Which is exactly why you ought to do your damn homework and perform due diligence when researching your "very important" internet connection. If you move into a slum, don't blame Pizza Hut for not delivering to you.
Yeah, I have seen PLENTY of businesses move into co-location facilities that showed absolutely NO SIGN of spam problems. What can they do after the fact? They've signed the contract. They've setup all their servers there. It has taken them many months of planning and execution to move their entire networks to this remote location. They are small businesses operating on tight budgets, not Microsofts. Then SPEWS hits their ISP's netblock and they are fucked.
Anyone that thinks SPEWS' collateral damage policy is reasonable does not understand: (a) what is involved in moving a business from colo to colo, (b) that there are very few quality colo's out there that are capable of dealing with the onslaught of new/incoming spammers to the liking of the SPEWS mob, and (c) that you could possibly predict who will get hit by SPEWS based on their past performance.
Even when a colo cleans up their act, and are de-listed, they are dealt with much more harshly later if the SPEWS MOB feels they are slipping.
Imagine a successful colo. They kick spammers off and have new spammers sign up every day. From the perspective of some of the SPEWS MOB, they are spammer havens. These colo's are more likely to be listed on spews regardless of their actions.
They are not trying to trick anyone with false promises or advertising a dangerous product.
They're not? OK, try this exercise. Please go to www.spews.org, and show me where it says the purposely use collateral damage to try and force service providers to conform.
I really feel sorry for whatever customers your ISP hosts to have someone like you whispering in the ears of the owners, or worse yet, creating policy.
Spam is a big inconvenience for regular users and legitimate businesses (big time). Let's not make it worse by adding collateral damage to this mess.
Those ISP's who use SPEWS without fully informing their customers about how SPEWS uses collateral damage should be sued out of existence.
I hope you have a huge advisory to your customers that states very clearly that you use a blacklist which has a very high number of false positives, due to their neanderthal mentality of 'extreme collateral damage.'
This is my primary problem with SPEWS and those who use it -- they do not publicize the fact that they endorse extreme collateral damage which results in unmeasurable false positives. Go to www.spews.org. Read their entire front page which summarizes SPEWS. No where does it even hint that this is how they work. Nowhere do they tell you how hard it is to actually get off SPEWS, unlike most RBL's which have automated or semi-automated processes to clear your good name.
Even if you go and read the SPEWS FAQ, they dance around this issue. Read the answer to "Q5: Why are network addresses listed if no spam has originated from them?" They don't come right out and say it. If you don't already know how they work, it sounds as if they only block networks that "spammers set up."
You have to read all the way down to question 16 before they finally mention this little fact:
"Q16: I'm not a spammer or spam operation... heck I hate spam, but my email is getting bounced by someone using SPEWS, or I can't access a website due to SPEWS based blocking."
And their entire answer is an outright lie based on past experience.
"A16: You maybe part of the rare "inadvertent blocking" that can occur when a spam friendly provider is listed in spews. Your best option is to try and educate your provider or switch to one who is not listed in SPEWS as spam friendly. SPEWS aims to avoid listing any non-spammer or non-spam support areas if possible - we just want to stop spam."
How long has SPEWS been "in business"... and how many complaints do you guys still have coming from legit people who CAN'T just up and move to a different provider?
You know, some of us are trying to do legitimate business on the internet. It's not like we have a friggin dialup account and can just pick someone else. The process of moving a business from one provider to another, especially if the provider is co-hosting your servers, is quite involved and usually involves a contract that can't easily be broken without penalties.
I see many on here saying it is illegal for them to take the property of someone else. Not necessarily. My brother works with a very popular rock band. One of the other guys with them obtains -- I believe from a local judge in the city of the venue they are playing -- a legal order that allows the band to confiscate any unlicensed merchandise with the band's name or logo on it, as well as bootlegged CD's.
My guess is the RIAA street team has a similar document or legal backing to do the same thing./don't shoot the messenger
It also had to work in the extreme conditions of outer space: In a vacuum. - With no gravity. - In hot temperatures of +150C in sunlight and also in the cold shadows of space where the temperatures drop to -120C."
Hopefully they meant it had to work AFTER BEING IN the extreme conditions of space. Because if anyone ever makes me write something when it is -120C, I think I may stab them with the pen instead.
I was wondering what is this/dev/rand you were speaking about, so I took a look (cat/dev/rand) and was surprised to find the complete works of Shakespeare stored in a device on my system. Linux never ceases to amaze me. However, when I tried to view it again all I got was gibberish. Please tell me how to view the complete works of Shakespeare through/dev/rand again.
Well the first thing you do is get yerself a gravastar...
I've never needed to send anonymous snail mail. If it was really that necessary, and it wasn't possible to do it through the post office, you would see delivery companies crop up to handle the demand of people needing to deliver something to someone else anonymously. Free market and all.
Or anonymous e-mail. That's where this "signed" e-mail crap is going.
Imagine every message you send being tracible right back to you.
But hey, what's the trashing of rights in the name of convienience.
I've read the Constitution, and I don't see "the right to send someone an anonymous message" listed anywhere. You have the right to free speech. This does not guarantee you are free to speak in every medium, and certainly doesn't guarantee your anonymity.
I will not support a means to subvert my right to privacy over some stupid ads.
That's fine... you can stick to anonymous SMTP if traceable email ever comes about. The question is, will you have anyone left accepting your email?
Terrorists blow up buildings and we get the patriot act. "terrorists" flood inboxes and you demand tracable e-mail.
I think 'terrorism' is the new 'nazis' of online discussion. I invoke Godwin's Law on you, sir.
Perhaps iTunes is perfect for people who listen to top 40 crap and only buy singles.. but it sucks for people who are into bands that produce good albums.
They have 400,000 songs on iTunes now. Are you trying to imply that none of the artists represented are of good quality? I think you ought to check out the selection before you make an ignorant comment like that.
And if you agree that there are good artists on iTunes, then how could "it suck for people who are into bands that produce good albums?" We buy those albums for $9.99... yeah, it really sucks for us!
I don't want to fiddle with DRM's and burning CD's. I want to go to the store, hand over 5-10 bucks and then be able to listen to it in the car on the way home, throw it straight into my stereo, rip it onto my computer for later playback and be able to do all of this in FULL CD quality.
You're the first person I've heard argue that buying a CD is more convenient then buying off iTunes.
It really depends on how you're using the music. Of course if you are mostly using CD players, then you are going to want to buy CD's in most cases. The people that love iTunes are the people like me, who mostly listen to music on their computers and on their iPods. (There are many adapters to have your iPod work in your car, btw.)
These systems are NOT consumer friendly, they are NOT cost friendly
I don't know about 'these systems', but I can tell you iTunes is definitely consumer and cost friendly.
This is why it continues to pick up steam. It hasn't been out (on Windows) for more than a couple months.
As far as I can see, all of the existing online stores only lower prices to the consumer to the extent that one can buy a single track of an otherwise uninteresting CD.
Leaving aside all other conveniences of buying through iTunes, I can buy most albums on their for $9.99 plus tax. This blows away the prices of albums in stores. And as you mentioned, if it's a CD with just a few songs on it I want, I save even more money.
From what I have read, about 45% of the final sales price of a CD is based on retail, manufacturing and distribution costs. If that is so, then the current online offerings actually raise the profit margin to record labels and the RIAA without benefiting the artists at all. Should I be grateful? I think not.
Woe is me. "Won't you please think of the artists?" No, I won't. They have entered into a contract, in exchange for publicity, and money up-front. In return they sell more CD's and make the record labels money back (if they're good), or cause the labels to lose money (if they're not).
If the artists want a better cut, they need to establish a better model. If they are going to rely on consumers to stop buying the CD's they've contracted to make, in order for this fantasy of yours to happen, then it is NEVER going to happen.
The day I have to use a specific media player or media burner for content is the day I stop using that content.
There was a time when that theory meant you wouldn't be burning MP3 to an audio CDROM. Content evolves, new formats come out, new software is needed to manipulate these formats.
I don't see how loading iTunes to buy and burn a CDROM is any different than loading any other CDROM burning software to burn MP3's as audio CD's.
The other problem with this lame argument is that these people are trying to justify not paying for the album -- essentially saying, well my favorite artist is only getting X cents an album, so I'll just prevent them from getting that as well! After all, if they don't get the majority of the money per CD, why get any?
Wonderful logic.
I support my favorite artists by seeing them live. I buy their CD's, and if they aren't making money off them that's their problem. The market will work itself out.
Until they realise that people don't want to pay for music per listen - but buy the right to listen to a song as many times as they want, whenever they want, in whatever format they want - these online stores are never going to be very successful.
Apparantly you are not familiar with iTunes?
The simple fact is, most people like to have a 'hard' copy of their favourite music, and the only reason that many don't buy them is because of the price.
What exactly is a 'hard' copy? I get the feeling most people are just fine with a digital file on their hard drive.
If it were $5 a CD I would buy every album I liked
Yeah, and if it were 25 cents a CD, I would buy every album I liked... what's your point? Apple charges 99 cents a song, and 9.99 for most albums. This is, to me and most people, a fair price. In exchange, you get massive convenience, fair DRM, the ability to backup the files to CDROM and use them on any 3 computers you want, the ability to pick and choose songs off albums, etc.
P2P is winning not because people *want* to steal, but because the prices of CD's are too prohibitive for many people, and many find it offensive that the bands get so littl of the profit!
They need a policy change, NOT a retailer change.
They've MADE a policy change! Was there a way to buy music like iTunes before iTunes? No. You rented the music, or you downloaded it off a P2P network (at your own risk). People said, give us a way to easily buy the music from you for a reasonable price, and we will. Apple listened and delivered. End of story.
Their selection will grow, their clout with the labels will grow, we will see competition amongst the online music retailers like Apple, and we have a good shot of 'winning.'
I don't think it's reasonable for someone to justify downloading music off P2P networks for free by saying, "Well, if they sold me the albums for $X then I'd stop downloading them for free!"
I'm satisfied with iTunes, and I put pressure on my favorite artists and their labels to sell their albums on iTunes.
I understand you can view them, but you should get a mail client that can format HTML email the way you want. Mozilla will format it as plain text, so it gets rid of that bloat and clutter that you complain about.
there should NOT be HTML messages....not what email was meant for
Whatever... like anything else it can be abused or used wisely.
I have seen great email newsletters done in HTML that would be horrible to read in plaintext (imagine if many of your favorite webpages were done only in plaintext).
I have been on mailing lists where you can subscribe to it in 'index' mode, where you get a daily archive message for the list in HTML format that makes it very easy to zoom in on the emails that interest you.
Hmm...my little simple text email client, "Mutt", has been doing the threading of my emails for years now.
If MS really wanted to impress me with an upgrade to Outlook, they'd take out the damned HTML mail capabilities. I've seen 3 line emails from people come at me, that were so overbloated with background images, fonts and other crap that is not only unnecessary, but, actually distracting from the message they tried to convey...
Looks like your "simple text email client" might want to incorporate some features found in Thunderbird (Mozilla Mail)... I can view HTML messages as simple HTML or even plain text.
Slashdot Mirror
Which is exactly why you ought to do your damn homework and perform due diligence when researching your "very important" internet connection. If you move into a slum, don't blame Pizza Hut for not delivering to you.
Yeah, I have seen PLENTY of businesses move into co-location facilities that showed absolutely NO SIGN of spam problems. What can they do after the fact? They've signed the contract. They've setup all their servers there. It has taken them many months of planning and execution to move their entire networks to this remote location. They are small businesses operating on tight budgets, not Microsofts. Then SPEWS hits their ISP's netblock and they are fucked.
Anyone that thinks SPEWS' collateral damage policy is reasonable does not understand: (a) what is involved in moving a business from colo to colo, (b) that there are very few quality colo's out there that are capable of dealing with the onslaught of new/incoming spammers to the liking of the SPEWS mob, and (c) that you could possibly predict who will get hit by SPEWS based on their past performance.
Even when a colo cleans up their act, and are de-listed, they are dealt with much more harshly later if the SPEWS MOB feels they are slipping.
Imagine a successful colo. They kick spammers off and have new spammers sign up every day. From the perspective of some of the SPEWS MOB, they are spammer havens. These colo's are more likely to be listed on spews regardless of their actions.
They are not trying to trick anyone with false promises or advertising a dangerous product.
They're not? OK, try this exercise. Please go to www.spews.org, and show me where it says the purposely use collateral damage to try and force service providers to conform.
I really feel sorry for whatever customers your ISP hosts to have someone like you whispering in the ears of the owners, or worse yet, creating policy.
Spam is a big inconvenience for regular users and legitimate businesses (big time). Let's not make it worse by adding collateral damage to this mess.
Those ISP's who use SPEWS without fully informing their customers about how SPEWS uses collateral damage should be sued out of existence.
I hope you have a huge advisory to your customers that states very clearly that you use a blacklist which has a very high number of false positives, due to their neanderthal mentality of 'extreme collateral damage.'
This is my primary problem with SPEWS and those who use it -- they do not publicize the fact that they endorse extreme collateral damage which results in unmeasurable false positives. Go to www.spews.org. Read their entire front page which summarizes SPEWS. No where does it even hint that this is how they work. Nowhere do they tell you how hard it is to actually get off SPEWS, unlike most RBL's which have automated or semi-automated processes to clear your good name.
Even if you go and read the SPEWS FAQ, they dance around this issue. Read the answer to "Q5: Why are network addresses listed if no spam has originated from them?" They don't come right out and say it. If you don't already know how they work, it sounds as if they only block networks that "spammers set up."
You have to read all the way down to question 16 before they finally mention this little fact:
"Q16: I'm not a spammer or spam operation... heck I hate spam, but my email is getting bounced by someone using SPEWS, or I can't access a website due to SPEWS based blocking."
And their entire answer is an outright lie based on past experience.
"A16: You maybe part of the rare "inadvertent blocking" that can occur when a spam friendly provider is listed in spews. Your best option is to try and educate your provider or switch to one who is not listed in SPEWS as spam friendly. SPEWS aims to avoid listing any non-spammer or non-spam support areas if possible - we just want to stop spam."
And this lovely idea is clearly working wonders.
... and how many complaints do you guys still have coming from legit people who CAN'T just up and move to a different provider?
How long has SPEWS been "in business"
You know, some of us are trying to do legitimate business on the internet. It's not like we have a friggin dialup account and can just pick someone else. The process of moving a business from one provider to another, especially if the provider is co-hosting your servers, is quite involved and usually involves a contract that can't easily be broken without penalties.
SPEWS BLOWS.
turn you into a FOX look alike
That WOULD be an improvement, ya know.
That is SO 2003.
This is the same 'No American has a God given right to a job' Carly that said
Are you implying that Americans do have a "god-given" right to a job?
...and it is legal.
/don't shoot the messenger
I see many on here saying it is illegal for them to take the property of someone else. Not necessarily. My brother works with a very popular rock band. One of the other guys with them obtains -- I believe from a local judge in the city of the venue they are playing -- a legal order that allows the band to confiscate any unlicensed merchandise with the band's name or logo on it, as well as bootlegged CD's.
My guess is the RIAA street team has a similar document or legal backing to do the same thing.
It also had to work in the extreme conditions of outer space:
In a vacuum. - With no gravity. - In hot temperatures of +150C in sunlight and also in the cold shadows of space where the temperatures drop to -120C."
Hopefully they meant it had to work AFTER BEING IN the extreme conditions of space. Because if anyone ever makes me write something when it is -120C, I think I may stab them with the pen instead.
I was wondering what is this /dev/rand you were speaking about, so I took a look (cat /dev/rand) and was surprised to find the complete works of Shakespeare stored in a device on my system. Linux never ceases to amaze me. /dev/rand again.
However, when I tried to view it again all I got was gibberish. Please tell me how to view the complete works of Shakespeare through
Well the first thing you do is get yerself a gravastar...
a black hole
if you couldn't send anonymous snail mail.
I've never needed to send anonymous snail mail. If it was really that necessary, and it wasn't possible to do it through the post office, you would see delivery companies crop up to handle the demand of people needing to deliver something to someone else anonymously. Free market and all.
Or anonymous e-mail. That's where this "signed" e-mail crap is going.
Imagine every message you send being tracible right back to you.
But hey, what's the trashing of rights in the name of convienience.
I've read the Constitution, and I don't see "the right to send someone an anonymous message" listed anywhere. You have the right to free speech. This does not guarantee you are free to speak in every medium, and certainly doesn't guarantee your anonymity.
I will not support a means to subvert my right to privacy over some stupid ads.
That's fine... you can stick to anonymous SMTP if traceable email ever comes about. The question is, will you have anyone left accepting your email?
Terrorists blow up buildings and we get the patriot act. "terrorists" flood inboxes and you demand tracable e-mail.
I think 'terrorism' is the new 'nazis' of online discussion. I invoke Godwin's Law on you, sir.
Welcome to the wonderful world of dictionary attacks.
Perhaps iTunes is perfect for people who listen to top 40 crap and only buy singles.. but it sucks for people who are into bands that produce good albums.
They have 400,000 songs on iTunes now. Are you trying to imply that none of the artists represented are of good quality? I think you ought to check out the selection before you make an ignorant comment like that.
And if you agree that there are good artists on iTunes, then how could "it suck for people who are into bands that produce good albums?" We buy those albums for $9.99... yeah, it really sucks for us!
The bands are stealing from their fans with an attitude like this.
When you give someone your money, they are not stealing it from you. You can choose not to go to concerts of artists that don't put on a good show.
I don't want to fiddle with DRM's and burning CD's. I want to go to the store, hand over 5-10 bucks and then be able to listen to it in the car on the way home, throw it straight into my stereo, rip it onto my computer for later playback and be able to do all of this in FULL CD quality.
You're the first person I've heard argue that buying a CD is more convenient then buying off iTunes.
It really depends on how you're using the music. Of course if you are mostly using CD players, then you are going to want to buy CD's in most cases. The people that love iTunes are the people like me, who mostly listen to music on their computers and on their iPods. (There are many adapters to have your iPod work in your car, btw.)
These systems are NOT consumer friendly, they are NOT cost friendly
I don't know about 'these systems', but I can tell you iTunes is definitely consumer and cost friendly.
This is why it continues to pick up steam. It hasn't been out (on Windows) for more than a couple months.
I only see discontent users
Surely you jest?! I see mostly very happy users.
As far as I can see, all of the existing online stores only lower prices to the consumer to the extent that one can buy a single track of an otherwise uninteresting CD.
Leaving aside all other conveniences of buying through iTunes, I can buy most albums on their for $9.99 plus tax. This blows away the prices of albums in stores. And as you mentioned, if it's a CD with just a few songs on it I want, I save even more money.
From what I have read, about 45% of the final sales price of a CD is based on retail, manufacturing and distribution costs. If that is so, then the current online offerings actually raise the profit margin to record labels and the RIAA without benefiting the artists at all. Should I be grateful? I think not.
Woe is me. "Won't you please think of the artists?" No, I won't. They have entered into a contract, in exchange for publicity, and money up-front. In return they sell more CD's and make the record labels money back (if they're good), or cause the labels to lose money (if they're not).
If the artists want a better cut, they need to establish a better model. If they are going to rely on consumers to stop buying the CD's they've contracted to make, in order for this fantasy of yours to happen, then it is NEVER going to happen.
The day I have to use a specific media player or media burner for content is the day I stop using that content.
There was a time when that theory meant you wouldn't be burning MP3 to an audio CDROM. Content evolves, new formats come out, new software is needed to manipulate these formats.
I don't see how loading iTunes to buy and burn a CDROM is any different than loading any other CDROM burning software to burn MP3's as audio CD's.
The other problem with this lame argument is that these people are trying to justify not paying for the album -- essentially saying, well my favorite artist is only getting X cents an album, so I'll just prevent them from getting that as well! After all, if they don't get the majority of the money per CD, why get any?
Wonderful logic.
I support my favorite artists by seeing them live. I buy their CD's, and if they aren't making money off them that's their problem. The market will work itself out.
Until they realise that people don't want to pay for music per listen - but buy the right to listen to a song as many times as they want, whenever they want, in whatever format they want - these online stores are never going to be very successful.
... what's your point? Apple charges 99 cents a song, and 9.99 for most albums. This is, to me and most people, a fair price. In exchange, you get massive convenience, fair DRM, the ability to backup the files to CDROM and use them on any 3 computers you want, the ability to pick and choose songs off albums, etc.
Apparantly you are not familiar with iTunes?
The simple fact is, most people like to have a 'hard' copy of their favourite music, and the only reason that many don't buy them is because of the price.
What exactly is a 'hard' copy? I get the feeling most people are just fine with a digital file on their hard drive.
If it were $5 a CD I would buy every album I liked
Yeah, and if it were 25 cents a CD, I would buy every album I liked
P2P is winning not because people *want* to steal, but because the prices of CD's are too prohibitive for many people, and many find it offensive that the bands get so littl of the profit!
They need a policy change, NOT a retailer change.
They've MADE a policy change! Was there a way to buy music like iTunes before iTunes? No. You rented the music, or you downloaded it off a P2P network (at your own risk). People said, give us a way to easily buy the music from you for a reasonable price, and we will. Apple listened and delivered. End of story.
Their selection will grow, their clout with the labels will grow, we will see competition amongst the online music retailers like Apple, and we have a good shot of 'winning.'
I don't think it's reasonable for someone to justify downloading music off P2P networks for free by saying, "Well, if they sold me the albums for $X then I'd stop downloading them for free!"
I'm satisfied with iTunes, and I put pressure on my favorite artists and their labels to sell their albums on iTunes.
AND I DON'T EVEN OWN AN IPOD!
Some of the readers of this site still fail to realize this is not the Borg hive-mind.
SOME people are boycotting the RIAA. SOME people aren't. We all post on slashdot.
Oh..I can view HTML messages.
I understand you can view them, but you should get a mail client that can format HTML email the way you want. Mozilla will format it as plain text, so it gets rid of that bloat and clutter that you complain about.
there should NOT be HTML messages....not what email was meant for
Whatever... like anything else it can be abused or used wisely.
I have seen great email newsletters done in HTML that would be horrible to read in plaintext (imagine if many of your favorite webpages were done only in plaintext).
I have been on mailing lists where you can subscribe to it in 'index' mode, where you get a daily archive message for the list in HTML format that makes it very easy to zoom in on the emails that interest you.
Hmm...my little simple text email client, "Mutt", has been doing the threading of my emails for years now.
... I can view HTML messages as simple HTML or even plain text.
If MS really wanted to impress me with an upgrade to Outlook, they'd take out the damned HTML mail capabilities. I've seen 3 line emails from people come at me, that were so overbloated with background images, fonts and other crap that is not only unnecessary, but, actually distracting from the message they tried to convey...
Looks like your "simple text email client" might want to incorporate some features found in Thunderbird (Mozilla Mail)
They are now working on "Robots" for early 1995 release.
They apparantly are not going to make that deadline.