The "rootkit" does not seem to be very effective at hiding itself and the malware processes:
These two processes show up using (our backdoored) "ps", so I guess that why the attacker renamed it to "smbd":
root@server1:/var/.x/psotnic# ps axuw | grep smb
root 3799 0.0 0.4 8592 2156 ? S 11:00 0:00/usr/sbin/smbd -D
In fact, the whole crack of the server seems to be pretty amateurish. Still, even if the analysis was not very good, it is interesting article.
What huh? The US can most certainly tax non-resident corporations.
Only if those corporations agree to being taxed, or if they have a presence in the USA. If they don't have a presence, there is no way to enforce collection.
First, you amend the law to allow online gambling, but only allow banks to transfer money to licensed companies.
I suspect that the WTO would see this as simply another way in which the US would be failing to live up to its WTO agreements. "Licensing" could be refused for arbitrary reasons, or there could be double-taxation issues. It's just another non-tariff barrier.
The WTO ruling is orthogonal to whether online gambling in the US is illegal or not.
No, it isn't. The constitution states that treaties become the law of the land. Thus, if, under the WTO treaty, offshore gambling should be legal, then it was legal. Now I am not a lawyer, and I don't know whether such an argument would hold water, but I am willing to bet that there are lawyers out there who are considering just such an argument.
The monitoring is essentially voluntary. By that I mean that there is no software that can be placed on his PC that he cannot disable. And, given that he has physical access to the PC, disable in a manner that cannot be tracked. He's not some clueless guy who would not be able to get around the software. The most obvious means being a live CD.
Assuming the s/w sends out the monitoring info reat time, he could easily put his PC behind a router, such running a modified version of OpenWRT, or DD-WRT and have it drop certain packets.
He might just as well keep a log of his activities on paper and submit that to his probation officer.
And that's what the WTO is saying. The US is free to ban gambling, so long as they ban ALL gambling, not just gambling done by companies outside the country. And the US would be free to tax gambling, so long as it taxes ALL gambling. So the problem isn't that the US isn't getting a piece - they could allow gambling and tax it and get a piece.
The problem for the US is how to collect the taxes. The US can't tax no-resident corporations. One way might be to have US residents report their gambling activities in their annual tax filings and pay the tax, but look at how well that approach works for states that demand "use" taxes for inter-state puchases.
There is a secondary problem -- what about those people that the US has thrown in jail for running offshore Internet gambling operations. What happens to them if the US decides that Internet gambling is legal? Could they sue on the basis that Internet gambling is currently legal because of the US's treaty obligations (the WTO treaties) and thus their convictions were wrong?
What if I am trying to download a large file and the leech is using some of the bandwidth, so my download is slower? What if I hit my monthly allowance because of the data downloaded by the leech?
In this case, the owner was probably freaked by having someone sitting in a car parked outside his house.
Before anyone starts in with the "if the door is open, you can't go into someones house anyway" argument,
Actually, I believe that, in the UK, you can go in, quite legally. The laws against trespass are somewhat mild in the UK -- until a decade or so ago, trespass was not illegal, now mass trespass is illegal, but I don't think individual trespass is illegal.
This is again an example of how a company should deal with their customers. Thank you Google.
Companies should offer difficult-to-use refunds and only when called on it should they do the honest thing and provide a proper refund? It's good to see what Google is doing now (and espcially so given that there is effectively a double-refund), but really, they should had done this at the outset (it would have cost Google less also).
Walmart's store currently does not let me in with Firefox on Linux (even with U-A switcher). Why not? If they really are selling DRM-free music, why limit the platforms?
Well when you try to print it more then you're allowed you get a nice:
"Sorry! You have already printed this coupon the number of times allowed."
error message. I dont know how else they're supposed to phrase it.
Where is the the contract? Where is the agreement? "allowed" by what?
How else should they do this? Wrap the download and installation of the software in a EULA that requires the user to accept the limitations on the number of coupons printed.
However, this was merely one step in copying coupons and intentionally violating the terms of the site.
If you would like to find the contract that limits the number of coupons to be printed by the consumer, then I could agree with you. But I can't find it and I suspect that the reason the company is trying to use the DMCA is that it (the supposed terms) does not exist.
Isn't there some fraud possibility? If the coupons have a limit (2 per person) that you agree to by checking a box or whatever?
If there is, I can't find it on their site. It looks like they try to use technical measures only. In any case, how is this a DMCA violation? At best it is a contract or license violation.
More importantly, though, compare the cost of the cheapest CPU that performs acceptably for most peoples' daily needs. This has been dropping considerably for a long time.
Except that such CPUs are only available on eBay. Really, the lowest-end CPUs that either Intel or AMD are builing today are wildly overpowered for most people's needs. I just upgraded my wife's computer to an Athlon 1800+. She had not complained about it being slow before the upgrade (Duron CPU), but since I had the MB, CPU and memory all lying around, I thought it a good idea.
Does that mean that if I get pulled over doing 100mph in a school zone that it's Chrysler's fault and not mine? Did Chrysler take measures to prevent me from speeding in a school zone?
My first thought was similar, but the complaint has an interesting point: AOL offers parental controls. If those controls don't keep your child from using the computer in an illegal manner, are they defective and does this make AOL liable?
To use your car analogy (usually a bad idea), Chrysler sells the car with a parental control which they claim will keep your kids out of trouble and your kids are stopped doing 100mph in a school zone, does Chrysler have any liability?
I think it's impossible for any CEO, even if they have a technical background, to be aware of every technical issue within their organization. In any complex endeavor, there's just too much going on. At this point, it seems like Tom has suffered quite a bit already. He's lost the business he's spent a decade growing.
It's up to the CEO to ask the right questions, not to necessarily have the right technical background to understand the product. In this case, the right questions would revolve around security (given the laws about medical privacy). Did he arrange security audits of his products? Did he hire people with a background in secure IT products? He may well have done all these things, in which case the loss of his business and the consequences are truly unfortunate.
they have vans that drive around that can detect TVs and such. I saw it many many years ago on an episode of the Young Ones. The concept is totally alien to people in the US but that is how BBC is funded.
I don't know what ithe situation is today, but they only ever had a tiny number of vans. Mostly they compare a database of all known addresses with addresses of license holders and send someone round to peer in the windows for evidence of a TV at any address that does not have a license
I mean, do they want people to pay for their content and watch advertisements or not?
As long as it is only a small number of people, they don't care if you don't watch the ads -- there is no way to gather statistics on whether you watch the ads or not, so it is ultimately the advertisers' problem. If a large number of people skip ads, then it would affect pricing for adverts which would make it the cable companies' problem.
So, bearing that in mind, the cable companies want you to pay them as much as possible. They would rather have you rent a DVR service from them for $10/month, than pay much less for programming information.
I think the smart artists and studios will realize that there is a golden opportunity here to shed the 800 lb. gorilla of the record company and its distribution networks. For decades, these guys have been robbing artists blind, while they made untold millions.
I have been wating for this to happen, but it has not yet. Perhaps there are contractual relationships and copyright ownership issues that prevents it.
However, imagine a scenario where an established band dumps the traditional publishers and elects to publish exclusively through iTunes. Instead of getting a tiny fraction of that 99c, the band would get 79c for each track sold. How much does a band net from a CD sale? It is still quite small, so the number of tracks sold on iTunes would probably be less than the number of full CDs sold for the band to make more money.
Only for strict definitions of the term "CD" -- there are many shiny disks available for purchase that contain music and DRM, but don't meet the requirements to be a "CD". Nevertheless, they play in most CD players.
What's the difference between this and breaking DRM on a music CD so that you can rip it to MP3 to play on your iPod?
The fact that with a CD, I pay for the ability to listen to it an unlimited number of times, while with this service, I pay for the right to watch the movie a limited number of times (or a limited timespan in which to watch it).
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The monitoring is essentially voluntary. By that I mean that there is no software that can be placed on his PC that he cannot disable. And, given that he has physical access to the PC, disable in a manner that cannot be tracked. He's not some clueless guy who would not be able to get around the software. The most obvious means being a live CD.
Assuming the s/w sends out the monitoring info reat time, he could easily put his PC behind a router, such running a modified version of OpenWRT, or DD-WRT and have it drop certain packets.
He might just as well keep a log of his activities on paper and submit that to his probation officer.
There is a secondary problem -- what about those people that the US has thrown in jail for running offshore Internet gambling operations. What happens to them if the US decides that Internet gambling is legal? Could they sue on the basis that Internet gambling is currently legal because of the US's treaty obligations (the WTO treaties) and thus their convictions were wrong?
In this case, the owner was probably freaked by having someone sitting in a car parked outside his house.
I would be most interested to know what OS is on his wife's computer. If Linux, what distro.
It's good to see what Google is doing now (and espcially so given that there is effectively a double-refund), but really, they should had done this at the outset (it would have cost Google less also).
Walmart's store currently does not let me in with Firefox on Linux (even with U-A switcher). Why not? If they really are selling DRM-free music, why limit the platforms?
How else should they do this? Wrap the download and installation of the software in a EULA that requires the user to accept the limitations on the number of coupons printed.
To use your car analogy (usually a bad idea), Chrysler sells the car with a parental control which they claim will keep your kids out of trouble and your kids are stopped doing 100mph in a school zone, does Chrysler have any liability?
1 "End User License Agreement," a contract of adhesion, abominably long, written in tiny print, which no one reads.
So, bearing that in mind, the cable companies want you to pay them as much as possible. They would rather have you rent a DVR service from them for $10/month, than pay much less for programming information.
However, imagine a scenario where an established band dumps the traditional publishers and elects to publish exclusively through iTunes. Instead of getting a tiny fraction of that 99c, the band would get 79c for each track sold. How much does a band net from a CD sale? It is still quite small, so the number of tracks sold on iTunes would probably be less than the number of full CDs sold for the band to make more money.
Why has no-one done this? Risk? Laziness?