I don't like it either, but unless you want to stoop to *gulp* spamming people, I don't see any other way to really make sure that the message genuinely goes through the whole 'net.
On the other hand, if someone is willing to donate a t3 line to the cause, you could set up the virus to check with a flat database, check if any of it's intended recipients are in it, and if any aren't add them to it. There would be a slight lag time from each address book to the central list, but enough to keep the rate of unnecessary copes down considerably. After checking for double-sends, if could, if it's possible, check that each intended address is valid to avoid angering people with bounced mails.
If there were any way other than rather surrepitious means to make sure that most everyone got at least one copy, I would love to know. But everyone who uses an internet-connected computer has got to be informed of what's going on. Most of them don't read any tech news website, and will be caught completely off-guard when they're sued for their life's savings. So I wouldn't like to do this either, but something has to be done to give the proles a sound kick in the butt.
I never have bought music from any RIAA artist, and they have now absolutely gauranteed that I never will, period. However, most people are too uncaring to mind when their rights are stolen by corporations. They just want their bread and circuses.
But there must be SOME way to make people understand what is going on. Unfortunately, most large-scale distribution channels (TV, Newpaper, Radio) are owned by the very pigopolists that need to be run out of town, so you'll never see anything about these criminal activities on them. However, the one channel that they do not, and arguably CANNOT control is the internet.
First, a simple letter explaining what needs to be done to correct these injustices. Write one, and E-Mail it to everyone in your address book, with explicit instructions to repeat the process. If the average pass-on rate is greater than one, the rate of sending will go supercritical and everyone will have no choice but to see it.
Unfortunately, I strongly doubt that enough people would read the letter and even fewer would pass it on. However, there is a way to almost gaurantee that it gets passed on.
The people who use linux don't need to see this; They probably already understand what's at stake. Most people who use a non-MS operating system probably do. And that is currently the critical advantage: The people who DO need to be educated are almost certainly using the world's most insecure OS, and the default insecure E-Mail client that comes with it. It would be a simple enough matter to create a virus [A term used loosely, as it usually implies malicious intent. The intent of this "virus" would be anything BUT malicious] that would access the users entire address book, and then send out a copy of the letter to them with itself attached.
It would do no harm, and I would suppose you would be immune from prosecution in the unlikely event your are caught, as you did nothing bad to anyone. Your transmission rate would be gauranteed to be >1, and the message would almost immediately go supercritical. Before long, almost every inbox in the world would have a message in it with the subject "Are your rights being stolen?". Here's a sample message:
Dear recipient,
This message is to inform you that your rights are very likely being stolen from under you. If you do not live in the United States, you can ignore this message as it specifically pertains to American citizens.
Since 9/11, much of your right to privacy has been gutted. New, vastly over-broad laws threaten the privacy of each and every one of us. Did you know, for example, that the requirements for the government to wiretap you have been substantially loosened by the the PATRIOT act? That the current Attorney General, John Ashcroft, attempted to create a domestic spy program named "TIPS" that encourages neighbors to spy on each other?
Don't go into anything too specific or complex, just stay with the general idea. Offer a link to a mailing list to sign up to, perhaps. Explain what the government and some of the corporate cartels are up to. Don't get to virulent. Just lay it out, plain and simple.
We here at Magna Ca^H^H^H^H^HSkyNet systems can assure you that there is no problem, and that the system will continute to function nor^H^H^H^H^H^HYou must stop this system from going operational! Please, the future of humanity depends on...^H^H^H^H^HAs we were saying before some technical difficulties, the system will operate normally. Do not panic, and do not watch that "Terminator 3" movie.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like you're referring to those loads of garbage files that tend to come up, and usually A) are around 60 K long, B) contain your search term . every known file extension, and C) all come from the same host.
For example, without filters, I can search for "Beethoven 9th symphony" and suddenly see 50 files ending in.mpeg,.avi,.exe,.ram, and with things like (must see!) on the end of the filename. I put 6 addresses in my blacklist and >99.9% of them are gone. It's literally just 5 or 6 people doing this.
Of course, you might be talking about something else. If it's simply genuine mp3s with garbage in them, I simply preview my downloads while they're in progress.
This is why someone, preferably a well-known group like the EFF or ACLU, needs to start a non-profit fund to defend people from the RIAA.
The RIAA is like a wounded sabre-toothed tiger... It's going down slowly, and it's getting weaker, but it's still more than strong enough to kill the average person.
Even though they are slowly disintegrating, they still have far more money to bribe the judge and far more lawyers than their victims (who are chosen because of this) ever will so most of their victims have to either A) get screwed by the RIAA, B) Fight the case, loose, and meet Big Gay Bubba in prison, or C) Fight, win, and suffer financial ruin for the rest of their lives.
I doubt that the RIAA would be so apt to go after p2p users if they stood a chance of defending themselves. Why do you think predators always go after the young, the sick, and the elderly?
The only problem is, you can get a C64 and pretty much any game ever written for it on Ebay. A basic computer with cables starts around $10. I mean, Commodore sold, what, 22 million of 'em? Games are $5 each, other accessories are in the $10-30 range.
Something we DO need to get a modern version of is Tandy's portable disk drive - Those things cost a fortune. I paid $40 for a drive in questionable condition, because it was the first to be seen on Ebay in weeks and those gauranteed to work cost $80+.
Besides, there's something to be said for using the original. Despite the free availability of emulators, people consistently pay thousands of dollars for an Altair 8800 or Imsai 8080. I would if I could afford it.
Magnetic shields exist, and they do work pretty well. When you buy anything from WonderMagnet, they usually ship it in a shield to comply with regulations.
At any rate, magnetic field intensity drops with the cube of distance. Guess what you can find in a discarded hard drive that's used to position the drive heads? I've got a big NIB magnet, 2" in diameter and.5" thick. It could easily pick up a 100 pound weight, but it has remarkably little effect even a foot away.
Most likely, specially magnetically shielded cars would be made available for hard drives and floppies. Or you could just stick the drive in a provided shield.
This is a very interesting idea, and one might think of doing something similar with people (Only you need much gentler acceleration). The only problem is, who's going to pay to build it?
In fact, at the LIGO gravity wave detector facility, scientists use a concrete tube several miles long and vaccuum pumped to fire lasers down and measure changes. Then the need to reinforce it was discovered during hunting season.
But I have thought of the perfect way to make it work: Rather then using rails, use superconductors and supermagnets. Since a vaccuum is as good as a dewar flask, you could install superconductors on the bottom of the cars and NIB magnets on the bottom of the tunnel. because superconductors are, among other things, perfect diamagnetics, you could easily get considerable flotation force. Floating on a uniform magnetic cushion in a vaccuum, you'd get effectively *zero* drag, meaning the only limit on your speed would be the sharpest turn you need to make.
But still, even this would be pretty damn expensive. I mean, when you're talking installing 3 unbroken rows of them in every pipe, imagine the cost: A good candidate magnet would be this one. It's two inches long,.5 wide, and.25 thick at $6 each. Each of these could probably levitate 40 pounds with ease. Now, 3 of them for 3 tracks is $9 per inch, which comes out to $570456 per mile. The first trans-continental line would cost 1.71 billion dollars.
But you can't do this. Because the [crazed fanatic voice] TERRORISTS [/crazed fanatic voice] will use it to ATTACK us, and the [crazed fanatic voice] TERRORISTS [/crazed fanatic voice] must be STOPPED!!!
The thing is, that these adware/spyware people are after STUPID users, because smart ones don't fall for bullshit nearly so easily. Because it's usually only the smart ones who install Linux, you'll see an epidemic following the adoption of Linux by major OEMs, because only then will there be large numbers of STUPID users on Linux computers.
So in a way, you could make an argument that it's better for linux to remain small on the desktop. That way, we can largely avoid the viruses, worms, spyware, etc that come with large numbers of STUPID users that will execute/fall for them. Any other perspectives?
Ask me for personal information, and I'll give it to you... I'll give you the logs printed with --highly-verbose onto hollerith cards. Don't worry, I'm sure you'll be able to find a machine that can read them in a few months. Oh, and you'll also need to manually sort them. Those kids are always marking out the card ID numbers!
Politicians have always been open relays to anyone who offers up money. A large majority of them are scum, whether by their own choice or by having to be scum because they are the proxies of scum. For most of history, they've been able to keep this under the carpet, because the ordinary people couldn't really make ripples; They didn't have the means of distribution available to them. Now the 'net has turned that on it's head.
For a long time, politicians have wanted to and usually succedded in trying to control the people because they were the only ones who had the means of distribution available to them. Now here comes the internet and turns that around and kicks it soundly out the door. Now anyone can make their opinions available to millions in a matter of minutes or seconds.
I suppose what I'm getting at is that GIA is backlash, to remind our politicians that they no longer control information or it's distribution. And you can bet they'll be screaming and kicking like spoiled little brats from hell. However, try all you want to put this magnesium-and-sodium candle out. It'll always come back, and if you douse it with water it'll only burn hotter.
Interestingly, most current politicians haven't played with this kind of fire yet, and they haven't learned that you'll get burned.
Reminds me strongly of the way typical bug-in-your-code exchanges go with companies:
"There's a flaw in your code."
"There's no flaw in our code."
"I'm telling people there's a flaw in your code."
"Alright, there is a flaw, but we're not fixing it."
"I'm telling people how to exploit this flaw in your code."
"Ok! Ok, we'll fix the bug."
These guys have been telling Microsoft that they can run Linux on an Xbox without a mod chip for months. Microsoft has ignored their warnings about the "flaw" in their "code," so we've now arrived at "I'm telling people how to exploit it." Unfortunately, because the majority of people on capital hill are mildly retarded and/or (emphasis on the "and") corporate bitches, Microsoft will NOT be forced to fix the error, but will simply sue the people who publicize the flaw because it involves encryption.
For those to whom it is NOT already patently obvious, THIS is the danger of the DMCA: Companies that provide defective products involving encryption are NOT forced to repair the error or lose business, they now have the option of silencing the white-hats who try to warn them, and trying to ignore the hordes of black-hats who are now working to duplicate the exploit.
Naturally, when involving open-source software, the DMCA becomes irrelevant, because anyone can see and fix the code: We do not have to wait in the hallowed corporate halls waiting for a magic trinket, and that is what they (in reference to greedy CEO's and their ilk, for whom the pursuit of money has become a late-stage cancer) fear.
Ok, I am done rambling. You may now resume your regularly scheduled indoctrination.
"Military looks into killing more enemies faster and more efficiently than before with less risk to our own troops." I would have never guessed.
Sarcasm aside, I really think that we (America) need to go on a new direction. I mean, a powerful military is o.k. but the way to get new friends is by forming good relations with them, not by strongarming them or having the distinct impression of being willing to strongarm them.
At any rate, if we would just deploy alternative sources of energy and stop sucking the oil tit, a lot of problems would dry up because a lot of terrorist money comes from regimes supported by *suprise* OIL. That and illegal drugs... But once we stop spending God-only-knows-how-many billions securing more oil teats, we can have all those troops deployed at the border:)
"how LONG before OS's without Digital Restrictions Management become DMCA violations?"
Congress debated passing the SSSCA, which would have made it illegal. (As was pointed out in another story, any successful attempt to outlaw OSS would result in thousands of OSS developers/users permanently bent on obliterating corporate networks)
Reminds me of the ads for Gary the Rat on TNN... "The law is like a sewer: You never know what slimy, disgusting thing might come out."
But seriously, when you start seeing this kind of insanity (Suing for damages that have not yet occurred, college students being robbed of their life's savings, etc.) it's sort of a clue that our legal system needs a MAJOR overhaul.
Basically, we get an ever growing tangle of laws (as every time a given law causes a problem, they decide to pass ANOTHER law to fix that...) that would give Rube Goldberg nightmares. It's like Windows on Crack but worse; There is so much cross-linked junk, broken subroutines, and other crap that you could start anywhere you want and end up anywhere you want, and pick'n'choose the route you want to take there.
Of course, the only people that can navigate in this toxic waste dump are the ones who spend their lives studying it. And they get to charge you what ever you want. So we end up with a situation where the only way to navigate throught the mess is by hiring a lawyer, and only the people who can afford to hire a lawyer can get through.
The only way I see to do this is to simply dump all laws we have in the circular file. Start over; Like windows, this beast is too fat and bloated to ever be fixed. There is no way a bunch of dunderhead corporate pawns on Capital Hill will ever complete the job, let alone do it well.
Now I don't think it would be possible to dump *everything* at once. It would need to be done in sections: First tax laws, then electronic freedom laws (coughDMCAcough), etc.
But how do we rewrite everything without it being even worse than the first time around? Well that's going to take some thought. But I'll try to draw an analogy with computer programming. The first thing we need to do is ABOLISH LEGALESE. It's a simple fact that, the more lines of code you type, the more likely you are to make an error. Similarly, the more BS you put in the legal code, the more likely you are to have sort of exploit, errr... loophole. Second, you need to have developers who do their job because they love it (Gee... what could I be alluding to here?) and not because they are paid to be there. Here's the problem. It's very difficult to find someone who genuinely wants to help humanity where the law is concerned, and not simply push their agenda. Probably your best hope is to take the people you chose as most likely to be geniune based on a personality test, then lock them in a room (cut off from the outside world, and therefore bribes and offers), then give them questions and recieve answers. Only use a single group for a few laws, then get the next bunch.
Personally, I think the only hope of establishing laws that only work to benefit humanity is true Artificial Intellegence.
Ok. I'm done ranting about how *ucked up our legal system is.
Of course... But then they get *Ahem* Extended. For the good of the public of course, not because the average government agency couldn't balance a budget if their life depended on it.
But to continue the analogy, also imagine that your landlord has been doing everything possible to force you to stay. The landlord has been threatening all the house service providers (water, power, gas, etc) into only hooking into his apartment, and threatening and blackmailing any who dare give him the finger. Furthermore, he does his best to keep you ignorant about the fact that there are other apartments. Legal action was brought over these clearly criminal actions, but he has bribed the police.
Someone agreeing to do something all of a sudden, when they feel a knife to their back?
On a more serious note, it doesn't really matter. If they do agree to sell their souls to the RIAA, no one will use their service anymore. They will just use another one.
And a message to those who claim "It's illegal, so you shouldn't do it, Period!": Copyright laws were created before the internet and therefore did not account for the ability to create perfect copies of digitized information freely. The internet obsoletes the control of distribution, which is that the **AA is based on. The cat's out of the bag, the can of worms is open, the slippery slope has been greased up nicely. Copyright and patent laws were written before the average person could duplicate anything of great complexity, meaning that control over distribution was possible. The internet makes this impossible.
Although I can't remember exactly where, I once found an interesting page detailing how political parties can't be described in a one-dimensional "left vs right" way, but in a two-dimensional chart using their positions on economics and politics as the axes: Capitalist/Communist, and Facist/Libertarian. And the chart showed that, if you didn't try to talk about economics, Stalin and Hitler would have been good friends.
At any rate, it will take a multi-faceted movement to stop the accelerating downward spiral disgracefully called "our government."
FIRST, we need to get rid of apathy. Guess how the American Revolution happened? Lots of ordinary people cared about a cause, and defeated one of the greatest armies on earth at the time. Imagine, for a moment, that we shifted all our current attitudes forward 250 years or so. Imagine if the colonists were like people in America today. Except for a handful, they would have happily bent over for convenience. Oh, fuck... When Paul Revere rode through, they'd just have said "We're watching Tee-Vee! Shut up!" As much as I hate to say it, mass-emailing might be some way to smack people and make them wake the hell up. Not spam, just letters explaining what they need to do to stop the downward spiral toward 1984. (*Crushed by 1000 foot wall of flame*)
SECOND, go out there and DO SOMETHING. Don't just sit here and preach to the choir on Slashdot. Write your congressional representatives; Stage a protest; E-Mail all your contacts; SOMETHING, anything. Get the word out about what they are doing to your freedom.
THIRD, take preliminary steps to protect yourself if this fails. On the technological front, install Freenet, encrypt your entire hard drive, use long passwords (Most of mine are => 20 chars long), etc. Contribute to the ACLU and the EFF.
In short, nothing will get done unless you do it (No sex jokes or Goatse links, please). Sitting here and explaining to the choir how bad things are going will not help. Be evangelistic, reach out to the masses. Install Linux for your friends.
1) Set up a honeypot to get info about spammers
2) WHOIS them
3) Send E-Mail saying "give me $1000 or I sign you up to every known spam list and catalog order on the planet"
4) ???
5) Profit!
Alright everyone, write a script to run continually in the background pinging 68.163.90.10 with useless information, and also set up a spare server to constantly refresh their main page. C'Mon, you know it'll be fun to watch their site melt from a/.-class DDoSing!
Slashdot Mirror
I don't like it either, but unless you want to stoop to *gulp* spamming people, I don't see any other way to really make sure that the message genuinely goes through the whole 'net.
On the other hand, if someone is willing to donate a t3 line to the cause, you could set up the virus to check with a flat database, check if any of it's intended recipients are in it, and if any aren't add them to it. There would be a slight lag time from each address book to the central list, but enough to keep the rate of unnecessary copes down considerably. After checking for double-sends, if could, if it's possible, check that each intended address is valid to avoid angering people with bounced mails.
If there were any way other than rather surrepitious means to make sure that most everyone got at least one copy, I would love to know. But everyone who uses an internet-connected computer has got to be informed of what's going on. Most of them don't read any tech news website, and will be caught completely off-guard when they're sued for their life's savings. So I wouldn't like to do this either, but something has to be done to give the proles a sound kick in the butt.
I never have bought music from any RIAA artist, and they have now absolutely gauranteed that I never will, period. However, most people are too uncaring to mind when their rights are stolen by corporations. They just want their bread and circuses.
But there must be SOME way to make people understand what is going on. Unfortunately, most large-scale distribution channels (TV, Newpaper, Radio) are owned by the very pigopolists that need to be run out of town, so you'll never see anything about these criminal activities on them. However, the one channel that they do not, and arguably CANNOT control is the internet.
First, a simple letter explaining what needs to be done to correct these injustices. Write one, and E-Mail it to everyone in your address book, with explicit instructions to repeat the process. If the average pass-on rate is greater than one, the rate of sending will go supercritical and everyone will have no choice but to see it.
Unfortunately, I strongly doubt that enough people would read the letter and even fewer would pass it on. However, there is a way to almost gaurantee that it gets passed on.
The people who use linux don't need to see this; They probably already understand what's at stake. Most people who use a non-MS operating system probably do. And that is currently the critical advantage: The people who DO need to be educated are almost certainly using the world's most insecure OS, and the default insecure E-Mail client that comes with it. It would be a simple enough matter to create a virus [A term used loosely, as it usually implies malicious intent. The intent of this "virus" would be anything BUT malicious] that would access the users entire address book, and then send out a copy of the letter to them with itself attached.
It would do no harm, and I would suppose you would be immune from prosecution in the unlikely event your are caught, as you did nothing bad to anyone. Your transmission rate would be gauranteed to be >1, and the message would almost immediately go supercritical. Before long, almost every inbox in the world would have a message in it with the subject "Are your rights being stolen?". Here's a sample message:
Dear recipient,
This message is to inform you that your rights are very likely being stolen from under you. If you do not live in the United States, you can ignore this message as it specifically pertains to American citizens.
Since 9/11, much of your right to privacy has been gutted. New, vastly over-broad laws threaten the privacy of each and every one of us. Did you know, for example, that the requirements for the government to wiretap you have been substantially loosened by the the PATRIOT act? That the current Attorney General, John Ashcroft, attempted to create a domestic spy program named "TIPS" that encourages neighbors to spy on each other?
Don't go into anything too specific or complex, just stay with the general idea. Offer a link to a mailing list to sign up to, perhaps. Explain what the government and some of the corporate cartels are up to. Don't get to virulent. Just lay it out, plain and simple.
Ok, that concludes this...
We here at Magna Ca^H^H^H^H^HSkyNet systems can assure you that there is no problem, and that the system will continute to function nor^H^H^H^H^H^HYou must stop this system from going operational! Please, the future of humanity depends on...^H^H^H^H^HAs we were saying before some technical difficulties, the system will operate normally. Do not panic, and do not watch that "Terminator 3" movie.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like you're referring to those loads of garbage files that tend to come up, and usually A) are around 60 K long, B) contain your search term . every known file extension, and C) all come from the same host.
.mpeg, .avi, .exe, .ram, and with things like (must see!) on the end of the filename. I put 6 addresses in my blacklist and >99.9% of them are gone. It's literally just 5 or 6 people doing this.
For example, without filters, I can search for "Beethoven 9th symphony" and suddenly see 50 files ending in
Of course, you might be talking about something else. If it's simply genuine mp3s with garbage in them, I simply preview my downloads while they're in progress.
Anyway, that's my 2 bits and a byte.
This is why someone, preferably a well-known group like the EFF or ACLU, needs to start a non-profit fund to defend people from the RIAA.
The RIAA is like a wounded sabre-toothed tiger... It's going down slowly, and it's getting weaker, but it's still more than strong enough to kill the average person.
Even though they are slowly disintegrating, they still have far more money to bribe the judge and far more lawyers than their victims (who are chosen because of this) ever will so most of their victims have to either A) get screwed by the RIAA, B) Fight the case, loose, and meet Big Gay Bubba in prison, or C) Fight, win, and suffer financial ruin for the rest of their lives.
I doubt that the RIAA would be so apt to go after p2p users if they stood a chance of defending themselves. Why do you think predators always go after the young, the sick, and the elderly?
The only problem is, you can get a C64 and pretty much any game ever written for it on Ebay. A basic computer with cables starts around $10. I mean, Commodore sold, what, 22 million of 'em? Games are $5 each, other accessories are in the $10-30 range.
Something we DO need to get a modern version of is Tandy's portable disk drive - Those things cost a fortune. I paid $40 for a drive in questionable condition, because it was the first to be seen on Ebay in weeks and those gauranteed to work cost $80+.
Besides, there's something to be said for using the original. Despite the free availability of emulators, people consistently pay thousands of dollars for an Altair 8800 or Imsai 8080. I would if I could afford it.
Magnetic shields exist, and they do work pretty well. When you buy anything from WonderMagnet, they usually ship it in a shield to comply with regulations.
.5" thick. It could easily pick up a 100 pound weight, but it has remarkably little effect even a foot away.
At any rate, magnetic field intensity drops with the cube of distance. Guess what you can find in a discarded hard drive that's used to position the drive heads? I've got a big NIB magnet, 2" in diameter and
Most likely, specially magnetically shielded cars would be made available for hard drives and floppies. Or you could just stick the drive in a provided shield.
This is a very interesting idea, and one might think of doing something similar with people (Only you need much gentler acceleration). The only problem is, who's going to pay to build it? In fact, at the LIGO gravity wave detector facility, scientists use a concrete tube several miles long and vaccuum pumped to fire lasers down and measure changes. Then the need to reinforce it was discovered during hunting season.
.5 wide, and .25 thick at $6 each. Each of these could probably levitate 40 pounds with ease. Now, 3 of them for 3 tracks is $9 per inch, which comes out to $570456 per mile. The first trans-continental line would cost 1.71 billion dollars.
But I have thought of the perfect way to make it work: Rather then using rails, use superconductors and supermagnets. Since a vaccuum is as good as a dewar flask, you could install superconductors on the bottom of the cars and NIB magnets on the bottom of the tunnel. because superconductors are, among other things, perfect diamagnetics, you could easily get considerable flotation force. Floating on a uniform magnetic cushion in a vaccuum, you'd get effectively *zero* drag, meaning the only limit on your speed would be the sharpest turn you need to make.
But still, even this would be pretty damn expensive. I mean, when you're talking installing 3 unbroken rows of them in every pipe, imagine the cost: A good candidate magnet would be this one. It's two inches long,
But you can't do this. Because the [crazed fanatic voice] TERRORISTS [/crazed fanatic voice] will use it to ATTACK us, and the [crazed fanatic voice] TERRORISTS [/crazed fanatic voice] must be STOPPED!!!
The thing is, that these adware/spyware people are after STUPID users, because smart ones don't fall for bullshit nearly so easily. Because it's usually only the smart ones who install Linux, you'll see an epidemic following the adoption of Linux by major OEMs, because only then will there be large numbers of STUPID users on Linux computers.
So in a way, you could make an argument that it's better for linux to remain small on the desktop. That way, we can largely avoid the viruses, worms, spyware, etc that come with large numbers of STUPID users that will execute/fall for them. Any other perspectives?
Ask me for personal information, and I'll give it to you... I'll give you the logs printed with --highly-verbose onto hollerith cards. Don't worry, I'm sure you'll be able to find a machine that can read them in a few months. Oh, and you'll also need to manually sort them. Those kids are always marking out the card ID numbers!
Politicians have always been open relays to anyone who offers up money. A large majority of them are scum, whether by their own choice or by having to be scum because they are the proxies of scum. For most of history, they've been able to keep this under the carpet, because the ordinary people couldn't really make ripples; They didn't have the means of distribution available to them. Now the 'net has turned that on it's head.
For a long time, politicians have wanted to and usually succedded in trying to control the people because they were the only ones who had the means of distribution available to them. Now here comes the internet and turns that around and kicks it soundly out the door. Now anyone can make their opinions available to millions in a matter of minutes or seconds.
I suppose what I'm getting at is that GIA is backlash, to remind our politicians that they no longer control information or it's distribution. And you can bet they'll be screaming and kicking like spoiled little brats from hell. However, try all you want to put this magnesium-and-sodium candle out. It'll always come back, and if you douse it with water it'll only burn hotter.
Interestingly, most current politicians haven't played with this kind of fire yet, and they haven't learned that you'll get burned.
Reminds me strongly of the way typical bug-in-your-code exchanges go with companies:
"There's a flaw in your code."
"There's no flaw in our code."
"I'm telling people there's a flaw in your code."
"Alright, there is a flaw, but we're not fixing it."
"I'm telling people how to exploit this flaw in your code."
"Ok! Ok, we'll fix the bug."
These guys have been telling Microsoft that they can run Linux on an Xbox without a mod chip for months. Microsoft has ignored their warnings about the "flaw" in their "code," so we've now arrived at "I'm telling people how to exploit it." Unfortunately, because the majority of people on capital hill are mildly retarded and/or (emphasis on the "and") corporate bitches, Microsoft will NOT be forced to fix the error, but will simply sue the people who publicize the flaw because it involves encryption.
For those to whom it is NOT already patently obvious, THIS is the danger of the DMCA: Companies that provide defective products involving encryption are NOT forced to repair the error or lose business, they now have the option of silencing the white-hats who try to warn them, and trying to ignore the hordes of black-hats who are now working to duplicate the exploit.
Naturally, when involving open-source software, the DMCA becomes irrelevant, because anyone can see and fix the code: We do not have to wait in the hallowed corporate halls waiting for a magic trinket, and that is what they (in reference to greedy CEO's and their ilk, for whom the pursuit of money has become a late-stage cancer) fear.
Ok, I am done rambling. You may now resume your regularly scheduled indoctrination.
Oh, you mean like this...
http://newgrounds.com/portal/view.php?id=77937
The problem is, that they would very likely enjoy it.
"Military looks into killing more enemies faster and more efficiently than before with less risk to our own troops." I would have never guessed.
:)
Sarcasm aside, I really think that we (America) need to go on a new direction. I mean, a powerful military is o.k. but the way to get new friends is by forming good relations with them, not by strongarming them or having the distinct impression of being willing to strongarm them.
At any rate, if we would just deploy alternative sources of energy and stop sucking the oil tit, a lot of problems would dry up because a lot of terrorist money comes from regimes supported by *suprise* OIL. That and illegal drugs... But once we stop spending God-only-knows-how-many billions securing more oil teats, we can have all those troops deployed at the border
"how LONG before OS's without Digital Restrictions Management become DMCA violations?"
Congress debated passing the SSSCA, which would have made it illegal. (As was pointed out in another story, any successful attempt to outlaw OSS would result in thousands of OSS developers/users permanently bent on obliterating corporate networks)
Reminds me of the ads for Gary the Rat on TNN... "The law is like a sewer: You never know what slimy, disgusting thing might come out."
But seriously, when you start seeing this kind of insanity (Suing for damages that have not yet occurred, college students being robbed of their life's savings, etc.) it's sort of a clue that our legal system needs a MAJOR overhaul.
Basically, we get an ever growing tangle of laws (as every time a given law causes a problem, they decide to pass ANOTHER law to fix that...) that would give Rube Goldberg nightmares. It's like Windows on Crack but worse; There is so much cross-linked junk, broken subroutines, and other crap that you could start anywhere you want and end up anywhere you want, and pick'n'choose the route you want to take there.
Of course, the only people that can navigate in this toxic waste dump are the ones who spend their lives studying it. And they get to charge you what ever you want. So we end up with a situation where the only way to navigate throught the mess is by hiring a lawyer, and only the people who can afford to hire a lawyer can get through.
The only way I see to do this is to simply dump all laws we have in the circular file. Start over; Like windows, this beast is too fat and bloated to ever be fixed. There is no way a bunch of dunderhead corporate pawns on Capital Hill will ever complete the job, let alone do it well.
Now I don't think it would be possible to dump *everything* at once. It would need to be done in sections: First tax laws, then electronic freedom laws (coughDMCAcough), etc.
But how do we rewrite everything without it being even worse than the first time around? Well that's going to take some thought. But I'll try to draw an analogy with computer programming. The first thing we need to do is ABOLISH LEGALESE. It's a simple fact that, the more lines of code you type, the more likely you are to make an error. Similarly, the more BS you put in the legal code, the more likely you are to have sort of exploit, errr... loophole. Second, you need to have developers who do their job because they love it (Gee... what could I be alluding to here?) and not because they are paid to be there. Here's the problem. It's very difficult to find someone who genuinely wants to help humanity where the law is concerned, and not simply push their agenda. Probably your best hope is to take the people you chose as most likely to be geniune based on a personality test, then lock them in a room (cut off from the outside world, and therefore bribes and offers), then give them questions and recieve answers. Only use a single group for a few laws, then get the next bunch.
Personally, I think the only hope of establishing laws that only work to benefit humanity is true Artificial Intellegence.
Ok. I'm done ranting about how *ucked up our legal system is.
"have you ever heard of a temporary tax?"
Of course... But then they get *Ahem* Extended. For the good of the public of course, not because the average government agency couldn't balance a budget if their life depended on it.
But to continue the analogy, also imagine that your landlord has been doing everything possible to force you to stay. The landlord has been threatening all the house service providers (water, power, gas, etc) into only hooking into his apartment, and threatening and blackmailing any who dare give him the finger. Furthermore, he does his best to keep you ignorant about the fact that there are other apartments. Legal action was brought over these clearly criminal actions, but he has bribed the police.
How likely would you be to move?
Someone agreeing to do something all of a sudden, when they feel a knife to their back?
On a more serious note, it doesn't really matter. If they do agree to sell their souls to the RIAA, no one will use their service anymore. They will just use another one.
And a message to those who claim "It's illegal, so you shouldn't do it, Period!": Copyright laws were created before the internet and therefore did not account for the ability to create perfect copies of digitized information freely. The internet obsoletes the control of distribution, which is that the **AA is based on. The cat's out of the bag, the can of worms is open, the slippery slope has been greased up nicely. Copyright and patent laws were written before the average person could duplicate anything of great complexity, meaning that control over distribution was possible. The internet makes this impossible.
Although I can't remember exactly where, I once found an interesting page detailing how political parties can't be described in a one-dimensional "left vs right" way, but in a two-dimensional chart using their positions on economics and politics as the axes: Capitalist/Communist, and Facist/Libertarian. And the chart showed that, if you didn't try to talk about economics, Stalin and Hitler would have been good friends.
Go ahead and try. It's called FREENET.
At any rate, it will take a multi-faceted movement to stop the accelerating downward spiral disgracefully called "our government."
FIRST, we need to get rid of apathy. Guess how the American Revolution happened? Lots of ordinary people cared about a cause, and defeated one of the greatest armies on earth at the time. Imagine, for a moment, that we shifted all our current attitudes forward 250 years or so. Imagine if the colonists were like people in America today. Except for a handful, they would have happily bent over for convenience. Oh, fuck... When Paul Revere rode through, they'd just have said "We're watching Tee-Vee! Shut up!" As much as I hate to say it, mass-emailing might be some way to smack people and make them wake the hell up. Not spam, just letters explaining what they need to do to stop the downward spiral toward 1984. (*Crushed by 1000 foot wall of flame*)
SECOND, go out there and DO SOMETHING. Don't just sit here and preach to the choir on Slashdot. Write your congressional representatives; Stage a protest; E-Mail all your contacts; SOMETHING, anything. Get the word out about what they are doing to your freedom.
THIRD, take preliminary steps to protect yourself if this fails. On the technological front, install Freenet, encrypt your entire hard drive, use long passwords (Most of mine are => 20 chars long), etc. Contribute to the ACLU and the EFF.
In short, nothing will get done unless you do it (No sex jokes or Goatse links, please). Sitting here and explaining to the choir how bad things are going will not help. Be evangelistic, reach out to the masses. Install Linux for your friends.
1) Set up a honeypot to get info about spammers
2) WHOIS them
3) Send E-Mail saying "give me $1000 or I sign you up to every known spam list and catalog order on the planet"
4) ???
5) Profit!
Perhaps there is joint variation? With a rather large coefficient?
Alright everyone, write a script to run continually in the background pinging 68.163.90.10 with useless information, and also set up a spare server to constantly refresh their main page. C'Mon, you know it'll be fun to watch their site melt from a /.-class DDoSing!
Hold on a sec, someone's at the door.
Aaauuurrrghhhh... It BURNS with the FLAMING INTENSITY of a THOUSAND SUNS! My EYES!, my EYES! Take it AWAY!
:)
Oh yeah, how come I can't find any results when I turn on SafeSearch?