I'm skeptical that you could get custom brake shoes given the potential libility issues...
Workaround: don't tell them what the part is for and hope they won't care. Optionally also use a machining shop that doesn't work much with car parts, which lowers the chance of meeting somebody who both cares and knows what it is.
Don't worry, if this becomes popular, there will be enough "underground" machine stores more than willing to machine a part or two for cash, no questions asked. Remember the cost of the machines going steadily down, the hordes of outsourced engineers, and the poorly paid employees of various workshops, willing to make a part on the side and pocketing the profit (or perhaps sharing it with the workshop boss).
Never underestimate the power of the black market.
In a land without privacy, there's no such thing as anonymous.
It's what cryptography is for. (And related technologies, like WiFi mesh networks and VPNs, allowing quick ad-hoc setup of data transfer/sharing systems.) RIAA and MPAA will catalyze rapid proliferation of these within next five years.
Additionally, you're left with the paradox that the people whose privacy you wish to compromise in
order to level the playing field are the very people who pass the laws in the first place. Would
nyone and everyone track YOUR movements? I certainly wouldn't!
So don't ask them to vote for it and just unleash it upon them. Develop systems for anonymous whistleblowing, anonymous information sharing, anonymous publishing. Repurpose mainstream technologies for surveillance, use the same toys They have (or their cheaper off-the-shelf versions) against themselves. They may control the Laws, but we control the Technology.
For try as I might, I see no Constitutional authority granting the government the right to command it's citizens as to which countries they might go to, and what they might do while they're there.
Sadly, contemporary USA seems to have perverted "freedom" the same way the USSR used to pervert "communism". The word has the same sound, but most of the meaning is lost, changed, or dramatically amended.
He couldn't play chess as a representative of America in certain tournaments in a santioned country.
Oh? No one of the stories said anything about Fischer representing USA. They all talked about his rematch with Spassky.
Hence my understanding is that he represented himself. Hence I consider the US Government's actions against him to be equal with thievery and unlawful restraint, and other things that lawyers know names for.
Fischer's biggest mistake was to come to a country that allows extradition for political non-crimes.
Even diamonds can be created artificially now. There are methods now for growing them from molten metal, and the perspective technology of epitaxial growth from vapors. Which makes large diamond crystals of size potentially suitable for industrial manufacture of diamond-based semiconductors (as diamond can be doped - and the resulting chips could have many interesting properties, like ability to run very hot, and resistance to radiation). The resulting diamonds are much purer than the natural ones, which is about the only difference (and I suppose that slight modification of the technology can produce cheap counterfeit diamonds with IR spectrum and other identification properties virtually identical to the natural ones, which could cause couple well-deserved heart attacks within the DeBeers group).
Copyrighting sets of public data is doubleplusungood. The marketers will either buy or obtain them anyway, and many cool projects that could be free or low-cost will not happen because of the imposed additional expenses.
Should we pass a law that requires all websites (blogs, family home pages, theatres, slashdot, etc) to have every bit of text, including the html source, as audio, to make the site accessible to blind people?
What about just not allow corporations to shut down more accessible third-party derivative versions, until they themselves meet that kind of accessibility? This could satisfy both the accessibility and the no-regulation camps.
This guy with the copycat website is not some kind of vigilante of the internet. His job is not to take the law into his own hands,...
I can't understand why making life easier for the people should be considered wrong. Maybe we would be better off with the web full of this kind of vigilantism than with everybody being little citizen obedient to every corporation's "rights" and every little piddly law.
(the people being those who submit data unknowingly to his site)
From what I read here, I believe the submit forms were directed via FORM ACTION directly to the original website, without the data passing through the server in question. In that case your argument is void and null like a C pointer.
I bet the guy is very well intentioned, but he needs to get real.
No. It's you who needs to get real. Life is too short to respect corporations insisting on broken design.
If he is worried about this that much, he should find a legitimite solution to the problem.
Complaints didn't help. Requests didn't help. He did what helped and now you say it's wrong. What would you suggest to do? Non-solutions with implementation speed of a glacier don't count.
I personally would vote for some Freenet-like system where such web could be freely published under a pseudonym, beyond reach of lawyer threat. Then the corporation would have only one available solution: redesign their own site to be even better than the "illegal" one.
I believe data themselves can't be copyrighted. Shouldn't it be possible to compile a by-the-people-for-the-people version of postcode/address database?
Change the assumptions then. As a single solution alcohol won't cut it. But it can be coupled with hydrogen fuel cells and other solutions for some market segments, and the total need of automotive energy can be greatly reduced by restructuring the US economy, eg. more stuff (including workforce) could be supplied locally without being hauled over long distances. Voila, you can live even without oil, though the transition is painful.
Why won't you want to work closer to your home? Not only you'd waste less gasoline with commuting, but you'd also save a lot of time otherwise spent in traffic jams. You can also telecommute.
You will have to do something positive anyway, sooner or later. It's unlikely you'll be forced to curb your gasoline consumption by a stamp-wielding agent - more likely avenue is an oil crisis and a large increase of gasoline cost.
Or perhaps that - and a new president without that oily smell - will be necessary to launch a Manhattan Project-grade research into non-fossil fuels...
So, in other words, I really *can* go and do some testing of my 433MHz amplifier and antenna system at full (1500W out) power and not worry about causing Wal-Mart some problems, eh? Kewl...
433 MHz is a band for industrial comtrol/communication systems, I don't think it is used for RFID purposes. (I may be wrong, but I think they are typically using lower frequencies.)
But don't worry about Walmart. They cause enough problems around them (car traffic, pollution, waste, damage to previous retail infrastructure...) they deserve some of their own.
What about someone going into the wild with a tool to fry any RFID he/she finds.
Don't worry, there is a device in development for remote disabling of car engine control computer, using a microwave beam; effectively an EMP gun. I suppose it could be used for frying RFID tags, either on its own, or after tweaking its output frequency to hit the tag's resonance frequency.
We don't have to design anything ourselves. We just have to wait a while, until both RFID and EMP technologies hit the road, then put them against each other.
Plus, it would be easily detectable if someone were using an unauthorized reader inside the store; they're literally broadcasting their position and what they're trying to do.
If the store is equipped to detect this. You can also use a limited-range transmitter, trading radiated power for distance, and using highly directional antenna, further reducing the necessary radiated power.
Another method is a pulse transmitter keyed by the preamble of the tag response, forcing collision into every tag answer. You don't transmit until the tags in your vicinity are, transmit in similar power intensity (just a tid bit higher), and stop transmitting at the moment the tag read attempt is stopped.
Pretty stupid... Gonna suck if someone designs a killer robot that homes in on someone's implanted chip
More likely implementation: a proximity landmine or a roadside bomb, with his "name" written in. Maybe, with more high-tech adversary, even a homing missile or a drone.
I can pretty well imagine one of those little UAVs that were described here on Slashdot couple weeks ago, autonomous, loaded with a RFID scanner and a small shaped charge (and a camera in order to double as a one of the Eyes in the sky), patroling above the streets and looking for targets, then descending upon them in a suicidal strike.
You can mount an effective DOS. The tags, the collision-resistant ones, are listening for the responses of other tags, and trying to not transmit during them, and retransmitting after a random delay when a collision is detected. The DOS device would have to operate in a very similar way, but force collisions into the transaction - either by listening to the preambles of tag responses and broadcasting impulses at that moment, or by broadcasting series of short pulses or bursts, with less spacing than is the length of the tag response, effectively not giving enough space between the pulses for the tags to provide complete response. Definitely something that can be wirewrapped in a garage, especially with the excellent Microchip PIC or Atmel microcontrollers available for few bucks.
Slashdot Mirror
More interesting is the question if they will offer secure PC-to-PC calls, encrypting the voice data, like Skype does.
Workaround: don't tell them what the part is for and hope they won't care. Optionally also use a machining shop that doesn't work much with car parts, which lowers the chance of meeting somebody who both cares and knows what it is.
Never underestimate the power of the black market.
It's what cryptography is for. (And related technologies, like WiFi mesh networks and VPNs, allowing quick ad-hoc setup of data transfer/sharing systems.) RIAA and MPAA will catalyze rapid proliferation of these within next five years.
What about surgeon-like face masks? The kind that's common to wear in Japan during flu season?
What about Mexico? Or eventually various South American countries?
What if I plan to play a chess game in a place my government dislikes at the moment?
So don't ask them to vote for it and just unleash it upon them. Develop systems for anonymous whistleblowing, anonymous information sharing, anonymous publishing. Repurpose mainstream technologies for surveillance, use the same toys They have (or their cheaper off-the-shelf versions) against themselves. They may control the Laws, but we control the Technology.
Sadly, contemporary USA seems to have perverted "freedom" the same way the USSR used to pervert "communism". The word has the same sound, but most of the meaning is lost, changed, or dramatically amended.
Oh? No one of the stories said anything about Fischer representing USA. They all talked about his rematch with Spassky.
Hence my understanding is that he represented himself. Hence I consider the US Government's actions against him to be equal with thievery and unlawful restraint, and other things that lawyers know names for.
Fischer's biggest mistake was to come to a country that allows extradition for political non-crimes.
Even diamonds can be created artificially now. There are methods now for growing them from molten metal, and the perspective technology of epitaxial growth from vapors. Which makes large diamond crystals of size potentially suitable for industrial manufacture of diamond-based semiconductors (as diamond can be doped - and the resulting chips could have many interesting properties, like ability to run very hot, and resistance to radiation). The resulting diamonds are much purer than the natural ones, which is about the only difference (and I suppose that slight modification of the technology can produce cheap counterfeit diamonds with IR spectrum and other identification properties virtually identical to the natural ones, which could cause couple well-deserved heart attacks within the DeBeers group).
Unless you use links or Lynx. Then it's a PAIN.
Not good...
What about just not allow corporations to shut down more accessible third-party derivative versions, until they themselves meet that kind of accessibility? This could satisfy both the accessibility and the no-regulation camps.
Very true.
Either the information gets submitted to his site, or to Odeon's. Forms can only have one action URI.
There is also transparent proxying, but I don't suppose it was the case here.
I can't understand why making life easier for the people should be considered wrong. Maybe we would be better off with the web full of this kind of vigilantism than with everybody being little citizen obedient to every corporation's "rights" and every little piddly law.
(the people being those who submit data unknowingly to his site)
From what I read here, I believe the submit forms were directed via FORM ACTION directly to the original website, without the data passing through the server in question. In that case your argument is void and null like a C pointer.
I bet the guy is very well intentioned, but he needs to get real.
No. It's you who needs to get real. Life is too short to respect corporations insisting on broken design.
If he is worried about this that much, he should find a legitimite solution to the problem.
Complaints didn't help. Requests didn't help. He did what helped and now you say it's wrong. What would you suggest to do? Non-solutions with implementation speed of a glacier don't count.
I personally would vote for some Freenet-like system where such web could be freely published under a pseudonym, beyond reach of lawyer threat. Then the corporation would have only one available solution: redesign their own site to be even better than the "illegal" one.
I believe data themselves can't be copyrighted. Shouldn't it be possible to compile a by-the-people-for-the-people version of postcode/address database?
Change the assumptions then. As a single solution alcohol won't cut it. But it can be coupled with hydrogen fuel cells and other solutions for some market segments, and the total need of automotive energy can be greatly reduced by restructuring the US economy, eg. more stuff (including workforce) could be supplied locally without being hauled over long distances. Voila, you can live even without oil, though the transition is painful.
I saw traffic jams where bicyclists singlehandedly managed to be faster than the cars.
You will have to do something positive anyway, sooner or later. It's unlikely you'll be forced to curb your gasoline consumption by a stamp-wielding agent - more likely avenue is an oil crisis and a large increase of gasoline cost.
Or perhaps that - and a new president without that oily smell - will be necessary to launch a Manhattan Project-grade research into non-fossil fuels...
433 MHz is a band for industrial comtrol/communication systems, I don't think it is used for RFID purposes. (I may be wrong, but I think they are typically using lower frequencies.)
But don't worry about Walmart. They cause enough problems around them (car traffic, pollution, waste, damage to previous retail infrastructure...) they deserve some of their own.
Don't worry, there is a device in development for remote disabling of car engine control computer, using a microwave beam; effectively an EMP gun. I suppose it could be used for frying RFID tags, either on its own, or after tweaking its output frequency to hit the tag's resonance frequency.
We don't have to design anything ourselves. We just have to wait a while, until both RFID and EMP technologies hit the road, then put them against each other.
If the store is equipped to detect this. You can also use a limited-range transmitter, trading radiated power for distance, and using highly directional antenna, further reducing the necessary radiated power.
Another method is a pulse transmitter keyed by the preamble of the tag response, forcing collision into every tag answer. You don't transmit until the tags in your vicinity are, transmit in similar power intensity (just a tid bit higher), and stop transmitting at the moment the tag read attempt is stopped.
More likely implementation: a proximity landmine or a roadside bomb, with his "name" written in. Maybe, with more high-tech adversary, even a homing missile or a drone.
I can pretty well imagine one of those little UAVs that were described here on Slashdot couple weeks ago, autonomous, loaded with a RFID scanner and a small shaped charge (and a camera in order to double as a one of the Eyes in the sky), patroling above the streets and looking for targets, then descending upon them in a suicidal strike.
You can mount an effective DOS. The tags, the collision-resistant ones, are listening for the responses of other tags, and trying to not transmit during them, and retransmitting after a random delay when a collision is detected. The DOS device would have to operate in a very similar way, but force collisions into the transaction - either by listening to the preambles of tag responses and broadcasting impulses at that moment, or by broadcasting series of short pulses or bursts, with less spacing than is the length of the tag response, effectively not giving enough space between the pulses for the tags to provide complete response. Definitely something that can be wirewrapped in a garage, especially with the excellent Microchip PIC or Atmel microcontrollers available for few bucks.