While I agree with most of your point wholeheartedly, allow me to toss in a wrench:
Your risk/reward equation could be thrown VASTLY out of balance with a single nuclear explosion in, say, New York City. You're not likely to be on a hijacked plane, or near a suicide bomber on a bus, but you're VERY likely (in mathematical terms) to be killed by a thermonuclear explosion in downtown Manhattan. Add to that the possibility that they could hit multiple cities at the same time, and you have a very significant risk/reward equation.
This is why I don't understand US terrorist policy. There are thousands of agents for the TSA checking grandma Millie for matches and nail clippers at the airport, yet there are fewer than 1,000 people assigned to inspect cargo containers at US ports. If I shipped a big nuke in a container marked "Teddy Bears for sick children," there's greater than a 99% chance it would get past port security. What's more, you don't really even need to get past those people in order to blow up a nuke in New York, you just have to get the cargo container to the dock. That's the threat that keeps me up at night. I'm not even sure how you'd go about solving this one. I guess I'm happy I don't live in a port city, but my life would certainly be affected (in a very negative way) if New York were suddenly wiped off the map. (Economic collapse, supply chain problems, riots, etc.)
So, now, let's all sing a rousing rendition of "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life."
And once we've eliminated all interference from cell phones, we'll have to go after those pesky solar flares. And once we've quieted our own solar system, it's off to those damn black holes and quasars. Now THOSE things really piss me off!
OK, taking my tongue out of my cheek for a moment, I agree that it's an admirable and reasonable goal to get rid of as much interference as you can. I think having a device (like a metal detector) at the entrance that scans for certain radio frequencies is a good idea. (And probably less expensive than the power switch of an MRI machine...) Once inside, I wouldn't have a problem with ejecting people who think their business is more important than the health of those around them. Anything beyond that, and I think you're getting into the realm of stupid. To some extent, cell phones are a reality that we're all going to just have to get used to. I'm not saying it's right, but I'm a realist.
I once took the time (and CPU horsepower) to generate 64GB worth of rainbow tables. I must've done it wrong, though, because it didn't work on anything. I'll happily admit that I was just puttering around, and probably forgot to set some switch somewhere. Fortunately, I had a server that I didn't need for a couple weeks.:)
You clearly don't understand. What they're trying to do is to create a virtual paradigm shift, and using a collaborative effort, they will fundamentally alter the synergy between these two channels. If they hope to harness the power of Web 2.0, they need to be proactive in their real-time global initiatives, and mesh their current mindshare to make frictionless infrastructures.
It's so simple, anyone could understand it. Sheesh.
Adding to the shrug factor, the twelve-tone pitch system as a whole is a human invention. This makes perfect pitch that much stranger, because it means people have an innate ability to attune themselves to an artificial note naming scheme. Not so much, if you consider that pitch is just varying wavelengths on a vibrating column of air. Different colors are just different wavelengths for EM waves. You can look at something that is red and you know it's red, even though you weren't given a reference color. Most people don't say that colors are a human invention.
In addition to this, the western twelve-tone chromatic scale is not really a human invention. All of the frequencies represented in the scale have mathematical relationships that are basically whole number ratios. The reason certain tones, when played in certain combinations, sound pleasing to the human ear is really a factor of the mathematical relationships of the frequencies. They are equally divisible, meaning that the vibrations sync up at regular intervals, creating what we think of as harmony.
Now, the notation system is a human invention. We call 440Hz "A" because that's the standard we decided on hundreds of years ago. We could just as easily have called it "7" or "Pink" or "Delta" or whatever, but there is a logic to the notation system we use. People with perfect pitch would just as easily be able to identify notes or frequencies in any notation system.
Amen, brother! How long have we been talking about freeing up the analog spectrum? Why is this taking so long? It's because the FCC has no intention of shutting anybody down.
It's the old axiom "all work expands to fit the amount of time allotted to its completion." If the FCC keeps wringing its hands and telling broadcasters/cable companies to get it together "or else..." it's never going to get done. Mostly, the cable companies are coming up with newer and better ways to take as many rights away from consumers as they can. Believe me, if we give them in infinite amount of time, they'll come up with more and more ways they can restrict us. That's why CableCARD 2.0 was started before CableCARD 1.0 was even deployed.
The FCC should (but will never) set out a mandate and stick with it. Faced with the prospect of losing 100% of their revenue, cable companies will be quick to come up with solutions to these problems.
Although following that logic, you could just as easily say "Why invest the money in HD-DVD or Blu-Ray, when the next format is bound to be just right around the corner. Heck, I'm sure in 30-40 years, they'll have holographic storage perfected and affordable so I'll be able to get my whole collection of Super Duper High Definition (20160p) onto a single holo-cube. Of course, I'll be 70, but it will be money well invested.
My point is, if you're always waiting for the next "greatest thing" you could be waiting forever. There's always something around the corner, but if you keep waiting for it, you'll never get your feet wet.
Overall, your point is well taken, but Einstein himself had two very pertinent quotes on the subject.
1) "Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. That's relativity."
2) "If you can't explain something to a six year-old, you don't understand it yourself."
Einstein had a way of breaking down some of the most complex ideas of his time (or any time, really) in a way that was easy to digest, even for a layperson.
The postal system is a bad example. A better example of a government controlled entity (although it's not the Federal government) is the municipal water and sewer system. I don't have the choice of who I get my water from. I don't have 4 sets of sewer lines running through my neighborhood. Just 1 each. And, like 98% of all other Americans, I get VERY high quality water. I can't remember the time when my water went out, and there are measurable levels of water pressure, throughput and quality that must be met by my provider. The challenges faced by the water and sewer system are remarkably similar to the challenges faced by a municipal broadband provider. In fact, I could argue that broadband should actually be cheaper than my water service. There are no moving parts in the broadband system. There are technology costs, but if those components were standardized and commoditized, I think the costs would go down dramatically. Should a simple router really cost more than a 20-ton concrete sewer junction? Yes there are back-end bandwidth and peering costs on a broadband network, but do you really think those costs should be greater than the cost to build and maintain large reservoirs, water purification plants and sewage treatment facilities? It's a helluva lot easier to run a few fiber optic lines through a neighborhood than sewer lines. The things that break them are really similar. (read: backhoe drivers.) So why does my 7Mb/1Mb connection cost $150 a month, and my water and sewer cost $20 a month? If we formed municipal broadband systems, (which, IMHO, would be easier to maintain than a federal system) I think the costs would go down and the availability would go up. There would be a federal oversight organization (like the EPA for our water system) but they don't actually need to provide anything. The EPA doesn't provide water to anyone, they just make sure the water systems are delivering what they're supposed to. I'm willing to admit that there might be problems here I'm not considering, but I can't think of what they'd be.
The Canadian Red Cross is also wasting time and lawyer money chasing after video game makers for using it as a symbol for health. I know that they are all separate entities, but there has to be a common thread here. It sounds to me like the the whole gang are being a bunch of douchebags.
Wrong. Myself, my cat, my neighbors, anyone driving by with a laptop and anyone in the general vicinity that may or may not have a pringles can pointed at my house. This list of suspects you talk about is not nearly as small as you think. Just because I live in my house, and I give back to society by providing an open WAP does not in any way make me guilty of filesharing, child pornography, harassment, or any other activity that could been tied to my IP address.
Marty, I've put enough effort into this futile flame-war. Unfortunately, in order to have a conversation with someone, you need to be on similar intellectual levels, and clearly, we are not. You fail to include any meaningful information in your replies. You avoid answering points directly, and try to refute points I don't make. I'll let this thread stand on its own, and the people reading it can draw their own conclusions. I wish you the best of luck in life.
My story had nothing to do with finding the block owner. Read it again. It had to do with trying to get the issue resolved. If you order a cheeseburger, and the cheese on it makes you sick, you don't just immediately run over to the local dairy farm and start throwing a tantrum. You start with the people that you purchased the cheeseburger from.
It sounds like you're real problem here is that you don't feel my services are worth the money by boss charges for them. I, by the way, don't make anywhere near $100 per hour. I put that dollar amount in there to put in perspective how much this fiasco was costing my customer, although they did absolutely nothing wrong. Also, in my city, the Geek Squad charges (much) more than $100 per hour, so it's not like I'm putting myself on a pedestal. My company charges a very competitive rate, I work very hard, and I know what I'm doing, despite your best efforts to "prove" otherwise.
Yes, it was the DUHL that they were on. You say "due diligence." What would your recommended course of action have been? You offer vague, nebulous terms with big words that you heard on Law & Order, but I think you have no real idea how this could have been prevented. (Oh, I know, you should have never used a company that is located in a facility that has an IP block owned by Qwest. Guess what. There are a LOT of reasons much too complicated for you to understand as to why they haven't switched hosts. All you need to understand is that it's not an option.) You have two posts on here in response to me, and in neither of them did you offer any suggestions as to how a real IT person should have handled them. That suggests to me that you don't know.
Like a meteor headed towards the old data center.
Webhost: "How big did you say this meteor is?... Oh, that big. Hmmm. I see... Is it going to take out the whole datacenter, or just part of it?... Ah. Ok... What kind of downtime are we talking about here?...
So there's a reasonable chance that you're just a troll, but in case you really are that ignorant, and since you didn't post AC, allow me to swallow your flamebait.
Nowhere in my post did I say anything about not knowing the owner of the address block. I knew who it was in the first 5 minutes. Of course, since SORBS runs the blacklist, they were my first point of contact. At the time, I didn't know how unreasonable their policies were. From there, I assume you are actually suggesting that I call up Qwest and say "Hey, I'm a consultant for a customer of a customer of a customer of yours, and I demand that you terminate the contract of your other customer, who, by the way, isn't violating your terms of service, just so my customer can send email now." That's not how it works. Generally, in business, you can only work with your vendor on these problems. You can't go three levels up the chain just to save time.
Apparently you're job at Burger King hasn't exposed you to the complexities of the IT field, so let me explain in terms you can understand:
Spam bad. Customer upset. SORBS policy makes no sense. Makes things hard to fix.
I agree with the goals of SORBS, but I had an experience recently which proved to me that they are utterly and completely worthless.
A girl who works for a company that I support has never engaged in spamming in any way. Their corporate network is secure. Their mail is hosted by some company. They don't know the details, but their email usually "just works"
She tries to send an email to a perspective client, and it gets bounced due to SORBS
She calls her boss
Her boss calls me, the company consultant.
Charging $100 per hour, I contact SORBS. After a day and a half, they tell me that I am not the owner of the IP address, and thus I can do absolutely nothing. I need to contact my webhost
I call their webhost, who also hosts their email
The site host contacts SORBS
After another day and a half, the webhost is informed that the owner of the larger IP address block is responsible. They will do absolutely nothing for the webhost.
The webhost contacts his provider. They contact SORBS. After 18 hours, SORBS contacts them back with the IP address of the offending spammer that caused the blacklist in the first place.
The IP address does not directly belong to them, but is part of a large block managed by THEIR upstream provider, which willingly allows what they don't consider to be spam, but SORBS does consider to be spam. (Something to do with specific requirements for Australia's spam prevention act. I don't know the details because by this time, it's too far upstream for me to have any direct contact with anyone.)
Here are the choices I am left with:
1) Switch to a new host. This is hardly trivial, and will cost hundreds in billable hours to my client.
2) Persuade the webhost to switch ISP's. Not likely.
3) The webhost's upstream provider must convince the people who manage the large block to cancel the contract of a paying customer who is NOT violating the TOC.
It's worth noting here, that this ISP does not appear on ANY other blacklists. Only SORBS. The webhost is a responsible netizen, who happens to have an upstream provider who allowed some activity that SORBS classifies as spam. (and NO other blacklist.)
In the end: I billed my customer for hours of time spent investigating the issue. He lost the contract because he could not submit his bid on time. Sure, I could switch him to another webhost now, but that would cost him quite a bit of money. He has done nothing wrong, I have done nothing wrong, the webhost did nothing wrong, and his datacenter did nothing wrong. However, to address the issue properly, it will cost thousands of dollars in lost productivity, consultation fees and potentially lost business. There is still no guarantee that a new webhost/ISP/datacenter won't have the same problem again. Moreover, it took 2 1/2 weeks to determine that we were at an impasse with SORBS and could do nothing to remedy the situation.
I hate spam with a passion, but how are they doing any favors for the Internet? I know how it's supposed to work in theory, but clearly, it's broken.
You can't blame Ted Stevens here. If his understanding of federal corruption laws is anything like his understanding of Net Neutrality, he probably thought all those free upgrades to his house were perfectly legal.
Why go to all that trouble? If my understanding of TC is correct, shouldn't you just need a hidden partition within a regular one? I thought the whole thing about the hidden partition is that it can't be mathematically proven to even exist. I mean, if you have empty space in a TC partition, it will be indistinguishable from random data. Some of that random data could feasibly be the super secret stuff you're trying to hide, and without a key, there would be no way to prove it.
Man, if that's not true, I think many slashdotters will have to rethink how they hide their porn from their wives... Ok, from their mothers.
I agree in theory, but if the FCC didn't regulate the airwaves, then it would be too easy for your competition to just jam you. Or else, everyone would try to use the same frequencies and the end result would be that nobody could use anything.
In my opinion, The FCC is one of the few government regulatory bodies that actually serve a reasonable purpose.
Now, in the current climate, they have overstepped those bounds by an order of magnitude. (In the form of censoring the airwaves.) However, that was never their original purpose.
Yes, charging small amounts to transfer a message is a great way to eliminate unwanted messages. The US Postal system has long charged a trivial amount for this message transfer, and that has completely prevented people from using it to send out unwanted correspondence.
the desktop PC is losing ground to the Microwave Oven
Very true. But with the advent of Intel's Core processor line, they don't run nearly as hot as they used to. It now takes me over three minutes to make Minute Rice on my PC. And I thought technology was supposed to take us forward!
Slashdot Mirror
While I agree with most of your point wholeheartedly, allow me to toss in a wrench:
Your risk/reward equation could be thrown VASTLY out of balance with a single nuclear explosion in, say, New York City. You're not likely to be on a hijacked plane, or near a suicide bomber on a bus, but you're VERY likely (in mathematical terms) to be killed by a thermonuclear explosion in downtown Manhattan. Add to that the possibility that they could hit multiple cities at the same time, and you have a very significant risk/reward equation.
This is why I don't understand US terrorist policy. There are thousands of agents for the TSA checking grandma Millie for matches and nail clippers at the airport, yet there are fewer than 1,000 people assigned to inspect cargo containers at US ports. If I shipped a big nuke in a container marked "Teddy Bears for sick children," there's greater than a 99% chance it would get past port security. What's more, you don't really even need to get past those people in order to blow up a nuke in New York, you just have to get the cargo container to the dock. That's the threat that keeps me up at night. I'm not even sure how you'd go about solving this one. I guess I'm happy I don't live in a port city, but my life would certainly be affected (in a very negative way) if New York were suddenly wiped off the map. (Economic collapse, supply chain problems, riots, etc.)
So, now, let's all sing a rousing rendition of "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life."
And once we've eliminated all interference from cell phones, we'll have to go after those pesky solar flares. And once we've quieted our own solar system, it's off to those damn black holes and quasars. Now THOSE things really piss me off!
OK, taking my tongue out of my cheek for a moment, I agree that it's an admirable and reasonable goal to get rid of as much interference as you can. I think having a device (like a metal detector) at the entrance that scans for certain radio frequencies is a good idea. (And probably less expensive than the power switch of an MRI machine...) Once inside, I wouldn't have a problem with ejecting people who think their business is more important than the health of those around them. Anything beyond that, and I think you're getting into the realm of stupid. To some extent, cell phones are a reality that we're all going to just have to get used to. I'm not saying it's right, but I'm a realist.
I once took the time (and CPU horsepower) to generate 64GB worth of rainbow tables. I must've done it wrong, though, because it didn't work on anything. I'll happily admit that I was just puttering around, and probably forgot to set some switch somewhere. Fortunately, I had a server that I didn't need for a couple weeks. :)
You clearly don't understand. What they're trying to do is to create a virtual paradigm shift, and using a collaborative effort, they will fundamentally alter the synergy between these two channels. If they hope to harness the power of Web 2.0, they need to be proactive in their real-time global initiatives, and mesh their current mindshare to make frictionless infrastructures.
It's so simple, anyone could understand it. Sheesh.
In addition to this, the western twelve-tone chromatic scale is not really a human invention. All of the frequencies represented in the scale have mathematical relationships that are basically whole number ratios. The reason certain tones, when played in certain combinations, sound pleasing to the human ear is really a factor of the mathematical relationships of the frequencies. They are equally divisible, meaning that the vibrations sync up at regular intervals, creating what we think of as harmony.
Now, the notation system is a human invention. We call 440Hz "A" because that's the standard we decided on hundreds of years ago. We could just as easily have called it "7" or "Pink" or "Delta" or whatever, but there is a logic to the notation system we use. People with perfect pitch would just as easily be able to identify notes or frequencies in any notation system.
I like your ideas and wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
Amen, brother! How long have we been talking about freeing up the analog spectrum? Why is this taking so long? It's because the FCC has no intention of shutting anybody down.
It's the old axiom "all work expands to fit the amount of time allotted to its completion." If the FCC keeps wringing its hands and telling broadcasters/cable companies to get it together "or else..." it's never going to get done. Mostly, the cable companies are coming up with newer and better ways to take as many rights away from consumers as they can. Believe me, if we give them in infinite amount of time, they'll come up with more and more ways they can restrict us. That's why CableCARD 2.0 was started before CableCARD 1.0 was even deployed.
The FCC should (but will never) set out a mandate and stick with it. Faced with the prospect of losing 100% of their revenue, cable companies will be quick to come up with solutions to these problems.
Although following that logic, you could just as easily say "Why invest the money in HD-DVD or Blu-Ray, when the next format is bound to be just right around the corner. Heck, I'm sure in 30-40 years, they'll have holographic storage perfected and affordable so I'll be able to get my whole collection of Super Duper High Definition (20160p) onto a single holo-cube. Of course, I'll be 70, but it will be money well invested.
My point is, if you're always waiting for the next "greatest thing" you could be waiting forever. There's always something around the corner, but if you keep waiting for it, you'll never get your feet wet.
Overall, your point is well taken, but Einstein himself had two very pertinent quotes on the subject.
1) "Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. That's relativity."
2) "If you can't explain something to a six year-old, you don't understand it yourself."
Einstein had a way of breaking down some of the most complex ideas of his time (or any time, really) in a way that was easy to digest, even for a layperson.
The postal system is a bad example. A better example of a government controlled entity (although it's not the Federal government) is the municipal water and sewer system. I don't have the choice of who I get my water from. I don't have 4 sets of sewer lines running through my neighborhood. Just 1 each. And, like 98% of all other Americans, I get VERY high quality water. I can't remember the time when my water went out, and there are measurable levels of water pressure, throughput and quality that must be met by my provider. The challenges faced by the water and sewer system are remarkably similar to the challenges faced by a municipal broadband provider. In fact, I could argue that broadband should actually be cheaper than my water service. There are no moving parts in the broadband system. There are technology costs, but if those components were standardized and commoditized, I think the costs would go down dramatically. Should a simple router really cost more than a 20-ton concrete sewer junction? Yes there are back-end bandwidth and peering costs on a broadband network, but do you really think those costs should be greater than the cost to build and maintain large reservoirs, water purification plants and sewage treatment facilities? It's a helluva lot easier to run a few fiber optic lines through a neighborhood than sewer lines. The things that break them are really similar. (read: backhoe drivers.) So why does my 7Mb/1Mb connection cost $150 a month, and my water and sewer cost $20 a month? If we formed municipal broadband systems, (which, IMHO, would be easier to maintain than a federal system) I think the costs would go down and the availability would go up. There would be a federal oversight organization (like the EPA for our water system) but they don't actually need to provide anything. The EPA doesn't provide water to anyone, they just make sure the water systems are delivering what they're supposed to. I'm willing to admit that there might be problems here I'm not considering, but I can't think of what they'd be.
The Canadian Red Cross is also wasting time and lawyer money chasing after video game makers for using it as a symbol for health. I know that they are all separate entities, but there has to be a common thread here. It sounds to me like the the whole gang are being a bunch of douchebags.
Wrong. Myself, my cat, my neighbors, anyone driving by with a laptop and anyone in the general vicinity that may or may not have a pringles can pointed at my house. This list of suspects you talk about is not nearly as small as you think. Just because I live in my house, and I give back to society by providing an open WAP does not in any way make me guilty of filesharing, child pornography, harassment, or any other activity that could been tied to my IP address.
Marty, I've put enough effort into this futile flame-war. Unfortunately, in order to have a conversation with someone, you need to be on similar intellectual levels, and clearly, we are not. You fail to include any meaningful information in your replies. You avoid answering points directly, and try to refute points I don't make. I'll let this thread stand on its own, and the people reading it can draw their own conclusions. I wish you the best of luck in life.
My story had nothing to do with finding the block owner. Read it again. It had to do with trying to get the issue resolved. If you order a cheeseburger, and the cheese on it makes you sick, you don't just immediately run over to the local dairy farm and start throwing a tantrum. You start with the people that you purchased the cheeseburger from.
It sounds like you're real problem here is that you don't feel my services are worth the money by boss charges for them. I, by the way, don't make anywhere near $100 per hour. I put that dollar amount in there to put in perspective how much this fiasco was costing my customer, although they did absolutely nothing wrong. Also, in my city, the Geek Squad charges (much) more than $100 per hour, so it's not like I'm putting myself on a pedestal. My company charges a very competitive rate, I work very hard, and I know what I'm doing, despite your best efforts to "prove" otherwise.
Yes, it was the DUHL that they were on. You say "due diligence." What would your recommended course of action have been? You offer vague, nebulous terms with big words that you heard on Law & Order, but I think you have no real idea how this could have been prevented. (Oh, I know, you should have never used a company that is located in a facility that has an IP block owned by Qwest. Guess what. There are a LOT of reasons much too complicated for you to understand as to why they haven't switched hosts. All you need to understand is that it's not an option.) You have two posts on here in response to me, and in neither of them did you offer any suggestions as to how a real IT person should have handled them. That suggests to me that you don't know.
Webhost: "How big did you say this meteor is?... Oh, that big. Hmmm. I see... Is it going to take out the whole datacenter, or just part of it?... Ah. Ok... What kind of downtime are we talking about here?...
So there's a reasonable chance that you're just a troll, but in case you really are that ignorant, and since you didn't post AC, allow me to swallow your flamebait.
Nowhere in my post did I say anything about not knowing the owner of the address block. I knew who it was in the first 5 minutes. Of course, since SORBS runs the blacklist, they were my first point of contact. At the time, I didn't know how unreasonable their policies were. From there, I assume you are actually suggesting that I call up Qwest and say "Hey, I'm a consultant for a customer of a customer of a customer of yours, and I demand that you terminate the contract of your other customer, who, by the way, isn't violating your terms of service, just so my customer can send email now." That's not how it works. Generally, in business, you can only work with your vendor on these problems. You can't go three levels up the chain just to save time.
Apparently you're job at Burger King hasn't exposed you to the complexities of the IT field, so let me explain in terms you can understand:
Spam bad. Customer upset. SORBS policy makes no sense. Makes things hard to fix.
Understand now?
I agree with the goals of SORBS, but I had an experience recently which proved to me that they are utterly and completely worthless.
A girl who works for a company that I support has never engaged in spamming in any way. Their corporate network is secure. Their mail is hosted by some company. They don't know the details, but their email usually "just works"
She tries to send an email to a perspective client, and it gets bounced due to SORBS
She calls her boss
Her boss calls me, the company consultant.
Charging $100 per hour, I contact SORBS. After a day and a half, they tell me that I am not the owner of the IP address, and thus I can do absolutely nothing. I need to contact my webhost
I call their webhost, who also hosts their email
The site host contacts SORBS
After another day and a half, the webhost is informed that the owner of the larger IP address block is responsible. They will do absolutely nothing for the webhost.
The webhost contacts his provider. They contact SORBS. After 18 hours, SORBS contacts them back with the IP address of the offending spammer that caused the blacklist in the first place.
The IP address does not directly belong to them, but is part of a large block managed by THEIR upstream provider, which willingly allows what they don't consider to be spam, but SORBS does consider to be spam. (Something to do with specific requirements for Australia's spam prevention act. I don't know the details because by this time, it's too far upstream for me to have any direct contact with anyone.)
Here are the choices I am left with:
1) Switch to a new host. This is hardly trivial, and will cost hundreds in billable hours to my client.
2) Persuade the webhost to switch ISP's. Not likely.
3) The webhost's upstream provider must convince the people who manage the large block to cancel the contract of a paying customer who is NOT violating the TOC.
It's worth noting here, that this ISP does not appear on ANY other blacklists. Only SORBS. The webhost is a responsible netizen, who happens to have an upstream provider who allowed some activity that SORBS classifies as spam. (and NO other blacklist.) In the end: I billed my customer for hours of time spent investigating the issue. He lost the contract because he could not submit his bid on time. Sure, I could switch him to another webhost now, but that would cost him quite a bit of money. He has done nothing wrong, I have done nothing wrong, the webhost did nothing wrong, and his datacenter did nothing wrong. However, to address the issue properly, it will cost thousands of dollars in lost productivity, consultation fees and potentially lost business. There is still no guarantee that a new webhost/ISP/datacenter won't have the same problem again. Moreover, it took 2 1/2 weeks to determine that we were at an impasse with SORBS and could do nothing to remedy the situation.
I hate spam with a passion, but how are they doing any favors for the Internet? I know how it's supposed to work in theory, but clearly, it's broken.
You can't blame Ted Stevens here. If his understanding of federal corruption laws is anything like his understanding of Net Neutrality, he probably thought all those free upgrades to his house were perfectly legal.
/sarcasm
Why go to all that trouble? If my understanding of TC is correct, shouldn't you just need a hidden partition within a regular one? I thought the whole thing about the hidden partition is that it can't be mathematically proven to even exist. I mean, if you have empty space in a TC partition, it will be indistinguishable from random data. Some of that random data could feasibly be the super secret stuff you're trying to hide, and without a key, there would be no way to prove it.
Man, if that's not true, I think many slashdotters will have to rethink how they hide their porn from their wives... Ok, from their mothers.
I agree in theory, but if the FCC didn't regulate the airwaves, then it would be too easy for your competition to just jam you. Or else, everyone would try to use the same frequencies and the end result would be that nobody could use anything.
In my opinion, The FCC is one of the few government regulatory bodies that actually serve a reasonable purpose.
Now, in the current climate, they have overstepped those bounds by an order of magnitude. (In the form of censoring the airwaves.) However, that was never their original purpose.
Yes, charging small amounts to transfer a message is a great way to eliminate unwanted messages. The US Postal system has long charged a trivial amount for this message transfer, and that has completely prevented people from using it to send out unwanted correspondence.
Keep on with your jokes, funny-man. We know where you live.
Oh, and I'd keep a close eye on your dog, Rusty, for the next few days. We've noticed some irregularities in his stool.
Very true. But with the advent of Intel's Core processor line, they don't run nearly as hot as they used to. It now takes me over three minutes to make Minute Rice on my PC. And I thought technology was supposed to take us forward!
...and Godwin's Law has officially been achieved. If you ask me, considering this was about Bush, I'm surprised it took so long. :)
Funny. I wish I had mod points...