Doubleclick pays site to site admin can make money (or at least not lose too much money) while providing a free service. User pays internet provider in order to access free web-based service. What exactly is the problem here?
Nothing wrong with that. Considering that most Windows users aren't aware that they're being tracked, much less that they can opt-out by typing a medium-length URL into their browser, user education is important. And user education starts with the geeks, whether they use Linux, Windows, or any other O/S to surf, figuring it out. Link to the opt-out site from your website. Mention it whenever you discuss internet privacy with your friends.
Would it be legal for a company like Netscape to release a browser that blocks a specific company's website, even if it's just an option? I doubt they would block all the ad sites, because www.netscape.com uses a mixture of imgis and aol banner advertisements.
Oh, wait, MS does things to break specific other products all the time, and they haven't gotten in any big trouble yet, so it must be ok. Never mind. Add to mozilla. Moderate down.
Do you have to opt out for every IP address that you have?
No, but you need to opt out for every browser you use. I think the opt-out site explains it fairly well - it gets rid of the unique doubleclick cookie in your browser by replacing it with OPT_OUT, and then leaves it there. Hopefully, they won't find other ways to track you once you no longer have a unique cookie.
Doubleclick abuses a "misfeature" in http (or is it in the browser implimentations?) that allows sites to attach cookies to images. Since you request the banner from a hostname like ads.doubleclick.net, doubleclick gets to look at your cookie each time you go to a site with a doubleclick ad.
If you don't already have a hosts file, the easiest way to create one is to type the following into start, run:
notepad C:\windows\hosts.
Note that there's a period at the end - that tells notepad not to try to add a.txt extension. Replace c:\windows\ with your windows directory if necessary.
Windows allows you to include comments in the hosts file by beginning the line with a # symbol.
(For the clueless, when you connect to a web server, it's usually a two-step process: first, look up the IP address for a hostname like "www.slashdot.org" and get an IP address like 209.207.224.42; then, connect to the computer with the IP address 209.207.224.42 and request the webpage. Adding entries to the windows hosts file short-circuits the IP address lookup, so your browser and other programs on your computer think that the IP address for "ads.doubleclick.net" is 127.0.0.1. But 127.0.0.1 is a special address called the loopback address, meaning that it always refers to the computer you're using. Since you probably don't have a web server on your computer, your browser fails in connecting to "ads.doubleclick.net" and displays an empty banner. This attempted connection to your own computer happens without wasting any of your bandwidth, by the way.)
Once the injunction is lifted, etoy will again be able to sell its "shares" -- another of its pseudo-corporate projects -- in the United States. Those who supported the group during the lawsuit will be rewarded with shares, which are more valuable as a result of the suit, zai said.
Is slashdot one of the recipients of these "shares"? If so, do these "shares" count legally (will Rob, etc. now be required to say "Disclaimer: we own shares in etoy"?)
There was also a link to a new york times article at the top of the slashdot article. (I think the reason you often see the second paragraph repeating the first on slashdot is that readers sometimes forget what the first paragraph said, and start reading the second.)
A quick google search reveals a little bit of information on the "n-armed bandit problem". This general problem is interesting. I wonder what kind of solution these linux programmers found.
Although I'm not familiar with the n-armed bandit problem, it looks like these kids took a very simple case of the problem: only two strategies to choose from, and the only possible outcome is catch the white square's trail within n moves, or don't catch its trail within n moves. (I may be mistaken here.. it's possible that they simply counted the number of moves each time).
Also, since they don't seem to switch between strategies during the game, why not run 10000 simulations each way first, store the statistical information (probability of catching, or probability for each number of moves), and then run the AI program on this statistical data?
Maybe a better question would be, "Do anti-social people with highly focused lives have successful marriages?"
Most geeks aren't anti-social -- they don't go around killing people, or trying to disrupt society. Some are asocial, which simply means they tend to prefer being alone to socializing more than the "average" person.
Somehow I hadn't heard of EMI before today. The link on the BBC article was broken, but I think they were trying to link to http://www.emichrysalis.co.uk/. A google search for emi music turned up mostly non-US sites, so my guess is that EMI isn't big in the US. Strangely, none of the EMI sites I looked at mentioned the possible merger...
Search engine owners can always say "We don't moderate our spider's behavior; it's just a computer program that goes out, looks for websites, and ranks them."
Thats right. Making or distributing program/device/whatever that's only purpose is defeating encyrption on copyrighted material... is against the law.
Ok.. it's necessary to encrypt DVDs in order to get normal DVD players to play the disks. So wouldn't it be likely that there is some non-copyrighted material floating around on a DVD somewhere?
I've noticed that most *nix software ships with a very tight setup by default. You have to specifically enable things. You have to open those ports that you want opened. And your admin needs to have a clue.
Is there a website that will automatically test your security setup for you? I've heard other people say that default linux setups aren't terribly secure, and I'd like to know how secure my linux setup is (once that 17" monitor I ordered for my p120 finally comes). There is a site does this for windows setups (it was able to get my ethernet card number, my windows login name, and my network name).
I'm not sure why everyone is suddenly so excited about the fact that you can easily steal credit card numbers "over the Internet" -- heck, you can easily steal credit card numbers anywhere.
But because of computers, you can access 1000 credit card numbers at once and charge $20 to each one. Only a few people will notice, because you took such a small amount from each person.
Also, if you work as a temp employee and write down several customers' credit card numbers (this happened to a member of my family, who had to get a new credit card), you can be tracked down because the customers will remember doing business at that company the day before. The business then realizes that the employee left shortly before charging each of the credit cards, and helps the credit card company and law enforcememnt to track down the criminal.
we'll be getting cards in the mail every two weeks giving us free month-long subscriptions to time magazine? (hmm, that might be a good thing, as long as they're not too difficult to cancel)
Why is death used so much to talk about bans: "death penalty", "/kill"? I like terms like "blackhole" more ("blackhole" is used to refer to IP block lists such as the maps rbl).
Once these customers are identified, we are suspending their news service immediately. Re-enabling will not occur until we are assured that their machines are secure.
If the relay is a misconfigured news server, then that will work.
If the relay is a misconfigured proxy such as wingate, however, this won't put enough pressure on @home users to increase the security of their servers. I'd say suspend outgoing news immediately, and disconnect them completely after a week but only after repeated attempts to reach them by e-mail and phone.
Slashdot Mirror
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Nothing wrong with that. Considering that most Windows users aren't aware that they're being tracked, much less that they can opt-out by typing a medium-length URL into their browser, user education is important. And user education starts with the geeks, whether they use Linux, Windows, or any other O/S to surf, figuring it out. Link to the opt-out site from your website. Mention it whenever you discuss internet privacy with your friends.
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Oh, wait, MS does things to break specific other products all the time, and they haven't gotten in any big trouble yet, so it must be ok. Never mind. Add to mozilla. Moderate down.
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No, but you need to opt out for every browser you use. I think the opt-out site explains it fairly well - it gets rid of the unique doubleclick cookie in your browser by replacing it with OPT_OUT, and then leaves it there. Hopefully, they won't find other ways to track you once you no longer have a unique cookie.
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Note that there's a period at the end - that tells notepad not to try to add a
Windows allows you to include comments in the hosts file by beginning the line with a # symbol.
(For the clueless, when you connect to a web server, it's usually a two-step process: first, look up the IP address for a hostname like "www.slashdot.org" and get an IP address like 209.207.224.42; then, connect to the computer with the IP address 209.207.224.42 and request the webpage. Adding entries to the windows hosts file short-circuits the IP address lookup, so your browser and other programs on your computer think that the IP address for "ads.doubleclick.net" is 127.0.0.1. But 127.0.0.1 is a special address called the loopback address, meaning that it always refers to the computer you're using. Since you probably don't have a web server on your computer, your browser fails in connecting to "ads.doubleclick.net" and displays an empty banner. This attempted connection to your own computer happens without wasting any of your bandwidth, by the way.)
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Once the injunction is lifted, etoy will again be able to sell its "shares" -- another of its pseudo-corporate projects -- in the United States. Those who supported the group during the lawsuit will be rewarded with shares, which are more valuable as a result of the suit, zai said.
Is slashdot one of the recipients of these "shares"? If so, do these "shares" count legally (will Rob, etc. now be required to say "Disclaimer: we own shares in etoy"?)
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I'm sure eToys also got a fair number of flames, too, but I wonder if this means there was a good logical-argument-to-flame ratio this time.
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Although I'm not familiar with the n-armed bandit problem, it looks like these kids took a very simple case of the problem: only two strategies to choose from, and the only possible outcome is catch the white square's trail within n moves, or don't catch its trail within n moves. (I may be mistaken here.. it's possible that they simply counted the number of moves each time).
Also, since they don't seem to switch between strategies during the game, why not run 10000 simulations each way first, store the statistical information (probability of catching, or probability for each number of moves), and then run the AI program on this statistical data?
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Also, I noticed that the guy who submitted the article to slashdot was one of the winners.
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Most geeks aren't anti-social -- they don't go around killing people, or trying to disrupt society. Some are asocial, which simply means they tend to prefer being alone to socializing more than the "average" person.
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No.. I ripped all of my beatles CDs a few months ago, so I don't look at the case each time I play the music
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Ok.. it's necessary to encrypt DVDs in order to get normal DVD players to play the disks. So wouldn't it be likely that there is some non-copyrighted material floating around on a DVD somewhere?
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Is there a website that will automatically test your security setup for you? I've heard other people say that default linux setups aren't terribly secure, and I'd like to know how secure my linux setup is (once that 17" monitor I ordered for my p120 finally comes). There is a site does this for windows setups (it was able to get my ethernet card number, my windows login name, and my network name).
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But because of computers, you can access 1000 credit card numbers at once and charge $20 to each one. Only a few people will notice, because you took such a small amount from each person.
Also, if you work as a temp employee and write down several customers' credit card numbers (this happened to a member of my family, who had to get a new credit card), you can be tracked down because the customers will remember doing business at that company the day before. The business then realizes that the employee left shortly before charging each of the credit cards, and helps the credit card company and law enforcememnt to track down the criminal.
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Since port scanning must not have been obvious, why didn't the hackers patent the idea?
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That has been the case for a while. The only difference here is that the conduit is now a worldwide computer network instead of broadcasting rights.
(sorry if duped, couldn't tell if
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If the relay is a misconfigured news server, then that will work.
If the relay is a misconfigured proxy such as wingate, however, this won't put enough pressure on @home users to increase the security of their servers. I'd say suspend outgoing news immediately, and disconnect them completely after a week but only after repeated attempts to reach them by e-mail and phone.
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