> After all, if the ISP has no record linking Time and > IP Address to a customer, then there is no way to > know who sent the spam...
Oh, that's pretty simple to deal with. Just do statistical analysis of network traffic based on remote port number - not all that unreasonable. And store the top 1%, 5%, something fairly small, who use the most SMTP traffic. No need to keep logs on people who might've sent out 3 spams in the last month.
Courts have frequently determined that if it looks, sounds and smells like a sale, it should be considered a sale. If I walk in to Wal-Mart and hand over $15 and get handed a DVD, I own that DVD.
Does this mean I can copy it? No. Copyright law prevents that. But EULA-based restrictions like my inability to play it on a Saturday, or to not resell it wouldn't be considered enforceable.
Copyright law is what's supposed to protect the publisher; contracts are addendums, specially created to deal with extra rights or conditions. If there is no agreement, and no negotiation, it's not really a contract. Courts also frequently treat boilerplate contracts as less enforceable, especially if they limit or restrict your consumer rights.
For example, most cellphone agreements specify that you must resort to arbitration instead of suing in court. Courts have decided usually that consumer protection laws are there to protect consumers, and that these are not negotiated contracts, but rather take it or leave it demands. Thus, they won't let the agreements override consumer protection laws or the court system.
Sorry for the long response, and I am not a lawyer, but I read a lot of court decisions for fun.
>You can, of course, devise technical means of > preventing it within your property -- for > example, jamming cell phone signals at > a movie theater, or the hyperbole-laden > Faraday's Cage suggestion. > I'm not sure this has been 100% verified legally
How do you propose to jam these cell phone signals? If you're not blocking them with a faraday cage or similar shield, you're gonna have to transmit some other signal. You're gonna use a radio transmitter that deliberately interferes with cellular signals? Just wait till the FCC gets a hold of you.
Ever read the small print of an FCC certification statement? If your device causes harmful interference, you must fix it. If your malfunctioning TV antenna amplifier (not that uncommon a problem) starts interfering with ham radio, cellphones, or pretty much any licensed spectrum user, you get to fix this.
More commonly, poorly installed utility company power lines - frequently loose connections - can cause interference problems. The utility company must fix that, or face potential fines. As a radio amateur, I've read through the regulations. You are not allowed to interfere.
There have been companies making police speed radar scramblers. Some of them were passive reflectors which were excited by the police gun and would reflect a jamming signal back. No power. They tried to get FCC approval on the basis of the device being harmless when left sitting on its own. The FCC smacked them down and ruled that in the device's intended application, it was interfering. In other words, using a passive jammer without an incoming police radar signal was about the same as a radio transmitter without a battery. Sure, it doesn't do anything bad, but as soon as you start too _use_ it it's bad.
So, forget the jammer. If you get caught, you'll be begging them to just take the thing and leave you a nasty letter. A $10k fine is really unpleaseant.
I'm pretty confident that this is not true. Frequently the phones only include part of the GPS receiver, depending on the cell tower to do calculations and signal reception.
More importantly, I've read every manual I could for phones with E911, and the only option you had was to allow non-911 services (ie: advertisers, or other as yet unknown services) to use it.
If you want a phone with a GPS, Nextel is the only way to go. They have phones that run J2ME java stuff, and you can access the GPS via a Java API. Unfortunately, the price for their data service is too high, and you can't use bluetooth on any of their phones.
The clipper chip was most assuredly implemented. In fact, Clipper chips sold more PCMCIA interfaces for desktop computers than just about any other application. Clipper chips were sealed modules, and PCMCIA seemed like the best way to package them.
Interestingly, there was an attack for the Clipper chip which would let you encrypt your messages such that they would appear to be decryptable by the government, but if they tried to decrypt them they'd fail.
Clipper worked as well as having government agents dressed in nazi-esque outfits in locksmith stores asking for voluntary copies of your house keys would work. That's to say, government agencies used it, but nobody else.
Slashdot Mirror
> I taught my son a lesson by destroying his iBook.
You're an idiot, but the -1, Troll already says that. At least donate it to charity or something useful.
> After all, if the ISP has no record linking Time and
> IP Address to a customer, then there is no way to
> know who sent the spam...
Oh, that's pretty simple to deal with. Just do statistical analysis of network traffic based on remote port number - not all that unreasonable. And store the top 1%, 5%, something fairly small, who use the most SMTP traffic. No need to keep logs on people who might've sent out 3 spams in the last month.
Courts have frequently determined that if it looks, sounds and smells like a sale, it should be considered a sale. If I walk in to Wal-Mart and hand over $15 and get handed a DVD, I own that DVD.
Does this mean I can copy it? No. Copyright law prevents that. But EULA-based restrictions like my inability to play it on a Saturday, or to not resell it wouldn't be considered enforceable.
Copyright law is what's supposed to protect the publisher; contracts are addendums, specially created to deal with extra rights or conditions. If there is no agreement, and no negotiation, it's not really a contract. Courts also frequently treat boilerplate contracts as less enforceable, especially if they limit or restrict your consumer rights.
For example, most cellphone agreements specify that you must resort to arbitration instead of suing in court. Courts have decided usually that consumer protection laws are there to protect consumers, and that these are not negotiated contracts, but rather take it or leave it demands. Thus, they won't let the agreements override consumer protection laws or the court system.
Sorry for the long response, and I am not a lawyer, but I read a lot of court decisions for fun.
>You can, of course, devise technical means of
> preventing it within your property -- for
> example, jamming cell phone signals at
> a movie theater, or the hyperbole-laden
> Faraday's Cage suggestion.
> I'm not sure this has been 100% verified legally
How do you propose to jam these cell phone signals? If you're not blocking them with a faraday cage or similar shield, you're gonna have to transmit some other signal. You're gonna use a radio transmitter that deliberately interferes with cellular signals? Just wait till the FCC gets a hold of you.
Ever read the small print of an FCC certification statement? If your device causes harmful interference, you must fix it. If your malfunctioning TV antenna amplifier (not that uncommon a problem) starts interfering with ham radio, cellphones, or pretty much any licensed spectrum user, you get to fix this.
More commonly, poorly installed utility company power lines - frequently loose connections - can cause interference problems. The utility company must fix that, or face potential fines. As a radio amateur, I've read through the regulations. You are not allowed to interfere.
There have been companies making police speed radar scramblers. Some of them were passive reflectors which were excited by the police gun and would reflect a jamming signal back. No power. They tried to get FCC approval on the basis of the device being harmless when left sitting on its own. The FCC smacked them down and ruled that in the device's intended application, it was interfering. In other words, using a passive jammer without an incoming police radar signal was about the same as a radio transmitter without a battery. Sure, it doesn't do anything bad, but as soon as you start too _use_ it it's bad.
So, forget the jammer. If you get caught, you'll be begging them to just take the thing and leave you a nasty letter. A $10k fine is really unpleaseant.
I'm pretty confident that this is not true. Frequently the phones only include part of the GPS receiver, depending on the cell tower to do calculations and signal reception.
More importantly, I've read every manual I could for phones with E911, and the only option you had was to allow non-911 services (ie: advertisers, or other as yet unknown services) to use it.
If you want a phone with a GPS, Nextel is the only way to go. They have phones that run J2ME java stuff, and you can access the GPS via a Java API. Unfortunately, the price for their data service is too high, and you can't use bluetooth on any of their phones.
The clipper chip was most assuredly implemented. In fact, Clipper chips sold more PCMCIA interfaces for desktop computers than just about any other application. Clipper chips were sealed modules, and PCMCIA seemed like the best way to package them.
Interestingly, there was an attack for the Clipper chip which would let you encrypt your messages such that they would appear to be decryptable by the government, but if they tried to decrypt them they'd fail.
Clipper worked as well as having government agents dressed in nazi-esque outfits in locksmith stores asking for voluntary copies of your house keys would work. That's to say, government agencies used it, but nobody else.