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User: Stonehand

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  1. Let's play the Slashdot Overreaction Game. on CNN Says Chat Rooms Are a Haven for Hackers · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Any guesses as to how many posts on this thread will...

    - Call CNN a bunch of morons.
    - Suggest that we should therefore ban ::insert whatever:: using ridiculous slippery-slope logic.
    - Say "Duh".

    ...without showing ANY evidence of reading the article, or making any factual statements whatsoever?

    Really, now.

    Now, for those with actual central nervous systems and who actually care about facts rather than knee-jerk responses:

    IRC is a multiperson always-on real-time worldwide system, and is therefore more conducive to exchanges and marketing than phones, pagers and their ilk. There's no comparison, really, except for morons, because while a phone system at most might be a small-scale party line, messages on IRC can reach nigh-arbitrary amounts of people whom you DON'T need to have previous knowledge of. Even if you do NOT have any intended buyers in mind, calling random people and offering credit card numbers is stupid. Sending a CC list offer to an appropriate IRC channel is less stupid, in that you can reach more people at once, and they're voluntarily reading so they're more likely to be interested. Plus, there's no Caller ID, and if you're bright you may be using a compromised machine so that your own IP isn't shown. If the distribution of logs crosses national borders, it may be quite a hassle for anybody to ever find your identity -- assuming that you can maintain anonymity during an exchange, of course, by not screwing up by, say, using one of your own personal bank accounts.

    And, most people who read CNN have little experience with IRC. Therefore, it's fair to give them a "heads up", especially, say, if they've got a teen who's spending a lot of time online and ordering more stuff than you think he could afford, or similar situations... this merely provides a bit of awareness to the technologically naive.

  2. Re:War is a thing of the past.. on Space Wars · · Score: 2

    Quite possibly. There are still quite a few governments that rely on indoctrination and an utterly inflexible worldview of the rest of civillization as enemies -- in particular, the Arab theocracies have education systems and medias known for extreme bias and intolerance. For the most part, they even refuse to acknowledge that Palestinians blowing up random Israel civillians might be committing a wrong...

    It's an interesting system that produces an educated, wealthy terrorist leader that was so extreme that he could proclaim that Afghanistan under the Taliban was the only true Islamic state.

  3. Re:Military threats promote innovation on Space Wars · · Score: 2

    Governments can afford to invest quite heavily in research, especially during wartime when such expenditures are less likely to be questioned if they're nominally related to the overall war effort. After all, they aren't quite bound by the usual cash-flow restrictions -- they can demand more cash (at gunpoint, if need be) from their citizens, and it's politically acceptable for a government to carry a large debt...

    Even in peacetime, the US DoD takes a shotgun approach to research, funding lots of work that is pretty unlikely to have even indirect applications to warfare.

  4. Re:Why is everybody complaining? on Authors Guild To Members: De-link Amazon.com · · Score: 2

    It's not infringement, it's first-sale, plus AMZN's willingness to advertise used books as an alternative.

    Incidentally, most authors won't make anywhere near millions for their books...

  5. Re:My Top 5 Random thoughts on Books on Authors Guild To Members: De-link Amazon.com · · Score: 2

    "Your exciting conclusion, should you choose to accept it, Jim, is..."

    *fwoosh*

  6. Re:It hurts us on Authors Guild To Members: De-link Amazon.com · · Score: 3, Informative

    From a NYT article on the same protest:

    (emphasis mine)


    "We asked could we at least talk about when something could become available as a used book? Could we maybe wait three months after the book was published?" said Patricia Schroeder, president of the Association of American Publishers. "The biggest problem is that it is legal, I think. I wring my hands, pound my desk and say, `Aargh.' " (Most individual publishers are reluctant to criticize Amazon publicly for fear of alienating an important customer.)


    Patricia needs to realize that books aren't special, and that if the books are a commodity that are to be consumed rapidly and then sold, then their business model should probably take that into account.

    Mind you, I practically NEVER sell books, but then I'm really a packrat in human form. 'sides, some of the books took a while to get, like a good translation of "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", and that one's a keeper.

  7. Re:We need global freedom of movement first on Globalism, Corporatism and Open Source · · Score: 2

    Not necessarily. Some illegals don't have the cash, but instead enter into agreements with the traffickers, who then employ them with minimal pay and zero benefits in illegal enterprises such as businesses operated primarily for the purpose of money laundering. Others get forced into prostitution, gangs and so forth.

  8. Re:ooh, the scary redcoats! on Globalism, Corporatism and Open Source · · Score: 2

    Ah, so Kabila overthrowing the previous government of the Congo never happened? Revolutions happen. Once upon a time, Somalia actually did have a government... and likewise, a certain fundamentalist bastard named Hekmatyar did help demolish one Afghan government, and he appears to be trying to work on the current one, as well.

    Of course, Kabila was later assassinated by one of his own bodyguards, if memory serves, but *shrug* the life of a warlord can be rough, and sometimes remarkably short.

  9. Re:Equate democracy with globalism on Globalism, Corporatism and Open Source · · Score: 2

    Afghanistan should provide an interesting experiment, considering that they're practically building a government from scratch.

  10. Re:quote on Globalism, Corporatism and Open Source · · Score: 2

    Try this column instead.

  11. Re:Globalism on Globalism, Corporatism and Open Source · · Score: 2

    Hm. Some years ago, "Khmer Rouge" might have been one answer... IIRC, they wanted a return to simple, rural ,agrarian ways, and didn't flinch at killing their own citizens who stood in the way.

  12. Re:Rich to get Richer? on Globalism, Corporatism and Open Source · · Score: 2

    If you want to defeat starvation, health problems, and similar ills, there are probably scores of governments, rebel groups, and other local warlords that need to be hammered into the ground, first. Sending aid doesn't guarantee that ever reaches its intended recipients.

  13. Re:Double edged sword on Globalism, Corporatism and Open Source · · Score: 3, Insightful


    Certainly the removal of trade barriers should be a force for good all round, but not when unrestricted trade allows a masive multinational to come in and crush local industry by running at a loss until the market is "secure".


    Which happens to be illegal under both US and WTO rules, if memory serves. The findings that other countries were "dumping" steel onto the US markets (selling it at below cost) were what enabled the President to impose steel tariffs.

  14. Re:It's called 'capitalism' on Life on The Net in 2004 · · Score: 2

    Most compatible? Oh, really. For a long time, the two major branches of Windows -- NT and 9X -- could not even read each other's "premier" filesystems, let alone those from other software companies...

    Win9X broke lots of DOS software.
    Win2K broke lots of Windows software.
    WinXP broke lots of Windows software.

    If they were truly compatible, you'd see "Designed for Windows" instead of "Designed for Windows 2K" or XP or 95 or other flavour du jour.

    Oh, and as for price, by "somehow", you mean usually "illegally", or restricting themselves to non-commercial.

  15. Re:In this case on Tattered Cover v. Thornton Reversed · · Score: 2

    If it's a clearly bogus ruling -- from a legal perspective -- and would deny either side equal protection under the law (read: fairly and correctly applied), then it would be a Federal issue and yes, SCOTUS could overturn it.

  16. Re:In this case on Tattered Cover v. Thornton Reversed · · Score: 2

    And how do you know that somebody is a criminal until he is convicted? Or, perhaps, we should just assume that if he's accused, he's guilty, and therefore forfeits those rights?

    Unless the purchase of a specific book leads to clear, logical (and not just "well, that's the sort of nasty book you'd EXPECT a drug maker to buy" circumstantial arguments) evidence-based arguments... it really shouldn't be relevant.

    Now, if the book were FOUND, and it had meth all over it, and the prosecution wanted to show that THAT specific book was purchased by a defendant, then that might be material. But unless they can show that it's not just circumstantial, then it's fishing...

  17. Re:You don't need to know how atoms respond. on ASCI White Detonates The First E-Bomb · · Score: 2

    ...plus, the engineering details, including how to make one small enough and robust enough that it can be hurled through the stratosphere in an ICBM and still detonate properly. That's why it's not only the materials, but the plans themselves, that are of interest to less-nuclear countries.

  18. Re:Recursion on ASCI White Detonates The First E-Bomb · · Score: 2

    It's transcended into a Power, and is therefore no longer a mere "computer".

  19. Re:A Taste of Armageddon... on ASCI White Detonates The First E-Bomb · · Score: 2

    Politics, not diplomacy, IIRC. Politics is much more general, as it means basically whatever wild goals the political leadership may have come up with.

  20. Re:Put the gun down! on A New Low for Web Advertisers: Pop-Up Downloads · · Score: 2

    Nope. Read earlier in the article, where it refers to "drive-by downloads".

  21. Re:what's the real problem.... on Blizzard/Vivendi Files Suit Against Bnetd Project · · Score: 2

    And if the admin uses it to harvest CD keys? Blizzard might not want to see any system under which CD keys get sent (other than with the CDs themselves) to anybody but their own servers.

  22. Re:Open source and legal defense... on Blizzard/Vivendi Files Suit Against Bnetd Project · · Score: 2

    Judges sometimes award legal fees right now, and I don't think a specific provision for "open source developers" would be remotely justifiable from a legal perspective.

    Attaching it to any lawsuit discarded as being frivolous, however, may be more interesting.

  23. Re:IE Only? on A New Low for Web Advertisers: Pop-Up Downloads · · Score: 2

    The certificate's merely meant to inform you who is responsible for the signed content, not whether or not the content is free of malicious content.

    *frown*

    I remember Netscape 4.X prompting "Accept this certificate?" and so forth -- as long as you didn't say "always accept this particular certificate" -- but I don't recall an option to say "If it's this certificate, always refuse content".

  24. Re:Put the gun down! on A New Low for Web Advertisers: Pop-Up Downloads · · Score: 2

    The article states otherwise. The mechanism, however, is not specified...

    One approach that might be possible is two-stage -- a voluntarily downloaded plug-in, that "opens the door" by automatically downloads without requiring additional user consent.

    And, of course, this lil' feature might not be mentioned in the initial yes/golly,sure/damn yes/whatever you say/no dialogue box. So "consent" it may be, but that doesn't guarantee informed consent -- and unless you have one heck of a sandbox, you have little ability to verify that what you downloaded is exactly what you thought you were downloading.

  25. Re:Not reading the article is lame too on A New Low for Web Advertisers: Pop-Up Downloads · · Score: 3, Informative

    See your own subject.


    In some cases, people are not even asked whether they want the software. It just installs on the hard drive--a particularly troublesome tactic that some have dubbed "drive-by download."