CompuServe had a (small) spam problem. Even when it was mostly a dialup service.
Once email moved to the IP based internet, spam took off in a huge way. Doing the same with phones is not likely to fix the robocalling, its more likely to make it much much worse.
Each year, billions of dollars are sent by migrant workers to their home countries, with some estimates putting the total value of remittances at more than $200 billion. For some countries, remittances make up a sizable portion of GDP.
Since 1996 they have been worth more than all overseas-development aid, and for most of the past decade more than private debt and portfolio equity inflows. In 2011 remittances to poor countries totalled $372 billion, according to the World Bank (total remittances, including to the rich world, came to $501 billion). That is not far off the total amount of foreign direct investment that flowed to poor countries. Given that cash is ferried home stuffed into socks as well as by wire transfer, the real total could be 50% higher.
Remittances are playing an increasingly large role in the economies of many countries, contributing to economic growth and to the livelihoods of less prosperous people (though generally not the poorest of the poor). According to World Bank estimates, remittances totaled US$414 billion in 2009, of which US$316 billion went to developing countries that involved 192 million migrant workers. For some individual recipient countries, remittances can be as high as a third of their GDP.... A majority of the remittances from the US have been directed to Asian countries like India (approx. 66 billion USD in 2011), China (approx. $57 billion USD)and Philippines (approx. 23 billion USD)
Next time, before you burn a whole mod point, do just a tad of research.
They imply that some of these can kill fish embryos in closed bays and estuaries.
one study linked unidentified oil chemicals to a spike in fish embryo deaths in San Francisco Bay
Really? How do they know it wasn't just raw sewage, or industrial chemicals if they didn't even identify the chemical, or even prove it came from the oil spill?
However, it appears their real complaint is this:
Reddy says overlooking these chemicals could hinder spill research in several ways, including thwarting scientists’ attempts to account for what happens to oil after a spill. After the Deepwater Horizon spill, government and academic groups could only explain the fate of about 75% of the oil released into the Gulf of Mexico. The oxidized compounds could be a portion of this “missing” oil, Reddy says.
Its not that the oil is "missed", its just that the oil once degraded to the point that it is not oil anymore is hard for them to measure with current methods, so they can't figure out where it went.
The main point, is that the oil is gone, degraded, oxidized, etc. The most dangerous (to marine life) part of the spill is gone. The extent to which it is gone serves as an indirect measure of what these guys are trying to measure.
They offer very little in the way of support for their assertion that these chemicals are harmful.
You are slamming your post into the world without a any sign of a licence.
Its printed on every page:
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Terms are also posted on the site here: http://geeknetmedia.com/terms-of-use/ Pay special attention to:
6. LICENSING AND OTHER TERMS APPLYING TO CONTENT POSTED ON THE SITES
Exactly. That's what I said. They only care about losing money by allowing others to free-ride on your connection instead of buying their own. That is the real (and only) reason they all have no-sharing clauses.
Take a look at your own admissions policy. I suspect you fill find the answer as to why you think your campus would be empty.
Even State Funded Universities are falling into the trap of rejecting anything but perfect 4.0 local citizens just to have room for the "diversity" crowd from over seas.
B Student: You go to trade school B+ Student: You go to Community College A- Student, Maybe, depending on slots available and if you bring all your own money and are a legacy.
They come here, pay thousands of dollars in tuition, and then take all the valuable skills and knowledge they've acquired, and leave the US... which doesn't really help the US expand its economy - they're not starting companies here, paying taxes here, and creating jobs here.
Somehow, I think the thousands of dollars, which is more like 10s of thousands of dollars in tuition in addition to 10s of thousands of dollars in living expense, is a significant shot in the arm to the US economy.
Especially when you have to consider that if they stay, and manage to get a job, or start a business, they will a) recruit people from their own country to move over for marginal wages, or b) start their own "foreign aid" program, exporting cash back to their family over seas rather than spending it here, or c) some exponentially growing combination of the above.
Of these, the foreign aid types are the worst. They take a job from the US workers, then export significant amounts of cash back to god knows where. A double whammy for the US. Even if they do pay taxes (highly questionable) they claim all sorts of deductions for back home dependents.
Meanwhile, they learn the local language and culture. They are more likely to do business with you. They are more likely to buy your products because they know them. International students are often more motivated to study, lifting the general class level.
If they do in fact go home, (highly questionable), they more likely start selling stuff into your country, taking jobs away from locals. Buying stuff from France, (or wherever they were educated is usually not economically possible.
You've joined a private club. Its quite a bit different than what is being discussed.
Besides, if you get your fiber from anyone else than BT, you still have to check point 6.8 in the BTFON TOS.
6.8. If you are a Linus or Bill, you shall check if you are permitted to share bandwidth in accordance with your ISP user agreement as you are solely responsible for compliance with the ISP's contractual obligations.
While you are at it, leave a phone connected to your land line (if you still have one) on your porch for community use.
Given nation wide long distance being free, and foreign call blocking being easily available, what would be the down side of this? How many people are going to come and sit on your porch for any length of time?
All ISPs in the US already do this. They also prohibit public sharing. If you run a restaurant, you have to get a specific contract (at a higher price) that allows this public sharing. (ISPs really don't care about enforcing child porn laws, they only care about losing money because two households share one account.)
As long as no blame attaches to the ISP, they could really care less. Your contract (and safe harbor laws) already absolve the ISP from any wrong doing,
Isn't the fact that they left the ability for this "quest account" in direct conflict of the agreement.
No, because if THEY set it up for you, they always password protect it, and tell you the password. If you go and remove the password, or share it with your neighbor, that is where you might run afoul of the agreement. From where my Android phone sits, it can see at least 4 XXXXX-GUEST ssids being broadcast. They are all password protected.
It is done precisely so that your house guests can get on your internet with their phones and tablets without turning over the entire network to them.
Yeah - there's a lot wrong with this, unless some things change. 1) Suddenly the ISP loses most of their customers who all start sharing a connection; they start charging by bandwidth because it becomes the only tenable solution. 2) Your bandwidth is only so high... with everybody using it, you get slammed with a fraction of what you're paying for while others are getting the rest. 3) Your neighbors or drive-bys do something bad and you get blamed.
Your range on a household router is just barely enough to get across the street. Often, its not even enough to get off of your own lawn. In apartment buildings the you can barely penetrate one floor down or up. So the risk isn't that you will saturate your bandwidth.
The risk that the ISPs will lose a huge amount of business is exactly why they all prohibit sharing in their terms of service.
Along with liability, I would be worried about bandwidth starvation and isolation of my internal network from those "passing by". These can all be done today, but if the router an easy menu to set that up easily, it would work.
I would imagine that if it became too popular, the Internet providers will start capping usage to something crazy low.
Someone finds and an open WiFi, DL's some CP, you get the blame. One of the many reasons they can have my Cat 5e when they pry it from my cold dead fingers.
How ever, once open wifi is the norm, such prosecute the IP address holder techniques would not be possible. Cops would actually have to do some real work of finding the sources rather than going after the sinks.
"do whatever the hell you want, stop asking me if you can use it, I don't care."
Those words constitute a license. And they are sufficient to keep future user A from suing future user B. If that's what you want, by all means use it, with your name and a date attached. Saying nothing at all just sets a trap for future users.
Posting as AC its clear you don't intend to assert these rights. That's not the issue. Someone else can assert the rights.
They take your code, change it just a tiny bit, and turn around and demand license fees from other users, and perhaps you yourself. (Don't laugh, this has happened). Slap at least some kind of license on your code, if for no other reason than protect people who want to use it in the future. Give them some legal standing to use your code before some other entity asserts their own ownership.
Pick a license, any license, but don't send your code naked into the world to be used as a club by others. You aren't doing anyone any favors by releasing with no license whatsoever.
Now, what stops a company from taking your code and making massive changes to it and shipping that code for mad moneys?
Or equally likely, taking your code, change a few dates, tweak it just barely enough and post it as theirs own licensed code and demand you stop posting their copyrighted (copylefted) code, and pay license fees.
The reason people open source license their code it to prevent others from claiming your creation as their own invention and copyrighting it as their own and extracting fees from others.
Even stuff you no longer wish to maintain has value, and adding SOME FORM of a license protects those users to which you have released this code from future IP trolls.
Slashdot Mirror
CompuServe had a (small) spam problem. Even when it was mostly a dialup service.
Once email moved to the IP based internet, spam took off in a huge way.
Doing the same with phones is not likely to fix the robocalling, its more likely to make it much much worse.
Wrong first question.
Why not get rid of the telephone network?
Go entirely IP based.
Yeah, that will solve this problem, after all it worked so well for unwanted CompuServe messages.
Just change your Answering machine announcement to this little mp3:
http://www.soundjay.com/communication/sounds/dial-up-modem-01.mp3
It takes a bit of effort, but works great.
Says right there on the youtube:
Please don't watch this video. Don't send it to your friends to watch, either? Don't even leave a comment. It's just a sad waste of time.
You found any patent troll that would give that a second thought?
I have to undo some mod points, but this is so wrong I couldn't leave it unchallenged.
Great. You found ONE.
The problem is staggeringly large. For you to sacrifice your precious mod point to hand-waive the problem away is ridiculous.
From Investopedia:
Each year, billions of dollars are sent by migrant workers to their home countries, with some estimates putting the total value of remittances at more than $200 billion. For some countries, remittances make up a sizable portion of GDP.
The Economist: on these private transfers:
Since 1996 they have been worth more than all overseas-development aid, and for most of the past decade more than private debt and portfolio equity inflows. In 2011 remittances to poor countries totalled $372 billion, according to the World Bank (total remittances, including to the rich world, came to $501 billion). That is not far off the total amount of foreign direct investment that flowed to poor countries. Given that cash is ferried home stuffed into socks as well as by wire transfer, the real total could be 50% higher.
And, don't forget Wikipedia
Remittances are playing an increasingly large role in the economies of many countries, contributing to economic growth and to the livelihoods of less prosperous people (though generally not the poorest of the poor). According to World Bank estimates, remittances totaled US$414 billion in 2009, of which US$316 billion went to developing countries that involved 192 million migrant workers. For some individual recipient countries, remittances can be as high as a third of their GDP.... A majority of the remittances from the US have been directed to Asian countries like India (approx. 66 billion USD in 2011), China (approx. $57 billion USD)and Philippines (approx. 23 billion USD)
Next time, before you burn a whole mod point, do just a tad of research.
50% "missed" simply explains where the oil went, after it ceased being "oil".
They imply that some of these can kill fish embryos in closed bays and estuaries.
one study linked unidentified oil chemicals to a spike in fish embryo deaths in San Francisco Bay
Really? How do they know it wasn't just raw sewage, or industrial chemicals if they didn't even identify the chemical, or even prove it came from the oil spill?
However, it appears their real complaint is this:
Reddy says overlooking these chemicals could hinder spill research in several ways, including thwarting scientists’ attempts to account for what happens to oil after a spill. After the Deepwater Horizon spill, government and academic groups could only explain the fate of about 75% of the oil released into the Gulf of Mexico. The oxidized compounds could be a portion of this “missing” oil, Reddy says.
Its not that the oil is "missed", its just that the oil once degraded to the point that it is not oil anymore is hard for them to measure with current methods, so they can't figure out where it went.
The main point, is that the oil is gone, degraded, oxidized, etc. The most dangerous (to marine life) part of the spill is gone.
The extent to which it is gone serves as an indirect measure of what these guys are trying to measure.
They offer very little in the way of support for their assertion that these chemicals are harmful.
You are slamming your post into the world without a any sign of a licence.
Its printed on every page:
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Terms are also posted on the site here: http://geeknetmedia.com/terms-of-use/
Pay special attention to:
6. LICENSING AND OTHER TERMS APPLYING TO CONTENT POSTED ON THE SITES
Exactly. That's what I said. They only care about losing money by allowing others to free-ride on your connection instead of buying their own.
That is the real (and only) reason they all have no-sharing clauses.
Take a look at your own admissions policy.
I suspect you fill find the answer as to why you think your campus would be empty.
Even State Funded Universities are falling into the trap of rejecting anything but perfect 4.0 local citizens just to have room for the "diversity" crowd from over seas.
B Student: You go to trade school
B+ Student: You go to Community College
A- Student, Maybe, depending on slots available and if you bring all your own money and are a legacy.
They come here, pay thousands of dollars in tuition, and then take all the valuable skills and knowledge they've acquired, and leave the US... which doesn't really help the US expand its economy - they're not starting companies here, paying taxes here, and creating jobs here.
Somehow, I think the thousands of dollars, which is more like 10s of thousands of dollars in tuition in addition to 10s of thousands of dollars in living expense, is a significant shot in the arm to the US economy.
Especially when you have to consider that if they stay, and manage to get a job, or start a business, they will
a) recruit people from their own country to move over for marginal wages, or
b) start their own "foreign aid" program, exporting cash back to their family over seas rather than spending it here, or
c) some exponentially growing combination of the above.
Of these, the foreign aid types are the worst. They take a job from the US workers, then export significant amounts of cash back to god knows where. A double whammy for the US. Even if they do pay taxes (highly questionable) they claim all sorts of deductions for back home dependents.
Yes and here's a freebie
Does the US Owe the World an Education At Its Expense?
Actually, Betteridge suggests the answer is automatically NO.
Meanwhile, they learn the local language and culture. They are more likely to do business with you. They are more likely to buy your products because they know them. International students are often more motivated to study, lifting the general class level.
If they do in fact go home, (highly questionable), they more likely start selling stuff into your country, taking jobs away from locals. Buying stuff from France, (or wherever they were educated is usually not economically possible.
You've joined a private club. Its quite a bit different than what is being discussed.
Besides, if you get your fiber from anyone else than BT, you still have to check point 6.8 in the BTFON TOS.
6.8. If you are a Linus or Bill, you shall check if you are permitted to share
bandwidth in accordance with your ISP user agreement as you are solely
responsible for compliance with the ISP's contractual obligations.
While you are at it, leave a phone connected to your land line (if you still have one) on your porch for community use.
Given nation wide long distance being free, and foreign call blocking being easily available, what would be the down side of this?
How many people are going to come and sit on your porch for any length of time?
All ISPs in the US already do this. They also prohibit public sharing. If you run a restaurant, you have to get a specific contract (at a higher price) that allows this public sharing.
(ISPs really don't care about enforcing child porn laws, they only care about losing money because two households share one account.)
As long as no blame attaches to the ISP, they could really care less. Your contract (and safe harbor laws) already absolve the ISP from any wrong doing,
Isn't the fact that they left the ability for this "quest account" in direct conflict of the agreement.
No, because if THEY set it up for you, they always password protect it, and tell you the password.
If you go and remove the password, or share it with your neighbor, that is where you might run afoul of the agreement.
From where my Android phone sits, it can see at least 4 XXXXX-GUEST ssids being broadcast. They are all password protected.
It is done precisely so that your house guests can get on your internet with their phones and tablets without turning over the entire network to them.
Yeah - there's a lot wrong with this, unless some things change. 1) Suddenly the ISP loses most of their customers who all start sharing a connection; they start charging by bandwidth because it becomes the only tenable solution. 2) Your bandwidth is only so high... with everybody using it, you get slammed with a fraction of what you're paying for while others are getting the rest. 3) Your neighbors or drive-bys do something bad and you get blamed.
Your range on a household router is just barely enough to get across the street. Often, its not even enough to get off of your own lawn. In apartment buildings the you can barely penetrate one floor down or up. So the risk isn't that you will saturate your bandwidth.
The risk that the ISPs will lose a huge amount of business is exactly why they all prohibit sharing in their terms of service.
Along with liability, I would be worried about bandwidth starvation and isolation of my internal network from those "passing by". These can all be done today, but if the router an easy menu to set that up easily, it would work.
I would imagine that if it became too popular, the Internet providers will start capping usage to something crazy low.
Most routers being supplied by big providers like Comcast, Centruy Link, Cox, etc. as well as common Cisco and Apple routers, support a Guest Account, which is a separate virtual subnet, Even DD-WRT supports this. You can limit concurrent connections, range, etc.
But you still have to get around the agreement you signed with your ISP that states you will not share your connection.
Well, technically you're not. Except for the part where you're guilty until proven innocent.
When I lived in a less affluent area, I left my WiFi open as a gift to my neighbors. Never had a problem.
Well technically you ARE liable. Go read your ISP's terms of use.
You not only agreed not to share it, you also agreed to be liable for all use of it.
Someone finds and an open WiFi, DL's some CP, you get the blame. One of the many reasons they can have my Cat 5e when they pry it from my cold dead fingers.
How ever, once open wifi is the norm, such prosecute the IP address holder techniques would not be possible. Cops would actually have to do some real work of finding the sources rather than going after the sinks.
"do whatever the hell you want, stop asking me if you can use it, I don't care."
Those words constitute a license. And they are sufficient to keep future user A from suing future user B.
If that's what you want, by all means use it, with your name and a date attached.
Saying nothing at all just sets a trap for future users.
Posting as AC its clear you don't intend to assert these rights. That's not the issue.
Someone else can assert the rights.
They take your code, change it just a tiny bit, and turn around and demand license fees from other users, and perhaps you yourself. (Don't laugh, this has happened). Slap at least some kind of license on your code, if for no other reason than protect people who want to use it in the future. Give them some legal standing to use your code before some other entity asserts their own ownership.
Pick a license, any license, but don't send your code naked into the world to be used as a club by others. You aren't doing anyone any favors by releasing with no license whatsoever.
Now, what stops a company from taking your code and making massive changes to it and shipping that code for mad moneys?
Or equally likely, taking your code, change a few dates, tweak it just barely enough and post it as theirs own licensed code and demand you stop posting their copyrighted (copylefted) code, and pay license fees.
The reason people open source license their code it to prevent others from claiming your creation as their own invention and copyrighting it as their own and extracting fees from others.
Even stuff you no longer wish to maintain has value, and adding SOME FORM of a license protects those users to which you have released this code from future IP trolls.