Oh, they're just knowingly pointing the way. Prithee tell, what IS the unambiguously legal use of allowing ANYBODY to download your.mp3 files, including copyrighted ones?
It's more like a chap on the street pointing you to the dealers who provide cocaine, which legally can NOT be sold in the US. They may not be providing the merchandise themselves, but they're very consciously an integral part of the transaction -- and even more necessary than in the example I provide.
It's about the money, not the sharing. Venture capitalists aren't in the business of deliberately losing money in sharing schemes.
The one service they provide is making available the software, with a search engine. Unlike, say, RHAT, there aren't really that many other obvious plausible revenue schemes, like selling on-site service... and if they let others learn and implement their protocol, even advertising on the search engine (if any) will quickly be filtered out and rendered pointless. So, from their perspective, why open it?
Bzzt. NSA's charter prohibits this kind of arrangement, as well. You still have to be a covered person for them to arrange for a foreign agency to spy on you, if you're a citizen. Try again.
Some of us may live in smaller communities where going through interlibrary loan for half pr more of our reading would be a bit obnoxious, given the delays and other constraints.
Alternately, libraries often don't have that many copies, if you prefer bestsellers to the more obscure texts. I worked in a library once, and have known reserve lists to be VERY long indeed.
Or if you wish to study literature and compare texts -- say, you want to see for yourself whether the "Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever" series by Donaldson was massively influenced by Tolkein's LOTR series, you'll probably be spending a LOT of time. Enough that it might be called inconsiderate to keep borrowing them and denying others the chance to read from the library. And so forth.
From a certain perspective it's really not that irrational. They've NEVER had a tradition of openness and freedom in the post-Renaissance West. They have, however, been torn apart by lengthy, bloody civil wars and revolutions more than once... and they can observe the experiences of countries with serious political upheaval, such as the aftermath of the fall of the Iron Curtain and the USSR itself.
Consequently, it might not seem that unreasonable to exchange freedoms that no leader has ever given them anyway, in exchange for stability. And, to their credit, the so-called Communists there have arguably made far more internal reforms than did the Emperors and KMT rulers before them, such as actually making an effort to build an economy that helps those beyond the ruling elite.
And how is the nature of the method going to be transmitted / communicated without attracting suspicion? Sending a message suggesting the use of steganography by itself could be rather dangerous depending on conditions.
Short of passing a concealed microfiche either through a face to face meeting or a dead-drop, or veiled references via some non-public information that they share, or if there's some method/medium that they KNOW isn't being monitored...
I'd think that if such an initial message can be sent, things like using coded classified ads (as in traditional code-book code, not, say, RSA), pre-arranged signals on web boards, and so forth might be good -- using public forum in order to reduce the probability that somebody notes the person person communication.
OK. So apparently updating IE to a version that provides a newer inetcomm.dll fixes this.
This begs the obvious question -- since it's a DLL, are these (IE, Outlook, Outlook Express) the only ones that use whatever buggy functions allow this exploit? Or might other mail readers be vulnerable?
But they can get one. And, so far, we've no evidence that the system is a) always-on, and b) indiscriminate. Unless an inside whistleblower reveals that, say, communications HAVE been recorded and examined without a warrant... there's no clear evidence of a violation. It all depends on what capabilities the systems have, and more importantly, how they use it.
What if the boxen are configurable to the point that they'll discard packets that don't fall under an existing investigation? Then there might be no violation...
Could simply be the equivalent of tapping a phone. If a possible perp is being investigated, determine his ISP. When he dials in (if it's not an always-on connection), the ISP should know due to authentication; then dump all packets going to/fro that IP, and stop when connection is dropped.
Data can later be analyzed to check for things like e-mail messages (given that it may be interesting to know who a suspect is talking to) and so forth.
...would disclose techniques and procedures for law enforcement investigations or prosecutions, or would disclose guidelines for law enforcement investigations or prosecutions if such disclosure could reasonably be expected to risk circumvention of the law
I'd think the FBI might make the case that if the design of the *vore systems shows WHAT it monitors -- how it selects such -- then this clause might apply. Certainly, this would seem to allow the FBI to refuse to describe *which* ISPs are being monitored... But then, I'm neither a lawyer nor a Fed.
You can at least implement a nice temporary black-hole if you deliberately misconfigure BGP routers, if memory serves -- I seem to recall a case where a single mis-configured router issued packets that effectively redirected vast amounts of traffic through it. Amounts of traffic that couldn't be handled, causing much traffic 'round the nation to be lost...
...doing this with multiple routers around the country and those on US systems overseas might have a much wider effect.
What I don't see is where the conflict with Earthlink's system lies. Theoretically, all they should need is the network traffic; so either something physical like tapping all connections, or alternately having routers dupe incoming packets to their box.
But that's all PASSIVE. The only modification for Earthlink might be adding a bit of code to their routers if they go the packet-dupe route (which they would need to, methinks, if it were, say, fiber-based) -- and I'd think that this functionality would be pretty routine for diagnostics purposes.
So where's the conflict? Or are they trying for something more ACTIVE?
Hey, in the case of certain terrorists, we could simply drop a line to the Mossad. They're not quite as fastidious in their opposition to terrorism...;-)
If memory serves, we're still in a national state of emergency; hence, the President is still empowered to write rather sweeping executive orders. There's probably no need to invoke an official state of war.
Note also that the FBI has significantly more power than, say, companies. The use of heavily-armed personnel, court orders from favorable judges, and the threat of imprisonment are all there -- and beyond moving out of the country and renouncing your citizenship, you have no choice in the matter.
If I think, say, that music CDs are overpriced, then I don't have to buy them. If I think that income taxes are excessive, and refuse to pay them, then sooner or later people are going to show up -- with guns. There's no easy opting-out from the government.
...and what is the distribution of searches for those songs? Surely it's not uniform... It might not be Zipf, but I'd be surprised if, say, the number of searches for the top 1000 wasn't much larger than the number of searches for the next 10000...
Er, what happens to DNS in this case? Namely, how are the root-level name servers allocated -- by first letter (varying load, no doubt...), or something else?
The mandate for government to "protect" its people is by no means complete. For instance, law enforcement is NOT required to protect everybody, and generally is NOT liable for preventing crimes -- but only dealing with them after the fact.
There is no right to success or happiness, either. In fact, it's arguably not the Gov't business if you choose to violently mutilate yourself...
There is, actually, no Constitutional right to safety or well-being, and no mandate to "protect" them from themselves.
Some of it probably goes towards legal expenses for court orders if need be.
A truly paranoid chap could probably bounce messages through numerous remailers and proxies as apropos, with the initial connection through an ISP account attached to a common facility like a public library. The trail could be unravelled given sufficient logging, but it'll take time, money and probably some legal coercion if enough ornery sysadmins are involved.
If it's libel, sue you and probably get a preliminary injunction while the lawsuit works it way through the system. Libel happens. Folks get nailed for it.
Ditto for NDA violations and all sorts of other breaches of contract.
Heh. And here, IIRC the plot seemed seriously reminiscent of "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale" (also, methinks, by PKD). ISTR that the story itself isn't too ambiguous...
Slashdot Mirror
There are headers you can use (x-no-archive) IIRC which these archives are supposed to respect by NOT archiving your message for posterity...
Oh, they're just knowingly pointing the way. Prithee tell, what IS the unambiguously legal use of allowing ANYBODY to download your .mp3 files, including copyrighted ones?
It's more like a chap on the street pointing you to the dealers who provide cocaine, which legally can NOT be sold in the US. They may not be providing the merchandise themselves, but they're very consciously an integral part of the transaction -- and even more necessary than in the example I provide.
It's about the money, not the sharing. Venture capitalists aren't in the business of deliberately losing money in sharing schemes.
The one service they provide is making available the software, with a search engine. Unlike, say, RHAT, there aren't really that many other obvious plausible revenue schemes, like selling on-site service... and if they let others learn and implement their protocol, even advertising on the search engine (if any) will quickly be filtered out and rendered pointless. So, from their perspective, why open it?
Bzzt. NSA's charter prohibits this kind of arrangement, as well. You still have to be a covered person for them to arrange for a foreign agency to spy on you, if you're a citizen. Try again.
Some of us may live in smaller communities where going through interlibrary loan for half pr more of our reading would be a bit obnoxious, given the delays and other constraints.
Alternately, libraries often don't have that many copies, if you prefer bestsellers to the more obscure texts. I worked in a library once, and have known reserve lists to be VERY long indeed.
Or if you wish to study literature and compare texts -- say, you want to see for yourself whether the "Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever" series by Donaldson was massively influenced by Tolkein's LOTR series, you'll probably be spending a LOT of time. Enough that it might be called inconsiderate to keep borrowing them and denying others the chance to read from the library. And so forth.
If the other software houses followed the lead of Ambrosia Software, they could have a bug-eating party. Crunchy.
*shrug*
From a certain perspective it's really not that irrational. They've NEVER had a tradition of openness and freedom in the post-Renaissance West. They have, however, been torn apart by lengthy, bloody civil wars and revolutions more than once... and they can observe the experiences of countries with serious political upheaval, such as the aftermath of the fall of the Iron Curtain and the USSR itself.
Consequently, it might not seem that unreasonable to exchange freedoms that no leader has ever given them anyway, in exchange for stability. And, to their credit, the so-called Communists there have arguably made far more internal reforms than did the Emperors and KMT rulers before them, such as actually making an effort to build an economy that helps those beyond the ruling elite.
And how is the nature of the method going to be transmitted / communicated without attracting suspicion? Sending a message suggesting the use of steganography by itself could be rather dangerous depending on conditions.
Short of passing a concealed microfiche either through a face to face meeting or a dead-drop, or veiled references via some non-public information that they share, or if there's some method/medium that they KNOW isn't being monitored...
I'd think that if such an initial message can be sent, things like using coded classified ads (as in traditional code-book code, not, say, RSA), pre-arranged signals on web boards, and so forth might be good -- using public forum in order to reduce the probability that somebody notes the person person communication.
OK. So apparently updating IE to a version that provides a newer inetcomm.dll fixes this.
This begs the obvious question -- since it's a DLL, are these (IE, Outlook, Outlook Express) the only ones that use whatever buggy functions allow this exploit? Or might other mail readers be vulnerable?
But they can get one. And, so far, we've no evidence that the system is a) always-on, and b) indiscriminate. Unless an inside whistleblower reveals that, say, communications HAVE been recorded and examined without a warrant... there's no clear evidence of a violation. It all depends on what capabilities the systems have, and more importantly, how they use it.
What if the boxen are configurable to the point that they'll discard packets that don't fall under an existing investigation? Then there might be no violation...
Could simply be the equivalent of tapping a phone. If a possible perp is being investigated, determine his ISP. When he dials in (if it's not an always-on connection), the ISP should know due to authentication; then dump all packets going to/fro that IP, and stop when connection is dropped.
Data can later be analyzed to check for things like e-mail messages (given that it may be interesting to know who a suspect is talking to) and so forth.
Just skimming the Freedom of Information Act, one particular exemption catches my eye --
...would disclose techniques and procedures for law enforcement investigations or prosecutions, or would disclose guidelines for law enforcement investigations or prosecutions if such disclosure could reasonably be expected to risk circumvention of the law
I'd think the FBI might make the case that if the design of the *vore systems shows WHAT it monitors -- how it selects such -- then this clause might apply. Certainly, this would seem to allow the FBI to refuse to describe *which* ISPs are being monitored... But then, I'm neither a lawyer nor a Fed.
You can at least implement a nice temporary black-hole if you deliberately misconfigure BGP routers, if memory serves -- I seem to recall a case where a single mis-configured router issued packets that effectively redirected vast amounts of traffic through it. Amounts of traffic that couldn't be handled, causing much traffic 'round the nation to be lost...
...doing this with multiple routers around the country and those on US systems overseas might have a much wider effect.
What I don't see is where the conflict with Earthlink's system lies. Theoretically, all they should need is the network traffic; so either something physical like tapping all connections, or alternately having routers dupe incoming packets to their box.
But that's all PASSIVE. The only modification for Earthlink might be adding a bit of code to their routers if they go the packet-dupe route (which they would need to, methinks, if it were, say, fiber-based) -- and I'd think that this functionality would be pretty routine for diagnostics purposes.
So where's the conflict? Or are they trying for something more ACTIVE?
Hey, in the case of certain terrorists, we could simply drop a line to the Mossad. They're not quite as fastidious in their opposition to terrorism... ;-)
If memory serves, we're still in a national state of emergency; hence, the President is still empowered to write rather sweeping executive orders. There's probably no need to invoke an official state of war.
But does it work that way?
Note also that the FBI has significantly more power than, say, companies. The use of heavily-armed personnel, court orders from favorable judges, and the threat of imprisonment are all there -- and beyond moving out of the country and renouncing your citizenship, you have no choice in the matter.
If I think, say, that music CDs are overpriced, then I don't have to buy them. If I think that income taxes are excessive, and refuse to pay them, then sooner or later people are going to show up -- with guns. There's no easy opting-out from the government.
...and what is the distribution of searches for those songs? Surely it's not uniform... It might not be Zipf, but I'd be surprised if, say, the number of searches for the top 1000 wasn't much larger than the number of searches for the next 10000...
Er, what happens to DNS in this case? Namely, how are the root-level name servers allocated -- by first letter (varying load, no doubt...), or something else?
Fine. His constituents' home state... former home of WordPerfect...
Being cynical, I have to wonder if...
...or a dislike of high-priced lawyers.
a) At least part of his motivation stems from a dislike of mostly left-leaning entertainers,
b)
c) (most unlikely) If one can force licensing deals in music, can one force licensing deals in software? Given his home state, he's no ally of MS...
But perhaps I'm just being overly cynical and he IS really thinking about rewriting fair use and weakening IP protections for the Internet age.
Invoking compulsory licensing and something that sounds like price controls ("reasonable price") would seem to be a strangely extreme measure...
The mandate for government to "protect" its people is by no means complete. For instance, law enforcement is NOT required to protect everybody, and generally is NOT liable for preventing crimes -- but only dealing with them after the fact.
There is no right to success or happiness, either. In fact, it's arguably not the Gov't business if you choose to violently mutilate yourself...
There is, actually, no Constitutional right to safety or well-being, and no mandate to "protect" them from themselves.
Some of it probably goes towards legal expenses for court orders if need be.
A truly paranoid chap could probably bounce messages through numerous remailers and proxies as apropos, with the initial connection through an ISP account attached to a common facility like a public library. The trail could be unravelled given sufficient logging, but it'll take time, money and probably some legal coercion if enough ornery sysadmins are involved.
If it's libel, sue you and probably get a preliminary injunction while the lawsuit works it way through the system. Libel happens. Folks get nailed for it.
Ditto for NDA violations and all sorts of other breaches of contract.
Heh. And here, IIRC the plot seemed seriously reminiscent of "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale" (also, methinks, by PKD). ISTR that the story itself isn't too ambiguous...