I know they're not anyone's favorite company, but it's worth noting that AOL is not anywhere on the top 10 list. Not so many years ago (less than 5), they used to top that list most of the time, and the rest of the time they were in the top 3 (not necc. Spamhaus's list, but Spamcop's definitely, back when they meant something).
Having been involved in the work, I can tell you that AOL was one of the first, if not the first, large ISP to implement tagging of outbound email with the true email address of the sender, regardless of whether or not they put it in there (the X-Apparently-From header that AOL inserted). Also close to the first, or the first, to implement outbound filtering of email for spam. When the second one was put into place, I watched the ranking and saw AOL drop from #1 to nowhere on the top 10.
It really doesn't matter at all. As soon as that first shot was fired (filing the lawsuit), it was over. VeriSign can't win. Even if they won the lawsuit, they still lose, because ICANN will yank their contract at the first opportunity.
The only way VeriSign can win this is to specify as "damages" for winning that they get to operate.com/.net in perpetuity until they decide they don't want to anymore. And I don't see that happening.
One thing that's been giving me headaches when dealing with Opteron is that the x86_64 chips report the same architecture as x86 chips when it comes to Pre-eXecution Environment booting. Which means it's not possible to tell the difference between the two and provide the correct boot kernel for a network boot. I've had to rely on differing MAC addresses on the systems.
Seeing as Intel owns PXE, I wonder if this means they will add another architecture code for x86_64 (like they did with ia64).
Exactly. Those are the more interesting experiments, I think.
However, as has been said before many times, perhaps it's not that XXXX causes cancer (tested on rats or lab mice), but rather just that rats are really prone to getting cancer.
OK, there's a previous study that used a really strong field for 2 hours, and it caused damage. Now they used a low-level field for 24 (and 48 hours) and it caused damage. How exactly does that get extrapolated to a low-level field for 3 minutes a day over a long period of time causing damage?
Before we start jumping all over people for spamming, are we sure that they're spamming? The article says that they are sending emails out to supporters. This would seem to say that they are sending emails to people who have signed up to receive emails from them in one way or another. Whether that's from people signing up on their websites, or people signing up on the RNC/DNC websites, or something like that. Now, you may not believe that millions of people signed up to receive emails from W (or the RNC and other associated groups), but that doesn't mean it's not true.
So, has anyone here actually gotten spam from Kerry or Bush? And not email that looks like it's from them, but is actually forged. I'm talking about the emails talked about in the article.
Wal-Mart is implementing RFIDs on incoming shipments, not individual products. The pallets being delievered will each have an RFID tag on them, so they can be automatically inventoried as they are delivered from the manufacturers/distributors, as they're moved around the warehouses, shipped to stores, etc. The individual products (what the customer buys) will not have RFID tags in them. So the only effect on the customer at all is the possibility of Wal-Mart dropping prices even more as their inventory process becomes more streamlined.
Well, as is noted on that page, it sounds like more of a wish list than something that was leaked from ILM or the Ranch. If it ends up being accurate, I might consider the DVDs. But I'm not holding my breath.
Frankly, Lucas and his people know what bothers so many fans, with regards to the remastered trilogy. I can't believe that they're so oblivious that they don't know by now. So if they really were going to change the Cantina scene back, don't you think they'd let people know, or at least drop large hints, in order to raise the hype around the DVD release more?
Ah, you are so perceptive. From a statement that I wouldn't purchase a product that I don't like, and my reason as to why, you have gleaned so much insight into my life. You must know all about my room which is wallpapered with a frame-by-frame detailing of each of the scenes, with the changes lovingly noted. And of course you must have found my website, greedodidnotshootfirst.com, where I have written dozens of articles, and three theses on why the remastered movies should not exist in a sane world. But did you read about my theory that Lucas is an alien sent to frighten and confuse us? I have proof!
It's not the original Star Wars trilogy. It's the version that Lucas ham-handedly put together in 1997. It definitely won't be on my list of must-have DVDs, regardless of how much I would love to own the original trilogy on DVD.
I've done this several times now, with large employers and small, and never had a problem. Of course, if your situation allows, getting a lawyer to assist you is not a bad idea. But I usually just mark up the text of the agreement (you can usually get the meaning that you want by removing a couple words, making the changes minimal), initial the changes and sign the document, make a copy for my own records, and send it in.
Generally, all I do is delete a word or two to change it from saying that they get the rights to everything, regardless of whether or not it was on company time or company equipment, to saying that they get the rights only if it was on company time or equipment.
You use that term like you know what it means. "Unfunded mandate" refers to the federal government creating a program that all the states must implement (or usually be penalized in some other way, such as losing funding), but doesn't fund at the federal level.
Walmart's actions have nothing to do with unfunded mandates. It's called capitalism. Walmart has a sizeable amount of market share in their business, and with that they get to exert some amount of influence over their suppliers.
Yep, this certainly should prevent another Columbia-type disaster. Just like additional checks on the rings and seals should prevent another Challenger-type disaster. Of course, next time it will probably be metal fatigue, and this won't do anything to help.
It's a patch, and it's reactionary. The shuttles are old. They are general purpose vehicles that have been overworked, and should have been replaced. They still should be. And every time there's a hole in the dam, they slap a patch on it and say "Well, that hole's not going to leak again." Meanwhile, the entire dam is about to crumble to dust.
It's not a stalling tactic on their part. I'm about 95% sure of this because of some unrelated problems I've been having with AT&T Wireless lately.
They recently switched to a new management system for their GSM phones, and they're having a very difficult time getting everyone up to speed on it. Their website has been broken for accessing account information for a while, and their retail folks barely have a clue what they're doing when it comes to GSM stuff. I was trying to get a credit for a promotion recently, and it took over 3 months, and several different people, before it was done without using the GSM management systems at all.
So, while it doesn't seem that they're screwing up number portability deliberately, they do have some other problems going on. You don't introduce a new system to service without making sure that everyone that needs to use it is already trained on it. And, of course, that it works and interoperates with the rest of your systems properly.
Secondly, How is this different from some company installing spyware/nagware that's not uninstallable and then sending you email asking you to pay 20 bucks for a utility that'll "remove" their piece of software.
Easy. Asking for money to not attack someone's servers is extortion. Your example is an "innovative business model".
So this is all that is stopping them now. HDTV will only happen when the Internet is locked down. Once upon a time producers wanted people to see their shows. It's not like these are pay-per-views that go out over our airwaves.
You're missing a few steps.
Producers want to make money. They do this by selling their shows to the networks (I mean that loosely, not just ABC/NBC/CBS/etc.). The networks buy the shows because they want to make money. They do this by selling advertising. The more people that they can say watch their advertising spots, the more money they can get for them. How do they get people to watch their advertising spots? By putting them in the middle of content. So this is why the networks buy the shows from the producers. The more people who watch the show, the more money the network can get for the advertising during the show, hence the more money the network is willing to pay to the producer for the show.
So if you follow that logic, the producers may want more people to watch their shows, but it only really matters if they're watching them on a network. A million people could watch the rips off the Internet, and the producers are not going to care at all, because they're not making any money from it, and it doesn't drive up the advertising revenues. But if a million people watching on the Internet means that even a fraction of them are now not watching it on a network, the producers will care, because it's taking money out of their pockets.
Now, the model is slightly different for premium networks, since they don't have advertising spots, but the same logic applies. The premium network makes money by people paying for a subscription. So the premium network pays the producer more money for shows that draw more viewers. If viewers are getting rips off the Internet instead of subscribing, the same problem exists.
This isn't to say that this is good for the TV watchers. It's merely how it is. Yes, I don't want to have to license TV shows for every TV that I want to watch them on. If I record on one TV in my house, I'd like to be able to watch a show on another. The ideal solution would be to "license" the show to a user. For example, I buy HBO, so I should be able to watch HBO shows whereever and whenever I want to. The problem is that there isn't presently a good way for the networks to do that. The only solution they have currently is to license shows to hardware devices. That's where most of the problems come from.
Maybe the solution is for someone to come up with some sort of universal key, like a USB storage device, that I could load with subscriptions for various networks, and would then connect to any device I wanted to view it on. It would have to be open enough to allow it to be adapted to any type of system (so, for example, we could view our media on Linux or any other free system), but secure enough where it couldn't be (easily) compromised. And of course you'd then have the hassle of having to keep track of this hardware key, and move it around with you. But perhaps something like that would satisfy the needs of both the networks/producers (who want to get paid for viewers) and TV watchers, who want to be able to watch the shows when they want to, and where they want to.
Just because the guy posted to the Yahoo message board before posting to Slashdot doesn't mean he's a PR flack, or that this is astroturfing. And that he wanted some help with putting the submission together points even more towards someone who is not associated with the company.
It's not a solid state motor. I dare say, there's no such thing. By definition, a motor turns, therefore it has moving parts. In fact, the word "motor" appears nowhere in the article, so I'm not sure where the submitter dreamt that up.
It's a solid state pump that moves an electrolyte through it using osmotic pressure.
These inconsistencies include violation of the Code of Conduct and equal access provisions, failure to comply with the obligation to act as a neutral registry service provider, failure to comply with the Registry Registrar Protocol, failure to comply with domain registration provisions, and provision of an unauthorized Registry Service.
I'm not sure why ICANN threw this all in there. Most of it won't stick. The Code of Conduct (specifically the equal access provisions) say nothing about anything like this. They have to do with VeriSign registry not showing preferential treatment to any registrar. And SiteFinder doesn't break this at all. There are no "Do you want to register this domain?" links, especially not to Network Solutions. Now I'm sure that NSI could buy advertising on SiteFinder to do this, but so could any other registrar. VeriSign knows all about the potential conflicts of interest, and goes out of their way to make sure they don't show NSI preferential treatment.
Additionally, the stuff about not complying with the RRP and the domain registration provisions is BS as well. What VeriSign did doesn't affect the RRP at all, nor does it screw with the domain registration system. All it does is provide an answer for domains that don't exist. About the only thing that might stick is the part about providing an unauthorized Registry Service. However, I don't see anything in the agreements that prohibits VeriSign from providing new services. About the only thing they have to give notice for is changes to the RRP, and SiteFinder doesn't affect the RRP.
There are plenty of reasons why SiteFinder is a bad idea. These just aren't some of them. And for ICANN to toss them in and try to puff them up to be some legal threat will only say to VeriSign that ICANN is grasping at straws for some authority here.
If all he wanted was to get the information out, he could have published anonymously. It would have been much less risk of getting fired. You might say that it would have had less impact without his name to back it up. Fine. If he really wanted to get it out, even at the risk of his job, he could still have run it by legal. Even if they told him no, they couldn't prevent him from publishing it. They could merely say that they did not approve, and if he published it anyways they would take disciplinary action. And he may have done this, but then once again, his firing shouldn't be a surprise to anyone.
Oh, and whistleblowers are a completely separate situation. That's not a matter of publishing. That's a matter of correcting some sort of legal problem. And whistleblowing is specifically protected.
Slashdot Mirror
"Every business can and should hire a hack and set him loose on their stuff..."
It seems to me, most companies already have one. The usual title is CEO.
-Todd
I know they're not anyone's favorite company, but it's worth noting that AOL is not anywhere on the top 10 list. Not so many years ago (less than 5), they used to top that list most of the time, and the rest of the time they were in the top 3 (not necc. Spamhaus's list, but Spamcop's definitely, back when they meant something).
Having been involved in the work, I can tell you that AOL was one of the first, if not the first, large ISP to implement tagging of outbound email with the true email address of the sender, regardless of whether or not they put it in there (the X-Apparently-From header that AOL inserted). Also close to the first, or the first, to implement outbound filtering of email for spam. When the second one was put into place, I watched the ranking and saw AOL drop from #1 to nowhere on the top 10.
-Todd
It really doesn't matter at all. As soon as that first shot was fired (filing the lawsuit), it was over. VeriSign can't win. Even if they won the lawsuit, they still lose, because ICANN will yank their contract at the first opportunity.
.com/.net in perpetuity until they decide they don't want to anymore. And I don't see that happening.
The only way VeriSign can win this is to specify as "damages" for winning that they get to operate
-Todd
One thing that's been giving me headaches when dealing with Opteron is that the x86_64 chips report the same architecture as x86 chips when it comes to Pre-eXecution Environment booting. Which means it's not possible to tell the difference between the two and provide the correct boot kernel for a network boot. I've had to rely on differing MAC addresses on the systems.
Seeing as Intel owns PXE, I wonder if this means they will add another architecture code for x86_64 (like they did with ia64).
-Todd
Exactly. Those are the more interesting experiments, I think.
However, as has been said before many times, perhaps it's not that XXXX causes cancer (tested on rats or lab mice), but rather just that rats are really prone to getting cancer.
-Todd
OK, there's a previous study that used a really strong field for 2 hours, and it caused damage. Now they used a low-level field for 24 (and 48 hours) and it caused damage. How exactly does that get extrapolated to a low-level field for 3 minutes a day over a long period of time causing damage?
-Todd
Before we start jumping all over people for spamming, are we sure that they're spamming? The article says that they are sending emails out to supporters. This would seem to say that they are sending emails to people who have signed up to receive emails from them in one way or another. Whether that's from people signing up on their websites, or people signing up on the RNC/DNC websites, or something like that. Now, you may not believe that millions of people signed up to receive emails from W (or the RNC and other associated groups), but that doesn't mean it's not true.
So, has anyone here actually gotten spam from Kerry or Bush? And not email that looks like it's from them, but is actually forged. I'm talking about the emails talked about in the article.
-Todd
The did investigate it, but the trial was cancelled in favor of using RFID in the warehouses, due to the lower tag and computational costs.
Link to old article: Here
-Todd
Bravo on point 1. You're a little off on point 2.
Wal-Mart is implementing RFIDs on incoming shipments, not individual products. The pallets being delievered will each have an RFID tag on them, so they can be automatically inventoried as they are delivered from the manufacturers/distributors, as they're moved around the warehouses, shipped to stores, etc. The individual products (what the customer buys) will not have RFID tags in them. So the only effect on the customer at all is the possibility of Wal-Mart dropping prices even more as their inventory process becomes more streamlined.
-Todd
Well, as is noted on that page, it sounds like more of a wish list than something that was leaked from ILM or the Ranch. If it ends up being accurate, I might consider the DVDs. But I'm not holding my breath.
Frankly, Lucas and his people know what bothers so many fans, with regards to the remastered trilogy. I can't believe that they're so oblivious that they don't know by now. So if they really were going to change the Cantina scene back, don't you think they'd let people know, or at least drop large hints, in order to raise the hype around the DVD release more?
-Todd
Then I won't get it. We have the VHS set of the originals. I'll just be forced to burn them to DVD.
-Todd
Ah, you are so perceptive. From a statement that I wouldn't purchase a product that I don't like, and my reason as to why, you have gleaned so much insight into my life. You must know all about my room which is wallpapered with a frame-by-frame detailing of each of the scenes, with the changes lovingly noted. And of course you must have found my website, greedodidnotshootfirst.com, where I have written dozens of articles, and three theses on why the remastered movies should not exist in a sane world. But did you read about my theory that Lucas is an alien sent to frighten and confuse us? I have proof!
Perhaps you should take your own words to heart.
-Todd
It's not the original Star Wars trilogy. It's the version that Lucas ham-handedly put together in 1997. It definitely won't be on my list of must-have DVDs, regardless of how much I would love to own the original trilogy on DVD.
Greedo did not shoot first.
-Todd
I've done this several times now, with large employers and small, and never had a problem. Of course, if your situation allows, getting a lawyer to assist you is not a bad idea. But I usually just mark up the text of the agreement (you can usually get the meaning that you want by removing a couple words, making the changes minimal), initial the changes and sign the document, make a copy for my own records, and send it in.
Generally, all I do is delete a word or two to change it from saying that they get the rights to everything, regardless of whether or not it was on company time or company equipment, to saying that they get the rights only if it was on company time or equipment.
-Todd
You use that term like you know what it means. "Unfunded mandate" refers to the federal government creating a program that all the states must implement (or usually be penalized in some other way, such as losing funding), but doesn't fund at the federal level.
Walmart's actions have nothing to do with unfunded mandates. It's called capitalism. Walmart has a sizeable amount of market share in their business, and with that they get to exert some amount of influence over their suppliers.
Yep, this certainly should prevent another Columbia-type disaster. Just like additional checks on the rings and seals should prevent another Challenger-type disaster. Of course, next time it will probably be metal fatigue, and this won't do anything to help.
It's a patch, and it's reactionary. The shuttles are old. They are general purpose vehicles that have been overworked, and should have been replaced. They still should be. And every time there's a hole in the dam, they slap a patch on it and say "Well, that hole's not going to leak again." Meanwhile, the entire dam is about to crumble to dust.
-Todd
It's not a stalling tactic on their part. I'm about 95% sure of this because of some unrelated problems I've been having with AT&T Wireless lately.
They recently switched to a new management system for their GSM phones, and they're having a very difficult time getting everyone up to speed on it. Their website has been broken for accessing account information for a while, and their retail folks barely have a clue what they're doing when it comes to GSM stuff. I was trying to get a credit for a promotion recently, and it took over 3 months, and several different people, before it was done without using the GSM management systems at all.
So, while it doesn't seem that they're screwing up number portability deliberately, they do have some other problems going on. You don't introduce a new system to service without making sure that everyone that needs to use it is already trained on it. And, of course, that it works and interoperates with the rest of your systems properly.
-Todd
Secondly, How is this different from some company installing spyware/nagware that's not uninstallable and then sending you email asking you to pay 20 bucks for a utility that'll "remove" their piece of software.
Easy. Asking for money to not attack someone's servers is extortion. Your example is an "innovative business model".
-Todd
So this is all that is stopping them now. HDTV will only happen when the Internet is locked down. Once upon a time producers wanted people to see their shows. It's not like these are pay-per-views that go out over our airwaves.
You're missing a few steps.
Producers want to make money. They do this by selling their shows to the networks (I mean that loosely, not just ABC/NBC/CBS/etc.). The networks buy the shows because they want to make money. They do this by selling advertising. The more people that they can say watch their advertising spots, the more money they can get for them. How do they get people to watch their advertising spots? By putting them in the middle of content. So this is why the networks buy the shows from the producers. The more people who watch the show, the more money the network can get for the advertising during the show, hence the more money the network is willing to pay to the producer for the show.
So if you follow that logic, the producers may want more people to watch their shows, but it only really matters if they're watching them on a network. A million people could watch the rips off the Internet, and the producers are not going to care at all, because they're not making any money from it, and it doesn't drive up the advertising revenues. But if a million people watching on the Internet means that even a fraction of them are now not watching it on a network, the producers will care, because it's taking money out of their pockets.
Now, the model is slightly different for premium networks, since they don't have advertising spots, but the same logic applies. The premium network makes money by people paying for a subscription. So the premium network pays the producer more money for shows that draw more viewers. If viewers are getting rips off the Internet instead of subscribing, the same problem exists.
This isn't to say that this is good for the TV watchers. It's merely how it is. Yes, I don't want to have to license TV shows for every TV that I want to watch them on. If I record on one TV in my house, I'd like to be able to watch a show on another. The ideal solution would be to "license" the show to a user. For example, I buy HBO, so I should be able to watch HBO shows whereever and whenever I want to. The problem is that there isn't presently a good way for the networks to do that. The only solution they have currently is to license shows to hardware devices. That's where most of the problems come from.
Maybe the solution is for someone to come up with some sort of universal key, like a USB storage device, that I could load with subscriptions for various networks, and would then connect to any device I wanted to view it on. It would have to be open enough to allow it to be adapted to any type of system (so, for example, we could view our media on Linux or any other free system), but secure enough where it couldn't be (easily) compromised. And of course you'd then have the hassle of having to keep track of this hardware key, and move it around with you. But perhaps something like that would satisfy the needs of both the networks/producers (who want to get paid for viewers) and TV watchers, who want to be able to watch the shows when they want to, and where they want to.
-Todd
We already have one of those. It's called "Miss America". Silicon, silicone. It's only off by one letter.
-Todd
Just because the guy posted to the Yahoo message board before posting to Slashdot doesn't mean he's a PR flack, or that this is astroturfing. And that he wanted some help with putting the submission together points even more towards someone who is not associated with the company.
-Todd
It's not a solid state motor. I dare say, there's no such thing. By definition, a motor turns, therefore it has moving parts. In fact, the word "motor" appears nowhere in the article, so I'm not sure where the submitter dreamt that up.
It's a solid state pump that moves an electrolyte through it using osmotic pressure.
-Todd
These inconsistencies include violation of the Code of Conduct and equal access provisions, failure to comply with the obligation to act as a neutral registry service provider, failure to comply with the Registry Registrar Protocol, failure to comply with domain registration provisions, and provision of an unauthorized Registry Service.
I'm not sure why ICANN threw this all in there. Most of it won't stick. The Code of Conduct (specifically the equal access provisions) say nothing about anything like this. They have to do with VeriSign registry not showing preferential treatment to any registrar. And SiteFinder doesn't break this at all. There are no "Do you want to register this domain?" links, especially not to Network Solutions. Now I'm sure that NSI could buy advertising on SiteFinder to do this, but so could any other registrar. VeriSign knows all about the potential conflicts of interest, and goes out of their way to make sure they don't show NSI preferential treatment.
Additionally, the stuff about not complying with the RRP and the domain registration provisions is BS as well. What VeriSign did doesn't affect the RRP at all, nor does it screw with the domain registration system. All it does is provide an answer for domains that don't exist. About the only thing that might stick is the part about providing an unauthorized Registry Service. However, I don't see anything in the agreements that prohibits VeriSign from providing new services. About the only thing they have to give notice for is changes to the RRP, and SiteFinder doesn't affect the RRP.
There are plenty of reasons why SiteFinder is a bad idea. These just aren't some of them. And for ICANN to toss them in and try to puff them up to be some legal threat will only say to VeriSign that ICANN is grasping at straws for some authority here.
-Todd
If all he wanted was to get the information out, he could have published anonymously. It would have been much less risk of getting fired. You might say that it would have had less impact without his name to back it up. Fine. If he really wanted to get it out, even at the risk of his job, he could still have run it by legal. Even if they told him no, they couldn't prevent him from publishing it. They could merely say that they did not approve, and if he published it anyways they would take disciplinary action. And he may have done this, but then once again, his firing shouldn't be a surprise to anyone.
Oh, and whistleblowers are a completely separate situation. That's not a matter of publishing. That's a matter of correcting some sort of legal problem. And whistleblowing is specifically protected.
-Todd
Geesh, he's correcting an obvious mistake. It's not like he called me an idiot for not spelling correctly.
You, on the other hand, did it, and did it anonymously. I'm not pissed at him, so why the hell should you care?
-Todd