AT&T used to own the former Bell LECs along with Bell Laboratories and Western Electric. AT&T and the kids called themselves "The Bell System", everybody else called them "Ma Bell" or "the phone company". The former Bell LECs and half of Bell Labs was divested from AT&T on 1/1/1984. You can thank the DOJ and Judge Greene for it. On January 1st, 1984, nobody knew exactly what had happened and everybody's mom and dad was asking what long distance company they should go to. This was also the beginning of the $4.77 telephones era, these really cheap phones were just a handset with a cord attached to them and they had a lifespan was measured in weeks.
The problem is that the company that "lost" the data isn't out the $7M, it is the people whose identities will be stolen who will be out the money and will be hassled, in some cases, to death.
Assuming that it would be possible for some body/group to start building motherboards with open source firmware, which I believe would be a wonderful thing, the DMCA encumberance that you suggest would be a BAD Thing. Your proposal is much worse than what many people feel is wrong with what current motherboard manufacturers are doing. If you want to GPL the firmware, that would be GREAT - but don't try to stop people who want to replace the GPL'ed firmware. When somebody moves from a software world to a hardware world the economies change drastically and all of a sudden each piece produced and hopefully sold is worth real money. Anybody who starts building motherboards, regardless of the license that the firmware is distributed under, lives or dies by selling hardware, the firmware just makes the hardware go. Why would a motherboard manufacturer that includes GPL'ed firmware in his product care if somebody BUYS his motherboards and replaces the GPL'ed firmware with proprietary firmware? This would not prevent somebody from going in later and replacing the firmware. If you want to encumber the motherboard, encumber it so that the owner is expicitly given the right to install any firmware that he wishes.
If the average user can figure out how to configure his own firewall to open port 25, or be capable of distinguishing between products with this capability, how can he be assumed to have the "knowhow" to properly run a computer with a mail server? Consider the figuring out of how to configure or hack their own firewall to allow them to open port 25 to be a sort of proficiency test. If a user doesn't know how to turn off a feature in their own firewall then I don't want him to be willy-nilly connecting to my mail server.
The legality of your solution(s) would depend upon the laws of the country where the cellphone jammer (or EMP grenade) is located. In a number of countries the use of jammers as you describe would be illegal. If an illegal cell phone jammer is employed for a length of time it is likely that it would be detected and dealt with (the length of time until detection and being dealt with is a variable that depends upon a number of other factors). Personally, I believe that shielding and/or passive jamming of cell phone frequencies is a better option than active jamming -- and it is less likely to be illegal. Some cell phones (Nextel) operate adjacent to public safety (police/fire) frequencies. Jamming of police/fire frequencies in order to jam cell phones is likely to cause the time_until_detection variable to become somewhat shorter.
IANAL. A device like that would be illegal to sell in the US, for the same reason that you can't sell telephone jammers. The FCC regulations make it illegal to deliberately interfere with other radio signals (whether licensed or not). On the other hand, I wonder how difficult it would be to build passive RFID jammers. Also if certain types of RFID tags are programmable, how difficult and effective would it be to reprogram them?
Well, it looks like those companies that wrote IE centric applications just might end up getting fucked by their decisions. I wonder if shareholds could sue over this.
You seem to be speaking specifically of Linux, which is but one open source project. Many other open source projects such as *BSD and large applications do not seem to have these issues.
Re:How this plays out depends on US, not them
on
Browser Wars 2004
·
· Score: 1
I am fully in support of alternative standards based browsers and web applications built specifically to work with standards based browsers. My point is that Firefox/Mozilla is not the only standards based browser available. Opera, Safari, and I believe Konqueror, are also standards compliant. Writing applications to work only with one particular browser is wrong.
The somewhere.com domain is registered by Speakeasy. I checked and found that there is currently no mailserver associated with somewhere.com, so in this case you lucked out and didn't hurt anyone with your misguided efforts. People using random email addresses are very much like people randoming shooting guns. The example.com, example.org, and example.net domains are safe to use for this purpose, see RFC 2606, Section 3.
The site says that There are too many people accessing the Web site at this time. and that I should contact Microsoft Support.
Re:How this plays out depends on US, not them
on
Browser Wars 2004
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Building applications that require a specific browser is NOT a Good Thing. Applications should be built that require standards based browsers and browsers should be built to standards. Writing applications that require the use of Firefox is just as bad as writing applications that require the use of IE. If an application is written that requires a standards based browser and it doesn't work with IE, then it means the IE could become irrelavent.
Just because an OS has a large number of users doesn't mean that it is better than an OS with a smaller number of users (MS Windows has a very large user base). Also, look at the user base, *BSD users are mostly hardcore professional users, Linux users are predominately hobbiests.
In this case it is quite different because broadcasters are given a privilege to operate under very specific technical laws and regulations. The law is not saying that the licensees have to incriminate themselves by providing private information, the stations would only be required to archive program material that was broadcast to the public. Other than the technical regulatory issues, broadcasting of a television program is the same as publishing a story in a newspaper or magazine. The big difference is that in the case of print media, physical copies of the published material exist. This law would be requiring that broadcasters (who are excercising a privilege granted by the FCC to use public airwaves) to keep a physical copy of the programming that they broadcast.
Wow, this guy is a piece of work. Whoever accepted the story for publication must REALLY have a sense of humor. I seriously hope that the article is either a spoof or the article is real and the editor has a really twisted sense of humor, the alternative reasons are just too terrifying to consider.
It seems that some people prefer TiVos and others prefer PC based PVRs, just as some people prefer game consoles and others prefer gaming PCs. What kind of remote control support do you have with a PC based PVR? How does a PC based PVR react when power is interrupted? How reliable is the programming guide that is used with a PC based PVR? Can a PC based PVR be unobtrusively placed inside a TV stand? Will the system automatically upgrade all of the software if a patch is released for any portion of the software? How stable is the software used with a PC based PVR? Can most wives use a PC based PVR?
It sounds like SBC's Privacy Manager seems to be a compromise between the privacy of the caller and the privacy of the person being called. I assume that the system works like this: anybody who has caller id blocked either unblocks their caller id or has to say their name which is recorded in order to announce the call. The called party then can answer the phone and either accept the call or refuse the call based upon the recorded name. I have a little different compromise (the only extra service it requires is caller id): I have caller id displays on all of my phones and an answering machine. I do not answer any call without satisfactory caller id. The answering machine picks up and plays a message telling the caller that one of two conditions exist; either I am not available and to call back later or that my caller id display does not show a valid caller id for the call and for them to unblock their caller id and then call back. After playing the recording, the answering machine hangs up, it does not record any messages.
I am assuming that you called the credit card company using a toll free number. Calling party ID blocking NEVER blocks the calling party ID when you call a toll free number. If somebody else is paying for the call, they have a right to know who is calling them. There are other exceptions where calling party ID block does not work. Every time I hear (or read) some luser say "...I'm paying for a service...I expect it to always work." hits a raw nerve. Expect in one hand, shit in the other, see which one fills up faster.
At least they didn't tie up a salesman for hours and then go buy a machine elsewhere.
You are complaining that a customer comes back the next day to buy a printer? You are bitching because the salesman who sold the printer didn't inform the buyer that they needed to buy a cable that costs as much or more than the printer?
The store could be faulted because it knowingly sold a product that has security problems. Was the customer made aware of the importance of Windows Update?
I used to be a TV repairman at a mom and pop TV-appliance dealer and know exactly what type of purchaser you are speaking about. I also have experienced buying things from chain big box stores and I have NO sympathy for these stores. I love the way that they get people into the store by advertising a loss leader, and then push an upscale machine with expensive add ons. I am also amused by the way that they bitch when a customer buys the advertised loss leader (with or without a rebate). I have found a small local chain that comes very close to, or beats, Best Buy's price on the items that it sells. The local store has unobtrusive, reasonably knowlegable salespeople, that will suggest appropriate accessories -- especially if it is a required accessory, such as a printer cable. Even though the store does sell service policies, they ASK once if you want to buy one, they do not push them.
A reprint of an April 30, 2004 Washington Post article is at http://student-voices.org/news/index.php3?NewsID=1 0915
Quotes from the article:
"The principal of a private high school in the District has accused the new Best Buy store in Tenleytown of discriminating against the school's black students by having them followed as they shopped, subjecting them to searches and, in one instance, letting in a group of young white students to shop but barring a group of young blacks."..."Jennifer Schwab, a representative of Best Buy's customer care office, wrote that she was "disappointed we did not meet your expectations when a couple of your students were shopping in our store." She provided no response to the specific allegations."..."The principal decided to go public with his complaint after he said his students were subjected to further discriminatory incidents, including one witnessed by another school official."
Slashdot Mirror
AT&T used to own the former Bell LECs along with Bell Laboratories and Western Electric. AT&T and the kids called themselves "The Bell System", everybody else called them "Ma Bell" or "the phone company". The former Bell LECs and half of Bell Labs was divested from AT&T on 1/1/1984. You can thank the DOJ and Judge Greene for it. On January 1st, 1984, nobody knew exactly what had happened and everybody's mom and dad was asking what long distance company they should go to. This was also the beginning of the $4.77 telephones era, these really cheap phones were just a handset with a cord attached to them and they had a lifespan was measured in weeks.
The problem is that the company that "lost" the data isn't out the $7M, it is the people whose identities will be stolen who will be out the money and will be hassled, in some cases, to death.
Assuming that it would be possible for some body/group to start building motherboards with open source firmware, which I believe would be a wonderful thing, the DMCA encumberance that you suggest would be a BAD Thing. Your proposal is much worse than what many people feel is wrong with what current motherboard manufacturers are doing. If you want to GPL the firmware, that would be GREAT - but don't try to stop people who want to replace the GPL'ed firmware. When somebody moves from a software world to a hardware world the economies change drastically and all of a sudden each piece produced and hopefully sold is worth real money. Anybody who starts building motherboards, regardless of the license that the firmware is distributed under, lives or dies by selling hardware, the firmware just makes the hardware go. Why would a motherboard manufacturer that includes GPL'ed firmware in his product care if somebody BUYS his motherboards and replaces the GPL'ed firmware with proprietary firmware? This would not prevent somebody from going in later and replacing the firmware. If you want to encumber the motherboard, encumber it so that the owner is expicitly given the right to install any firmware that he wishes.
Port 1984 is registered by IANA to an actual product named "Big Brother".
bb 1984/tcp BB
bb 1984/udp BB
If the average user can figure out how to configure his own firewall to open port 25, or be capable of distinguishing between products with this capability, how can he be assumed to have the "knowhow" to properly run a computer with a mail server? Consider the figuring out of how to configure or hack their own firewall to allow them to open port 25 to be a sort of proficiency test. If a user doesn't know how to turn off a feature in their own firewall then I don't want him to be willy-nilly connecting to my mail server.
The legality of your solution(s) would depend upon the laws of the country where the cellphone jammer (or EMP grenade) is located. In a number of countries the use of jammers as you describe would be illegal. If an illegal cell phone jammer is employed for a length of time it is likely that it would be detected and dealt with (the length of time until detection and being dealt with is a variable that depends upon a number of other factors). Personally, I believe that shielding and/or passive jamming of cell phone frequencies is a better option than active jamming -- and it is less likely to be illegal. Some cell phones (Nextel) operate adjacent to public safety (police/fire) frequencies. Jamming of police/fire frequencies in order to jam cell phones is likely to cause the time_until_detection variable to become somewhat shorter.
IANAL. A device like that would be illegal to sell in the US, for the same reason that you can't sell telephone jammers. The FCC regulations make it illegal to deliberately interfere with other radio signals (whether licensed or not). On the other hand, I wonder how difficult it would be to build passive RFID jammers. Also if certain types of RFID tags are programmable, how difficult and effective would it be to reprogram them?
Well, it looks like those companies that wrote IE centric applications just might end up getting fucked by their decisions. I wonder if shareholds could sue over this.
No.
You seem to be speaking specifically of Linux, which is but one open source project. Many other open source projects such as *BSD and large applications do not seem to have these issues.
I am fully in support of alternative standards based browsers and web applications built specifically to work with standards based browsers. My point is that Firefox/Mozilla is not the only standards based browser available. Opera, Safari, and I believe Konqueror, are also standards compliant. Writing applications to work only with one particular browser is wrong.
The somewhere.com domain is registered by Speakeasy. I checked and found that there is currently no mailserver associated with somewhere.com, so in this case you lucked out and didn't hurt anyone with your misguided efforts. People using random email addresses are very much like people randoming shooting guns. The example.com, example.org, and example.net domains are safe to use for this purpose, see RFC 2606, Section 3.
Oh, I did. I always send mail to MS when I go to a website that says to contact them.
The site says that There are too many people accessing the Web site at this time. and that I should contact Microsoft Support.
Building applications that require a specific browser is NOT a Good Thing. Applications should be built that require standards based browsers and browsers should be built to standards. Writing applications that require the use of Firefox is just as bad as writing applications that require the use of IE. If an application is written that requires a standards based browser and it doesn't work with IE, then it means the IE could become irrelavent.
English langauge site that says the kit is "Coming Soon" is at http://www.kopropo.com/robot_kits.htm
Just because an OS has a large number of users doesn't mean that it is better than an OS with a smaller number of users (MS Windows has a very large user base). Also, look at the user base, *BSD users are mostly hardcore professional users, Linux users are predominately hobbiests.
They could claim royalties on the chips embedded within the currency, not on the currency itself.
In this case it is quite different because broadcasters are given a privilege to operate under very specific technical laws and regulations. The law is not saying that the licensees have to incriminate themselves by providing private information, the stations would only be required to archive program material that was broadcast to the public. Other than the technical regulatory issues, broadcasting of a television program is the same as publishing a story in a newspaper or magazine. The big difference is that in the case of print media, physical copies of the published material exist. This law would be requiring that broadcasters (who are excercising a privilege granted by the FCC to use public airwaves) to keep a physical copy of the programming that they broadcast.
Wow, this guy is a piece of work. Whoever accepted the story for publication must REALLY have a sense of humor. I seriously hope that the article is either a spoof or the article is real and the editor has a really twisted sense of humor, the alternative reasons are just too terrifying to consider.
It seems that some people prefer TiVos and others prefer PC based PVRs, just as some people prefer game consoles and others prefer gaming PCs. What kind of remote control support do you have with a PC based PVR? How does a PC based PVR react when power is interrupted? How reliable is the programming guide that is used with a PC based PVR? Can a PC based PVR be unobtrusively placed inside a TV stand? Will the system automatically upgrade all of the software if a patch is released for any portion of the software? How stable is the software used with a PC based PVR? Can most wives use a PC based PVR?
It sounds like SBC's Privacy Manager seems to be a compromise between the privacy of the caller and the privacy of the person being called. I assume that the system works like this: anybody who has caller id blocked either unblocks their caller id or has to say their name which is recorded in order to announce the call. The called party then can answer the phone and either accept the call or refuse the call based upon the recorded name. I have a little different compromise (the only extra service it requires is caller id): I have caller id displays on all of my phones and an answering machine. I do not answer any call without satisfactory caller id. The answering machine picks up and plays a message telling the caller that one of two conditions exist; either I am not available and to call back later or that my caller id display does not show a valid caller id for the call and for them to unblock their caller id and then call back. After playing the recording, the answering machine hangs up, it does not record any messages.
I am assuming that you called the credit card company using a toll free number. Calling party ID blocking NEVER blocks the calling party ID when you call a toll free number. If somebody else is paying for the call, they have a right to know who is calling them. There are other exceptions where calling party ID block does not work. Every time I hear (or read) some luser say "...I'm paying for a service...I expect it to always work." hits a raw nerve. Expect in one hand, shit in the other, see which one fills up faster.
At least they didn't tie up a salesman for hours and then go buy a machine elsewhere. You are complaining that a customer comes back the next day to buy a printer? You are bitching because the salesman who sold the printer didn't inform the buyer that they needed to buy a cable that costs as much or more than the printer? The store could be faulted because it knowingly sold a product that has security problems. Was the customer made aware of the importance of Windows Update? I used to be a TV repairman at a mom and pop TV-appliance dealer and know exactly what type of purchaser you are speaking about. I also have experienced buying things from chain big box stores and I have NO sympathy for these stores. I love the way that they get people into the store by advertising a loss leader, and then push an upscale machine with expensive add ons. I am also amused by the way that they bitch when a customer buys the advertised loss leader (with or without a rebate). I have found a small local chain that comes very close to, or beats, Best Buy's price on the items that it sells. The local store has unobtrusive, reasonably knowlegable salespeople, that will suggest appropriate accessories -- especially if it is a required accessory, such as a printer cable. Even though the store does sell service policies, they ASK once if you want to buy one, they do not push them.
A reprint of an April 30, 2004 Washington Post article is at http://student-voices.org/news/index.php3?NewsID=1 0915
Quotes from the article:
"The principal of a private high school in the District has accused the new Best Buy store in Tenleytown of discriminating against the school's black students by having them followed as they shopped, subjecting them to searches and, in one instance, letting in a group of young white students to shop but barring a group of young blacks."..."Jennifer Schwab, a representative of Best Buy's customer care office, wrote that she was "disappointed we did not meet your expectations when a couple of your students were shopping in our store." She provided no response to the specific allegations."..."The principal decided to go public with his complaint after he said his students were subjected to further discriminatory incidents, including one witnessed by another school official."