Anyway, didn't anyone learn from DejaNews? The response to this IRC transcript thing sounds exactly the same as when people on Usenet suddenly discovered that the stuff they wrote on their "ephemeral" public medium was being archived.
I think it's a bit different from DejaNews for a few reasons.
Usenet is like a real world bulletin board. You have some right to expect that anything you post on it may be read (and saved) by someone else. An IRC channel is like a room you invite your friends and their friends into. If you found out two years later that somebody was sitting in the corner recording every word that had been said, you'd probably be pretty annoyed about it.
You probably don't have any expectation of privacy but one has to wonder why this outfit did it in such an underhanded (anonymous bots that look like clients and use tor?) way. If they released it as a service and allowed channels to opt-out (presumably by making the bots easy to identify and ban) noone would have a problem with it.
In any case, they never would have pulled this off in my channel, because we have banned them after they idled there for hours without ever saying anything. But I do think they deserve a big fat "fuck you" for making tor even less useful (now that it's been banned because of them).
What about all the people openly trading kiddy porn?
That's the fault of the protocol? I'm sure bittorrent is used for kiddy porn too -- but if I pointed that out in an argument against bittorrent I'd have 50 replies pointing out how it's also used for Linux ISOs, game updates, etc, etc.
Netsplits - my primary hate object. Since IRC is adfree and without a corporate backer, the service levels are often poor to terrible.
Anybody who has used IRC for awhile knows how to handle netsplits. They are a fact of life with the way the protocol works. And what do you mean "IRC is adfree without a corporate backer?" There is nothing called "IRC", there are individual IRC networks, most of which are volunteer efforts. Nothing is stopping you from finding or starting a network with corporate backing if you think it will be more reliable. Personally I think the fact that it's all volunteer run is a plus and not a negative.
No offline messages. Since there's no single backer, you can't send a message to someone that they'll get when they return.
Some networks have services that will do this. On others you can use a private bot to do it. You think it should be done at the protocol level instead?
No support for smileys/other short animations. No, it's not just teen girls using those
That's a client-level function. WTF are you bitching about? I'm sure there's a script out there for mIRC that would give you smilies and animations if you really want them. IRC is just a protocol for communication between servers and clients. It's up to the client to format and display the data. AIM is no different in this regard -- your wink is still sent as ';)' -- the client just puts a pretty graphic on it.
No support for mic, webcams etc
You could do webcams with sound with a decent script in most clients. But if that's what you want then IRC probably isn't for you.
DCC sucks terribly particularly with firewalls and NAT
Yeah and sending files on IM also sucks with firewalls and NAT, unless you have opened up ports or your client and router support upnp. Again, what's your point? How is this something lacking with IRC?
You can register for a nick on most networks, but that doesn't stop someone else from taking it so messages go to the wrong people
If those people are basing your identity solely off your nick then they don't understand IRC very well. And as you say, some networks have nick registration if this bothers you. Some will even auto-kill people using your nick.
Doing some of the more advanced features like sharing a folder with someone (fserve) is a lot harder than in modern chat programs
So write a better client if this bothers you that much. Or even a script for an existing client. There's very little you can't do with the scripting language in a modern client like ircII epic.
he hacks to allow other clients to access those networks aren't exactly helping the uptake of an open standards backend either
IRC is one the most open protocols there is. All of the various ircds are well documented and most are open-source (if not GNU) projects. The underlying IRC protocol itself is simple enough that anybody with Wireshark and half a brain could reverse engineer it if they wanted to do so. Hell, I largely taught myself scripting/coding and protocol analysis by playing around with IRC and tcpdump back in the day.
Examples include the SlashDot forum and a channel on IRC
/. is quite different from IRC. If I've had a channel with my buds for years then I probably had a right to be surprised when the complete logs of our discussions appeared in a database somewhere. Granted, I have no right to privacy, but still.... how underhanded is it that they did this with stealth bots pretending to be real users?
All is fair if they announced themselves and gave you an easy way to opt out (presumably by making the bots all follow a similar nick and/or userhost pattern so they can be banned) but to sneak around to do it without anybody knowing? WTF is that? I'd be pissed too.
Even the NSA will be unable to crack the message (if the users pick a good encryption tool)
If you have the NSA looking after you then you have a bigger problem then worrying about encrypting your e-mail. And if they are after you then you really can't trust ANYTHING, other then perhaps a one time pad done by hand. Why? Because it's highly probable that in this day and age they can get a sneak-and-peek warrant, gain physical access to your PC and install whatever keylogger/rootkit they want. And that kinda makes encryption a moot point.
The FSB (successor to the KGB) can record the entire session of encrypted Internet packets, but the FSB will be unable to decipher the communication.
Yes, because I'm sure the person encrypting his telephone calls won't draw any attention from the FSB at all.... and if they can do a sneak-and-peek in the United States then I'm sure they can do it in Russia. After all, in Soviet Russia PC rootkits YOU, or something like that;)
But I know that my IRC home, Efnet, and others I visit on occasion, Undernet and Dalnet, are nothing like they used to be
Undernet was my home from 1996 to 2001. It's nothing like it used to be, all the more so for an IRC purist. Dumbed down services, old commands that no longer work because they want to hide the details of the network (anyone remember when you could/whois someone and change to their server to avoid lag?), blah blah blah.
I hear EFNet is still more or less "real irc". I may wind up there, since it seems that all of my old friends on Undernet are long since gone.
everyone but suburban American trash knows that your telecommunications market is a pile of shit. Just look at the Verizon and it's use of the BREW platform. How fucked up is that? Verizon actually disables in-built features of various phones and makes you buy their turds (BREW application) to use the same damn features
Yeah, the business practices of our wireless providers suck. We don't have the same freedom as Europe. What's your point though? It's not the underlying technology that sucks in the United States. It's the business practices of those that implement that technology.
And doesn't T-mobile make you pay for IM by each message? And the fact that in the USA paying for incoming text messages is the norm, isn't that pretty dumb?
Again, what's your point? For better or worse the United States is a "owner pays" model instead of "caller pays". Granted, in Europe you get free incoming calls and texts. But you also pay a premium to call a wireless user. So the person calling you is paying for you to have that cell phone. In the United States you are paying to have that cell phone and for the people calling you it's treated as any other call (i.e: no extra charges).
It's also my understanding that in Europe "all you can eat" plans aren't really that common. I have unlimited SMS for $14.99/mo with T-Mobile. Sprint users have it for $10/mo. $20/mo for Verizon and AT&T. Can you get unlimited text messages? Can you get unlimited nights and weekends and/or mobile to mobile?
I use over 4,000 minutes and >3,000 SMS per month on average. Costs me $54.98/mo before taxes with T-Mobile USA. Could I get the same amount of usage for that price or less in Europe?
Verizon doesn't even compare to AT&T. The biggest problem with AT&T's network is that they've got two incompatible 2.5G networks that they're trying to merge. Verizon still has nothing like what Cingular or AWS had before the merger. If they were leapfrogging, that might be an advantage, but they're not improving they're network, they're living off the fat of 75% the land lines they got for free.
I'm sorry, I hate Verizon (and especially Verizon Wireless) as much as anybody, but this is such a gross misstatement of the wireless industry that I'm going to piss away the 5 mod points I spent here to refute it.
Verizon is trying to "live off the fat" of their landlines while AT&T innovates? Give me a fucking break! Verizon has a nationwide 3G network. In virtually any part of the Verizon Wireless network you have full EV-DO broadband speeds. Can AT&T make the same claim? Most of their network, especially the suburban and rural parts of it, is still using EDGE (ISDN to slow DSL type speeds) or even GRPS (single channel ISDN speed).
Don't misinterpret my statement as a support for Verizon's business practices (which suck even more then AT&Ts) or as a preference for CDMA over GSM/UMTS. I'd much perfer to see a nationwide deployment of UMTS then CDMA. But the fact remains that Verizon and Sprint (CDMA carriers) both have a better data solution then AT&T right now. So how the hell can you say that AT&T is doing all the innovating while Verizon "lives off the fat of their landline business"? Hell, AT&T only became the largest carrier by assimilating the original AT&T Wireless into Cingular.
AT&T is trying to move into the modern world, and the only carrier that can compete (coincidentally using the same technology) is T-Mobile, but they're in no position to invest
T-Mobile is in no position to invest? What the fuck are you smoking and can I have some? T-Mobile just invested billions of dollars into the AWS auction and grabbed enough spectrum to roll out a nationwide UMTS network. T-Mobile USA's biggest problem isn't funding (Deutsche Telekom has a 96 billion dollar market cap), T-Mobile USA's biggest problem is a lack of available spectrum. As an example, they are running their GSM network in New York City off a whooping 10mhz of spectrum. AT&T has nearly ten times that amount.
The purchases of all the AWS licenses should theoretically solve this problem. Unfortunately in many areas, the Government has yet to vacate the AWS bands that were sold to the wireless carriers. Once the Government (and other users) vacate those bands, T-Mobile will (almost instantly) have a UMTS network available in the entirety of their existing footprint. They will also finally have the licenses to expand out of that footprint. In many areas (New York City) they even have the equipment already installed and the only thing preventing them from turning it up is that the AWS bands haven't been vacated yet.
The low security of a workstation cuts both ways in an argument about gDrive: because your data is already at risk sitting on your hard drive, storing it encrypted on gDrive might not be any worse.
Well, putting aside the criminal side of the justice system (they have these things called 'warrants' and in some nations can even force you to turn over your decryption key), what about the civil side?
You have no right to refuse to turn over something requested in discovery. At least with the data stored locally you have the (somewhat risky and likely illegal) option of "losing" it. Google's own privacy policy states that even if you remove data from their servers it will likely remain in "off-line backup systems" indefinately.
No, I will not be storing my data anywhere (encrypted or otherwise) that I don't control. When I delete something I want to be 100% certain that it is in fact deleted. And all of those people saying that AES isn't breakable are missing the point: It isn't breakable today. What about tomorrow?
I seriously doubt the FF would have agreed to an Amendment banning alcohol in the 1780s when they were writing the Constitution
I also seriously doubt they would have agreed to an Amendment outlawing Slavery, but are you likewise opposed to the 13th?
They envisioned a fairly weak Federal government which was limited to foreign relations, national defense, and interstate commerce. The Federal government doesn't need a lot of money to do these things
Define what "a lot of money" is. National defense isn't exactly cheap in this day and age. In the early days of the Republic without much of a standing army and virtually no navy it might have been. Should we scrap the professional Army in favor of returning to a "militia surge" type model and mothball the Navy? Can we pay for our current military without an income tax (i.e: with excise taxes, duties, etc, etc)?
Out of curiosity, are you opposed to income taxes on the state level (i.e: you have a fundamental problem with the concept) or just on the Federal?
We just saw in 2005 how effective the Federal government is at disaster relief, with the current model where most tax money goes directly to the Federal level.
Well, the clusterfuck that was most of the relief effort notwithstanding, some Federal agencies managed to come through -- I haven't heard too many complaints about the effort that the Coast Guard put in. But wouldn't you agree that if an individual state exhausts it's resources/finds itself overwhelmed by a disaster that it should have the option of calling on the rest of the Union for help?
I disagree. The text you quote above is the Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution, not part of the original Constitution (which only had 10 Amendments), and ratified in 1913.
Granted, but what's your point? The Constitution provides for an amendment process and makes it pretty damn hard (75% of the States need to approve) to do so. If an amendment survives this process and is approved by the required number of states then whatever changes it makes have the same weight as the original text of the document. For better or worse this was the intent of the Founding Fathers.
Unfortunately, while the 18th was finally repealed after disastrous consequences, the 16th hasn't been repealed yet in spite of all its negative effects.
The biggest negative effect I see to the income tax is that it has given the Federal Government "the power of the purse" over the States. I don't have any qualms with the concept of an income tax. I do take issue when Congress decides to blackmail (err, "convince") the states to do what it wants (raising the drinking age to 21) by threatening to withhold funding.
I don't see an easy solution to this either. The Libertarian in me is tempted to say that the Federal Government has no business funding ANYTHING for the states (be it education, highways, etc). If this were the case then the Federal Government would lose the ability to blackmail the states and the (Federal) income tax would go down. Personally I'd rather pay higher State taxes then Federal because my Assemblywoman is a hell of a lot more responsive to me then my Congressman or Senator. That said, I don't think a blanket ban is justifiable, because I can see legitimate scenarios where a small number of states may require the assistance of the union as a whole. Disaster relief is an obvious example. Funding for projects that benefit the nation as a whole might be another.
Anyway, if you want to pick on a specific amendment as being responsible for the rise of Washington at the expense of the States I'd probably point the finger less at the 16th and more at the 17th. One would assume that if Senators were responsible to the State Legislature back home that they'd be less inclined to do things that take power away from the States. Of course, there were problems with the Legislatures picking Senators too -- so I don't pretend that repealing the 17th wouldn't have it's downsides either. Perhaps allowing the people to elect Senators but giving the State Legislature some sort of "recall" authority over them?
Gerrymandering also comes to mind as one of the bigger problems that we face, but I'm not sure what sort of solution could be purposed that would be remotely Constitutional (short of an amendment). One of the ideas that I'm interested in is an expansion of the size of the House of Representatives. Presumably they'd be more responsive to the people if they represented less of them. Of course this wouldn't really solve the aforementioned problem, but one could argue that it might be easier to challenge a sitting Congressman for his seat if the district was smaller.
Anyway, I'm probably rambling here. But it's interesting to have a discussion like this with somebody that has actually read the Constitution:)
"The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it". The Southern States breaking away from the Union and firing on a Federal Fort sounds like "rebellion" to me.
and created an income tax
"The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several states, and without regard to any census or enumeration"
You won't get any argument out of me that the original intent behind the Constitution has been/is being subverted. My favorite example is the interstate commerce clause becoming a blank check for Congress to do whatever they want (like controlling what I can put into my own body as a consenting adult). But using the income tax and Lincoln as your examples doesn't seem very justifiable.
Most of the examples I can think of (the Controlled Substances Act and the use of highway funding to blackmail state legislatures being the two that come to mind) are recent inventions.
How come my car has a speedometer that is calibrated to 180 but I can't drive at 180MPH?
That's a stupid fucking analogy. You'd have a better case if you were bitching about the engine governor that's installed in most consumer vehicles. Bitching because a meter goes higher then the vehicle can is stupid. Would you prefer if you could bury the speedometer and not know how fast you were actually going? Do I have the right to bitch if my car doesn't survive to 999,999 miles because that's how high the odometer goes?
ow come when you go to a "all-you-can-eat" restaurant they don't let you stay there for a week and keep eating?
Actually, if they were open 24/7 and you could manage to stay there for a week without falling asleep, then yes, I think you'd have the right to bitch. If they are advertising it as "all-you-can-eat" then they don't have the right to ask me to leave for the sole reason that they think I'm eating too much and if they did ask me to leave then I'd probably refuse to pay my bill.
The different is that if I knew someone had hired a hitman, I'd hire my own, then kill both the opposing hitman AND his client. In legal battles, only the client gets punished (sometimes)
I like how your plan is to hire your own hitman instead of going to the police;) That won't have any unintended consequences at all;)
when the character of the trial is deemed abusive
It's rarely the "character of the trial" that's abusive. Typically it's everything leading up to that point. I don't have a solution for you because every suggestion that I've heard has as many pitfalls as benefits. The one thing I haven't heard anybody suggest is taking a look at the rules of civil procedure. Perhaps changing them could get rid of some of the abuse? IANAL though.
A lot of people are losing faith in the system, and hitmen are a whole lot cheaper than lawyers
Yeah, but short of a bad defense attorney, your lawyer's mistake typically won't get you 25 to life. Your hitman's mistake will;)
One thing I've found is typical: the louder they preach, and more specifically, try to force it on others, the less they practice.
There's an "offensive" fortune (fortune -o) that goes something like this:
Christian: A man who apologizes to his lord for the sins that he committed yesterday and those that he is going to commit tomorrow. One who feels that the Bible is a divinely inspired book, quite well suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbor.
Seriously though. I'm not Christian and never will be, but it would seem to me that real Christians would give more then lip service to Jesus' arguments in favor of the poor and downtrodden. Hell, he even came out against creditors and usury. Instead they'd rather rail about the evils of gay marriage and the "War on Christmas". *sigh*
Over those years though I can't recount how many times a customer would need a windows re-install, or an office re-install, whatever. I'd ask for the original CD and they'd tell me "Don't you have a copy?"
Uhh, being a little paranoid, don't you think?
In the case of Windows I'm quite happy to install it from my media, provided that I'm using a activation key of theirs (i.e: the sticker is already on their PC with the license key). Who the hell cares if they have the original CD or not? Windows XP Pro is Windows XP Pro, regardless of your CD or theirs.
Office is a little trickier, because the license key is typically with the CD and not the computer, but even so, if you had their license key it wouldn't matter if you installed it from YOUR cd.
If they want to audit your business, make them get a warrant
That's what I don't understand either and perhaps somebody could explain it to me. How the hell do they gain access to all of your systems if you refuse to let them in? Are they going to sue you and force you to turn it all over in discovery?
Has anybody tried to fight them on a legal front? It would seem to me that just by showing up to court (even if pro say) and answering their motions you could drag out the discovery process for months. Months that you could use to find any out of compliance software and fix it -- or better yet, switch to OSS if that's an option for your business.
Two counts each of Computer Trespass (Section 156.10 of the NYS Penal Law) and "Unauthorized Use of a Computer" (Section 156.05). The first charge is a Class E Felony, the second a Class A misdemeanor.
I won't go into the whole story, but suffice it to say I was young and stupid and got involved in a pissing contest between my employer and someone else when I shouldn't have. The charges were from two different counties.
The first county didn't even have a full time DA and really didn't want to deal with it. They made a plea offer for an ACD (Adjournment in Contemplation of Dismissal, basically be good for six months and we dismiss the charges, no admission of guilt) with various strings attached (I was supposed to make "restitution" to my "victim") which I rejected. After this, the DA kept asking for continuances, which my lawyer didn't object to (in NYS they only have six months to proceed with a felony charge) and eventually agreed to an ACD without conditions.
The second county had a full time DA and nothing better to do. They offered to drop the felony if I would plead guilty to the misdemeanor. I refused to accept this offer. Eventually it went to Grand Jury. My lawyer recommended that I testify. This is a rare occurrence in New York State, because if you testify before the Grand Jury you waive your 5th amendment right and have to answer any question that they ask. Obviously not a recommended course of action if you are actually guilty of something. I testified before the Grand Jury and they returned "no true bill", i.e: they refused to indict me. The DA could have still proceeded with the misdemeanor charge, but he decided to drop it. I guess he figured that if he couldn't get 13 out of 24 Grand Jurors to find it probable that I had committed the crimes, that he'd never get 12 out of 12 Petit Jurors to find me guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
Anyway, I came away from the experience with a newfound respect for the legal system. And I learned that I will never talk to the cops about ANYTHING (not even speeding ticket) ever again. Had they listened to a single word that I had said none of this ever would have happened. They had made up their minds before they even talked to me and attempted to twist everything that I said into an admission of guilt. I eventually invoked my right to consul and refused to speak to them. After this I was charged.
Yes I am because one doesn't have to look further than the courthouse to watch minorities get fed this line:"I know you're innocent but they're going to keep you in jail until you go to trial and if you plea now they'll have you out in a week". Attorneys have a built-in need to negotiate with one another while at the same time ignoring their clients. An attorney who is defending me doesn't need to run to the prosecutor for a plea agreement before even hearing my side of the case.
*shrug*, I've seen just as many lawyers at the courthouse reject plea agreements. Sucks that you had a bad experience, but I still wouldn't be brave enough to face criminal charges without some sort of legal representation.
Lawyers are like Doctors. If one is giving you advice that you don't agree with, then seek out a second opinion. In the end they have to do what you tell them to do -- even if that means rejecting a plea offer that they think you should take. If you don't think you are being represented the way you want then that's the fault of that one person -- not the whole profession.
Which do you think is faster: a plea bargain made over coffee with the prosecutor, or a jury trial lasting 2 days?
What's your point? The lawyer makes less money on the plea bargain then he would have with a jury trial. One of the reasons that I'm glad I was able to beat my charges at the Grand Jury was because it saved me the expense of a felony jury trial. All told my legal fees for the various court appearances, grand jury appearance, meetings and conferences came to $4,600. Had it gone to a jury trial it would have cost me over $15,000.
A plea bargain is going to generate less billable hours then a trial. If you have a decent lawyer and a shot at winning he isn't going to try and talk you into a plea bargain if you are willing to pay for his services at a trial.
and they are making false representations to the Court about the evidence.
If they are actually doing that (and I don't doubt you that they are) then it's obviously a different matter and they deserve to be punished harshly by the Court and the relevant Bar Associations.
Has anybody looked into this and sought sanctions against them?
If Grandma sues MegaCorp with a single lawyer and looses then it only costs her twice whatever her lawyer charges.
Which is still more then many people can afford. I'm somewhat leery of doing anything that makes it harder to use the legal system. And how would your idea account for people whose lawyers take the cases on contingecy?
Perhaps what we need is some sort of public defender type system for people without the resources to defend themselves in civil court. Your idea of 'loser pays' does nothing to help the person facing the RIAA lawsuit if they don't already have the money they need to defend themselves.
I can, easily. They stink. Mine rolled over and started pandering to the prosecution until I finally was tired of hearing his whiny ass tell me that my defense would do no good
Your basing your entire opinion of a profession on your experiences with one person?
My defense attorney went to bat for me, did exactly what I said (including rejecting a plea offer that he had recommended I take) and stood by me throughout the whole process. Had I not have sought out effective consul it's anybodies guess as to what would have happened.
With his help and my own stubbornness I was able to head it off at the Grand Jury -- once they refused to indict me, the DA folded like a cheap suit and even dropped the misdemeanour charges. Guess he figured if he couldn't get 13 out of 24 to vote for true bill that he'd never be able to get 12 out of 12 to find me guilty.
Ya know, my karma will probably get beat all to hell for this, but not all lawyers are bad.
Get charged with a crime you didn't commit and then tell me how you feel about defense attorneys. Get injured by someone whose insurance company refuses to pay for your treatment and tell me how you feel about them.
Do you have a negative opinion of the lawyers working for the FSF? How about the ACLU lawyers fighting for your civil liberties? How about this guy or this guy, both of whom were lawyers.
Lawyers represent their clients. You'd be doing better to direct your anger at the RIAA for the lawsuits and not their lawyers.
The losing parties liability for court costs is one idea we could definitely learn from here in the US.
Yes, because when Grandma needs to seek justice against some large corporation that wronged her, she should definitely have to worry about paying their legal fees if she loses.
More and more devices can play video. I think the time will come when it's almost as ubiquitous as music, and at that point, we'll see how the MPAA fairs.
Perhaps, but even if video was a ubiquitous as music, I don't think the same arguments apply to the movie studios as do the record labels. Just about anybody can buy the gear required to master a recording. Just about anybody can pay somebody to press CDs for them and/or use the internet to distribute content.
There's a little bit more involved in the production of any movie (even one without the special effects that seem to substitute for plot these days) then there is in the production of a record release. I think you'll still see movie studios around in one way or another -- maybe an upstart will shake things up and force them to abandon the DRM -- but they will still be around.
Slashdot Mirror
I think it's a bit different from DejaNews for a few reasons.
Usenet is like a real world bulletin board. You have some right to expect that anything you post on it may be read (and saved) by someone else. An IRC channel is like a room you invite your friends and their friends into. If you found out two years later that somebody was sitting in the corner recording every word that had been said, you'd probably be pretty annoyed about it.
You probably don't have any expectation of privacy but one has to wonder why this outfit did it in such an underhanded (anonymous bots that look like clients and use tor?) way. If they released it as a service and allowed channels to opt-out (presumably by making the bots easy to identify and ban) noone would have a problem with it.
In any case, they never would have pulled this off in my channel, because we have banned them after they idled there for hours without ever saying anything. But I do think they deserve a big fat "fuck you" for making tor even less useful (now that it's been banned because of them).
That's the fault of the protocol? I'm sure bittorrent is used for kiddy porn too -- but if I pointed that out in an argument against bittorrent I'd have 50 replies pointing out how it's also used for Linux ISOs, game updates, etc, etc.
WTF? Do you even know what the point of IRC is?
Netsplits - my primary hate object. Since IRC is adfree and without a corporate backer, the service levels are often poor to terrible.Anybody who has used IRC for awhile knows how to handle netsplits. They are a fact of life with the way the protocol works. And what do you mean "IRC is adfree without a corporate backer?" There is nothing called "IRC", there are individual IRC networks, most of which are volunteer efforts. Nothing is stopping you from finding or starting a network with corporate backing if you think it will be more reliable. Personally I think the fact that it's all volunteer run is a plus and not a negative.
No offline messages. Since there's no single backer, you can't send a message to someone that they'll get when they return.Some networks have services that will do this. On others you can use a private bot to do it. You think it should be done at the protocol level instead?
No support for smileys/other short animations. No, it's not just teen girls using thoseThat's a client-level function. WTF are you bitching about? I'm sure there's a script out there for mIRC that would give you smilies and animations if you really want them. IRC is just a protocol for communication between servers and clients. It's up to the client to format and display the data. AIM is no different in this regard -- your wink is still sent as ';)' -- the client just puts a pretty graphic on it.
No support for mic, webcams etcYou could do webcams with sound with a decent script in most clients. But if that's what you want then IRC probably isn't for you.
DCC sucks terribly particularly with firewalls and NATYeah and sending files on IM also sucks with firewalls and NAT, unless you have opened up ports or your client and router support upnp. Again, what's your point? How is this something lacking with IRC?
You can register for a nick on most networks, but that doesn't stop someone else from taking it so messages go to the wrong peopleIf those people are basing your identity solely off your nick then they don't understand IRC very well. And as you say, some networks have nick registration if this bothers you. Some will even auto-kill people using your nick.
Doing some of the more advanced features like sharing a folder with someone (fserve) is a lot harder than in modern chat programsSo write a better client if this bothers you that much. Or even a script for an existing client. There's very little you can't do with the scripting language in a modern client like ircII epic.
he hacks to allow other clients to access those networks aren't exactly helping the uptake of an open standards backend eitherIRC is one the most open protocols there is. All of the various ircds are well documented and most are open-source (if not GNU) projects. The underlying IRC protocol itself is simple enough that anybody with Wireshark and half a brain could reverse engineer it if they wanted to do so. Hell, I largely taught myself scripting/coding and protocol analysis by playing around with IRC and tcpdump back in the day.
/. is quite different from IRC. If I've had a channel with my buds for years then I probably had a right to be surprised when the complete logs of our discussions appeared in a database somewhere. Granted, I have no right to privacy, but still.... how underhanded is it that they did this with stealth bots pretending to be real users?
All is fair if they announced themselves and gave you an easy way to opt out (presumably by making the bots all follow a similar nick and/or userhost pattern so they can be banned) but to sneak around to do it without anybody knowing? WTF is that? I'd be pissed too.
Even the NSA will be unable to crack the message (if the users pick a good encryption tool)If you have the NSA looking after you then you have a bigger problem then worrying about encrypting your e-mail. And if they are after you then you really can't trust ANYTHING, other then perhaps a one time pad done by hand. Why? Because it's highly probable that in this day and age they can get a sneak-and-peek warrant, gain physical access to your PC and install whatever keylogger/rootkit they want. And that kinda makes encryption a moot point.
The FSB (successor to the KGB) can record the entire session of encrypted Internet packets, but the FSB will be unable to decipher the communication.Yes, because I'm sure the person encrypting his telephone calls won't draw any attention from the FSB at all.... and if they can do a sneak-and-peek in the United States then I'm sure they can do it in Russia. After all, in Soviet Russia PC rootkits YOU, or something like that ;)
Undernet was my home from 1996 to 2001. It's nothing like it used to be, all the more so for an IRC purist. Dumbed down services, old commands that no longer work because they want to hide the details of the network (anyone remember when you could /whois someone and change to their server to avoid lag?), blah blah blah.
I hear EFNet is still more or less "real irc". I may wind up there, since it seems that all of my old friends on Undernet are long since gone.
Where the hell do you work that needs that amount of bandwidth? AT&T? ;)
Yeah, the business practices of our wireless providers suck. We don't have the same freedom as Europe. What's your point though? It's not the underlying technology that sucks in the United States. It's the business practices of those that implement that technology.
And doesn't T-mobile make you pay for IM by each message? And the fact that in the USA paying for incoming text messages is the norm, isn't that pretty dumb?Again, what's your point? For better or worse the United States is a "owner pays" model instead of "caller pays". Granted, in Europe you get free incoming calls and texts. But you also pay a premium to call a wireless user. So the person calling you is paying for you to have that cell phone. In the United States you are paying to have that cell phone and for the people calling you it's treated as any other call (i.e: no extra charges).
It's also my understanding that in Europe "all you can eat" plans aren't really that common. I have unlimited SMS for $14.99/mo with T-Mobile. Sprint users have it for $10/mo. $20/mo for Verizon and AT&T. Can you get unlimited text messages? Can you get unlimited nights and weekends and/or mobile to mobile?
I use over 4,000 minutes and >3,000 SMS per month on average. Costs me $54.98/mo before taxes with T-Mobile USA. Could I get the same amount of usage for that price or less in Europe?
I'm sorry, I hate Verizon (and especially Verizon Wireless) as much as anybody, but this is such a gross misstatement of the wireless industry that I'm going to piss away the 5 mod points I spent here to refute it.
Verizon is trying to "live off the fat" of their landlines while AT&T innovates? Give me a fucking break! Verizon has a nationwide 3G network. In virtually any part of the Verizon Wireless network you have full EV-DO broadband speeds. Can AT&T make the same claim? Most of their network, especially the suburban and rural parts of it, is still using EDGE (ISDN to slow DSL type speeds) or even GRPS (single channel ISDN speed).
Don't misinterpret my statement as a support for Verizon's business practices (which suck even more then AT&Ts) or as a preference for CDMA over GSM/UMTS. I'd much perfer to see a nationwide deployment of UMTS then CDMA. But the fact remains that Verizon and Sprint (CDMA carriers) both have a better data solution then AT&T right now. So how the hell can you say that AT&T is doing all the innovating while Verizon "lives off the fat of their landline business"? Hell, AT&T only became the largest carrier by assimilating the original AT&T Wireless into Cingular.
AT&T is trying to move into the modern world, and the only carrier that can compete (coincidentally using the same technology) is T-Mobile, but they're in no position to investT-Mobile is in no position to invest? What the fuck are you smoking and can I have some? T-Mobile just invested billions of dollars into the AWS auction and grabbed enough spectrum to roll out a nationwide UMTS network. T-Mobile USA's biggest problem isn't funding (Deutsche Telekom has a 96 billion dollar market cap), T-Mobile USA's biggest problem is a lack of available spectrum. As an example, they are running their GSM network in New York City off a whooping 10mhz of spectrum. AT&T has nearly ten times that amount.
The purchases of all the AWS licenses should theoretically solve this problem. Unfortunately in many areas, the Government has yet to vacate the AWS bands that were sold to the wireless carriers. Once the Government (and other users) vacate those bands, T-Mobile will (almost instantly) have a UMTS network available in the entirety of their existing footprint. They will also finally have the licenses to expand out of that footprint. In many areas (New York City) they even have the equipment already installed and the only thing preventing them from turning it up is that the AWS bands haven't been vacated yet.
Well, putting aside the criminal side of the justice system (they have these things called 'warrants' and in some nations can even force you to turn over your decryption key), what about the civil side?
You have no right to refuse to turn over something requested in discovery. At least with the data stored locally you have the (somewhat risky and likely illegal) option of "losing" it. Google's own privacy policy states that even if you remove data from their servers it will likely remain in "off-line backup systems" indefinately.
No, I will not be storing my data anywhere (encrypted or otherwise) that I don't control. When I delete something I want to be 100% certain that it is in fact deleted. And all of those people saying that AES isn't breakable are missing the point: It isn't breakable today. What about tomorrow?
I also seriously doubt they would have agreed to an Amendment outlawing Slavery, but are you likewise opposed to the 13th?
They envisioned a fairly weak Federal government which was limited to foreign relations, national defense, and interstate commerce. The Federal government doesn't need a lot of money to do these thingsDefine what "a lot of money" is. National defense isn't exactly cheap in this day and age. In the early days of the Republic without much of a standing army and virtually no navy it might have been. Should we scrap the professional Army in favor of returning to a "militia surge" type model and mothball the Navy? Can we pay for our current military without an income tax (i.e: with excise taxes, duties, etc, etc)?
Out of curiosity, are you opposed to income taxes on the state level (i.e: you have a fundamental problem with the concept) or just on the Federal?
We just saw in 2005 how effective the Federal government is at disaster relief, with the current model where most tax money goes directly to the Federal level.Well, the clusterfuck that was most of the relief effort notwithstanding, some Federal agencies managed to come through -- I haven't heard too many complaints about the effort that the Coast Guard put in. But wouldn't you agree that if an individual state exhausts it's resources/finds itself overwhelmed by a disaster that it should have the option of calling on the rest of the Union for help?
Granted, but what's your point? The Constitution provides for an amendment process and makes it pretty damn hard (75% of the States need to approve) to do so. If an amendment survives this process and is approved by the required number of states then whatever changes it makes have the same weight as the original text of the document. For better or worse this was the intent of the Founding Fathers.
Unfortunately, while the 18th was finally repealed after disastrous consequences, the 16th hasn't been repealed yet in spite of all its negative effects.The biggest negative effect I see to the income tax is that it has given the Federal Government "the power of the purse" over the States. I don't have any qualms with the concept of an income tax. I do take issue when Congress decides to blackmail (err, "convince") the states to do what it wants (raising the drinking age to 21) by threatening to withhold funding.
I don't see an easy solution to this either. The Libertarian in me is tempted to say that the Federal Government has no business funding ANYTHING for the states (be it education, highways, etc). If this were the case then the Federal Government would lose the ability to blackmail the states and the (Federal) income tax would go down. Personally I'd rather pay higher State taxes then Federal because my Assemblywoman is a hell of a lot more responsive to me then my Congressman or Senator. That said, I don't think a blanket ban is justifiable, because I can see legitimate scenarios where a small number of states may require the assistance of the union as a whole. Disaster relief is an obvious example. Funding for projects that benefit the nation as a whole might be another.
Anyway, if you want to pick on a specific amendment as being responsible for the rise of Washington at the expense of the States I'd probably point the finger less at the 16th and more at the 17th. One would assume that if Senators were responsible to the State Legislature back home that they'd be less inclined to do things that take power away from the States. Of course, there were problems with the Legislatures picking Senators too -- so I don't pretend that repealing the 17th wouldn't have it's downsides either. Perhaps allowing the people to elect Senators but giving the State Legislature some sort of "recall" authority over them?
Gerrymandering also comes to mind as one of the bigger problems that we face, but I'm not sure what sort of solution could be purposed that would be remotely Constitutional (short of an amendment). One of the ideas that I'm interested in is an expansion of the size of the House of Representatives. Presumably they'd be more responsive to the people if they represented less of them. Of course this wouldn't really solve the aforementioned problem, but one could argue that it might be easier to challenge a sitting Congressman for his seat if the district was smaller.
Anyway, I'm probably rambling here. But it's interesting to have a discussion like this with somebody that has actually read the Constitution :)
"The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it" . The Southern States breaking away from the Union and firing on a Federal Fort sounds like "rebellion" to me.
and created an income tax"The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several states, and without regard to any census or enumeration"
You won't get any argument out of me that the original intent behind the Constitution has been/is being subverted. My favorite example is the interstate commerce clause becoming a blank check for Congress to do whatever they want (like controlling what I can put into my own body as a consenting adult). But using the income tax and Lincoln as your examples doesn't seem very justifiable.
Most of the examples I can think of (the Controlled Substances Act and the use of highway funding to blackmail state legislatures being the two that come to mind) are recent inventions.
That's a stupid fucking analogy. You'd have a better case if you were bitching about the engine governor that's installed in most consumer vehicles. Bitching because a meter goes higher then the vehicle can is stupid. Would you prefer if you could bury the speedometer and not know how fast you were actually going? Do I have the right to bitch if my car doesn't survive to 999,999 miles because that's how high the odometer goes?
ow come when you go to a "all-you-can-eat" restaurant they don't let you stay there for a week and keep eating?Actually, if they were open 24/7 and you could manage to stay there for a week without falling asleep, then yes, I think you'd have the right to bitch. If they are advertising it as "all-you-can-eat" then they don't have the right to ask me to leave for the sole reason that they think I'm eating too much and if they did ask me to leave then I'd probably refuse to pay my bill.
I like how your plan is to hire your own hitman instead of going to the police ;) That won't have any unintended consequences at all ;)
when the character of the trial is deemed abusiveIt's rarely the "character of the trial" that's abusive. Typically it's everything leading up to that point. I don't have a solution for you because every suggestion that I've heard has as many pitfalls as benefits. The one thing I haven't heard anybody suggest is taking a look at the rules of civil procedure. Perhaps changing them could get rid of some of the abuse? IANAL though.
A lot of people are losing faith in the system, and hitmen are a whole lot cheaper than lawyersYeah, but short of a bad defense attorney, your lawyer's mistake typically won't get you 25 to life. Your hitman's mistake will ;)
There's an "offensive" fortune (fortune -o) that goes something like this:
Christian: A man who apologizes to his lord for the sins that he committed yesterday and those that he is going to commit tomorrow. One who feels that the Bible is a divinely inspired book, quite well suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbor.
Seriously though. I'm not Christian and never will be, but it would seem to me that real Christians would give more then lip service to Jesus' arguments in favor of the poor and downtrodden. Hell, he even came out against creditors and usury. Instead they'd rather rail about the evils of gay marriage and the "War on Christmas". *sigh*
Uhh, being a little paranoid, don't you think?
In the case of Windows I'm quite happy to install it from my media, provided that I'm using a activation key of theirs (i.e: the sticker is already on their PC with the license key). Who the hell cares if they have the original CD or not? Windows XP Pro is Windows XP Pro, regardless of your CD or theirs.
Office is a little trickier, because the license key is typically with the CD and not the computer, but even so, if you had their license key it wouldn't matter if you installed it from YOUR cd.
That's what I don't understand either and perhaps somebody could explain it to me. How the hell do they gain access to all of your systems if you refuse to let them in? Are they going to sue you and force you to turn it all over in discovery?
Has anybody tried to fight them on a legal front? It would seem to me that just by showing up to court (even if pro say) and answering their motions you could drag out the discovery process for months. Months that you could use to find any out of compliance software and fix it -- or better yet, switch to OSS if that's an option for your business.
Two counts each of Computer Trespass (Section 156.10 of the NYS Penal Law) and "Unauthorized Use of a Computer" (Section 156.05). The first charge is a Class E Felony, the second a Class A misdemeanor.
I won't go into the whole story, but suffice it to say I was young and stupid and got involved in a pissing contest between my employer and someone else when I shouldn't have. The charges were from two different counties.
The first county didn't even have a full time DA and really didn't want to deal with it. They made a plea offer for an ACD (Adjournment in Contemplation of Dismissal, basically be good for six months and we dismiss the charges, no admission of guilt) with various strings attached (I was supposed to make "restitution" to my "victim") which I rejected. After this, the DA kept asking for continuances, which my lawyer didn't object to (in NYS they only have six months to proceed with a felony charge) and eventually agreed to an ACD without conditions.
The second county had a full time DA and nothing better to do. They offered to drop the felony if I would plead guilty to the misdemeanor. I refused to accept this offer. Eventually it went to Grand Jury. My lawyer recommended that I testify. This is a rare occurrence in New York State, because if you testify before the Grand Jury you waive your 5th amendment right and have to answer any question that they ask. Obviously not a recommended course of action if you are actually guilty of something. I testified before the Grand Jury and they returned "no true bill", i.e: they refused to indict me. The DA could have still proceeded with the misdemeanor charge, but he decided to drop it. I guess he figured that if he couldn't get 13 out of 24 Grand Jurors to find it probable that I had committed the crimes, that he'd never get 12 out of 12 Petit Jurors to find me guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
Anyway, I came away from the experience with a newfound respect for the legal system. And I learned that I will never talk to the cops about ANYTHING (not even speeding ticket) ever again. Had they listened to a single word that I had said none of this ever would have happened. They had made up their minds before they even talked to me and attempted to twist everything that I said into an admission of guilt. I eventually invoked my right to consul and refused to speak to them. After this I was charged.
*shrug*, I've seen just as many lawyers at the courthouse reject plea agreements. Sucks that you had a bad experience, but I still wouldn't be brave enough to face criminal charges without some sort of legal representation.
Lawyers are like Doctors. If one is giving you advice that you don't agree with, then seek out a second opinion. In the end they have to do what you tell them to do -- even if that means rejecting a plea offer that they think you should take. If you don't think you are being represented the way you want then that's the fault of that one person -- not the whole profession.
Which do you think is faster: a plea bargain made over coffee with the prosecutor, or a jury trial lasting 2 days?What's your point? The lawyer makes less money on the plea bargain then he would have with a jury trial. One of the reasons that I'm glad I was able to beat my charges at the Grand Jury was because it saved me the expense of a felony jury trial. All told my legal fees for the various court appearances, grand jury appearance, meetings and conferences came to $4,600. Had it gone to a jury trial it would have cost me over $15,000.
A plea bargain is going to generate less billable hours then a trial. If you have a decent lawyer and a shot at winning he isn't going to try and talk you into a plea bargain if you are willing to pay for his services at a trial.
If they are actually doing that (and I don't doubt you that they are) then it's obviously a different matter and they deserve to be punished harshly by the Court and the relevant Bar Associations.
Has anybody looked into this and sought sanctions against them?
Which is still more then many people can afford. I'm somewhat leery of doing anything that makes it harder to use the legal system. And how would your idea account for people whose lawyers take the cases on contingecy?
Perhaps what we need is some sort of public defender type system for people without the resources to defend themselves in civil court. Your idea of 'loser pays' does nothing to help the person facing the RIAA lawsuit if they don't already have the money they need to defend themselves.
Your basing your entire opinion of a profession on your experiences with one person?
My defense attorney went to bat for me, did exactly what I said (including rejecting a plea offer that he had recommended I take) and stood by me throughout the whole process. Had I not have sought out effective consul it's anybodies guess as to what would have happened.
With his help and my own stubbornness I was able to head it off at the Grand Jury -- once they refused to indict me, the DA folded like a cheap suit and even dropped the misdemeanour charges. Guess he figured if he couldn't get 13 out of 24 to vote for true bill that he'd never be able to get 12 out of 12 to find me guilty.
Ya know, my karma will probably get beat all to hell for this, but not all lawyers are bad.
Get charged with a crime you didn't commit and then tell me how you feel about defense attorneys. Get injured by someone whose insurance company refuses to pay for your treatment and tell me how you feel about them.
Do you have a negative opinion of the lawyers working for the FSF? How about the ACLU lawyers fighting for your civil liberties? How about this guy or this guy, both of whom were lawyers.
Lawyers represent their clients. You'd be doing better to direct your anger at the RIAA for the lawsuits and not their lawyers.
Yes, because when Grandma needs to seek justice against some large corporation that wronged her, she should definitely have to worry about paying their legal fees if she loses.
Perhaps, but even if video was a ubiquitous as music, I don't think the same arguments apply to the movie studios as do the record labels. Just about anybody can buy the gear required to master a recording. Just about anybody can pay somebody to press CDs for them and/or use the internet to distribute content.
There's a little bit more involved in the production of any movie (even one without the special effects that seem to substitute for plot these days) then there is in the production of a record release. I think you'll still see movie studios around in one way or another -- maybe an upstart will shake things up and force them to abandon the DRM -- but they will still be around.