In the unlikely case that you haven't figured the standard slashdotter codex by now, it goes somewhat like this:
You keep missing the target.
- Any form of corporation is pure evil. (Unless they're currently fighting Microsoft or SCO, that is.)
The real target is: Any form of corporation which charges double for a product which they invested half the effort into is pure evil. It's called opportunistic greed.
- That goes double for corporations which actually invest in research, and need patents to protect their investment.
The real target is: That goes double for corporations which invest in blanket research and use patents as a bag of tricks to be opened whenever someone else finds a pearl in the blanket.
(Here's a thought for all the anti-IP zealots: no company would invest hundreds of millions in researching a new drug, if after that everyone could legally brew the same thing in a bathtub and drive down costs to the point where you can't recoup the research costs.)
Good. Maybe they'll quit wasting billions in investment and taxpayer dollars to buy clinicians and physicians to promote drugs that don't really work unless the data is given a hefty massage.
- Paying for anything is evil
The real target is: Charging for everything is evil. Double-charging for everything which was charged once is evil. Charging for the charges for everything which has already been charged is evil.
- Governments are inherently evil
There are 100 people in government. (2) are brilliant (20) are greedy (20) are gullible (10) are opposed (48) are out to lunch or on the golf course.
(5) who are greedy beat up (2) who are brilliant to keep them quiet. (5) who are greedy convince (20) who are gullible. (20) who are gullible make noise. (48) who are occupied are distracted. (48) who are distracted appeal to (10) who are opposed to placate (20) who are gullible. (20) who are gullible, (5) who are greedy, (2) who are opposed, and (10) who are distracted vote.
(5) who are greedy sit back, enjoy the show, and profit.
Quit arguing against the natural order of things. You look silly.
- Any kind of hierarchy or authority is bad, for that matter
See the above model of the function of a hierarchy.
- Anything can be explained by a good conspiracy theory
There's no conspiracy in any natural model of human behavior which includes the effects of greed.
I wish we could get that point across to the FDA and the major pharmaceutical companies. Due to the way the FDA has structured its paperwork it's nearly impossible to provide enough data for a formulation of more than one active ingredient. The drug companies, as long as they make an acceptable approval rate and investors keep up, are more than happy to participate in the 1..2..3 recipe formula for creating a marketable drug.
As much as you're technically correct I have to agree with the parent. In terms of "what do I see on my hard drive and what files is apt going to update" the Xfree86 collection of packages is a spaghetti mess.
That said, however, I did the same thing the parent did for as long as it took for me to use Sid. I installed a homebrew Xf86 4.3.0 over Woody's 4.1.0. It took one update before I learned to freeze packages. Problem solved.
There are 100 people in society. 2 people are brilliant. 20 people are greedy. 20 people are gullible. 10 people are opposed. 48 people are sacked with taxes.
5 greedy people beat up 2 brilliant people to keep them quiet. 5 greedy people convince 20 gullible people. 20 gullible people make noise. 48 people sacked by taxes are distracted. 48 working people convince 10 who are opposed to appease the 20 gullible people. 5 greedy people, 20 gullible people, 20 working people, and 2 who are opposed go to the polls and vote.
5 greedy people sit back, enjoy the show, and profit.
This guy compiling databases of online user info without the express written consent of the user falls into the 20 gullible people category. Or he falls into the 5 greedy people convincing the 20 gullible people.
Tell me Mr. Libertarian, would the LP have done anything differently with the DOJ antitrust case against Microsoft?
We wouldn't have wasted any more taxpayer money on overpaid lawyers than we absolutely had to. We would have looked at the case, look who was on the political donation roster, and said publicly,"Microsoft has you hamstrung. We're not going to waste your money even trying. If you want to fix it then you'll need to quit buying Microsoft. If your corporate masters insist on Microsoft products you'll need to take it up with your corporate masters. We won't waste your money trying to convince you that we have anything to do with this."
What about the FCC restrictions on media ownership, aren't those rather anti-libertarian?
Ownership is a good thing but we would have ensured that the ownership was to individual private citizens so that, if anyone was caught abusing their power, they couldn't hide behind a corporate legal team to cover their butts. You know, like the way the big media corporations have used their collective market position to make it almost impossible for you, as a private citizen, to even think about radio or television ads to keep up with Republicans and Democrats at election time.
Get out and vote and teach everyone you know the truth.
There are 100 people in society. There are 2 brilliant people. There are 20 greedy people. There are 20 gullible people. There are 10 who are opposed. There are 48 people trying to keep ahead of the bills.
5 greedy people beat up 2 brilliant people to keep them quiet. 5 greedy people convince 20 gullible people. 20 gullible people make lots of noise. 48 people trying to pay taxes are distracted. 48 people placate the 10 who are opposed. 5 greedy people, 20 gullible people, 10 people struggling to keep food on the table, and 2 people who are opposed go to the polls and vote.
VOting for a liberterian is just wasting your vote.
A vote for anyone is a wasted vote. Only when voting hits about 1% will people realize how stupid it is to give a politician any power which involves money.
There are 100 people in the world. There are 2 brilliant people. There are 20 greedy people. There are 20 gullible people. There are 10 people who are opposed. There are 48 people trying to pay the bills.
5 greedy people beat up 2 brilliant people to keep them quiet. 5 greedy people convince 20 gullible people. 20 gullible people make lots of noise. 48 people want 20 gullible people to keep quiet so that they can concentrate on staying ahead of the bills. They quell the 10 who are opposed to quiet the 20 gullible people. 20 gullible people, 5 greedy people, 10 people who want to pay taxes and keep food on the table, and 2 who are opposed go to the polls and vote.
The problem with law is that the government really doesn't want to make me feel that whatever I do, I will break the law and the only thing that matters is if they find out or not.
Okay. Say you're right.
But if the law is impossible not to break, then their function as deterent is nill, since no matter what you do, its not possible for you to live in a way as not to break the law.
People have lived to learn in the grey area of balancing actions with consequences. As people become more wealthy they are able to budget more money for the consequences. We will never reach this theoretical point of enlightenment as a society. The deterrent still functions.
Ultimately, there is just not enough law enforcement agents to handle it and the whole system breaks down.
Here, corporations prove that they are well aware that they are always guilty of something. They have reached the point of enlightenment where they budget enough money to have a staff of attorneys deal with the consequences of "finding out".
In a system of corporate government graft this is a perfect regimen. Everything is illegal, all the time, and the wealthy corporations can afford to pay for the legal defense. The average citizen is kept on the edge of their seat because there's no way they can afford the legal defense.
Name one corporate lobbyist that works to promote Amtrak
I'll be looking forward to the next issue of "jhaddsel's definitive list of every lobbyist in the USA and a complete map of all politically related social networks".
We are reaching HUGE levels of apathy here. I don't think it matters how loudly we yell. Joe Sixpack just doesn't care
There are 100 people in society. 2 people are brilliant. 20 people are greedy. 10 people are opposed. 20 people are gullible. 48 people don't care.
5 of the greedy people beat up the 2 brilliant people to keep them quiet. 5 of the greedy people convince the 20 who are gullible. 20 gullible people clamor and whine enough that the 48 people who don't care muffle the 10 people who are opposed just to get the 20 to shut up.
The only people voting are the 20 gullible people.
First, Kerry's and Bush's ideals *do* differ. Both Republican and Democrat parties are fairly right-wing when it comes to global comparisons, but claiming that they are identical is ridiculous
Please, write speeches for their campaigns. Do not preach to me. The definitive trait is that, if either one of them gets elected, I will pay more to and get less from my government.
Second, voters are very unlikely to go from Republican to Libertarian
Voters are unlikely to go to Libertarian at all since the Libertarians and their adversaries have both contributed equally to the common perception that Libertarians are over-the-top. The common voter has no concept of a minimalist government because, by and large, Americans are spoiled, immature, irresponsible fools who are addicted to the concept of having a powerful government that they can someday use to legislate their neighbors dog off of their lawn without ever having to talk to their neighbor.
Third, there is a particularly disagreeable type of person noisily advocating Libertarian voting at this point
Let's not forget the self-righteous Democrats who happily spend your money to help their alcoholic cousin or the greedy Republican who happily spends your money to lock-in taxpayer contracts for his brother's company. Not saying you're such a person...
If your vote does nothing, you have simply thrown your vote away
No matter who you vote for, the overall % of the GDP which goes into the government budget will increase. Your vote does nothing. It has been wasted.
Again, I think that the best fix for this, if you really believe in Libertarian principles, is to ensure that the Democrat majority is large enough
You're going to tell _ME_ how to properly address my own best interests? I'm going to spend the rest of my day laughing. You can please go back to writing campaign speeches.
AMTRAK is federally owned and funded, pretty much. How does this law make the recording industry federally funded?
Those individuals who profit most from Amtrak related holdings own and fund politicians and regulators who have any effect on Amtrak.
Those individuals who profit most from media organizations are working on owning and funding politicians and regulators who have any effect on media distribution.
the only fix for this particular form of corruption is to eliminate the concept of "corporate personhood"
But, if we did that, then CEOs could be held liable for hoarding corporate profits when the company goes bankrupt. That's far too much risk. No one would start companies. The entire nation would come to a grinding halt because there would be no companies.
We need corporations to have personhood. That way all lawsuits and litigation is absorbed by the company (which can't be tracked down if it goes bankrupt) and the CEOs, VPs, and executives can continue to make enormous salaries without any liability for their greed.
without personally asking a Fox customer service rep each time they want to do so, they'll wake the hell up to all the bullshit big media companies are pulling in DC. I hope this passes and people realize that they've been asleep at the democratic wheel
People already have this experience in that most commercial ISPs include, in their AUP, clauses which make it grounds for termination to use in-house routers and switches. Everyone does it but, technically speaking, you're not supposed to.
It seems that in today's world the issue isn't about being a criminal or not. Everyone is, by default, a criminal at any given time. The issue is which people are more likely to be targeted as victims of a law enforcement system gone haywire.
So this is blatant evidence of political graft with wealthy individuals? Apple obviously intends for its media players to only be used for legal purposes. Mike Entrepeneur, who doesn't contribute strongly to political campaigns, obviously intends for his media players to be used to distribute pirated works.
Proprietary software vendors who produce media playback software obviously intend for their software to only be used to play properly licensed material. Open source media players are obviously intended to play primarily pirated material.
A proprietary software vendor who writes a network filesystem obviously intends for only properly licensed material to be exchanged. Open source distributed network filesystems are obviously intended to violate copyright rules.
The US Government actually runs Amtrak as a quasi-independent business (much the way the US Postal Service is run). The Induce act is meant to put a set of regulations in place, not run record companies.
That's where you miss the connection. The government doesn't run Amtrak. The people with controlling money interests of Amtrak run the portions of the government which have any influence on any aspect of Amtrak's business.
On the entertainment media and software side: The government doesn't legislate rules for media and software. The people with controlling money interests in the media entertainment and software industries run the portions of the government which have any influence on any aspect of entertainment media and software.
I agree in theory, but in practice a vote libertarian is a vote for Bush
And a vote for Kerry won't change anything either. It's a dog and pony (elephant and donkey) show. The only common theme is spending more of _YOUR_ money to add to _THEIR_ profit.
Tony Chong, of Cheech'n'Chong, ran a glassblowing shop which made artwork glass tubes. The shop was taken down by the DEA and Chong was charged in court. I didn't keep track of the outcome.
At the end of the day legality is determined by how badly they want to get you.
I think it's safe to say breaking into someone's PC and turning it into a secret spamming zombie is illegal in almost every jurisdiction. That's the problem that needs addressing
My thoughts:
It would be nice if everyone were a computer expert. They're not. We can't expect everyone to secure their own system. On that thought we, as a society, should be pressuring the majority OS provider to produce a better product. Our government representatives and the courts, however, sold us out by enforcing the validity of EULAs which expunge the proprietary software makers of any liability for the quality of their product. We've been legislated into a "good enough" mentality.
I don't generally approve of the involvement of government law enforcement. I'm a minarchist. I don't trust law enforcement officials. I feel that the solution is much more efficient and less expensive than anything which could be provided by the gargantuan law enforcement system. Why do we need to waste taxpayer dollars tracking down and prosecuting spammers under myriads of conflicting laws and rights?
I must avoid leveling an accusation of incompetence against the predominant system administrators. In order to avoid that, however, I'm forced to ask the question: "Who really profits so much from spam that sysadmins won't shut down connections to spam zombies? What repercussions keep a sysadmin from terminating a misbehaving user?"
I still think my idea of an SMTP WHITELIST is more practical than this scheme
It is more practical but not the most practical. The most practical approach is simply to address the problem.
Every single e-mail has IP information in the header. That's a trail. What if the X-ORIGINATING-IP is spoofed? Take down the last used relay server. WHY IS THIS SO DIFFICULT? Is the relay server not in the US? Who cares? Why would any ISP admin, in any nation, want one of their DSL or cable connections sending out unwarranted spam? What if the last relay server is spoofing its address? Technically speaking it is possible to negotiate a connection with a spoofed IP but, if someone has taken the effort to learn and accomplish everything involved, then they're probably on bigger pursuits than sending out physical enhancement mail. Say spammers connect to my smtpd and spoof from x.y.z.b. x.y.z.b is probably going to drop my packets when I reply unless the infiltrator has managed to manipulate routing tables. This is why allowing subcontractors to take IP blocks between registrars and ISPs is _BAD_.
There has to be some hidden profit agenda in here someplace because otherwise competent ISP admins would have solved this problem years ago.
Maybe I need to build sendmail from source a few more times...
Don't major e-mail daemons already have functionality to disallow mail that doesn't come from a valid system user? Don't major smtp daemons already have the facility for verifying the identity of the system attempting to pass mail to them?
If you want to send mail through your @xyz.org from your home @isp.com account then talk with the xyz.org admin, use user authentication on the xyz.org smtpd, or, as other people have pointed out, use the REPLY-TO line. My assessment is that spam only exists because there are sysadmins who don't know their jobs, don't care about their jobs, or secretly profit from spam. No amount of additional rules, regulations, or protocol implementations will solve the problem of bad admins. From this point of view its suspiciously evident that Microsoft is making a move to redefine e-mail standards with the interest of extending a legal controlling force over it in the future. If this move is successful it's possible that, in 10 years, a patented Microsoft encryption routine holds the Sender ID information and that subroutine is only available in binary form with a $1000/seat license.
Spam is getting to be just like politics. 88% of the people who have no clue what's going on want to write a million worthless fixes. Meanwhile the 2% of us who could properly integrate the existing system are shoved aside by 5% of people who are undesirable greed mongers. Think about it. Take 100 people. 2 of them are brilliant. 10 of them are greedy. 58 of them don't care, 10 are opposed, and 20 are gullible. It takes 5 greedy people to beat up the 2 brilliant people. The other 5 greedy people convince the 20 who are gullible. The 20 who are gullible whine enough so that the 58 who don't care persuade the 10 who are opposed to give in.
That depends on the philosophy and license. The BSD license philosophy is "good will prevail over impossible odds even if proprietary companies take everything, copyright it, and use it to hamstring the world!". The GNU GPL philosophy and license is "this is the real world. Proprietary companies will have no conscience about hamstringing everyone. Whatever change you make you must release it as GPL."
Some people say that BSD license is faithful and bulletproof. I feel it's naive. Some people say GNU GPL is snobby. I feel it's realistic.
Slashdot Mirror
In the unlikely case that you haven't figured the standard slashdotter codex by now, it goes somewhat like this:
You keep missing the target.
- Any form of corporation is pure evil. (Unless they're currently fighting Microsoft or SCO, that is.)
The real target is: Any form of corporation which charges double for a product which they invested half the effort into is pure evil. It's called opportunistic greed.
- That goes double for corporations which actually invest in research, and need patents to protect their investment.
The real target is: That goes double for corporations which invest in blanket research and use patents as a bag of tricks to be opened whenever someone else finds a pearl in the blanket.
(Here's a thought for all the anti-IP zealots: no company would invest hundreds of millions in researching a new drug, if after that everyone could legally brew the same thing in a bathtub and drive down costs to the point where you can't recoup the research costs.)
Good. Maybe they'll quit wasting billions in investment and taxpayer dollars to buy clinicians and physicians to promote drugs that don't really work unless the data is given a hefty massage.
- Paying for anything is evil
The real target is: Charging for everything is evil. Double-charging for everything which was charged once is evil. Charging for the charges for everything which has already been charged is evil.
- Governments are inherently evil
There are 100 people in government.
(2) are brilliant
(20) are greedy
(20) are gullible
(10) are opposed
(48) are out to lunch or on the golf course.
(5) who are greedy beat up (2) who are brilliant to keep them quiet.
(5) who are greedy convince (20) who are gullible.
(20) who are gullible make noise.
(48) who are occupied are distracted.
(48) who are distracted appeal to (10) who are opposed to placate (20) who are gullible.
(20) who are gullible, (5) who are greedy, (2) who are opposed, and (10) who are distracted vote.
(5) who are greedy sit back, enjoy the show, and profit.
Quit arguing against the natural order of things. You look silly.
- Any kind of hierarchy or authority is bad, for that matter
See the above model of the function of a hierarchy.
- Anything can be explained by a good conspiracy theory
There's no conspiracy in any natural model of human behavior which includes the effects of greed.
There are no silver bullets in medicine
I wish we could get that point across to the FDA and the major pharmaceutical companies. Due to the way the FDA has structured its paperwork it's nearly impossible to provide enough data for a formulation of more than one active ingredient. The drug companies, as long as they make an acceptable approval rate and investors keep up, are more than happy to participate in the 1..2..3 recipe formula for creating a marketable drug.
As much as you're technically correct I have to agree with the parent. In terms of "what do I see on my hard drive and what files is apt going to update" the Xfree86 collection of packages is a spaghetti mess.
That said, however, I did the same thing the parent did for as long as it took for me to use Sid. I installed a homebrew Xf86 4.3.0 over Woody's 4.1.0. It took one update before I learned to freeze packages. Problem solved.
Isn't being slashdotted a form of vigilante justice?
There are 100 people in society.
2 people are brilliant.
20 people are greedy.
20 people are gullible.
10 people are opposed.
48 people are sacked with taxes.
5 greedy people beat up 2 brilliant people to keep them quiet.
5 greedy people convince 20 gullible people.
20 gullible people make noise.
48 people sacked by taxes are distracted.
48 working people convince 10 who are opposed to appease the 20 gullible people.
5 greedy people, 20 gullible people, 20 working people, and 2 who are opposed go to the polls and vote.
5 greedy people sit back, enjoy the show, and profit.
This guy compiling databases of online user info without the express written consent of the user falls into the 20 gullible people category. Or he falls into the 5 greedy people convincing the 20 gullible people.
Tell me Mr. Libertarian, would the LP have done anything differently with the DOJ antitrust case against Microsoft?
We wouldn't have wasted any more taxpayer money on overpaid lawyers than we absolutely had to. We would have looked at the case, look who was on the political donation roster, and said publicly,"Microsoft has you hamstrung. We're not going to waste your money even trying. If you want to fix it then you'll need to quit buying Microsoft. If your corporate masters insist on Microsoft products you'll need to take it up with your corporate masters. We won't waste your money trying to convince you that we have anything to do with this."
What about the FCC restrictions on media ownership, aren't those rather anti-libertarian?
Ownership is a good thing but we would have ensured that the ownership was to individual private citizens so that, if anyone was caught abusing their power, they couldn't hide behind a corporate legal team to cover their butts. You know, like the way the big media corporations have used their collective market position to make it almost impossible for you, as a private citizen, to even think about radio or television ads to keep up with Republicans and Democrats at election time.
Get out and vote and teach everyone you know the truth.
There are 100 people in society.
There are 2 brilliant people.
There are 20 greedy people.
There are 20 gullible people.
There are 10 who are opposed.
There are 48 people trying to keep ahead of the bills.
5 greedy people beat up 2 brilliant people to keep them quiet.
5 greedy people convince 20 gullible people.
20 gullible people make lots of noise.
48 people trying to pay taxes are distracted.
48 people placate the 10 who are opposed.
5 greedy people, 20 gullible people, 10 people struggling to keep food on the table, and 2 people who are opposed go to the polls and vote.
5 people sit back and enjoy the show.
VOting for a liberterian is just wasting your vote.
A vote for anyone is a wasted vote. Only when voting hits about 1% will people realize how stupid it is to give a politician any power which involves money.
There are 100 people in the world.
There are 2 brilliant people.
There are 20 greedy people.
There are 20 gullible people.
There are 10 people who are opposed.
There are 48 people trying to pay the bills.
5 greedy people beat up 2 brilliant people to keep them quiet.
5 greedy people convince 20 gullible people.
20 gullible people make lots of noise.
48 people want 20 gullible people to keep quiet so that they can concentrate on staying ahead of the bills. They quell the 10 who are opposed to quiet the 20 gullible people.
20 gullible people, 5 greedy people, 10 people who want to pay taxes and keep food on the table, and 2 who are opposed go to the polls and vote.
5 greedy people sit back and enjoy the show.
Huh?
The problem with law is that the government really doesn't want to make me feel that whatever I do, I will break the law and the only thing that matters is if they find out or not.
Okay. Say you're right.
But if the law is impossible not to break, then their function as deterent is nill, since no matter what you do, its not possible for you to live in a way as not to break the law.
People have lived to learn in the grey area of balancing actions with consequences. As people become more wealthy they are able to budget more money for the consequences. We will never reach this theoretical point of enlightenment as a society. The deterrent still functions.
Ultimately, there is just not enough law enforcement agents to handle it and the whole system breaks down.
Here, corporations prove that they are well aware that they are always guilty of something. They have reached the point of enlightenment where they budget enough money to have a staff of attorneys deal with the consequences of "finding out".
In a system of corporate government graft this is a perfect regimen. Everything is illegal, all the time, and the wealthy corporations can afford to pay for the legal defense. The average citizen is kept on the edge of their seat because there's no way they can afford the legal defense.
Name one corporate lobbyist that works to promote Amtrak
I'll be looking forward to the next issue of "jhaddsel's definitive list of every lobbyist in the USA and a complete map of all politically related social networks".
We are reaching HUGE levels of apathy here. I don't think it matters how loudly we yell. Joe Sixpack just doesn't care
There are 100 people in society.
2 people are brilliant.
20 people are greedy.
10 people are opposed.
20 people are gullible.
48 people don't care.
5 of the greedy people beat up the 2 brilliant people to keep them quiet.
5 of the greedy people convince the 20 who are gullible.
20 gullible people clamor and whine enough that the 48 people who don't care muffle the 10 people who are opposed just to get the 20 to shut up.
The only people voting are the 20 gullible people.
Redistribution of wealth on a small scale is not communism.
Complete elimination of personal wealth is.
When the budget for the federal government makes up more than 50% of the total GDP, can the system be implied communism yet?
First, Kerry's and Bush's ideals *do* differ. Both Republican and Democrat parties are fairly right-wing when it comes to global comparisons, but claiming that they are identical is ridiculous
Please, write speeches for their campaigns. Do not preach to me. The definitive trait is that, if either one of them gets elected, I will pay more to and get less from my government.
Second, voters are very unlikely to go from Republican to Libertarian
Voters are unlikely to go to Libertarian at all since the Libertarians and their adversaries have both contributed equally to the common perception that Libertarians are over-the-top. The common voter has no concept of a minimalist government because, by and large, Americans are spoiled, immature, irresponsible fools who are addicted to the concept of having a powerful government that they can someday use to legislate their neighbors dog off of their lawn without ever having to talk to their neighbor.
Third, there is a particularly disagreeable type of person noisily advocating Libertarian voting at this point
Let's not forget the self-righteous Democrats who happily spend your money to help their alcoholic cousin or the greedy Republican who happily spends your money to lock-in taxpayer contracts for his brother's company. Not saying you're such a person...
If your vote does nothing, you have simply thrown your vote away
No matter who you vote for, the overall % of the GDP which goes into the government budget will increase. Your vote does nothing. It has been wasted.
Again, I think that the best fix for this, if you really believe in Libertarian principles, is to ensure that the Democrat majority is large enough
You're going to tell _ME_ how to properly address my own best interests? I'm going to spend the rest of my day laughing. You can please go back to writing campaign speeches.
AMTRAK is federally owned and funded, pretty much. How does this law make the recording industry federally funded?
Those individuals who profit most from Amtrak related holdings own and fund politicians and regulators who have any effect on Amtrak.
Those individuals who profit most from media organizations are working on owning and funding politicians and regulators who have any effect on media distribution.
It's not that difficult.
the only fix for this particular form of corruption is to eliminate the concept of "corporate personhood"
But, if we did that, then CEOs could be held liable for hoarding corporate profits when the company goes bankrupt. That's far too much risk. No one would start companies. The entire nation would come to a grinding halt because there would be no companies.
We need corporations to have personhood. That way all lawsuits and litigation is absorbed by the company (which can't be tracked down if it goes bankrupt) and the CEOs, VPs, and executives can continue to make enormous salaries without any liability for their greed.
without personally asking a Fox customer service rep each time they want to do so, they'll wake the hell up to all the bullshit big media companies are pulling in DC. I hope this passes and people realize that they've been asleep at the democratic wheel
People already have this experience in that most commercial ISPs include, in their AUP, clauses which make it grounds for termination to use in-house routers and switches. Everyone does it but, technically speaking, you're not supposed to.
It seems that in today's world the issue isn't about being a criminal or not. Everyone is, by default, a criminal at any given time. The issue is which people are more likely to be targeted as victims of a law enforcement system gone haywire.
if you sell something with the intent
So this is blatant evidence of political graft with wealthy individuals? Apple obviously intends for its media players to only be used for legal purposes. Mike Entrepeneur, who doesn't contribute strongly to political campaigns, obviously intends for his media players to be used to distribute pirated works.
Proprietary software vendors who produce media playback software obviously intend for their software to only be used to play properly licensed material. Open source media players are obviously intended to play primarily pirated material.
A proprietary software vendor who writes a network filesystem obviously intends for only properly licensed material to be exchanged. Open source distributed network filesystems are obviously intended to violate copyright rules.
The US Government actually runs Amtrak as a quasi-independent business (much the way the US Postal Service is run). The Induce act is meant to put a set of regulations in place, not run record companies.
That's where you miss the connection. The government doesn't run Amtrak. The people with controlling money interests of Amtrak run the portions of the government which have any influence on any aspect of Amtrak's business.
On the entertainment media and software side: The government doesn't legislate rules for media and software. The people with controlling money interests in the media entertainment and software industries run the portions of the government which have any influence on any aspect of entertainment media and software.
PASS THE <censored> BILL
I'm really getting to the same apathetic feeling for nearly everything in society.
I agree in theory, but in practice a vote libertarian is a vote for Bush
And a vote for Kerry won't change anything either. It's a dog and pony (elephant and donkey) show. The only common theme is spending more of _YOUR_ money to add to _THEIR_ profit.
Tony Chong, of Cheech'n'Chong, ran a glassblowing shop which made artwork glass tubes. The shop was taken down by the DEA and Chong was charged in court. I didn't keep track of the outcome.
At the end of the day legality is determined by how badly they want to get you.
I think it's safe to say breaking into someone's PC and turning it into a secret spamming zombie is illegal in almost every jurisdiction. That's the problem that needs addressing
My thoughts:
It would be nice if everyone were a computer expert. They're not. We can't expect everyone to secure their own system. On that thought we, as a society, should be pressuring the majority OS provider to produce a better product. Our government representatives and the courts, however, sold us out by enforcing the validity of EULAs which expunge the proprietary software makers of any liability for the quality of their product. We've been legislated into a "good enough" mentality.
I don't generally approve of the involvement of government law enforcement. I'm a minarchist. I don't trust law enforcement officials. I feel that the solution is much more efficient and less expensive than anything which could be provided by the gargantuan law enforcement system. Why do we need to waste taxpayer dollars tracking down and prosecuting spammers under myriads of conflicting laws and rights?
I must avoid leveling an accusation of incompetence against the predominant system administrators. In order to avoid that, however, I'm forced to ask the question: "Who really profits so much from spam that sysadmins won't shut down connections to spam zombies? What repercussions keep a sysadmin from terminating a misbehaving user?"
I still think my idea of an SMTP WHITELIST is more practical than this scheme
It is more practical but not the most practical. The most practical approach is simply to address the problem.
Every single e-mail has IP information in the header. That's a trail. What if the X-ORIGINATING-IP is spoofed? Take down the last used relay server. WHY IS THIS SO DIFFICULT? Is the relay server not in the US? Who cares? Why would any ISP admin, in any nation, want one of their DSL or cable connections sending out unwarranted spam? What if the last relay server is spoofing its address? Technically speaking it is possible to negotiate a connection with a spoofed IP but, if someone has taken the effort to learn and accomplish everything involved, then they're probably on bigger pursuits than sending out physical enhancement mail. Say spammers connect to my smtpd and spoof from x.y.z.b. x.y.z.b is probably going to drop my packets when I reply unless the infiltrator has managed to manipulate routing tables. This is why allowing subcontractors to take IP blocks between registrars and ISPs is _BAD_.
There has to be some hidden profit agenda in here someplace because otherwise competent ISP admins would have solved this problem years ago.
Maybe I need to build sendmail from source a few more times...
Don't major e-mail daemons already have functionality to disallow mail that doesn't come from a valid system user? Don't major smtp daemons already have the facility for verifying the identity of the system attempting to pass mail to them?
If you want to send mail through your @xyz.org from your home @isp.com account then talk with the xyz.org admin, use user authentication on the xyz.org smtpd, or, as other people have pointed out, use the REPLY-TO line. My assessment is that spam only exists because there are sysadmins who don't know their jobs, don't care about their jobs, or secretly profit from spam. No amount of additional rules, regulations, or protocol implementations will solve the problem of bad admins. From this point of view its suspiciously evident that Microsoft is making a move to redefine e-mail standards with the interest of extending a legal controlling force over it in the future. If this move is successful it's possible that, in 10 years, a patented Microsoft encryption routine holds the Sender ID information and that subroutine is only available in binary form with a $1000/seat license.
Spam is getting to be just like politics. 88% of the people who have no clue what's going on want to write a million worthless fixes. Meanwhile the 2% of us who could properly integrate the existing system are shoved aside by 5% of people who are undesirable greed mongers. Think about it. Take 100 people. 2 of them are brilliant. 10 of them are greedy. 58 of them don't care, 10 are opposed, and 20 are gullible. It takes 5 greedy people to beat up the 2 brilliant people. The other 5 greedy people convince the 20 who are gullible. The 20 who are gullible whine enough so that the 58 who don't care persuade the 10 who are opposed to give in.
Um. . .isn't that the point of open source?
That depends on the philosophy and license. The BSD license philosophy is "good will prevail over impossible odds even if proprietary companies take everything, copyright it, and use it to hamstring the world!". The GNU GPL philosophy and license is "this is the real world. Proprietary companies will have no conscience about hamstringing everyone. Whatever change you make you must release it as GPL."
Some people say that BSD license is faithful and bulletproof. I feel it's naive. Some people say GNU GPL is snobby. I feel it's realistic.