microsoft has been all that great about protecting their own servers in the past...
How about having a double-sided lock, where the regular keys move tumblers on the top, but the master key moves tumblers on the bottom - and rigging it so either set of tumblers can release the lock?
Then the unique keys need not have any relation to the master key at all, thus returning the security level of these devices back to where most people thought it already was.
-Baron Yam