Well I for one am Shocked! Shocked! I tell you, at this behavior on the part of dear Microsoft.
I just dont undertsand why a kind, gentle, benevolent and very large monopoly would buy a complimentary company and then do the unthinkable: stifle the competition.
They couldnt have done this before and gotten away with it... could they?
Wait... they did? INCONCEIVABLE!!
Quick! Call the United States Department of Justice! Oh wait....
As the owner and operator of a small college bookstore in the U.S., I can tell you that customer service is at the top of my list as long as I will not lose money in the long run on the endevor.
For example, students who buy a defective book in any shape or form (as long as they bought it from my store, and are not trying to pass off on me an on-line purchased book; that's why they have to have a receipt) will typically get an exchange with little or no questions asked.
I agree with you completely on the issue of overhead: the student selling those books outside of the classroom faces none of these issues.
Although this kind of thing hurts my business I would be *very* reluctant to notify the authorities of this student's (illegal) activities (selling without a vendors license, failure to pay state salex tax, not paying commission to the college, etc), because of the tremendous negative impact it would have on the goodwill I need with the student body and the college community to stay in business. This student is, as slashdotters here point out, reacting to a nasty pricing scheme. Going after this student would not solve the problem.
The incredible disparity between prices here in the states and elsewhere is a major part of the problem (others include the fact that the rising cost of college tuition and textbooks outpaces the inflation ratios of other commodities).
I have spoken to students in my bookstore in a frank and friendly way about this matter when they return their books less than a week into class. "I'm curious - what's the reason for the return?" I will ask. And when they tell me they got a book for $60.00 overseas, and it costs me MORE to purchase the same book at wholesale from the publisher, I know I am facing the inevitability of disparate pricing and market forces.
I situations like this the only real item I have on my side is customer service and the convenience of getting and returning books all in one place (I own an on-campus bookstore.) For those students in-the-know and/or hard up for cash, this does not often make enough of a difference to keep a sale in the bookstore.
My annual salary is the high 30s at a college where the student population is around 600 full-time equivilant students. I consider this salary to be in-line with that of other small business owner/operators. I dont drive a fancy car or own an expensive/fancy home.
The price of the books I sell is dictated by a contract with the college and the wholesale price of books as the publishers see fit to charge me. The bookstore I own has five empoyees. I am the only full time employee. The part time co-manager and myself get benfits. My wife and the other two part-timers do not because I cannot afford them (my wife works full-time elsewhere).
The Bookstore I own and operate is a member of the National Association of College Bookstores (NACS for short). They have been trying to address this problem with the publishers for the past year with little success.
Doubtless many slashdotters out there will identify me as part of the problem, not part of the solution. But I can say to you as a small business owner that small businesses in particular are either honest and straightforeward (or have a near-absolute corner on the market as I obviously do not) or are soon out of business.
As a result of this kind of competition I have worked to increase my convenience to the students and accpeted that as far as textbooks are concerned, I will simply make less profit. Like many in the recording industry, I thought I would be in my profession for the rest of my life. I realized over the past three years, with the growing impact of internet sales, that this may not neccessarily happen.
If it does not, the last people *I* would ever blame are the students.
.
The Details are sketchy
on
Watching You
·
· Score: 1
since only an abbreviated version of this article is available on-line. From what I have seen, though, nothing truly new is learned from the on-line version of this article.
As always, nanotechnology will simultaneously be our savior and damnation.
Your statement above makes two (incorrect) assumptions:
1) that the parent post advocates piracy via (illegal) file sharing or that the owner of the post engages in the same activity. I personally saw this implication nowhere in the parent post. IMO the portion of the parent post that basically says, "...Deal with it, because there's not a fucking thing you can do about it." is a reference to decreasing (CD) sales and the music industry's inability to deal with vendors, artists and consumers in a way that will cause sales to recover.
Your implied assumption (at least i think it was an assumption, and we all know how that phrase beaks down...) that the loss of CD music sales is due primarily to illegal file sharing theft has yet to be proven in a court of law, or the court of public opinion for that matter.
2) Even if the parent post owner does engage in (illegal) file sharing this in no way invalidates the (IMO) very strong arguemts that are made there. By your (implied) line of reasoning if person "A" is an uninsured driver and gets into an auto accident with person "B," a drunk driver who careened into his back end at a stoplight, the uninsured driver has "lost the moral high ground" because he, too, has knowingly broken the law.
In addition, let us all remember the various illegal activities the music industry has been proven *guilty* of in a court of law or by legal settlemnts: "payola," price-fixing, and violation of payment of royalties to artist via their legally binding contracts.
I personally think pay-to-send is only a matter of time, once enough people get pissed off (read as: big corporations losing enough money because of this increasing problem). Five cents per email would cut way down on my most hated form of spam, the illicit/illegal kind.
Yes, yes. I know, there are ways to defeat any pay-to-send system, but under a pay-to-send system the spammers would be easier to trace, and the presumed burden would fall under spammers.
I can't think of *any* other communication system in the world where you can send as much mail you want to as many people as you want for as little cash as you want (often less than $20 USD/ month) while still remaining anonymous for all practical purposes.
Who do you think pays for all of this wasted bandwith of spam now? The answer is Joe User. .
I remember very well the MS site reading in bold headlines "U.S. Department of Justice Vs. The Freedom To Innovate" when they were in the thick of their Anti-Trust lawsuit with the USDOJ.
I guess this is Microsoft's new form of "Innovation."
Proof positive of the negative impact of Microsoft's monopoly in the browser market coupled with the fact that they received little more than a slap on the wrist from the USDOJ in the end.
What you are talking about is very interesting, but I wonder what would happen if the the following four circumstances occur (and yes, I know it could be a long shot idea):
1) A few of the VoIPs get bought out or shareholder owned/staked-out by major cable companies. 2) VoIPs adopts a universal/national standard as a result of a consotium of these companies huddling together "looking for interoperability." 3) a major cable provider offers/advertises this standardized VoIP service "free with their broadband service." 4) other big name cable providers jump on the bandwagon.
If the above four occur, then (IMO) you will soon see VoIPs using a universal standard most of the time for Jane/Joe-User.
Now we all know cable and telcos are regulated. But most important to my analogy here, cel-phone companies are built to use a service you already explicitly pay for (traditional telco lines/services), and they are also regulated.
So, if VoIP adopts a standard protocol and it gets adopted by the major telco/cable companies, then I see the door wide open for states (and more importantly the feds) to regulate/tax individual VoIP companies in much the same way as cellular companies get taxed today.
But then again, I could be high on my drug-of-choice.
This may come as news to some, but if any (mail-order or internet) company has what is referred to as a "physical presence" within your state, then the goods are taxable, no matter how you bought them (unless you happen to be tax exempt or actually bought the product in a brick-and-mortar store, out-of-state).
This is why here, in the state of Ohio, if I order a Dell Laptop on the internet or by mail, salex tax is automatically applied.
Why? Because in Beachwood mall (there may be other locations, but one is all that it takes), there is Dell Kiosk where yuppies can buy Dell peripherals and order Dell merchandise for delivery.
What is being talked about here is the idea of taxing internet sales from out-of-state where no "physical presence" within the state exists at all.
As a business owner/operator, I do have a problem with this, as it looks to me like internet discrimination. But as a "devil's advocate" we should keep a few things in mind:
1) in many cases, the pure internet store has less overhead costs than even a mail-order catlogue, which must pay for such things as catologue production, which can be quite expensive, delivery, and telephone operators.
Pure Internet driven business can often overcome these costs by leaps and bounds with centralized datbases, html builder menus, scripts and SSL ordering (not to mention free email confirmation/delivery status, etc). There is also the economy of scale with larger companies, further enhanced by the internet's potentially global appeal.
2) Internet sites are often easier to shop-by than catlogues for the end user, and so in some cases, can cut into even the mail order business (those that aren't already also on the net, typically the very small mom-n-pop operations that dont have an owner/operator who can make a sigificant presence on the net viable).
3) The economy is increasingly becoming internet driven. We all know what e-commerce means, and that word has become ubiquitous for a reason. If left "untaxed" indefinetely, internet based sales will far outstrip that of catolgues in a matter of years, IMO.
So there's my two cents worth. Let the ranting continue.
That brings up an interesting point. The main beef I saw in the article was that the database was not auditable in the event of changes made, and that there's no other trail of information to follow.
The IRS would *never* accept the idea of accepting a tax return from the common citizen in the form of a database file without keeping some form of a copy for themselves.
And that, IMO, makes for an interesting point: The IRS is a government entity that deals with money. Where money is concerned, fully auditable paper trails are an expectation with just about any entity, let alone the IRS (just check out Wal-Mart or some other large business). Laws abound left and right in this regard, too. But, apparently, with our votes, which I think are equally, if not more important, an audit trail has been deemed unnessarily expensive.
The inherent mistrust of man when it comes to money (that the IRS holds), should be held to with voting as well.
The reason your last dupe post got modded down as flambait is because that's what it is. Just look at all the nasty ass posts you got as a reply.
This is obviously a troll but I'll bite it anyway:
Cases like these obviously demonstrate that Tort reform is needed, but....
If tort reform does succeed, and you have the sore misfortune of, for example, losing your job because of age discrimination, or your legs from a very rich drunk driver who hits you on the way home from a late night at the office, I personally hope you'll be the first one to taste the new cap on "pain-and-suffering" or "punitive damadges" awards.
I agree completely, especially when you look at the record of SBC's customer happiness factor in general, and some of their less-than-ethical business practices here in Ohio (so bad that even the state got mad).
This is a wonderfully pleasant surprise from SBC. .
IMO, you have missed the purpose of/. its mission is similar to that of NPR in that it does *precisely* what you are talking about:
In many cases (such as this one) It provides a "blow-by-blow" account of the news that is considered relevant to/. ("news for nerds. stuff that matters").
As a result of watching the political process unfold NPR listeners get more informed/educated and in many cases, more involved.
As the tech law/rights/development/history process (/.) unfolds slashdotters get more informed, educated and (hopefully)involved.
IMO, blow by blow accounts of corporate legal battles are very interesting, especially when corporate entities behave like spoiled children. If you dont like this kind of coverage, (which many respectable news outlets,besides NPR, consider interesting) then dont bother with/.
You are correct, IMO that spam is a social problem. But "social problems" are rarely fixed by mere legislation and prosecution. The last time I checked, various drugs were illegal, too. But this fact does not appear to have stopped the (illegal) drug trade. I *think* there also a whole lot of creative laws vs. market and stock fraud as well. I hear there's even an entire governmental agency to fight this, too.... Yet the Enron's, Worldcoms and Adelphia's execs still get away with it.
I for one wont hold my breath waiting for creative, effective legislation to stop Spam. The use of the three words creative, effective, and legislation together is almost an oxymoron anyway.
Its is more accurate, IMO to label Spam, as both a demand problem, like drugs, and a financial crime, very much like fraud. Spam, therefore couldn't sustain itself but for the combination of two factors:
1) the one out of a million (or whatever the number is) spam recipients who actually buy the spy-cam or p3n1s enlarger. *and* 2) the usual/customary fact that email in ANY volume/frequency is ALWAYS free.
Problems like this, therefore need to be dealt with both economically (market forces) and by law.
A better solution IMO (and as I have seen numerous times before) is to front load the cost of email on the sender. Charge one (1) penny for each email, period. Bulk email could get a discount to reduce the cost to 1/10th of a cent.
This would be made policy by, you guessed it, legislation. Half of the funds would be kept as profit by the ISP, so they wouldnt kick up a fuss about making yet more money. The other half would go to enforcement of *effective* laws vs. spam, so the ones hacking the system to spam without paying (or the ISP which allows email without payment) could be hunted down. The extra funds collected could even allow for *gasp* innovation in email/SMTP security
Yeah we'd prolly pay an extra buck or two per month, but to seveery curtial spam, I for one would do it.
I'm saddened to see that this brief one-line opinion got modded up to "5 insightful."
Do you really think this man wont foot us with bills precisely because of his Republican ideology?
How about the Iraqi occupation, which has been revaled to cost twice as much as initiually proposed by the Republican Bush Administration? Or maybe it's the Republican tax cuts like the repeal of the estate tax, which disproportionately gives brakes by the millions to the wealthy, so that when (not if) taxes go back up, who do you think will be in the best position to afford it?
Then there's the impact on state budgets by the fact that NONE of the states has gotten ANY money promised by the (GOP) Bush administartion for mandated homeland security measures. Guess who foots that bill in the end? You guessed it, people like you and me.
Who do you think pays in the end for all of the full page spreads in big city newspapers about how big brother is watching your P2P activities (or the monitoring itself)?. It all trickles down to you and I. Or perhaps you think Mitch will have a kinder, gentler prosecutorial stand?
Or maybe you need further proof, like the fact that the hundreds of average citizens being sued by the RIAA will cost money with the lawyers coming after them, and the taxpayer financed court time. Who will pay for that in the end (aside from the mostly young defendants, most of whom will capitulate/settle their life savings away)?
Unfortunately, IMO, days of Republicans *truly* saving us from bills in the long are a bygone relic of the 80's. Even there it's debatable.
I agree. I loved d2 and still play it often. In light of the fact that the d founders are gone, the likelihood of seeing d3 (at least by that name, anyway) is quite low.
Are these laws just tools to oppress unpopular computer criminals but just plain not enforced most of the time?
My Guess based on the national focus on Terrorism is yes: unless something really sticks out, we are considered small fry. The FBI simply considers it not to be worth their while.
I'd reccommend finding someone with a lot of clout to back you up with getting an investigation. I know time is/was most likely of the essence here with getting quicker investigations and results, but you could write a letter to the company's VP or such, explaining how this attack affects their image as a whle, future liability, etc.
Slashdot Mirror
Well I for one am Shocked! Shocked! I tell you, at this behavior on the part of dear Microsoft.
I just dont undertsand why a kind, gentle, benevolent and very large monopoly would buy a complimentary company and then do the unthinkable: stifle the competition.
They couldnt have done this before and gotten away with it... could they?
Wait... they did? INCONCEIVABLE!!
Quick! Call the United States Department of Justice! Oh wait....
As the owner and operator of a small college bookstore in the U.S., I can tell you that customer service is at the top of my list as long as I will not lose money in the long run on the endevor.
For example, students who buy a defective book in any shape or form (as long as they bought it from my store, and are not trying to pass off on me an on-line purchased book; that's why they have to have a receipt) will typically get an exchange with little or no questions asked.
I agree with you completely on the issue of overhead: the student selling those books outside of the classroom faces none of these issues.
Although this kind of thing hurts my business I would be *very* reluctant to notify the authorities of this student's (illegal) activities (selling without a vendors license, failure to pay state salex tax, not paying commission to the college, etc), because of the tremendous negative impact it would have on the goodwill I need with the student body and the college community to stay in business. This student is, as slashdotters here point out, reacting to a nasty pricing scheme. Going after this student would not solve the problem.
The incredible disparity between prices here in the states and elsewhere is a major part of the problem (others include the fact that the rising cost of college tuition and textbooks outpaces the inflation ratios of other commodities).
I have spoken to students in my bookstore in a frank and friendly way about this matter when they return their books less than a week into class. "I'm curious - what's the reason for the return?" I will ask. And when they tell me they got a book for $60.00 overseas, and it costs me MORE to purchase the same book at wholesale from the publisher, I know I am facing the inevitability of disparate pricing and market forces.
I situations like this the only real item I have on my side is customer service and the convenience of getting and returning books all in one place (I own an on-campus bookstore.) For those students in-the-know and/or hard up for cash, this does not often make enough of a difference to keep a sale in the bookstore.
My annual salary is the high 30s at a college where the student population is around 600 full-time equivilant students. I consider this salary to be in-line with that of other small business owner/operators. I dont drive a fancy car or own an expensive/fancy home.
The price of the books I sell is dictated by a contract with the college and the wholesale price of books as the publishers see fit to charge me. The bookstore I own has five empoyees. I am the only full time employee. The part time co-manager and myself get benfits. My wife and the other two part-timers do not because I cannot afford them (my wife works full-time elsewhere).
The Bookstore I own and operate is a member of the National Association of College Bookstores (NACS for short). They have been trying to address this problem with the publishers for the past year with little success.
Doubtless many slashdotters out there will identify me as part of the problem, not part of the solution. But I can say to you as a small business owner that small businesses in particular are either honest and straightforeward (or have a near-absolute corner on the market as I obviously do not) or are soon out of business.
As a result of this kind of competition I have worked to increase my convenience to the students and accpeted that as far as textbooks are concerned, I will simply make less profit. Like many in the recording industry, I thought I would be in my profession for the rest of my life. I realized over the past three years, with the growing impact of internet sales, that this may not neccessarily happen.
If it does not, the last people *I* would ever blame are the students.
.
since only an abbreviated version of this article is available on-line. From what I have seen, though, nothing truly new is learned from the on-line version of this article.
As always, nanotechnology will simultaneously be our savior and damnation.
.
ICANN tends to do things that favor corporate ownership of the 'net. (http://icannwatch.org/topics.pl)
Don't bother asking ICANN to defend the "public trust" because more often than not they, too, are on the side of the fence that abuses it.
.
Your statement above makes two (incorrect) assumptions:
1) that the parent post advocates piracy via (illegal) file sharing or that the owner of the post engages in the same activity. I personally saw this implication nowhere in the parent post. IMO the portion of the parent post that basically says, "...Deal with it, because there's not a fucking thing you can do about it." is a reference to decreasing (CD) sales and the music industry's inability to deal with vendors, artists and consumers in a way that will cause sales to recover.
Your implied assumption (at least i think it was an assumption, and we all know how that phrase beaks down...) that the loss of CD music sales is due primarily to illegal file sharing theft has yet to be proven in a court of law, or the court of public opinion for that matter.
2) Even if the parent post owner does engage in (illegal) file sharing this in no way invalidates the (IMO) very strong arguemts that are made there. By your (implied) line of reasoning if person "A" is an uninsured driver and gets into an auto accident with person "B," a drunk driver who careened into his back end at a stoplight, the uninsured driver has "lost the moral high ground" because he, too, has knowingly broken the law.
In addition, let us all remember the various illegal activities the music industry has been proven *guilty* of in a court of law or by legal settlemnts: "payola," price-fixing, and violation of payment of royalties to artist via their legally binding contracts.
Losing the moral high-ground? Please...
.
Umm.... MSN Hotmail on the "Exclusive" setting is already here.
.
I personally think pay-to-send is only a matter of time, once enough people get pissed off (read as: big corporations losing enough money because of this increasing problem). Five cents per email would cut way down on my most hated form of spam, the illicit/illegal kind.
Yes, yes. I know, there are ways to defeat any pay-to-send system, but under a pay-to-send system the spammers would be easier to trace, and the presumed burden would fall under spammers.
I can't think of *any* other communication system in the world where you can send as much mail you want to as many people as you want for as little cash as you want (often less than $20 USD/ month) while still remaining anonymous for all practical purposes.
Who do you think pays for all of this wasted bandwith of spam now? The answer is Joe User.
.
I remember very well the MS site reading in bold headlines "U.S. Department of Justice Vs. The Freedom To Innovate" when they were in the thick
of their Anti-Trust lawsuit with the USDOJ.
I guess this is Microsoft's new form of "Innovation."
Proof positive of the negative impact of Microsoft's monopoly in the browser market coupled with the fact that they received little more than a slap on the wrist from the USDOJ in the end.
Use IE only when you *have* to.
.
What you are talking about is very interesting, but I wonder what would happen if the the following four circumstances occur (and yes, I know it could be a long shot idea):
1) A few of the VoIPs get bought out or shareholder owned/staked-out by major cable companies.
2) VoIPs adopts a universal/national standard as a result of a consotium of these companies huddling together "looking for interoperability."
3) a major cable provider offers/advertises this standardized VoIP service "free with their broadband service."
4) other big name cable providers jump on the bandwagon.
If the above four occur, then (IMO) you will soon see VoIPs using a universal standard most of the time for Jane/Joe-User.
Now we all know cable and telcos are regulated. But most important to my analogy here, cel-phone companies are built to use a service you already explicitly pay for (traditional telco lines/services), and they are also regulated.
So, if VoIP adopts a standard protocol and it gets adopted by the major telco/cable companies, then I see the door wide open for states (and more importantly the feds) to regulate/tax individual VoIP companies in much the same way as cellular companies get taxed today.
But then again, I could be high on my drug-of-choice.
.
Finally do something useful besides irritating the public for a change
.
I love this idea. I hope we see more of it in more public places, like parks and libraries nationwide.
This may come as news to some, but if any (mail-order or internet) company has what is referred to as a "physical presence" within your state, then the goods are taxable, no matter how you bought them (unless you happen to be tax exempt or actually bought the product in a brick-and-mortar store, out-of-state).
This is why here, in the state of Ohio, if I order a Dell Laptop on the internet or by mail, salex tax is automatically applied.
Why? Because in Beachwood mall (there may be other locations, but one is all that it takes), there is Dell Kiosk where yuppies can buy Dell peripherals and order Dell merchandise for delivery.
What is being talked about here is the idea of taxing internet sales from out-of-state where no "physical presence" within the state exists at all.
As a business owner/operator, I do have a problem with this, as it looks to me like internet discrimination. But as a "devil's advocate" we should keep a few things in mind:
1) in many cases, the pure internet store has less overhead costs than even a mail-order catlogue, which must pay for such things as catologue production, which can be quite expensive, delivery, and telephone operators.
Pure Internet driven business can often overcome these costs by leaps and bounds with centralized datbases, html builder menus, scripts and SSL ordering (not to mention free email confirmation/delivery status, etc). There is also the economy of scale with larger companies, further enhanced by the internet's potentially global appeal.
2) Internet sites are often easier to shop-by than catlogues for the end user, and so in some cases, can cut into even the mail order business (those that aren't already also on the net, typically the very small mom-n-pop operations that dont have an owner/operator who can make a sigificant presence on the net viable).
3) The economy is increasingly becoming internet driven. We all know what e-commerce means, and that word has become ubiquitous for a reason. If left "untaxed" indefinetely, internet based sales will far outstrip that of catolgues in a matter of years, IMO.
So there's my two cents worth. Let the ranting continue.
That brings up an interesting point. The main beef I saw in the article was that the database was not auditable in the event of changes made, and that there's no other trail of information to follow.
The IRS would *never* accept the idea of accepting a tax return from the common citizen in the form of a database file without keeping some form of a copy for themselves.
And that, IMO, makes for an interesting point: The IRS is a government entity that deals with money. Where money is concerned, fully auditable paper trails are an expectation with just about any entity, let alone the IRS (just check out Wal-Mart or some other large business). Laws abound left and right in this regard, too. But, apparently, with our votes, which I think are equally, if not more important, an audit trail has been deemed unnessarily expensive.
The inherent mistrust of man when it comes to money (that the IRS holds), should be held to with voting as well.
.
My apologies. My link was direct from the nytimes and not the skip-the-registration google way. Glad you got one that works better.
The reason your last dupe post got modded down as flambait is because that's what it is. Just look at all the nasty ass posts you got as a reply.
This is obviously a troll but I'll bite it anyway:
Cases like these obviously demonstrate that Tort reform is needed, but....
If tort reform does succeed, and you have the sore misfortune of, for example, losing your job because of age discrimination, or your legs from a very rich drunk driver who hits you on the way home from a late night at the office, I personally hope you'll be the first one to taste the new cap on "pain-and-suffering" or "punitive damadges" awards.
I looked at the posts but havent seen this silly, yet hilariously (IMO) interesting idea, so here it goes:
Video Game makers should form the NVA (nat'l vid game assn.) and adopt this simple slogan AKA the NRA style:
"Video Games don't kill People, People kill People."
Then all the NVA would need is the millions of teen members and bucks to back it up....
I agree completely, especially when you look at the record of SBC's customer happiness factor in general, and some of their less-than-ethical business practices here in Ohio (so bad that even the state got mad).
This is a wonderfully pleasant surprise from SBC.
.
IMO, you have missed the purpose of /. its mission is similar to that of NPR in that it does *precisely* what you are talking about:
/. ("news for nerds. stuff that matters").
,besides NPR, consider interesting) then dont bother with /.
In many cases (such as this one) It provides a "blow-by-blow" account of the news that is considered relevant to
As a result of watching the political process unfold NPR listeners get more informed/educated and in many cases, more involved.
As the tech law/rights/development/history process (/.) unfolds slashdotters get more informed, educated and (hopefully)involved.
IMO, blow by blow accounts of corporate legal battles are very interesting, especially when corporate entities behave like spoiled children. If you dont like this kind of coverage, (which many respectable news outlets
.
Nike did settle their case, just so you know.
2 00 3/09/08/daily60.html
http://sanjose.bizjournals.com/sanjose/stories/
You are correct, IMO that spam is a social problem. But "social problems" are rarely fixed by mere legislation and prosecution. The last time I checked, various drugs were illegal, too. But this fact does not appear to have stopped the (illegal) drug trade. I *think* there also a whole lot of creative laws vs. market and stock fraud as well. I hear there's even an entire governmental agency to fight this, too.... Yet the Enron's, Worldcoms and Adelphia's execs still get away with it.
I for one wont hold my breath waiting for creative, effective legislation to stop Spam. The use of the three words creative, effective, and legislation together is almost an oxymoron anyway.
Its is more accurate, IMO to label Spam, as both a demand problem, like drugs, and a financial crime, very much like fraud. Spam, therefore couldn't sustain itself but for the combination of two factors:
1) the one out of a million (or whatever the number is) spam recipients who actually buy the spy-cam or p3n1s enlarger.
*and*
2) the usual/customary fact that email in ANY volume/frequency is ALWAYS free.
Problems like this, therefore need to be dealt with both economically (market forces) and by law.
A better solution IMO (and as I have seen numerous times before) is to front load the cost of email on the sender. Charge one (1) penny for each email, period. Bulk email could get a discount to reduce the cost to 1/10th of a cent.
This would be made policy by, you guessed it, legislation. Half of the funds would be kept as profit by the ISP, so they wouldnt kick up a fuss about making yet more money. The other half would go to enforcement of *effective* laws vs. spam, so the ones hacking the system to spam without paying (or the ISP which allows email without payment) could be hunted down. The extra funds collected could even allow for *gasp* innovation in email/SMTP security
Yeah we'd prolly pay an extra buck or two per month, but to seveery curtial spam, I for one would do it.
O.K. I guess I got carried away.
:-)
I'm off my soap-box now.
sorry, bud
I'm saddened to see that this brief one-line opinion got modded up to "5 insightful."
Do you really think this man wont foot us with bills precisely because of his Republican ideology?
How about the Iraqi occupation, which has been revaled to cost twice as much as initiually proposed by the Republican Bush Administration? Or maybe it's the Republican tax cuts like the repeal of the estate tax, which disproportionately gives brakes by the millions to the wealthy, so that when (not if) taxes go back up, who do you think will be in the best position to afford it?
Then there's the impact on state budgets by the fact that NONE of the states has gotten ANY money promised by the (GOP) Bush administartion for mandated homeland security measures. Guess who foots that bill in the end? You guessed it, people like you and me.
Who do you think pays in the end for all of the full page spreads in big city newspapers about how big brother is watching your P2P activities (or the monitoring itself)?. It all trickles down to you and I. Or perhaps you think Mitch will have a kinder, gentler prosecutorial stand?
Or maybe you need further proof, like the fact that the hundreds of average citizens being sued by the RIAA will cost money with the lawyers coming after them, and the taxpayer financed court time. Who will pay for that in the end (aside from the mostly young defendants, most of whom will capitulate/settle their life savings away)?
Unfortunately, IMO, days of Republicans *truly* saving us from bills in the long are a bygone relic of the 80's. Even there it's debatable.
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Bless you, sir.
Eloquently stated.
I agree. I loved d2 and still play it often. In light of the fact that the d founders are gone, the likelihood of seeing d3 (at least by that name, anyway) is quite low.
I hope at least the 1.10 patch makes it out
Are these laws just tools to oppress unpopular computer criminals but just plain not enforced most of the time?
:/
My Guess based on the national focus on Terrorism is yes: unless something really sticks out, we are considered small fry. The FBI simply considers it not to be worth their while.
I'd reccommend finding someone with a lot of clout to back you up with getting an investigation. I know time is/was most likely of the essence here with getting quicker investigations and results, but you could write a letter to the company's VP or such, explaining how this attack affects their image as a whle, future liability, etc.
My two cents