I host my Project Guttenburg E-Books on Gnutella as well as many shareware and freeware games spanning all the way back to the early 1980s. To my knowledge I do not have one single copyright violation in my shared folder.
in alt.fiction and other groups people post original works and some copyright those works. There is an implied right for that work to propigate through usenet and be used for a certain amount of time but Deja by keeping such posts for YEARS, rebranding them, slapping an ad on them and turning a profit on them is nothing short of blatant copyright violation (indeed US copyright law doesn't require a copyright notice on the work).
I doubt you'll see ANY service carry more than a year's worth of articles and for many corporate lawyers a year may be too long. One day someone IS going to sue these services for copyright violation and the Usenet services live in fear of that day.
It is interesting to see people ripping apart the peer-review system on a moderated and meta-moderated message board, which is the virtual equivalent.
Not that I'm defending the flaws in the peer review system of course. However, like slashdot moderation (of which you have been a beneficiary), neither am I overlooking the advantages.
No. Since my tax money went to build this, I vote emphatically, absolutely, positively not. The technology transfer issues alone would make the 128-bit encryption debate seem like a drop of water next to a tsunami.
Secondly, this is being pawned off as a defensive shield, which is nice, and non-threatening and all that -- a nice little security blanket. Well consider the fact that satellites are missiles, which merely don't have a re-entry window. Therefore this nice little shield is more than capable of taking down the entire GPS network and a major chunk of our telecommunications systems (both military and civilian).
This thing won't stop cruise missiles or stealth so it's not a perfect shield anyway. What it will do is prevent another cold war with China, Iran, or N. Korea because right now they don't have the technology to do Stealth or Cruise. Turning these puppies over to the UN would certainly put them on the fast track though.
I am, however, very secure that people far more paranoid than I will never allow this suggestion to become a reality:-)
Merriam-Webster was off-line and could not be consulted at the time this was written, but I'm pretty sure they'd say hackers do things pretty similar to crackers. Both dictionaries would probably define crackers as dry, crispy bread eaten by parrots and maybe penguins;-)
We have lost "hacker" if only because it's a better soundbite than cracker (which is taken by Georgans anyway so CNN is definately not budging). Our loss becomes even more concrete when run of the mill news shows lead off... "Hackers defaced the FBI website...". Don't believe me? Read the article again -- show me where it says cracker:-)
The press release is better -- they avoided the terms all-together.
I did read the article, which is why I used the word consistently with the publication's use. The article used the word hacker as cracker. There is only so much a person can do to fight the irresistible tide of language - maybe I give in to the hacker/cracker fight so easy because I still have scars over the plural/singular use of Data. ("Data: is, and always will be, singular and damn the ivory tower intellectual English snobs who infringed on my right to use it so!)
I did think about it. Using your logic it's OK for me to break into your house, poke around a little bit and leave so long as I don't take anything. Shoot, I'd be doing you a favor because then you'd know that padlock you bought was so easy to pick. It would save you from a "professional thief" later on. That little note on the bathroom mirror that your daughter discovers at 2am on a dark and stormy night might even scare you enough to install a REAL security system.
But somewhere along the line it gets a bit boring just breaking in. It's so easy!! Why there's no challenge at all. Where is the line between hacker and cracker? "Professional Crackers" don't just pop into existence.
So, the answer is: no. The argument that Hacking should be some sort of protected activity just doesn't hold water when it's held up to it's RL analogy of breaking and entering eh?
No one, least of all me, is saying that this program is a panacea that will immediately rid the Internet of the evil hackers. But it's a much-needed start to help kids realize that it's not a game. There's even hope because if someone is bright enough to play hacker, maybe they're bright enough to get the message and do something productive like write a new Linux utility.:-)
While there is a bit of Orwellian humor to the piece, what we're seeing here is analogous to the taming of the old west. In them olden days people with the guns made the rules and in the wild internet days hackers made their own rules. Like the old west, mom and pop have set up corner stores and don't appreciate all their hard work being held hostage to the whims of every two-bit dictator who hold up the stage or hack into their bank accounts.
Hacking was fine back in the days when nobody kept any money or credit card numbers on networked servers and the most interesting thing you could do was browse the source code to wampus hunt. Today hackers can bring down giant, multinational banking systems, brokerage houses and even TRW. So you have to ask yourself, do you REALLY want a joy-riding hormone handicapped teen drooling over your financial records?
Hacking today really is far more serious, with the possibility of doing far more damage than it was even a year ago. Way, way, WAY too much money has been pumped into the net (ask redhat and soon slashdot) and millions of people have a very vested interest in ensuring that things run as smoothly as they possibly can.
So yes, kids do need to be educated that breaking into a computer system isn't a game anymore. It may be fun and challenging but it's also illegal (and a felony to boot) and they better learn fast that if they want to play the game they better be willing to pay the price of admission if they're caught.
My only suggestion would be: While the DOJ is all hot-to-trot on preventing hacking they might want to toss in some additional anti-drug messages as well:-)
No. Transmeta is making a chip that will stream and compile x86 instructions into a batched super-long word instruction set that can be acted on by a far more advanced processor.
The possibility is 100% compatability with your old legacy software (without being much slower or maybe even faster than the actual intel chips) but programs written to directly access the transmeta chip would be orders of magnatude faster.
Think of it as an alpha chip that will run any off the shelf windows program you pick up at the corner software store.
More interesting is the fact that the chip isn't limited to emulating Intel so transmeta may actually transend the metaverse and let you run mac, windows, and linux programs without rebooting:-)
If there's one thing everyone agrees on, it's broadband is the future of the net.
While someone who's only broadband choice is their local cable company might believe there's no competition -- that's only because the cable company got there first and is now reaping the rewards of being first. While the greedy robber barons gouge you on price and skimp you on bandwidth, the phone companies are scrambling to roll out DSL and are moving at near light speed compared to their usual glacier mentalities. Don't rule out the wireless companies who see a way to get around the unreadable cost of laying wires to the home. Even the electric companies are trying to grab their slice of the pie.
The FCC is so very right to keep a relatively hands off approach because right now the free market is working exactly the way the free market should work, even if it's not moving as quickly as most of us would like.
For the record I use DSL because my cable company's Internet service was next to unusable. I wasn't the only one who made the switch and my neighbor is telling me that the Cable Company is finally getting around to upgrading its service. If they do a good enough job and the cost for bandwidth is a better value than DSL, I might even switch back.
In the future I will be able to choose wireless or maybe even the electric company, but I will be able to choose. So will you.
Assuming, of course, the FCC continues to stay as far away from this issue as is humanly possible.
I disagree -- Dejanews is extraordinarily vulnerable because of this ruling.
This ruling says that Dejanews has to obtain permission to use each and every post it archives. Before it was opt-out by the author -- if the author didn't opt out Dejanews assumed it had permission (regardless of whether the author even knew about Dejanews). They did this by rationalizing that they were just continuing to propagate Usenet (indefinitely) . This argument might actually hold weight, except that somewhere along the line that rationalization (and economics) led them to altering posts by displaying them with commercial advertisements.
Simply put I could find all my old Usenet posts then take Dejanews to court for copyright infringement (now a felony remember) and I would probably win. If I had registered the post with the US copyright office I could probably get punitive damages.
Basically Dejanews is a very, very tall house of cards just waiting to explode into a horrendous, awe-inspiring, copyright infringement suit to end all copyright infringement suits. The only reason this hasn't happened before is because it really is a useful service and the fact that most people do not register Usenet posts with the US copyright office (which is a prerequisite for large cash judgements).
Humorous intention or not, the answer is basically - Yes. But it's already well established that you can sue anybody for anything regardless of your chances for winning. Slashdot would have a very good argument that your submission of the post constituted permission to use and display the post within the context of this discussion, so you'd probably lose. If Slashdot decided to create a separate publication maybe "the most obvious one-liner collection" then this ruling says that they need to get your permission to do use your post. Likewise the ruling seems to indicate that Slashdot can't keep your article forever and it must be expired unless you give them permission to keep and use it forever. That last point is one I imagine people will be sweating over for the next few years or so. Including/.
What is both heartening and disturbing at the same time is that this ruling pretty much puts Usenet searches (Dejanews, etc) against the wall. It's heartening because Dejanews has been taking my posts and slapping ads on them for years now - effectively making money off my work without my consent or permission (I do use x-no-archive now). It's disturbing because as much as I dislike the commercialism of these services, I can hardly dispute how valuable a tool the news archives are. If I ran a Usenet archive I'd be looking for a way to bail out of the business very quickly at this point.
Actually I'm stunned at the scope of the decision. Basically it solidifies my ownership of everything I've ever posted on the Internet that people have decided to keep. That's very good for me. It's also very bad for the people who decided to keep what I wrote. At the same time the ruling is completely contrary to the spirit of sharing that let the Internet become such a useful tool.
I predict a lot of databases will be purged or pruned then a lot of legal transfer of rights contracts will be attached to all these little submit buttons. (By pressing the submit button you grant Andover the right to use and republish, said work...)
I agree with the criticism of the moderation BTW. Far from being flamebait it's both a on topic and funny in a cliché sort of way.
Looks like we're in for yet another privacy invasion "debate". I use the term debate very tongue in cheek because everyone will point to the serial number and scream big brother.
People who don't do things they shouldn't have no fear of "privacy invasion". But with porn being the true fulfillment of e-commerce on the web and the occasional illicit mp3 download it's a safe bet that a sizable percentage of the internet going public have justifiable reasons for not being tracked.
What everyone seems to forget is there is no anonymity on the net thanks to a little thing called an IP address.
Did you download a song from alt.binaries.sounds.mp3? Or maybe that latest nude in alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.*? Your ISP knows exactly who you are. Your IP address is logged along with your user name and password. Your user name is in their billing records - complete with your name, address, phone number, and probably your credit card number.
They could also care less unless someone is calling to say you broke something or you spammed slashdot or something.
Maybe you've visited a ftp site and downloaded a movie. If the ftp site was a sting operation then they've got your number and can force your ISP to turn that number into a name. The same is true for web sites. If you downloaded a movie you're probably broadband and have a greater chance of having a fixed IP address, in which case you already have a serial number even if you use AMD.
Having run a large and successful website I can state absolutely that after 100 unique visitors a day people stop being people and start being demographics. The real life corollary is that everyone has a driver's license and a social security number (and credit card numbers and all that) but even though it's possible to do, you have a better chance of winning the lottery than having someone piece together your every move. So the only true privacy we have is safety in numbers.
Privacy is and always has been an illusion and never more than on the web. The people who want to embed serial numbers in your computers realize this. Shoot -- every slashdot reader should know that given time, determination, and lots of search warrants anyone can be tracked down. The elite slashdoters can do it without warrants and the best of the best can probably do it without using a single z to describe the process. So if there's no anonymity then the good of serial numbers far outweighs the "bad" (mainly giving you a false sense of security which is bad in its own right).
A similar fuss was made over the introduction of caller id. Caller ID still went through and guess what? I haven't gotten a prank phone call since it was introduced. Like caller ID, this too is going to happen. There are too many good reasons for it not to. Forging, changing, or blocking the serial number will also be a very easy. The program to do it will probably have a z in it though. "SerialZ no more" or something. Look for it at that zero-day-warez site near you.:-)
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe we should all just patent our personal info. I hear the US patent office will approve anything these days.
I host my Project Guttenburg E-Books on Gnutella as well as many shareware and freeware games spanning all the way back to the early 1980s. To my knowledge I do not have one single copyright violation in my shared folder.
http://www.thefever.com/AYB2.swf
in alt.fiction and other groups people post original works and some copyright those works. There is an implied right for that work to propigate through usenet and be used for a certain amount of time but Deja by keeping such posts for YEARS, rebranding them, slapping an ad on them and turning a profit on them is nothing short of blatant copyright violation (indeed US copyright law doesn't require a copyright notice on the work).
I doubt you'll see ANY service carry more than a year's worth of articles and for many corporate lawyers a year may be too long. One day someone IS going to sue these services for copyright violation and the Usenet services live in fear of that day.
It is interesting to see people ripping apart the peer-review system on a moderated and meta-moderated message board, which is the virtual equivalent.
Not that I'm defending the flaws in the peer review system of course. However, like slashdot moderation (of which you have been a beneficiary), neither am I overlooking the advantages.
No. Since my tax money went to build this, I vote emphatically, absolutely, positively not. The technology transfer issues alone would make the 128-bit encryption debate seem like a drop of water next to a tsunami.
:-)
Secondly, this is being pawned off as a defensive shield, which is nice, and non-threatening and all that -- a nice little security blanket. Well consider the fact that satellites are missiles, which merely don't have a re-entry window. Therefore this nice little shield is more than capable of taking down the entire GPS network and a major chunk of our telecommunications systems (both military and civilian).
This thing won't stop cruise missiles or stealth so it's not a perfect shield anyway. What it will do is prevent another cold war with China, Iran, or N. Korea because right now they don't have the technology to do Stealth or Cruise. Turning these puppies over to the UN would certainly put them on the fast track though.
I am, however, very secure that people far more paranoid than I will never allow this suggestion to become a reality
Sorry. The Jargon File will never replace the Cambridge American Dictionary which states:
;-)
:-)
A (computer) hacker is a person who hacks into other people's computer systems.
Even Microsoft has bowed to the inevitable
In the 1980s, with the advent of personal computers and networks, hacker acquired a pejorative connotation, often referring to someone who secretively invades others' computers, inspecting or tampering with the programs or data stored on them. (Edited for Brevity)
Merriam-Webster was off-line and could not be consulted at the time this was written, but I'm pretty sure they'd say hackers do things pretty similar to crackers. Both dictionaries would probably define crackers as dry, crispy bread eaten by parrots and maybe penguins
We have lost "hacker" if only because it's a better soundbite than cracker (which is taken by Georgans anyway so CNN is definately not budging). Our loss becomes even more concrete when run of the mill news shows lead off... "Hackers defaced the FBI website...". Don't believe me? Read the article again -- show me where it says cracker
The press release is better -- they avoided the terms all-together.
I did read the article, which is why I used the word consistently with the publication's use. The article used the word hacker as cracker. There is only so much a person can do to fight the irresistible tide of language - maybe I give in to the hacker/cracker fight so easy because I still have scars over the plural/singular use of Data. ("Data: is, and always will be, singular and damn the ivory tower intellectual English snobs who infringed on my right to use it so!)
I did think about it. Using your logic it's OK for me to break into your house, poke around a little bit and leave so long as I don't take anything. Shoot, I'd be doing you a favor because then you'd know that padlock you bought was so easy to pick. It would save you from a "professional thief" later on. That little note on the bathroom mirror that your daughter discovers at 2am on a dark and stormy night might even scare you enough to install a REAL security system.
:-)
But somewhere along the line it gets a bit boring just breaking in. It's so easy!! Why there's no challenge at all. Where is the line between hacker and cracker? "Professional Crackers" don't just pop into existence.
So, the answer is: no. The argument that Hacking should be some sort of protected activity just doesn't hold water when it's held up to it's RL analogy of breaking and entering eh?
No one, least of all me, is saying that this program is a panacea that will immediately rid the Internet of the evil hackers. But it's a much-needed start to help kids realize that it's not a game. There's even hope because if someone is bright enough to play hacker, maybe they're bright enough to get the message and do something productive like write a new Linux utility.
While there is a bit of Orwellian humor to the piece, what we're seeing here is analogous to the taming of the old west. In them olden days people with the guns made the rules and in the wild internet days hackers made their own rules. Like the old west, mom and pop have set up corner stores and don't appreciate all their hard work being held hostage to the whims of every two-bit dictator who hold up the stage or hack into their bank accounts.
:-)
Hacking was fine back in the days when nobody kept any money or credit card numbers on networked servers and the most interesting thing you could do was browse the source code to wampus hunt. Today hackers can bring down giant, multinational banking systems, brokerage houses and even TRW. So you have to ask yourself, do you REALLY want a joy-riding hormone handicapped teen drooling over your financial records?
Hacking today really is far more serious, with the possibility of doing far more damage than it was even a year ago. Way, way, WAY too much money has been pumped into the net (ask redhat and soon slashdot) and millions of people have a very vested interest in ensuring that things run as smoothly as they possibly can.
So yes, kids do need to be educated that breaking into a computer system isn't a game anymore. It may be fun and challenging but it's also illegal (and a felony to boot) and they better learn fast that if they want to play the game they better be willing to pay the price of admission if they're caught.
My only suggestion would be: While the DOJ is all hot-to-trot on preventing hacking they might want to toss in some additional anti-drug messages as well
No. Transmeta is making a chip that will stream and compile x86 instructions into a batched super-long word instruction set that can be acted on by a far more advanced processor.
:-)
The possibility is 100% compatability with your old legacy software (without being much slower or maybe even faster than the actual intel chips) but programs written to directly access the transmeta chip would be orders of magnatude faster.
Think of it as an alpha chip that will run any off the shelf windows program you pick up at the corner software store.
More interesting is the fact that the chip isn't limited to emulating Intel so transmeta may actually transend the metaverse and let you run mac, windows, and linux programs without rebooting
If there's one thing everyone agrees on, it's broadband is the future of the net.
While someone who's only broadband choice is their local cable company might believe there's no competition -- that's only because the cable company got there first and is now reaping the rewards of being first. While the greedy robber barons gouge you on price and skimp you on bandwidth, the phone companies are scrambling to roll out DSL and are moving at near light speed compared to their usual glacier mentalities. Don't rule out the wireless companies who see a way to get around the unreadable cost of laying wires to the home. Even the electric companies are trying to grab their slice of the pie.
The FCC is so very right to keep a relatively hands off approach because right now the free market is working exactly the way the free market should work, even if it's not moving as quickly as most of us would like.
For the record I use DSL because my cable company's Internet service was next to unusable. I wasn't the only one who made the switch and my neighbor is telling me that the Cable Company is finally getting around to upgrading its service. If they do a good enough job and the cost for bandwidth is a better value than DSL, I might even switch back.
In the future I will be able to choose wireless or maybe even the electric company, but I will be able to choose. So will you.
Assuming, of course, the FCC continues to stay as far away from this issue as is humanly possible.
I disagree -- Dejanews is extraordinarily vulnerable because of this ruling.
This ruling says that Dejanews has to obtain permission to use each and every post it archives. Before it was opt-out by the author -- if the author didn't opt out Dejanews assumed it had permission (regardless of whether the author even knew about Dejanews). They did this by rationalizing that they were just continuing to propagate Usenet (indefinitely) . This argument might actually hold weight, except that somewhere along the line that rationalization (and economics) led them to altering posts by displaying them with commercial advertisements.
Simply put I could find all my old Usenet posts then take Dejanews to court for copyright infringement (now a felony remember) and I would probably win. If I had registered the post with the US copyright office I could probably get punitive damages.
Basically Dejanews is a very, very tall house of cards just waiting to explode into a horrendous, awe-inspiring, copyright infringement suit to end all copyright infringement suits. The only reason this hasn't happened before is because it really is a useful service and the fact that most people do not register Usenet posts with the US copyright office (which is a prerequisite for large cash judgements).
Humorous intention or not, the answer is basically - Yes. But it's already well established that you can sue anybody for anything regardless of your chances for winning. Slashdot would have a very good argument that your submission of the post constituted permission to use and display the post within the context of this discussion, so you'd probably lose. If Slashdot decided to create a separate publication maybe "the most obvious one-liner collection" then this ruling says that they need to get your permission to do use your post. Likewise the ruling seems to indicate that Slashdot can't keep your article forever and it must be expired unless you give them permission to keep and use it forever. That last point is one I imagine people will be sweating over for the next few years or so. Including /.
What is both heartening and disturbing at the same time is that this ruling pretty much puts Usenet searches (Dejanews, etc) against the wall. It's heartening because Dejanews has been taking my posts and slapping ads on them for years now - effectively making money off my work without my consent or permission (I do use x-no-archive now). It's disturbing because as much as I dislike the commercialism of these services, I can hardly dispute how valuable a tool the news archives are. If I ran a Usenet archive I'd be looking for a way to bail out of the business very quickly at this point.
Actually I'm stunned at the scope of the decision. Basically it solidifies my ownership of everything I've ever posted on the Internet that people have decided to keep. That's very good for me. It's also very bad for the people who decided to keep what I wrote. At the same time the ruling is completely contrary to the spirit of sharing that let the Internet become such a useful tool.
I predict a lot of databases will be purged or pruned then a lot of legal transfer of rights contracts will be attached to all these little submit buttons. (By pressing the submit button you grant Andover the right to use and republish, said work...)
I agree with the criticism of the moderation BTW. Far from being flamebait it's both a on topic and funny in a cliché sort of way.
Looks like we're in for yet another privacy invasion "debate". I use the term debate very tongue in cheek because everyone will point to the serial number and scream big brother.
:-)
People who don't do things they shouldn't have no fear of "privacy invasion". But with porn being the true fulfillment of e-commerce on the web and the occasional illicit mp3 download it's a safe bet that a sizable percentage of the internet going public have justifiable reasons for not being tracked.
What everyone seems to forget is there is no anonymity on the net thanks to a little thing called an IP address.
Did you download a song from alt.binaries.sounds.mp3? Or maybe that latest nude in alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.*? Your ISP knows exactly who you are. Your IP address is logged along with your user name and password. Your user name is in their billing records - complete with your name, address, phone number, and probably your credit card number.
They could also care less unless someone is calling to say you broke something or you spammed slashdot or something.
Maybe you've visited a ftp site and downloaded a movie. If the ftp site was a sting operation then they've got your number and can force your ISP to turn that number into a name. The same is true for web sites. If you downloaded a movie you're probably broadband and have a greater chance of having a fixed IP address, in which case you already have a serial number even if you use AMD.
Having run a large and successful website I can state absolutely that after 100 unique visitors a day people stop being people and start being demographics. The real life corollary is that everyone has a driver's license and a social security number (and credit card numbers and all that) but even though it's possible to do, you have a better chance of winning the lottery than having someone piece together your every move. So the only true privacy we have is safety in numbers.
Privacy is and always has been an illusion and never more than on the web. The people who want to embed serial numbers in your computers realize this. Shoot -- every slashdot reader should know that given time, determination, and lots of search warrants anyone can be tracked down. The elite slashdoters can do it without warrants and the best of the best can probably do it without using a single z to describe the process. So if there's no anonymity then the good of serial numbers far outweighs the "bad" (mainly giving you a false sense of security which is bad in its own right).
A similar fuss was made over the introduction of caller id. Caller ID still went through and guess what? I haven't gotten a prank phone call since it was introduced. Like caller ID, this too is going to happen. There are too many good reasons for it not to. Forging, changing, or blocking the serial number will also be a very easy. The program to do it will probably have a z in it though. "SerialZ no more" or something. Look for it at that zero-day-warez site near you.