Should I mirror a file which is DRMed, since it won't in fact be downloaded from my computer but from some ISPs mirror, could I be charged of making that file available? How could anyone prove that file hadn't been removed from my computer? Is an illegal file in transit the responsability of the site owner (it may no longer exist on the site), the downloader (where it still doesn't exist) or the middle man, where it exists temporarily?
I issue this post as a fair warning. I have a patent request pending on an interface component, called "generic power toggler", which I have ingeniously called "power switch". Anyone found using this innovative and unprecendented interface element will be sued to death
Yeeesssss! And Open Source will crawl it's way down to those computers in some Pentagon basement due to government fund cutting for defense (which, as we well know, has happened but has been hidden by the OS controlled press), and them computers will gain conscience due to some OS devilish AI software found on Sourceforge and will start shooting nukes around, opening war on the entire Human Race. Then, the only hope left for humans is to send a MS robot back in time in hope that it wouldn't crash before destroying the entire OS comunity and...
...NO, I don't want to wear the reversed white shirt again! And no more pills!!
As usual, we are impared by our own lack of intelligence. We are going to spend a considerable amount of money building a complex infrastructure to retreive information that is... well... pretty much useless.
We'll be searching for a planet similar to Earth because we believe all life must come in some kind of carbon-made structure forming an organism that needs water to sustain itself and that releases some kind of carbon substance into the atmosphere. We also believe that life on Earth was possible to to it's "moderate" conditions. YET, we keep discovering ON EARTH new species previously unknown who live in the most extreme conditions.
So, from my point of view as an engineer... we'll be looking at a science subject without knowing exactly what to look for and without being able to extract any conclusive information. Futhermore, the technology that has to be developed to attain this study is not altogether new. So, no new relevant or important data, no new significant tech... What's the point, then?
If they need a sugestion on where to spend a couple of billion dollars... why not that not yet fully explored planet Earth, with loads of life that considers itself intelligent?
IANAL, but why the hell does anyone have the right to mess with qhat I choose to do with the email I get? If I put a filter that automatically filters all messages from Microsoft.com, can they sue me for not allowing them to carry on with their business? And that said, if instead of putting that filter myself, if I choose an ISP that uses such a filter, why should they be charged with anything? It was my choice, as a consumer, in the first place...
I wonder if everyone in/. started sending random trash by email to Opt In employees, using up their bandwith and rendering their business mail useless, if they would be so tolerant... Anyone's got a list of those addresses, by the qay?;)
I agree that the Internet has many uses that are less than beneficial. But we must all remind ourselves that our western reality is not exactly the same as Chinese reality.
Whenever you open a newspaper, what the news on TV or listen to them on the radio, you are confident that what you're being told is the truth or, at least, a close aproximation of it.
But, then you live ina a country where the media is completely controlled by the government, free, uncensored, independent information is just not available. And what better place to find different views of the truth than the Internet?
Futhermore, we also have the garantee of our freedom to contact whomever we wish and to expose whatever abuses we know of to the general public. That is also not garanteed in China.
So, is the Internet going to change China's reality? Hardly... but it surely is a breath of fresh air going into a dictatorship that is tolerated for it's economical importance
Oh, and thank you for your comment. It's always nice to read other people's opinions when they are constructive as your own.
This is proof that the Internet is, nowadays, the most powerfull media to allow for Freedom of Speech. If it wasn't so, why would the Chinese government be so worried about the Internet's influence on their citizens. I recall that this issue does not only affect minors, as there is a nationwide content barring scheme in China.
But if there's on thing that History teaches us is that no matter how harsh laws and enforcement are, there's no stopping for Man's will to be free.
Although I believe that in Europe there will be a short term leap in Linux usage, due mainly to it's adoption in Public Education facilities and by the Public Administration, a process which is now taking it's first steps in Portugal (where I live), I believe the main pressure will come from South-East Asia countries, which have strong commercial ties to the US but are countries just way to large and poor, as far as most of the population is concerned, to allow for paying licences for Windows.
And although these coutries are well known for licence violations, as MS becomes more and more successfull in preventing Windows unlincenced use, they will fall victim of their own success. And remember: China alone has more inhabitants than US and EU TOGETHER!!
... that's what I'd name this article if I knew some label's CEOs read./
Sometimes I wonder if those guys at the big labels, which MUST be quite clever (after all, they manage multi-billion dollar companies) still believe that they can win over piracy without winning over their costumers first... It all just seems bad PR to me...
Personally, if I were a PR at Microsoft, I'd be giving those patches away. The less overall damage systems running Windows would get because of security exploits, the best the PR. Furthermore, it would allow me to give the possibility to give the "we care" speech...
On the other hand, as an Open Source advocate as I am, I believe these issues should be exploited to the maximum. Not only is most Open Source software more immune to such problems but the patching speed is of critical importance for most enterprise users, and as far as I'm concerned, that would be the main entry point into the household.
I've been recently to Egipt and couldn't help noticing the large number of shops that offer net access for a small (European standards) fee. Do these shops usually run Linux or Windows?
I also know the government has it's troubles raising money to put computers in your administrative structure. Is the government setting up Windows (paying the required licences) or Linux?
I would like to congratulate you on your initiative, as it may contribute to reduce the electronic divide.
In fact, these cards have been shown to excel at matrix supercomputation. You can actually build a discrete point supercomputer based mainly on these babies vector processing power. An unusual app, but still...
Wether people like it or not, there will always be someone that will misuse technology and its loopholes.
Isn't it nice that there are some people that KNOW those loopholes and that don't misuse them? How can we defend ourselves against something we don't know?
These kinds of actions bring the focus right to the differences between hacking and cracking most society is led to believe don't exist. Let me add that the good publicity comes in handy:)
You don't need no restrictive technology to make money out of media content, just find an easy-to-use distribution vector and a fair price. Who will want to sweep through a couple of hundreds of low-res DiVx files on Kazaa to download a show when you can get it premium quality for a price this low?
I wonder what is the ROI (Return on Investment) of the boradcast flag when compared to this...
First they find that you can get stem cell from teeth
Now you can get teeth from stem cells...
Forget abou the chicken and egg tale, this one is way cooler!:)
Slashdot Mirror
Should I mirror a file which is DRMed, since it won't in fact be downloaded from my computer but from some ISPs mirror, could I be charged of making that file available? How could anyone prove that file hadn't been removed from my computer? Is an illegal file in transit the responsability of the site owner (it may no longer exist on the site), the downloader (where it still doesn't exist) or the middle man, where it exists temporarily?
Got me with that one :)
Congratulations in advance!
I issue this post as a fair warning. I have a patent request pending on an interface component, called "generic power toggler", which I have ingeniously called "power switch". Anyone found using this innovative and unprecendented interface element will be sued to death
Thank you for your attention
Yeeesssss! And Open Source will crawl it's way down to those computers in some Pentagon basement due to government fund cutting for defense (which, as we well know, has happened but has been hidden by the OS controlled press), and them computers will gain conscience due to some OS devilish AI software found on Sourceforge and will start shooting nukes around, opening war on the entire Human Race. Then, the only hope left for humans is to send a MS robot back in time in hope that it wouldn't crash before destroying the entire OS comunity and...
...NO, I don't want to wear the reversed white shirt again! And no more pills!!
As usual, we are impared by our own lack of intelligence. We are going to spend a considerable amount of money building a complex infrastructure to retreive information that is... well... pretty much useless.
We'll be searching for a planet similar to Earth because we believe all life must come in some kind of carbon-made structure forming an organism that needs water to sustain itself and that releases some kind of carbon substance into the atmosphere. We also believe that life on Earth was possible to to it's "moderate" conditions. YET, we keep discovering ON EARTH new species previously unknown who live in the most extreme conditions.
So, from my point of view as an engineer... we'll be looking at a science subject without knowing exactly what to look for and without being able to extract any conclusive information. Futhermore, the technology that has to be developed to attain this study is not altogether new. So, no new relevant or important data, no new significant tech... What's the point, then?
If they need a sugestion on where to spend a couple of billion dollars... why not that not yet fully explored planet Earth, with loads of life that considers itself intelligent?
IANAL, but why the hell does anyone have the right to mess with qhat I choose to do with the email I get? If I put a filter that automatically filters all messages from Microsoft.com, can they sue me for not allowing them to carry on with their business? And that said, if instead of putting that filter myself, if I choose an ISP that uses such a filter, why should they be charged with anything? It was my choice, as a consumer, in the first place...
I wonder if everyone in /. started sending random trash by email to Opt In employees, using up their bandwith and rendering their business mail useless, if they would be so tolerant... Anyone's got a list of those addresses, by the qay? ;)
I agree that the Internet has many uses that are less than beneficial. But we must all remind ourselves that our western reality is not exactly the same as Chinese reality.
Whenever you open a newspaper, what the news on TV or listen to them on the radio, you are confident that what you're being told is the truth or, at least, a close aproximation of it.
But, then you live ina a country where the media is completely controlled by the government, free, uncensored, independent information is just not available. And what better place to find different views of the truth than the Internet?
Futhermore, we also have the garantee of our freedom to contact whomever we wish and to expose whatever abuses we know of to the general public. That is also not garanteed in China.
So, is the Internet going to change China's reality? Hardly... but it surely is a breath of fresh air going into a dictatorship that is tolerated for it's economical importance
Oh, and thank you for your comment. It's always nice to read other people's opinions when they are constructive as your own.
This is proof that the Internet is, nowadays, the most powerfull media to allow for Freedom of Speech. If it wasn't so, why would the Chinese government be so worried about the Internet's influence on their citizens. I recall that this issue does not only affect minors, as there is a nationwide content barring scheme in China.
But if there's on thing that History teaches us is that no matter how harsh laws and enforcement are, there's no stopping for Man's will to be free.
... to some really nasty pissedOffNeglectedGirlfriend Action! Count on Explycit Lyrics!!
Hey, that's not a fair trial... the larger holes in each picture expell the same kind of substance! Way to hard even for a human!
Although I believe that in Europe there will be a short term leap in Linux usage, due mainly to it's adoption in Public Education facilities and by the Public Administration, a process which is now taking it's first steps in Portugal (where I live), I believe the main pressure will come from South-East Asia countries, which have strong commercial ties to the US but are countries just way to large and poor, as far as most of the population is concerned, to allow for paying licences for Windows.
And although these coutries are well known for licence violations, as MS becomes more and more successfull in preventing Windows unlincenced use, they will fall victim of their own success. And remember: China alone has more inhabitants than US and EU TOGETHER!!
... that's what I'd name this article if I knew some label's CEOs read ./
Sometimes I wonder if those guys at the big labels, which MUST be quite clever (after all, they manage multi-billion dollar companies) still believe that they can win over piracy without winning over their costumers first... It all just seems bad PR to me...
I don't know how to create a .sig
Personally, if I were a PR at Microsoft, I'd be giving those patches away. The less overall damage systems running Windows would get because of security exploits, the best the PR. Furthermore, it would allow me to give the possibility to give the "we care" speech...
On the other hand, as an Open Source advocate as I am, I believe these issues should be exploited to the maximum. Not only is most Open Source software more immune to such problems but the patching speed is of critical importance for most enterprise users, and as far as I'm concerned, that would be the main entry point into the household.
I've been recently to Egipt and couldn't help noticing the large number of shops that offer net access for a small (European standards) fee. Do these shops usually run Linux or Windows?
I also know the government has it's troubles raising money to put computers in your administrative structure. Is the government setting up Windows (paying the required licences) or Linux?
I would like to congratulate you on your initiative, as it may contribute to reduce the electronic divide.
Is it news Microsoft engaging monopolist practices?
In fact, these cards have been shown to excel at matrix supercomputation. You can actually build a discrete point supercomputer based mainly on these babies vector processing power. An unusual app, but still...
Wether people like it or not, there will always be someone that will misuse technology and its loopholes.
Isn't it nice that there are some people that KNOW those loopholes and that don't misuse them? How can we defend ourselves against something we don't know?
These kinds of actions bring the focus right to the differences between hacking and cracking most society is led to believe don't exist. Let me add that the good publicity comes in handy :)
You don't need no restrictive technology to make money out of media content, just find an easy-to-use distribution vector and a fair price. Who will want to sweep through a couple of hundreds of low-res DiVx files on Kazaa to download a show when you can get it premium quality for a price this low?
I wonder what is the ROI (Return on Investment) of the boradcast flag when compared to this...First they find that you can get stem cell from teeth Now you can get teeth from stem cells... Forget abou the chicken and egg tale, this one is way cooler! :)