The only thing for certain is that people reading and posting to slashdot generally lack the slightest clue on the inner workings of the US Patent System. I believe that Slashdot needs to have some sort of informational session teaching readers how the system works. Until then, posts regarding failure of the US Patent system should be halted. The sort of comments and speculation found on the topic here at Slashdot on serve to misinform others. I come to you as a US Patent Examiner. Please consider this suggestion. Maybe an ask Slashdot or Slashdot interview might be a step in the right direction.
Okay, so most of us are clueless schmucks. Educate us.
Oh - you're not going to do that, you're just going to bitch about/. posters who bitch about the patent system. There is no way that anyone can reasonably argue that the patent system, as it currently stands, works well. Patents for all kinds of stupid BS are issued. The system has major flaws. Telling us "Shut Up, Don't Bitch About the Flaws, There Are No Flaws, You're Just Ignorant" doesn't change the fact that there are flaws.
If you want to explain more about how the system works, go ahead. If you want to have everyone shut up and pretend that there are no problems, I'd suggest you don't hold your breath.
Great. Get me a job in your world. I'd like a job where I could steal computers, be insubordinate, show up in shorts and t-shirts every day, work whatever hours I chose, and spend my lunch hour banging some exhibitionist chick on the conference room table.
Damn. Up until the exhibitionist chick, I was going "I've been there!".
Technically, I didn't steal computers. But I've had lots of extra hardware thrown my way. The wear what you want, work your own hours things, hell, I live that life. It's easy once you give up on making a living and just start having fun.
But now that you brought up the exhibitionist chick, I feel like my life isn't complete....
Linux users need more knowledge to do basic simple things, so sites are set up for that. MS users have different needs, and a much bigger software set to choose from.
You say that home usrs have trouble with basics like "sending email". I tell them "use Google, search for Eudora, go to the Qualcomm website, download it if you don't already have it". There are newsgroups and websites which will help with any problems they have.
No, those websites don't scream "Linux SUX! MS RULES!" the way/. does the other way around, but they are still support sites, and the information is still available.
The fact is, if everyone had to have the level of knowledge required for Linux in order to do anything with a computer, the entire hardware/software industry would have a *much* smaller user base. That's why there is a need for Linux specific sites.
I don't think you can find one well known piece of software designed to run on MS systems which doesn't have an email list, usenet group, or website which are designed to discuss how to use it. MS users aren't lacking in that respect, regardless of how many times you scream "Bullshit!".
Are there other, genuine examples of MS community sites?
The majority of the internet is essentially a MS community site. If you need info on MS software, the info is sitting there waiting. Usenet groups, email lists, websites, and more.
With a smaller group, often people need central meeting places to discuss their specific topic of interest. When you have a large enough group, having a central repository isn't necessary, and in fact would likely be counterproductive.
More to the point, the vast majority of MS users are running Windows because it's the standard. That's what they use at work, that's what they know already, lots of off-the-shelf software is available, and it will get the job done. I'm not arguing that it's "better", but for most users, if they can turn on the computer, run a word processor, surf the net, send/receive email, and do the other basics that they want to do, then they are happy. And they can do that.
They don't need a "community website" like/. to do what they want to do.
You're post being modded up is a good example of the problems with the/. moderation system. "Why are they not illegal. We agree to the rules (aka 'the law') when we drive." etc, blah, blah.
Yeah, very insightful - not.
They aren't illegal because there is no law against them. They aren't part of the rules - because they aren't illegal.
"These rules are there to make driving safer for everyone" doesn't apply when THERE IS NO RULE.
If you want to discuss how the system should work, fine. If you want to talk about why their *should* be a law, fine. If you want to be a complete idiot, fine. But moderators who mark such complete bull-shit as "insightful" should be shot and their moderation priviledges revolked, and posts like yours should be modded down, not up.
If you turn the lights four way red, then the ambulance or fire truck will get stuck behind a bunch of cars who are waiting for the light to change.
I've been there before, knowing that an emergency vehicle was trying to get past me and a bunch of other cars, but having no place to go where I could get out of the way.
Changing the light ahead of them to "green" helps give a way for the cars in front to clear a path.
Regardless, you're idea about how a white strobe would let them know they could blow through at full speed is just nonsense. If you had ever worked for a fire department or as an EMT, you would know that they simply do *not* drive that way. Ever.
No, it will mean one less spammer filling our mailboxes with crap. They send email spam, which is much worse IMO than popups/pop-unders. Buy from x10.com and you are supporting spammers.
But what about the rest of the story? I'm going out to Radio Shack tonight to buy a bunch of X10 stuff, because it actually works.
In addition to popups/popunders, they have a long history of sending email spam. If you buy from them, you are supporting spammers. That makes *you* part of the problem.
I've never really understood why people kick up such a fuss about unwanted email. Its never really bothered me to have an extra few emails to delete. On that note I've never ever got much spam on any of my email accounts over the years and I never hide my email when posting on forums or anywhere online.
You don't post your email address on Slashdot. The domain you give here is http://garak.dyndns.org/, which doesn't resolve. So claims about how you "never hide your email when posting anywhere online" are clearly bullshit.
I have several very public addresses. I am currently receiving 250-300 spams every day, as a minimum. I've never bought from spam, a telemarketer, a shopping channel, or any of the other things that you claim make me a spam target. All that makes me a spam target is that spammers can find an email address for me.
Basically, everything you said was a lie. Why are you so pro spam? Could it be that you have a bunch of HerbalV1agra that you need to sell?
It has to do with volume and ability to slam doors.
And dogs. Don't underestimate the impact of having a large dog barking as soon as they knock on the door.:^)
Seriously, door to door just isn't very effecient for the marketer. One "salesman" can only annoy one person at a time, and it'll take them 30 seconds to walk to the next house - plus however long it takes for that person to answer the door (assuming they are even home) and tell them to F-off. That's why marketers like spam (one person can annoy millions of people in a short amount of time) and telemarketing (one person can annoy more people per hour than via door-to-door.)
Door to door, they get cussed at, have to worry about dogs, and it's time inefficient. I've seen maybe three door-to-door salesmen in the last three years. There aren't enough of them to be a problem. If there were, I'd put up a "no soliciting - owner has a dog and isn't afraid to let him loose" sign on the door.
According to my own reading of USENET - and it was fascinating stuff, I have to admit - Revolution Helicopters apparently went out of business due to an appalling safety record.
You expect spammers to give a shit about safety? I can't imagine why. Spammers are slime. All they care about is getting your money.
That site claims that "Windows Messenger Service cannot be disabled" for 98 and ME. That' can't be true, as I'm running 98, I recall turning it off some time ago, and I've never seen one of those since.
I don't know when they started doing pop-ups/pop-under advertising. Those don't work here anyway.
But there is no doubt that they send email spam. Before I knew that, I had signed up to their mailing list. Their mail to that address wasn't spam - I'd signed up because I was interested in the product. Then, to a different address which is very public and therefore often spammed, I received email advertising their company and their products. That *was* spam. At that point, I unsubscribed the original address and told them that I don't do business with spammers.
You don't have to trust me. Look it up at groups.google.com and you'll see that they've spammed a lot of people.
Or you can continue to support spammers. It's up to you.
Correct. It isn't a story about patents, despite the Slashdot headlines. It's about a company who thought that allowing known spammers to run up a bill for over half of a million dollars and trusting them to pay the bill.
X10 are well known spammers. Trusting them to be honest was stupid.
until you can find me a source of dirt-cheap outdoor cameras I'll continue to buy them from X10.com
When you buy from spammers, you are directly supporting spam. I'd like to set up a simple, low-cost digital camera system for security purposes, but I won't be buying from X10 because of their email spam.
Quote from the article, link shown below for the whole thing.
Human Error Leads to AT&T's Anti-Spam Gaffe
Telco giant AT&T (Quote, Chart) on Wednesday rushed to withdraw two notices sent to business partners and customers asking for the IP addresses of all outbound SMTP (define) servers because of a "human error" gaffe.
With a significant increase in incoming spam over the past few days, AT&T sent out the notices demanding the IP addresses, presumably to create a white list of gateways from which e-mail will be accepted. But a company spokesman now says customers should ignore the requests.
"Those e-mails went out in error. They never should have been sent. We have apologized and we're requesting that customers disregard them," AT&T spokesman Dave Johnson told internetnews.com.
"It was an honest human error. Sometimes, folks makes mistakes," Johnson said.
We run a community website that sends out newsletters to our customers. This newsletter is sent out if the users does not uncheck the box "Yes I want too recieve newsletter......bla bla"
So you're tricking people into signing up, and you're surprised that people complain about you sending spam. You could save yourself some trouble by having them check that box if they want the newsletter. That way, only people who realy want the newsletter get signed up. "OptInByTrickery" isn't a good plan - for an honest business, at least.
The Internet will degenerate into a fragmented, unreliable system where you never know who will receive your email.
That's already happened. Filters, blacklists, and human error when sorting real mail from spam already mean that you can't be sure that any given email you send will reach it's destination. In addition, people have a tendency to hide their email address, since making it available in public usually means getting more spam. Spam has already led us to where email is unreliable.
I don't believe that the ATT system as described is likely to work for various reasons. But I do believe that whitelists of trusted sites should be developed. If Spamhaus, for instance, were to create a list of whitelist sites, and share it similar to the blacklists, I would expect that to be quite useful.
Personally, I use whitelisted addresses to make sure that most of the mail I want skips right through the rest of the spam filtering. I might miss a legitimate mail the first time someone contacts me, as their mail is mixed in with the spam. But normally the first time I receive mail from someone not already whitelisted, their address is added. It saves me a ton of time. It's also a completely different beast from running an ISP and whitelisting IP's.
I've found that if I bounce back every piece of true spam I get, over a few weeks or months, my rate of incoming spam seems to decrease substantially.
I can't imagine why. 90% of the spam I see has fake email addresses in the From and ReplyTo fields. Spammers like to hide. (It seems a bit illogical. They fight to get their name/website/message across to millions of people who don't want it, and at the same time they hide who they are and make it hard to contact them. It's a weird way of thinking about advertising.)
I suspect that by bouncing all of your spam, mostly you just add to the bandwidth and annoy people who's email addresses have been forged in the spam.
These people don't realise that what they are doing is wrong, or they flat out don't care
Spamford sent porno spam. The nature of spam means that everyone gets it, so that means he sent porno spam to kids.
He knew exactly what he was doing. He just didn't care.
And he stopped spamming because he lost several multi million dollar lawsuits. He didn't have to pay the cash right then, but he did have to agree that if he spammed those companies (or their customers) again, that the bill would come do as soon as he sent the spam.
If he had continued to spam, he would have been broke for the rest of his life. Pretending he just "got tired of it" is bullshit.
Software patents are horribly evil, and if the EU is stupid enough to follow the us Americans, they will be *very* *very* sorry.
I started programming in 1980 or 81, and I've lived in America all my life. And I don't like what I see happening with software patents. People have filed suits saying they own hotlinks, any kind of menu driven website, cookies, handshakes (in spam they call them "Challenge/Response" systems) etc. The vast majority (in fact, almost every example I've seen) should be available to the public.
If patents had been available then, Visicalc would have the patent on spreadsheets (or MS would have bought them out, and MS would own that patent). Lord knows who would have the "database" and "word processor" patents. We may only have one OS to choose from, and writing another would be illegal unless you could buy a license to use their patent. It's ridiculous to take the software industry, with so many people doing very similar types of development, and say "They had an idea over here, and got their patent in first, so they own that for 20 years". If software patents were available in the US 50 years ago, our computer technology would be 20 years behind where we are now, and moving forward even slower than it is.
Large companies probably like the patent idea, thinking they'll make a killing off of one good idea. They don't see the major downsides which will occur - and anyone of us who isn't a major company will certainly be worse off if the American patent system continues.
If it's working that well for us, I can't imagine why anyone else would want to follow the same path.
I gave very concrete real world examples. microsoftsucks.com, taubmansucks.com, shopsatwillowbend.com, pokey.org, whitehouse.com. There are many more examples. The USA's first amendment trumps rules the college makes, as well as California state law.
You're telling me that I don't understand tradmark law, and I agree. I'm not a lawyer, and I don't have any personal experience with trying to enforce or protect a trademark. I have one registered domain, unrelated to any trademarks.
But I have spent the time to read through the entire taubmansucks.com story, including the legal arguments, and I do know how that case came out. Likewise, I know the story behind pokey.org. You're saying I that I'm wrong and this is a clear-cut case, but I've pointed out evidence that it isn't that clear cut. Obviously, if the site pretends to be an official UCSD site, UCSD would win in court. But if they make it clear they are not officially related to UCSD, that isn't so clear.
On that page you'll find this quote, which appears to relate.
Hence, as per the language of the Lanham Act, any expression embodying the use of a mark not "in connection with the sale . . . or advertising of any goods or services," and not likely to cause confusion, is outside the jurisdiction of the Lanham Act and necessarily protected by the First Amendment.
Perhaps I'm completely wrong. But if so, I'd sure like someone to explain why, instead of saying "You don't know what you're talking about, go hire a lawyer." I've quoted rulings and judges - what evidence do you have that I'm wrong?
One point we do agree on. The easy solution for the owner of the site would be to register another domain, redirect the old site to the new one, and move on. That's what I'd do.
I think that if they do own the acronym, you're up shit creek
Disagree. There is a lot more to it than that.
Legal precedent and info @ www.taubmansucks.com. I'm sure Microsoft would love to get rid of microsoftsucks.com. The story over pokey.org (Google for it) ties in. There are numerous other examples.
Slashdot Mirror
Okay, so most of us are clueless schmucks. Educate us.
Oh - you're not going to do that, you're just going to bitch about /. posters who bitch about the patent system. There is no way that anyone can reasonably argue that the patent system, as it currently stands, works well. Patents for all kinds of stupid BS are issued. The system has major flaws. Telling us "Shut Up, Don't Bitch About the Flaws, There Are No Flaws, You're Just Ignorant" doesn't change the fact that there are flaws.
If you want to explain more about how the system works, go ahead. If you want to have everyone shut up and pretend that there are no problems, I'd suggest you don't hold your breath.
Damn. Up until the exhibitionist chick, I was going "I've been there!".
Technically, I didn't steal computers. But I've had lots of extra hardware thrown my way. The wear what you want, work your own hours things, hell, I live that life. It's easy once you give up on making a living and just start having fun.
But now that you brought up the exhibitionist chick, I feel like my life isn't complete....
You say that home usrs have trouble with basics like "sending email". I tell them "use Google, search for Eudora, go to the Qualcomm website, download it if you don't already have it". There are newsgroups and websites which will help with any problems they have.
No, those websites don't scream "Linux SUX! MS RULES!" the way /. does the other way around, but they are still support sites, and the information is still available.
The fact is, if everyone had to have the level of knowledge required for Linux in order to do anything with a computer, the entire hardware/software industry would have a *much* smaller user base. That's why there is a need for Linux specific sites.
I don't think you can find one well known piece of software designed to run on MS systems which doesn't have an email list, usenet group, or website which are designed to discuss how to use it. MS users aren't lacking in that respect, regardless of how many times you scream "Bullshit!".
The majority of the internet is essentially a MS community site. If you need info on MS software, the info is sitting there waiting. Usenet groups, email lists, websites, and more.
With a smaller group, often people need central meeting places to discuss their specific topic of interest. When you have a large enough group, having a central repository isn't necessary, and in fact would likely be counterproductive.
More to the point, the vast majority of MS users are running Windows because it's the standard. That's what they use at work, that's what they know already, lots of off-the-shelf software is available, and it will get the job done. I'm not arguing that it's "better", but for most users, if they can turn on the computer, run a word processor, surf the net, send/receive email, and do the other basics that they want to do, then they are happy. And they can do that.
They don't need a "community website" like /. to do what they want to do.
Yeah, very insightful - not.
They aren't illegal because there is no law against them. They aren't part of the rules - because they aren't illegal. "These rules are there to make driving safer for everyone" doesn't apply when THERE IS NO RULE.
If you want to discuss how the system should work, fine. If you want to talk about why their *should* be a law, fine. If you want to be a complete idiot, fine. But moderators who mark such complete bull-shit as "insightful" should be shot and their moderation priviledges revolked, and posts like yours should be modded down, not up.
I've been there before, knowing that an emergency vehicle was trying to get past me and a bunch of other cars, but having no place to go where I could get out of the way.
Changing the light ahead of them to "green" helps give a way for the cars in front to clear a path.
Regardless, you're idea about how a white strobe would let them know they could blow through at full speed is just nonsense. If you had ever worked for a fire department or as an EMT, you would know that they simply do *not* drive that way. Ever.
I love it when the AC's get pissed because I told the truth. :^)
No, it will mean one less spammer filling our mailboxes with crap. They send email spam, which is much worse IMO than popups/pop-unders. Buy from x10.com and you are supporting spammers.
In addition to popups/popunders, they have a long history of sending email spam. If you buy from them, you are supporting spammers. That makes *you* part of the problem.
Like Google.com, Yahoo.com, and Hotmail.com? Yeah, those guys are long gone...
You don't post your email address on Slashdot. The domain you give here is http://garak.dyndns.org/, which doesn't resolve. So claims about how you "never hide your email when posting anywhere online" are clearly bullshit.
I have several very public addresses. I am currently receiving 250-300 spams every day, as a minimum. I've never bought from spam, a telemarketer, a shopping channel, or any of the other things that you claim make me a spam target. All that makes me a spam target is that spammers can find an email address for me.
Basically, everything you said was a lie. Why are you so pro spam? Could it be that you have a bunch of HerbalV1agra that you need to sell?
It has to do with volume and ability to slam doors.
And dogs. Don't underestimate the impact of having a large dog barking as soon as they knock on the door. :^)
Seriously, door to door just isn't very effecient for the marketer. One "salesman" can only annoy one person at a time, and it'll take them 30 seconds to walk to the next house - plus however long it takes for that person to answer the door (assuming they are even home) and tell them to F-off. That's why marketers like spam (one person can annoy millions of people in a short amount of time) and telemarketing (one person can annoy more people per hour than via door-to-door.)
Door to door, they get cussed at, have to worry about dogs, and it's time inefficient. I've seen maybe three door-to-door salesmen in the last three years. There aren't enough of them to be a problem. If there were, I'd put up a "no soliciting - owner has a dog and isn't afraid to let him loose" sign on the door.
You expect spammers to give a shit about safety? I can't imagine why. Spammers are slime. All they care about is getting your money.
That site claims that "Windows Messenger Service cannot be disabled" for 98 and ME. That' can't be true, as I'm running 98, I recall turning it off some time ago, and I've never seen one of those since.
But there is no doubt that they send email spam. Before I knew that, I had signed up to their mailing list. Their mail to that address wasn't spam - I'd signed up because I was interested in the product. Then, to a different address which is very public and therefore often spammed, I received email advertising their company and their products. That *was* spam. At that point, I unsubscribed the original address and told them that I don't do business with spammers.
You don't have to trust me. Look it up at groups.google.com and you'll see that they've spammed a lot of people.
Or you can continue to support spammers. It's up to you.
X10 are well known spammers. Trusting them to be honest was stupid.
When you buy from spammers, you are directly supporting spam. I'd like to set up a simple, low-cost digital camera system for security purposes, but I won't be buying from X10 because of their email spam.
So you're tricking people into signing up, and you're surprised that people complain about you sending spam. You could save yourself some trouble by having them check that box if they want the newsletter. That way, only people who realy want the newsletter get signed up. "OptInByTrickery" isn't a good plan - for an honest business, at least.
That's already happened. Filters, blacklists, and human error when sorting real mail from spam already mean that you can't be sure that any given email you send will reach it's destination. In addition, people have a tendency to hide their email address, since making it available in public usually means getting more spam. Spam has already led us to where email is unreliable.
I don't believe that the ATT system as described is likely to work for various reasons. But I do believe that whitelists of trusted sites should be developed. If Spamhaus, for instance, were to create a list of whitelist sites, and share it similar to the blacklists, I would expect that to be quite useful.
Personally, I use whitelisted addresses to make sure that most of the mail I want skips right through the rest of the spam filtering. I might miss a legitimate mail the first time someone contacts me, as their mail is mixed in with the spam. But normally the first time I receive mail from someone not already whitelisted, their address is added. It saves me a ton of time. It's also a completely different beast from running an ISP and whitelisting IP's.
I've found that if I bounce back every piece of true spam I get, over a few weeks or months, my rate of incoming spam seems to decrease substantially.
I can't imagine why. 90% of the spam I see has fake email addresses in the From and ReplyTo fields. Spammers like to hide. (It seems a bit illogical. They fight to get their name/website/message across to millions of people who don't want it, and at the same time they hide who they are and make it hard to contact them. It's a weird way of thinking about advertising.)
I suspect that by bouncing all of your spam, mostly you just add to the bandwidth and annoy people who's email addresses have been forged in the spam.
Spamford, you reading this? This is a message from an old "friend". Fuck off and die.
Spamford sent porno spam. The nature of spam means that everyone gets it, so that means he sent porno spam to kids.
He knew exactly what he was doing. He just didn't care.
And he stopped spamming because he lost several multi million dollar lawsuits. He didn't have to pay the cash right then, but he did have to agree that if he spammed those companies (or their customers) again, that the bill would come do as soon as he sent the spam.
If he had continued to spam, he would have been broke for the rest of his life. Pretending he just "got tired of it" is bullshit.
I started programming in 1980 or 81, and I've lived in America all my life. And I don't like what I see happening with software patents. People have filed suits saying they own hotlinks, any kind of menu driven website, cookies, handshakes (in spam they call them "Challenge/Response" systems) etc. The vast majority (in fact, almost every example I've seen) should be available to the public.
If patents had been available then, Visicalc would have the patent on spreadsheets (or MS would have bought them out, and MS would own that patent). Lord knows who would have the "database" and "word processor" patents. We may only have one OS to choose from, and writing another would be illegal unless you could buy a license to use their patent. It's ridiculous to take the software industry, with so many people doing very similar types of development, and say "They had an idea over here, and got their patent in first, so they own that for 20 years". If software patents were available in the US 50 years ago, our computer technology would be 20 years behind where we are now, and moving forward even slower than it is.
Large companies probably like the patent idea, thinking they'll make a killing off of one good idea. They don't see the major downsides which will occur - and anyone of us who isn't a major company will certainly be worse off if the American patent system continues.
If it's working that well for us, I can't imagine why anyone else would want to follow the same path.
You're telling me that I don't understand tradmark law, and I agree. I'm not a lawyer, and I don't have any personal experience with trying to enforce or protect a trademark. I have one registered domain, unrelated to any trademarks.
But I have spent the time to read through the entire taubmansucks.com story, including the legal arguments, and I do know how that case came out. Likewise, I know the story behind pokey.org. You're saying I that I'm wrong and this is a clear-cut case, but I've pointed out evidence that it isn't that clear cut. Obviously, if the site pretends to be an official UCSD site, UCSD would win in court. But if they make it clear they are not officially related to UCSD, that isn't so clear.
See this court ruling.
On that page you'll find this quote, which appears to relate.
Perhaps I'm completely wrong. But if so, I'd sure like someone to explain why, instead of saying "You don't know what you're talking about, go hire a lawyer." I've quoted rulings and judges - what evidence do you have that I'm wrong?
One point we do agree on. The easy solution for the owner of the site would be to register another domain, redirect the old site to the new one, and move on. That's what I'd do.
Disagree. There is a lot more to it than that. Legal precedent and info @ www.taubmansucks.com. I'm sure Microsoft would love to get rid of microsoftsucks.com. The story over pokey.org (Google for it) ties in. There are numerous other examples.