While no milk and honey filled existence, the Soviet block countries all offered free education and medical care, guaranteed employment and while not conductive to Western-style consumerism, at the later stage in their history (before west-induced economic collapse) the standard of living was steadily improving. In their early history they were indeed a place of repression and brutality due to their then utterly totalitarian and unstable regimes. I am not advocating Communism as a superior socio-economic system but it would end up being workable in the long term should the far more attuned to basic human failings (greed, need for domination of others) capitalism was not next door eyeing greedily the "waste" of opportunities to make money in all those resource-rich countries.
USSR seemed hell bent on taking over any country it touched through military force (Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, etc...) or political puppetry (China, Korea, Cuba).
If you were an avid history buff you would know that in the earlier stages this was caused by personal animosity between Stalin and the western leaders fueled by their thinly-vailed efforts to restore the Tzar to power in Russia, while at later times by not so thinly-vailed expansion of NATO (Warsaw pact was formed after NATO, something few western pundits these days remember) and attempts of world-dominance by the USA. After USSR collapsed, all sorts of documents became available and it is now known beyond any doubt that USSR was always in a reactive stance to constant aggressive preasure from the USA, expense of which eventually contributed to USSR's collapse.
As to "National Security" being threatened, this is an age-old cry of every oppressor on the planet, and a particular favourite of the Nazi regime. I believe "national security" was behind the bogus claims of imminent threats from Iraq and all which followed from that. Again, as historical documents now show, it was the USA who threatened USSR's "national security", not the other way around.
That's a funny way of describing the style of government that left millions of people destitute, even before its "fall."
I am not sure which government you are referring to but it is my understanding that general standard of living for most people in Eastern Europe, Russia and the former Soviet republics has fallen dramatically since their "liberation". A small percentage of the population managed to acquire most of these countries' resources and the gap between that small fraction and the rest is now unsurmountable and keeps growing. All the Western "success" statistics and reporting is focused on that small group, who indeed is very thankful and falling all over itself to praise the economic reforms. On the other hand, a significant portion of the population in former East Germany for example is quite nostalgic for the Communtist GDR and would gladly have it back if they could according to polls. Sounds like they would even put up with Stasi being back.
Is this what you were referring by "left millions of people destitute"?
so there is bound to be a decrease in internet and p2p traffic
So let me get it straight... decreasing Internet traffic is a good thing right? How about pulling the plug on the whole thing? That would mean ultimate in decreased traffic and would be an extraordinary achievment to brag about, no? Or is the aim to make private, person-to-person traffic nil and maximize corportation-to-brainless-consumer traffic? This Internet thing seems to confuse some...
Just take a look at Slashdot imbeciles showcased here. An uninformed moron who repeats verbatim Rush Limbaugh's mind vomit with no evidence of any kind to back it up gets modded "Insightful" because he rants against UN. A poster with a detailed reply with references, utterly devastating the right-wingnuts rantings gets modded "Troll".
This has a lot to do with the USA slowly succumbing to a new Dark Age of fundamentalist religion being the dominant force. All fundamentalists of Judeo-Christian origin (including Muslims) are obsessed with sex and quite enamoured with death and violence. Here in Canada I am seeing the creep too from the West (Harper and crew). Already around 20% of Canadians respond as "born again" or some such cretinism to polls. This seems to be a global problem people who adhere to the principles of Enlightement will have an increasingly hard time ahead. A War On Reason is underway (all present Washington's "wars" can be rolled into this one) and TV is just one battleground in it.
Yes, but everybody else probably realises that downloading TV shows via bittorrent is theft, no different than stealing someones purse on the street, do you do that as well?
Bah, humbug.
In a regular purse-snatching, you get to have a purse, the wallet within with the pention money, a set of dentures and some arthritis medications and of course you get to leave the old lady in tears on the sidewalk (bonus points for knocking the walker over). In the bittorrent "purse snatching" you get no such benefits. You get the purse and for some strange reason the lady gets to keep it too. Where is the fun for us villanious thieves in this?
Yea and its gonna get bigger yet. It has to do with all those huge hydro-electric projects they've been up to. On the other hand Ontario has some nuclear reactors in mothballs that can be restarted, dont they?
Don't they mean "Hydro electric"?
Sure they do. Just dont expect some administrative assistant somewhere in one of those bureaucratic enclaves to be able to type all this techie stuff right. Me thinks she had trouble with a spell checker (although she can probably type 60 words per minute).
But in the meantime, the innocent target website was taken down, and presumably did lose significant business.
This unfortunately is unavoidable and has nothing to do with this particular scenario. Someone for example can start a false campaign about a particular food brand being poisonous. People being cautious will stop buying it. The company will go to the police and track down and then sue the offender and even win but the business was affected. As you can see this scenario is applicable to many other areas of life having nothing to do with spam and internet whatsoever. It is simply: a criminal using some method to attack you.
So the problem is not inherent to spam and "Joe Jobs" but rather to the whole condition of our society. I personally see this screen saver as the least evil way of going about this since the maximum damage caused here is simply some website downtime. In the long run these types of systems will be much more common (I expect a flurish of new ones now since Lycos led the way) and there is nothing that authorities can do to stop this, hundreds of thousands of people now know that they have the power to effect revenge and they will use that power. In the long run the ISPs and the authorities will have no choice but to act decisvely and swiftly against spammers in order to protect the legitimate businesses. This is a brilliant tactics on the part of Lycos. They just shattered the "status quo" balance. Business as usual is no longer viable. Finally something that ISPs cannot simply ignore and which forces them to act in public good. Only then Lycos-like engines will go away.
Is it too much for you to believe that Lycos targeted him accidentaly...Your translation also seems absolutely idiotic if you have no evidence of what you're saying.
Well, maybe the fact that even I got spam from the Art of Sense craptastic place on several occasions and the site had nothing on the front page to the effect "we appologise, it was not us" back then has something to do with it.
Thank god there was actually a concrete example for all the vigilanti monkeys here screaming for blood so much they don't see that innocent people will get whacked by their activities.
Err..no. The "art studio" is a prollific and long time spammer. But they do apply the standard Israeli method of operation: when you get caught red-handed, you shed crocodile tears and make big eyes and whine and whine and whine about how you are a victim and the whole world is unjustly against you etc etc. This act is wearing a bit thin.
One Israeli company tried to resell our paintings and they used spam and to save their traffic they put links to images on our site. We have NO connection with their spam.
Translation: we hired a spammer to peddle our stuff to these dimwitted foreigners and, crap, we got caught! Quick, pretend to be a victim!
As if a slimey "art studio" (kitsch more like it) would ever admit to spamming... gimme a break!
While "Joe Jobs" do happen, they are rare and one can rather easilly figure out that a legitimate company is being attacked by just looking at their website.
One israeli company that was supposed to sell our paintings spamed the
internet,
and loaded pictures from our site to save on their traffic.
We have no direct connection to this spam.
Sorry.
Translation: we hired a spammer to peddle our stuff on those dimwitted foreigners and turned out they caught us! Quick, pretend to be a victim!
So if I hire a spamhaus to advertise my competitor's website...
Which will promptly cause the following unusual chain of events: the competitor will complain to the cops, who in turn will have to launch an investigation. If lucky, the spamhouse will get tracked down, screws put on it and sooner or later they will give you up in exchange for "reduced sentence". Then you go down. The end result? Both the spammer and you will be out of commission. Otherwise, with "regular" spam nothing ever happens since the cops do not see it as priority.
While I see where you are coming from, how is this different from 10million people showing up on the White House lawn to protest something? Or in front of IRS for days, thus effectively shutting it down? In older days that used to be called "civil disobedience". While it can be abused, there is nothing inherently wrong with a large number of people taking action, specially since we are talking in the worst case someone's website being down. Lives are not being lost and the vigilante remedy in this case is on par in severity with the offence of the villains. They spam so they get spammed. If physical harm was involved here I would be far more inclined to call for more civilized ways of conduct.
While it might be funny to do this, it's definatly more of a crime than shoving one folder down a mailbox that says "No commercial print".
Crime? What crime?! "Return to sender" is a crime now?! When did you become so slavishly subservient to corporate idiocies like "direct mail campaigns" which deforest the planet that you would even dream of this being illegal!?
And by the way, "no commercial print" is going to get you nowhere. In most places you do not own the space within your mailbox, it belongs to the post office. The laws like this were passed by the "direct mail" lobbysts with the express purpose of spamming you. The difference is that the old-fashioned spammers wear suits and bribe the congressmen. The new breed are anti-social misfits who didnt manage to figure out how to "play the system" like a roulette as most corporations have.
No it is merely impatient, rude and pompous. Something you are unlikely to ever recognize since your enormous ego is all that is visible to you.
My opinions on the original topic tend to be supported by current law and social mores
Law perheaps, somewhat, depending on interpretation of validity of EULAs. Social mores? Not where I come from, certainly. Care to try again?
BTW, that's the second time you've used the word "insolent" in this thread. I prefer "audacious". Arbitrarily, of course.
Oh dear. How educated! And literate! Worldy! A positive giant of debate!
You do of course realize that you make yourself sound like a total ass, smug and condescending moron who believes that his attempts at sophisticated vocabulary make his arguments more valid, dont you?
I said it's much *harder* to change a system from the outside
You also said (conveniently ommitting it this time) that "Most change to any social system comes from people working within that system" to which I presented two counter-examples, both near the top of importance in the history of the 20th century. There are of course more: the democratic movements in Eastern Europe, the fight against Appartheid etc etc. This list totally demolishes your assertion and so you choose to slither off into how you "never implied that civil disobedience doesn't generate change" and hope I wont notice. You also never implied that the Earth is flat, are you going to try to provide an explanation of that fallacy as to make yourself appear more reasoned?
After racking up countless typos in every post, you gloat because you found *one* of mine?! In a phrase from a dead language, no less? That's priceless.
Also, since you're probably too much of a raging dumbass to notice, I'll openly admit that I've used completely awful grammar, including rampant sentence fragments, and other no-no's, in most of my posts. I think it creates a conversational tone, but some could disagree.
It would ordinarilly be not so priceless but it is you who tried to make yourself sound superior on account of being able to spot spelling errors. And no, it has nothing to do with conversational tone but with your ego. You try to attack others and when caught guilty of the same sins you try to weasle out by claiming that you do that on purpose. It speaks volumes about your integrity and character.
No, I really, really don't care what you do with your time or your money. Do whatever you want; I'll sleep fine. I'm posting to amuse myself, admittedly at your expense
That is the a very definition of a troll. I should have known. Better luck trolling somewhere else then because this conversation is over.
Instead you choose to call playing a cracked videogame a little crusade against "the man". Pathetic.
To each their own. I determined that fighting court battles wasn't worth the effort in this case. I also made sure to make the point in a place gamers come to. Seems to me as a reasonable effort for this (addmitedly small scale) outrage. Next time I might go further. One thing for sure, it will not be because of your disaproval.
If your method worked, every video game created for home computers would have been free. I couldn't even count the number of games on old Apple II+ disks I've got in a shoebox somewhere. Every video game, ever, has been cracked and distributed illegally. They're still sold in stores for large profits though. Odd, huh?
Clearly not enough people are upset. A matter of scale.
Congradulations. You've sold a personal principle for 60 bucks. Mine cost more.
Err... whose principle? Yours? I sold a principle of yours for 60 bucks and I get to keep the money? Cool! You have any more for me to sell?
Nonsense. I did mention car mechanics and home contractors, did I not? They *often* change conditions after quoting a "firm" price.
Um... that happens before the sale. And while car mechanics can indeed cause grief to no end (their case being unique since they keep your car hostage) you do have a variety of remedies at your disposal, not the least of which is a law in many places which holds the shop to the written quote. Also I would venture to guess that should a pair of crooked mechanics fight you, a court (judge having had similar experiences for sure) would be far more symathetic to you then to them, which would mean refund of legal expenses and if you do it right a compensation for your time. In many places you would also receive a compensation for lost income if your car was needed by you for your work. Which means that they are not likely to get away with it unless it is you who will let them. Just as I did not let Valve to get away with similiar crap in my case.
But what are those three 50cal machine gun ports doing there? Have the Russians developed a space fighter?
Sigh. These are the mount points for the emergency escape system that is supposed to sit on top in the launch configuration. This, like the Soyuz, and unlike the Shuttle, features an escape system which is operational in every stage of launch all the way from launchpad to orbit insertion.
Regardless, there is breach of contract torte, class action law and various other legal remedies to address any purposeful damage any party (corporations included) inflicts on another. If you're truly concerned about corporate greed overpowering the public good, you'd pursue the matter regardless of cost.
The truth is, you really don't care enough to face this head on, and truly fight for the principles involved. Rather, you're just going to be lazy, stupid, and pissed off, and posture about it on
Oh no! So you are going to decide what the truth is! And what cost/benefit calculations one can do! Why, I could swear that was up to each individual person to decide, glad that you are here telling me these things or else I might have blunder horribly off the Big_Al_B's approved, one and only, path through life!
At most, you'll play a cracked version of HL2. So your "crusade" is just sound and fury, signifying nothing
I actually called it a "little crusade" which indicates that it is a personal and small scale affair. There are many many more people doing these things in the same fashion and the effect of these is cumulative. So yes, as an individual, I have little impact. But as one of many, I do. A fact which is probably way over your head.
Why? What lasting damage do you incur from a simple, relatively small entertainment sales transaction gone awry? Lost wages? Please. Mental anguish? Nonsense. If you're that fragile, how do you get through a day? You're frustrated and pissed, not damaged. You don't get money for being pissed off. Sorry
Wasted time. Yours time is worthless (according to you). Mine is not. And, yes, I do get money for being pissed off. Or at least something of monetary "value". $59.99 precisely. A computer game I just downloaded named HL2. Funny that.
Pure, unadulterated crap. Many, many businesses, both incorporated and not, do unethical, illegal, or generally shady things and they all fully expect to get away with it. Slimey car mechanics, sleazy home contracters, Enrons, Tycos, Adelphias and Martha Stewarts abound. Is that okay? No. Is it true? Yes.
And should they *all* be caught and should justice be fully served? Obviously. Will this happen? No.
Sure. But their transgressions are of different kind. Punishable by different means and by different people. Should Tyco shaft me on one of their products in similiar way to Valve, and should I have a similar remedy available I would do it too. Unfortunately all of these you mentioned are not easilly dealt with the same way and thus different means are employed. This does not change the fact that none of these example companies was ever even attempting to change conditions of sale after the fact. Software companies are the only ones doing so.
Oh yes, you do care. Of you did not, you wouldn't be posting your "replies". From their tone and contents I do relise that your second motivation is your bottomless love for hearing yourself talk but it is your burning desire to stick your snout into other people's business that is really driving you.
All I've said is that no one buys what you're selling, so stuff it.
Clearly there are those who do. But I do not imagine you would notice this while having your cranium so deeply inside your rectum, a position notorious for obstructing one's view.
I've just told you that you're deluding yourself if you think it's "right" to pirate a damn video game because you're upset at the company that sells it. Rather than refute my point, you rant on like a spoiled toddler about how the law isn't valid, corporations are evil, or resort to the robust, "it's not fair," argument. And when all that fails, you try to go personal, poorly.
Which is your completely arbitrary, subjective and so far in no way substantiated opinion. But of course, your opinions constitute absolute law by which the universe operates. How dare I, oh insolent me, to defy you!?
Not surprisingly, you're wrong. Most change to any social system comes from people working within that system.
Yes. Like, say, the civil rights movement or Vietnam war oposition. Both were championed and resolved by pencil-necked paper pushers working "within the system". Not a law got broken. Right. You know, I met some dumb idiots on Slashdot, and I also met some arrogant jerks. You combine both of these characteristics in a most impressive fashion.
Forgive my trouble recalling, but which one of us so rationally hyperbolized a grammar correction into a WWII-era crime again? Coherent and logical you are not, my raging dumbass friend.
Oh yea. Hyperbolized! A grammar correction! Wait, corrections which you quit counting at 10 in this last post alone. No, I take it back, you are the greatest jerk, asshole and idiot here on Slashdot. Congratulations.
Wow. A nonsequitor ad hominem argument. Two logical fallacies in one broad stroke is pretty neat. FYI, I'm an especially big fan of ad hominem arguments, so I'll probably keep calling you a "raging dumbass" for the duration of our dialogue.
This is the only thing you are ever going to do here anyways, so go ahead and amuse me. And by the way, genius, ad-hominem attacks are not logical fallacies. Oh and it is spelled "non sequitur" not "nonsequitor". If you are going to posture as an intellectual on a high horse and a spelling Nazi, you better get your own shit in order first.
How about: You *don't* give corporations you believe are "wrong" any money, and in balance they *don't* give you any product? Seems fair. Seems balanced.
As you would have known if you really read all messages in this thread, I already stated that this approach only works before the purchase. Once the purchase was made and the corporation in question attempted to change the terms of the deal after the fact and caused grief doing so, there has to be a remedy greater then just a return of the product. No other industry is allowed to do these tbings and expect to get away with it.
I could give a shit what you do with your time and money.
Obviously you do or else we wouldn't be having this "conversation".
Just don't tell me how "right" you are to ignore laws because you don't believe they're valid.
Not only I am entitled to my position (as anyone would as long as they are willing to accept the consequences), but it is precisesly because people do these things that many unjust and stupid laws changed in the past. People like you on the other hand will obey any sort of stupid rules someone with "authority" made up (Godwin's "law" for example) because you lack any sort of individual will and ability to think indpendently. You are a herd animal and it irks you to no end that someone dares not to follow you lemmings over the cliff.
And if you speak in a public forum, you should probably use words you know, or you'll sound like a dumbass.
Sure, sometimes I make typos and grammatical errors but I can speak my mind with some degree of coherence and logic. You on the other hand do exactly the opposite.
Most egress filtering is done on the smaller customer-facing routers.
Which are operated by the said ISPs. My point still applies. The people who are responsible for all this crap are the likes of co-location hosting companies who do not do their jobs. I do not expect uunet to be doing filtering because at their level it is indeed too late. But their customer who in turn resells the shit to spammers is to blame.
Frankly the whole spam issue is easilly solved in much simpler way: jail the people in the compaines who are being advertised. Once it gets through the heads of some idiots who want to scam people that their action is likely to result in 15 years of jail or better yet 15 years of foced labour somewhere in Siberia (as many are probably Russian "businessmen") the whole thing will stop. Unlike the spammers, it is much easier to catch them because for the scam to work they need a way for the money to flow to them. The 1-800 numbers cannot be ordered anonymously and neither can bank accounts.
Slashdot Mirror
You certainly meant this, no?
While no milk and honey filled existence, the Soviet block countries all offered free education and medical care, guaranteed employment and while not conductive to Western-style consumerism, at the later stage in their history (before west-induced economic collapse) the standard of living was steadily improving. In their early history they were indeed a place of repression and brutality due to their then utterly totalitarian and unstable regimes. I am not advocating Communism as a superior socio-economic system but it would end up being workable in the long term should the far more attuned to basic human failings (greed, need for domination of others) capitalism was not next door eyeing greedily the "waste" of opportunities to make money in all those resource-rich countries.
USSR seemed hell bent on taking over any country it touched through military force (Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, etc...) or political puppetry (China, Korea, Cuba).
If you were an avid history buff you would know that in the earlier stages this was caused by personal animosity between Stalin and the western leaders fueled by their thinly-vailed efforts to restore the Tzar to power in Russia, while at later times by not so thinly-vailed expansion of NATO (Warsaw pact was formed after NATO, something few western pundits these days remember) and attempts of world-dominance by the USA. After USSR collapsed, all sorts of documents became available and it is now known beyond any doubt that USSR was always in a reactive stance to constant aggressive preasure from the USA, expense of which eventually contributed to USSR's collapse.
As to "National Security" being threatened, this is an age-old cry of every oppressor on the planet, and a particular favourite of the Nazi regime. I believe "national security" was behind the bogus claims of imminent threats from Iraq and all which followed from that. Again, as historical documents now show, it was the USA who threatened USSR's "national security", not the other way around.
I am not sure which government you are referring to but it is my understanding that general standard of living for most people in Eastern Europe, Russia and the former Soviet republics has fallen dramatically since their "liberation". A small percentage of the population managed to acquire most of these countries' resources and the gap between that small fraction and the rest is now unsurmountable and keeps growing. All the Western "success" statistics and reporting is focused on that small group, who indeed is very thankful and falling all over itself to praise the economic reforms. On the other hand, a significant portion of the population in former East Germany for example is quite nostalgic for the Communtist GDR and would gladly have it back if they could according to polls. Sounds like they would even put up with Stasi being back.
Is this what you were referring by "left millions of people destitute"?
So let me get it straight... decreasing Internet traffic is a good thing right? How about pulling the plug on the whole thing? That would mean ultimate in decreased traffic and would be an extraordinary achievment to brag about, no? Or is the aim to make private, person-to-person traffic nil and maximize corportation-to-brainless-consumer traffic? This Internet thing seems to confuse some...
And they wonder how Bush got elected....
This has a lot to do with the USA slowly succumbing to a new Dark Age of fundamentalist religion being the dominant force. All fundamentalists of Judeo-Christian origin (including Muslims) are obsessed with sex and quite enamoured with death and violence. Here in Canada I am seeing the creep too from the West (Harper and crew). Already around 20% of Canadians respond as "born again" or some such cretinism to polls. This seems to be a global problem people who adhere to the principles of Enlightement will have an increasingly hard time ahead. A War On Reason is underway (all present Washington's "wars" can be rolled into this one) and TV is just one battleground in it.
Bah, humbug.
In a regular purse-snatching, you get to have a purse, the wallet within with the pention money, a set of dentures and some arthritis medications and of course you get to leave the old lady in tears on the sidewalk (bonus points for knocking the walker over). In the bittorrent "purse snatching" you get no such benefits. You get the purse and for some strange reason the lady gets to keep it too. Where is the fun for us villanious thieves in this?
Yea and its gonna get bigger yet. It has to do with all those huge hydro-electric projects they've been up to. On the other hand Ontario has some nuclear reactors in mothballs that can be restarted, dont they?
Don't they mean "Hydro electric"?
Sure they do. Just dont expect some administrative assistant somewhere in one of those bureaucratic enclaves to be able to type all this techie stuff right. Me thinks she had trouble with a spell checker (although she can probably type 60 words per minute).
We are not there yet but its getting close. There are projects on the way though (primarilly in Quebeq) that will address this issue.
Or Canadian Tire money....
This unfortunately is unavoidable and has nothing to do with this particular scenario. Someone for example can start a false campaign about a particular food brand being poisonous. People being cautious will stop buying it. The company will go to the police and track down and then sue the offender and even win but the business was affected. As you can see this scenario is applicable to many other areas of life having nothing to do with spam and internet whatsoever. It is simply: a criminal using some method to attack you.
So the problem is not inherent to spam and "Joe Jobs" but rather to the whole condition of our society. I personally see this screen saver as the least evil way of going about this since the maximum damage caused here is simply some website downtime. In the long run these types of systems will be much more common (I expect a flurish of new ones now since Lycos led the way) and there is nothing that authorities can do to stop this, hundreds of thousands of people now know that they have the power to effect revenge and they will use that power. In the long run the ISPs and the authorities will have no choice but to act decisvely and swiftly against spammers in order to protect the legitimate businesses. This is a brilliant tactics on the part of Lycos. They just shattered the "status quo" balance. Business as usual is no longer viable. Finally something that ISPs cannot simply ignore and which forces them to act in public good. Only then Lycos-like engines will go away.
The netizens are finally awake!
Well, maybe the fact that even I got spam from the Art of Sense craptastic place on several occasions and the site had nothing on the front page to the effect "we appologise, it was not us" back then has something to do with it.
Err..no. The "art studio" is a prollific and long time spammer. But they do apply the standard Israeli method of operation: when you get caught red-handed, you shed crocodile tears and make big eyes and whine and whine and whine about how you are a victim and the whole world is unjustly against you etc etc. This act is wearing a bit thin.
Translation: we hired a spammer to peddle our stuff to these dimwitted foreigners and, crap, we got caught! Quick, pretend to be a victim!
As if a slimey "art studio" (kitsch more like it) would ever admit to spamming... gimme a break!
While "Joe Jobs" do happen, they are rare and one can rather easilly figure out that a legitimate company is being attacked by just looking at their website.
Translation: we hired a spammer to peddle our stuff on those dimwitted foreigners and turned out they caught us! Quick, pretend to be a victim!
Wait, this sounds familiar...
Which will promptly cause the following unusual chain of events: the competitor will complain to the cops, who in turn will have to launch an investigation. If lucky, the spamhouse will get tracked down, screws put on it and sooner or later they will give you up in exchange for "reduced sentence". Then you go down. The end result? Both the spammer and you will be out of commission. Otherwise, with "regular" spam nothing ever happens since the cops do not see it as priority.
While I see where you are coming from, how is this different from 10million people showing up on the White House lawn to protest something? Or in front of IRS for days, thus effectively shutting it down? In older days that used to be called "civil disobedience". While it can be abused, there is nothing inherently wrong with a large number of people taking action, specially since we are talking in the worst case someone's website being down. Lives are not being lost and the vigilante remedy in this case is on par in severity with the offence of the villains. They spam so they get spammed. If physical harm was involved here I would be far more inclined to call for more civilized ways of conduct.
Crime? What crime?! "Return to sender" is a crime now?! When did you become so slavishly subservient to corporate idiocies like "direct mail campaigns" which deforest the planet that you would even dream of this being illegal!?
And by the way, "no commercial print" is going to get you nowhere. In most places you do not own the space within your mailbox, it belongs to the post office. The laws like this were passed by the "direct mail" lobbysts with the express purpose of spamming you. The difference is that the old-fashioned spammers wear suits and bribe the congressmen. The new breed are anti-social misfits who didnt manage to figure out how to "play the system" like a roulette as most corporations have.
No it is merely impatient, rude and pompous. Something you are unlikely to ever recognize since your enormous ego is all that is visible to you.
My opinions on the original topic tend to be supported by current law and social mores
Law perheaps, somewhat, depending on interpretation of validity of EULAs. Social mores? Not where I come from, certainly. Care to try again?
BTW, that's the second time you've used the word "insolent" in this thread. I prefer "audacious". Arbitrarily, of course.
Oh dear. How educated! And literate! Worldy! A positive giant of debate!
You do of course realize that you make yourself sound like a total ass, smug and condescending moron who believes that his attempts at sophisticated vocabulary make his arguments more valid, dont you?
I said it's much *harder* to change a system from the outside
You also said (conveniently ommitting it this time) that "Most change to any social system comes from people working within that system" to which I presented two counter-examples, both near the top of importance in the history of the 20th century. There are of course more: the democratic movements in Eastern Europe, the fight against Appartheid etc etc. This list totally demolishes your assertion and so you choose to slither off into how you "never implied that civil disobedience doesn't generate change" and hope I wont notice. You also never implied that the Earth is flat, are you going to try to provide an explanation of that fallacy as to make yourself appear more reasoned?
After racking up countless typos in every post, you gloat because you found *one* of mine?! In a phrase from a dead language, no less? That's priceless. Also, since you're probably too much of a raging dumbass to notice, I'll openly admit that I've used completely awful grammar, including rampant sentence fragments, and other no-no's, in most of my posts. I think it creates a conversational tone, but some could disagree.
It would ordinarilly be not so priceless but it is you who tried to make yourself sound superior on account of being able to spot spelling errors. And no, it has nothing to do with conversational tone but with your ego. You try to attack others and when caught guilty of the same sins you try to weasle out by claiming that you do that on purpose. It speaks volumes about your integrity and character.
No, I really, really don't care what you do with your time or your money. Do whatever you want; I'll sleep fine. I'm posting to amuse myself, admittedly at your expense
That is the a very definition of a troll. I should have known. Better luck trolling somewhere else then because this conversation is over.
To each their own. I determined that fighting court battles wasn't worth the effort in this case. I also made sure to make the point in a place gamers come to. Seems to me as a reasonable effort for this (addmitedly small scale) outrage. Next time I might go further. One thing for sure, it will not be because of your disaproval.
If your method worked, every video game created for home computers would have been free. I couldn't even count the number of games on old Apple II+ disks I've got in a shoebox somewhere. Every video game, ever, has been cracked and distributed illegally. They're still sold in stores for large profits though. Odd, huh?
Clearly not enough people are upset. A matter of scale.
Congradulations. You've sold a personal principle for 60 bucks. Mine cost more.
Err... whose principle? Yours? I sold a principle of yours for 60 bucks and I get to keep the money? Cool! You have any more for me to sell?
Nonsense. I did mention car mechanics and home contractors, did I not? They *often* change conditions after quoting a "firm" price.
Um... that happens before the sale. And while car mechanics can indeed cause grief to no end (their case being unique since they keep your car hostage) you do have a variety of remedies at your disposal, not the least of which is a law in many places which holds the shop to the written quote. Also I would venture to guess that should a pair of crooked mechanics fight you, a court (judge having had similar experiences for sure) would be far more symathetic to you then to them, which would mean refund of legal expenses and if you do it right a compensation for your time. In many places you would also receive a compensation for lost income if your car was needed by you for your work. Which means that they are not likely to get away with it unless it is you who will let them. Just as I did not let Valve to get away with similiar crap in my case.
Sigh. These are the mount points for the emergency escape system that is supposed to sit on top in the launch configuration. This, like the Soyuz, and unlike the Shuttle, features an escape system which is operational in every stage of launch all the way from launchpad to orbit insertion.
Oh no! So you are going to decide what the truth is! And what cost/benefit calculations one can do! Why, I could swear that was up to each individual person to decide, glad that you are here telling me these things or else I might have blunder horribly off the Big_Al_B's approved, one and only, path through life!
At most, you'll play a cracked version of HL2. So your "crusade" is just sound and fury, signifying nothing
I actually called it a "little crusade" which indicates that it is a personal and small scale affair. There are many many more people doing these things in the same fashion and the effect of these is cumulative. So yes, as an individual, I have little impact. But as one of many, I do. A fact which is probably way over your head.
Why? What lasting damage do you incur from a simple, relatively small entertainment sales transaction gone awry? Lost wages? Please. Mental anguish? Nonsense. If you're that fragile, how do you get through a day? You're frustrated and pissed, not damaged. You don't get money for being pissed off. Sorry
Wasted time. Yours time is worthless (according to you). Mine is not. And, yes, I do get money for being pissed off. Or at least something of monetary "value". $59.99 precisely. A computer game I just downloaded named HL2. Funny that.
Pure, unadulterated crap. Many, many businesses, both incorporated and not, do unethical, illegal, or generally shady things and they all fully expect to get away with it. Slimey car mechanics, sleazy home contracters, Enrons, Tycos, Adelphias and Martha Stewarts abound. Is that okay? No. Is it true? Yes. And should they *all* be caught and should justice be fully served? Obviously. Will this happen? No.
Sure. But their transgressions are of different kind. Punishable by different means and by different people. Should Tyco shaft me on one of their products in similiar way to Valve, and should I have a similar remedy available I would do it too. Unfortunately all of these you mentioned are not easilly dealt with the same way and thus different means are employed. This does not change the fact that none of these example companies was ever even attempting to change conditions of sale after the fact. Software companies are the only ones doing so.
Oh yes, you do care. Of you did not, you wouldn't be posting your "replies". From their tone and contents I do relise that your second motivation is your bottomless love for hearing yourself talk but it is your burning desire to stick your snout into other people's business that is really driving you.
All I've said is that no one buys what you're selling, so stuff it.
Clearly there are those who do. But I do not imagine you would notice this while having your cranium so deeply inside your rectum, a position notorious for obstructing one's view.
I've just told you that you're deluding yourself if you think it's "right" to pirate a damn video game because you're upset at the company that sells it. Rather than refute my point, you rant on like a spoiled toddler about how the law isn't valid, corporations are evil, or resort to the robust, "it's not fair," argument. And when all that fails, you try to go personal, poorly.
Which is your completely arbitrary, subjective and so far in no way substantiated opinion. But of course, your opinions constitute absolute law by which the universe operates. How dare I, oh insolent me, to defy you!?
Not surprisingly, you're wrong. Most change to any social system comes from people working within that system.
Yes. Like, say, the civil rights movement or Vietnam war oposition. Both were championed and resolved by pencil-necked paper pushers working "within the system". Not a law got broken. Right. You know, I met some dumb idiots on Slashdot, and I also met some arrogant jerks. You combine both of these characteristics in a most impressive fashion.
Forgive my trouble recalling, but which one of us so rationally hyperbolized a grammar correction into a WWII-era crime again? Coherent and logical you are not, my raging dumbass friend.
Oh yea. Hyperbolized! A grammar correction! Wait, corrections which you quit counting at 10 in this last post alone. No, I take it back, you are the greatest jerk, asshole and idiot here on Slashdot. Congratulations.
Wow. A nonsequitor ad hominem argument. Two logical fallacies in one broad stroke is pretty neat. FYI, I'm an especially big fan of ad hominem arguments, so I'll probably keep calling you a "raging dumbass" for the duration of our dialogue.
This is the only thing you are ever going to do here anyways, so go ahead and amuse me. And by the way, genius, ad-hominem attacks are not logical fallacies. Oh and it is spelled "non sequitur" not "nonsequitor". If you are going to posture as an intellectual on a high horse and a spelling Nazi, you better get your own shit in order first.
As you would have known if you really read all messages in this thread, I already stated that this approach only works before the purchase. Once the purchase was made and the corporation in question attempted to change the terms of the deal after the fact and caused grief doing so, there has to be a remedy greater then just a return of the product. No other industry is allowed to do these tbings and expect to get away with it.
Obviously you do or else we wouldn't be having this "conversation".
Just don't tell me how "right" you are to ignore laws because you don't believe they're valid.
Not only I am entitled to my position (as anyone would as long as they are willing to accept the consequences), but it is precisesly because people do these things that many unjust and stupid laws changed in the past. People like you on the other hand will obey any sort of stupid rules someone with "authority" made up (Godwin's "law" for example) because you lack any sort of individual will and ability to think indpendently. You are a herd animal and it irks you to no end that someone dares not to follow you lemmings over the cliff.
And if you speak in a public forum, you should probably use words you know, or you'll sound like a dumbass.
Sure, sometimes I make typos and grammatical errors but I can speak my mind with some degree of coherence and logic. You on the other hand do exactly the opposite.
Which are operated by the said ISPs. My point still applies. The people who are responsible for all this crap are the likes of co-location hosting companies who do not do their jobs. I do not expect uunet to be doing filtering because at their level it is indeed too late. But their customer who in turn resells the shit to spammers is to blame.
Frankly the whole spam issue is easilly solved in much simpler way: jail the people in the compaines who are being advertised. Once it gets through the heads of some idiots who want to scam people that their action is likely to result in 15 years of jail or better yet 15 years of foced labour somewhere in Siberia (as many are probably Russian "businessmen") the whole thing will stop. Unlike the spammers, it is much easier to catch them because for the scam to work they need a way for the money to flow to them. The 1-800 numbers cannot be ordered anonymously and neither can bank accounts.