So the subjectiveness of importance outweighs having things for the few who might need it? Whats good for the goose is good for the gander? I noticed I can't find anything on XKCD....that's kinda messed up. This reminds me a lot of the article in Science Daily that was covered on slashdot previously referencing how things not enough people find important, we are now struggling to document before it is gone/etc. It is for this reason that this whole notability thing needs to be thrown out the window, and appropriateness as well. Of course try to keep information as accurate as possible, but if something was listed only when it is currently notable, then we wouldn't have history on wikipedia. Obviously wiki is a bit more than that.
I don't know that much about SSH, so I was under the impression that you can't really access anything without a direct client in SSH. Terminal equivalent would not be restrictive, so that would work. But seeing as how SSH is important, of course you should include it in Wiki. Just have a part of "optional components not included by default".
Wikipedia is ideally not meant to be biased, it is meant to document things, such as what is and isn't supported barebones on the OS, otherwise it is being abused for marketing instead of as an encyclopedia as intended. I am not saying that this is the case now, but if only "positive things" were included for a wiki article, then it heads more towards the "cia editing their own entries to remove bad things" type stuff.
For what it's worth, I apologize for bringing out a counter-issue/debate in such an inflammatory fashion....I do think the information was worth a post of opposing opinions but did not mean to do so in the fashion of a personal attack.
I'm confused if this was meant to be for my comment or the GP, but regardless, its not about the Unix Liability, that has been proven that SCO has nothing. They literally declared bankruptcy the morning before (on a sunday) the determinations to amount owed were to be handed out (which would have nullified any later bankruptcy options). They had already made the determinations that SCO has no IP in Unix for their claims. So we know that they have no IP for unix, however this has been about dodging money. They have been basiclly expending Novell's money via lawyers, and bankruptcy is simply adding to that. However, even the court appointed debt trustee is having issues with the way things are going.
I agree with you completely in that the IP follows, but I don't think thats the issue, it seems to be more about shifting the cash liabilities out of Novell's reach. Novell doesn't have a suit against YCM even if YCM "controls the Unix IP" because SCO says "here, we'll still keep the liability". YCM is just getting their money back from their investment in SCO (YCM = Microsoft owned Acacia - see other posts in this thread). Sorry if this is worded in a confusing fashion, I do that quite a bit lol.
yeah, I probably look like one at this point and smell like one too, lol. However, is it automatically impolite to post a correction (and state someone is incorrect) as a reply to misinformation? Regardless of if my wording was considered insulting?
Eh not so much trigger happy, you are welcome to your opinions. However, holier-than-thou due to admission of possibly being wrong is a bit elitist, as I mentioned. I know you said to you it was FUD, that was why I explained the situation (because we have a debate going and/or to show that it was indeed, not the FUD that you think it is/these are not the FUD statements you are looking for (pun)). Is it wrong to have opposing views in a debate and/or to supplant a statement with information, even if that information disagrees with what someone says/opines(sp?)? I would certainly hope not.
I called you a moron after I felt I had received an insult from you. Our perceptions of "when insult flinging started" are not the same. I did not feel nor take offense to you when I stated you were wrong/incorrect (as you yourself stated you may be). I do not like namecalling, but apparently you missed the implied subtlety there. I do not like people getting +5s for bad info, that spreads FUD. Don't think that was aimed at you, if it happens in situations where I can make an informed decision that the information provided is incorrect, I would post a correcting reply the same as now to whoever it is, period. Also your feelings on a +5 are equally subjective, that doesn't even have any relevance to this discussion, thats implying a "rain on your parade" situation, which is not the case. This isn't a "mod GP down", you know slashdot isn't intended for such a method. I don't know where the feigning ignorance goes on but posting misinformation and/or stating "it may be wrong" doesn't mean someone else is wrong for stating contradictory information. misinformation != accurate info. Simple as that.
I could easily compare this to someone saying (redacted) "we can neither confirm nor deny the torture done to the individual that we related with 9/11" (if you know the situation I'm referencing) and you can imagine how that feels when the question asked was an educated question with evidence. Doesn't get you off the hook.
Look, I just stated you were wrong. With the "limited information" you had, you were wrong. Could I have been more polite? Sure, absolutely. You decided to open a Bevets style flamewar with the "god comment". I would not have given you an insult had you not earned one by firing the first shot and making it sound like I cared about my ego or someone else's. I said you were completely wrong. Is that bad to have an opinion that your information was incorrect, or did you already state that for me?
I don't have problems admitting my mistakes, in fact I enjoy asking for information when I am wrong, whereas you defend yourself. I think you might want to learn the difference between welcome criticism and provocation of others. If I am wrong, sure, call me on it. Also, I do care about +5, because I wouldn't want someone to have misinformation as a top post because other people will be misinformed. That wasn't aimed at you, that was aimed at correction of data. I've had it happen to me and I asked mods to mod down my posts when I did.
I didn't address your critique because I didn't want a flamewar. It's not that I am 100% right, I may or not be, and thats immaterial.
So yeah, sorry if you got offended, but try not to start an insult fling and you might not get called a douchebag next time. I welcome snarky comments, not elitism.
Let me try to explain better. YCM is accepting the company, but SCO is retaining the lawsuit liability of this specific case with novell for themselves. Meaning they have all this money but the money has nothing to do with the liability. Novell may have money owed to them by SCO in far excess of 36M or even 46M. We're talking 10+ years of business that got 0% royalties instead of 100% royalties as owed (note: not 96 or 95%, they were supposed to get 100% and return back a percentage after).
If you did some damn research instead of being a typical slashie with bad information, you would have gone to groklaw as mentioned and seen more details than the original website. Part of being a smart slashie is doing your own research in addition to articles posted because we all know they aren't always correct, summary and article for that matter. Don't attack my ego because you didn't do research and are thusly a moron because you got a +5 with incorrect information.
Regardless, if you had read at grok, you would have seen: "Among the excluded assets are "Seller's litigation with Novell and IBM, and its claims and choses in action other than the Linux Litigation." The total purchase price, SCO says, consisting of cash and non-cash components is "in the estimated aggregate amount of up to $36,000,000". SCO has to reimburse up to $50,000 of York's fees and expenses in connection with the deal. And if York is designated as "stalking horse" under the Bid Procedure Order, and if others outbid York, SCO has to pay them a $780,000 breakup fee and reimbursement of all expenses incurred by York up to $300,000."
So yeah, I'm not god, but I do my due dilligence and don't post out my ass (you forgot to wipe).
Wrong. The liability for the lawsuit would not be transferred by the deal, so YCM would take everything BUT the lawsuit's liability, therefore making them "magically liable for nothing". Thats why YCM wants to do this deal, they get no risk out of it other than managing a company. Also look a little deeper, YCM has some ties to microsoft.
go take a look at http://www.nysun.com/article/64860 and you'll see that this case is still up in the air. Looks like gov't is still trying to hide a slipup again.
It would also result in 4) Whitelist and blacklist dancing like hotmail and many other services are known to have problems with. Welcome to the "shoot first ask questions later" business model which just maybe, maybe, causes some problems. additionally 5) Violation of privacy. Since when should you have to identify yourself with a company you're not even doing business with by choice or otherwise? You do business with your own ISP, not the ones that other people connect to. Just because your customers use a common carrier doesn't mean you have to have an agreement with the common carrier, thats why common carrier requirements were created and need to be added to data services. And no, that doesn't stop QOS.
Yep. I live in an upper middle class chicago suburb with 450K people in about a 3.5 mile area. Probably 9 out of 10 residents have comcast (formerly AT&T Broadband Internet) because we're in the exact situation the GP had mentioned. RCN says they do chicago but they can't even offer in my area (flat out no, they won't even specify how many people need to be willing to sign, its just a flat "we can't"), dialup is ridiculous, satellite not even capable (line of sight/HOA), and DSL is not available as we are too far as well as too far from independent providers as well.
FYI, those are MY packet dumps (designerfx = me):D thats why I asked. I have more of them if you'd like to see and/or explore (I'm on comcast). Also I've made the EFF aware of the new update. I talked to one of their lawyers last time around and they said they were watching the incident but no indication of action to be taken @ that time (look around page 22-25 of the forums when I posted that conversation).
I only learned what I know thanks to Robb explaining as I tested with his advice, so I have no idea what the ICMP spoof thing is. Do you have a link of some stuff I could read to understand how that works/how to prevent that? Or does that even happen often, anyway? Also sounds like they might be doing it to FTP and SSC (I don't know what SSC is but it was mentioned on the forums) as well.
Also the original forum post from DSLreports user funchords = Robb. Notice the stuff said. I helped him investigate and can verify that comcast has been and still does this, via Wireshark. They send RST packets to you and the people you're uploading to on a random 1-18 second timer if the user is not a comcast user themselves. (It used to be an automatic 8 second timer but now they added a small degree of "randomization"...they seem to be exploring it, there was a week where it would block 35% of incoming requests in this fashion instead of 100%, 50% the next week, etc.) Also I know how to monitor but not how to make my router ignore RST flags, so it's not like I had a way to get around it.
However, sandvine doesn't seem to work over encrypted connections so if you force encryption it appears that they can't insert a RST flag.
One day, the trolls will evolve. They will stab themselves in the throats, and society will steal their shoes as gratitude. Too bad it took me 5 seconds longer to post the reply than it took the troll to make it.
hey, if you have a good self image is good for yourself:) However, 18% bodyfat is not supermodel range,...sorry to burst your bubble stoke the flames...you can still be hot/attractive at 18 but its where that 18% is that matters on that one. If all 18% is in your ass would be pretty funny looking, etc. I think there's a certain phrase we have in mind for that, hahahahaha./not the thinnest guy myself, but still
The easiest answer for piracy has been the same from the start: You aren't stealing something that is free. However, not having intrusive copy protection is both easier on the programming and better for the company. Just pray that upper management doesn't give you a speech about how your product being stolen affects the companies bottom line and the "need for protection" to go along with that.
Most warez sites will actually remove things if you ask them politely especially if its not something bogged down. Legal threats and/or warnings and/or copyright/patent claims will never get such a result, welcome to the streisand effect.
Emails from xyz person saying "can you please remove xyz I'd prefer it not to be on piratebay" etc, gets quite reasonable responses, welcome to the reverse of the streisand effect.
A company I worked for had their files removed simply from emailing admin respectfully. And for a non-english torrent site they sure responded in polite and common english rather quickly (less than 1hr range). In fact I will personally bet $500 cash any day any time that anything on a major torrent tracker if the owner requested in a personal and polite fashion (no boilerplate/template emails) to be removed, would at least have the specific torrent they request removed with little to no publicity. Probably not even banning the original seeder, and I will even write the email for them if they want (Exception being riaa/mpaa/any company above 5mil in net profit per year, you have no reason to whine on slashydots).
Sure. Cracked versions of EA games (madden NFL 08, fifa 08), or use an emulator like daemon. Not that I like EA one bit, they've dived far off the deep end the last few years and I hope they rot in hell ever since buying exclusive deals to shut out competition and also decided to treat programmers like slave labor. Non MMO hmm how about Steam gaming? At least they finally have begun to get things right, essentially./pirating EA for life if its even worth playing, to play with friends in front of a bigscreen//not going to support a jagoff company thats also known to abuse their employees. Bad ethics all around.
Umm since when was it our job to hold hands for the poor? Teaching people about computers without them being willing I would compare to giving money to the hobo who wants to buy liquor. Sounds nice, makes you feel good and idealistic, but isn't going to change the situation next time around. Give a man a fish vs teach a man to fish argument. It's like expecting people to watch an annoying flash advertisement on the internet. Lets not play "shift the blame away from those whose fault it actually is".
This is not like "protecting the children" when people get screwed. This is "leaving the sick for dead" aka shutting off net access to zombie'd pc's and/or DDOS sources and letting them know whats going on. Last I checked, there were ISP's that do that. Sure, blame the OS, whose fault is it for running windows or unsecured windows or any other unsecured os again? I run windows on occasion due to lack of linux knowledge in certain situations but overall I'd prefer more control of my computer than less. You think there might be something wrong with default windows security settings until and through Vista? I wonder why that might be, hmm? Kinda interesting how that doesn't happen by default in a Linux OS.
So you get a virus, you lose some serious stuff (maybe research papers for college, credit card data, important resumes, work critical stuff), but you still gotta use that computer. I don't think anyone in their right mind would just return that computer unless they are choosing their own ignorance. Or pay with more money, people learn very fast from financial punishments for bad decisions. There's no lack of ignorance between willful ignorance and blind ignorance, and neither deserve sympathy. Even if you started with rumors from churchgoers of "you haven't gone to church enough lately, thats why you got a virus" might be completely ass-backwards but at least its more than people just accepting something at face value and doing nothing about it. Sometimes, even through garbage like that, the light clicks on and someone says "that doesn't sound right, maybe I should go research/think for myself/use my brain" and voila, evolution.
As directly said, if they don't evolve, they die. It is indeed not our job to hold people's hands through all parts of lives. We grow em up through when they can't take care of themselves, but not all years of their lives, just the first 12-24 years depending on religion/family situation/poverty level/etc. All years is not our job. No. Computer skills are not one of those "necessary to breathe/eat/fulfill the lowest level of the hierarchy of needs" skills.
Also the "we" who deal with DDOS attacks are not the same folks who deal with spam. Spam affects consumers more than system admin/webhosts, and DDOS vice versa. If you are a webhost and have problems filtering spam then again it is your fault that you haven't come up with better spam filters, etc.
Slashdot Mirror
So the subjectiveness of importance outweighs having things for the few who might need it? Whats good for the goose is good for the gander? I noticed I can't find anything on XKCD....that's kinda messed up. This reminds me a lot of the article in Science Daily that was covered on slashdot previously referencing how things not enough people find important, we are now struggling to document before it is gone/etc. It is for this reason that this whole notability thing needs to be thrown out the window, and appropriateness as well. Of course try to keep information as accurate as possible, but if something was listed only when it is currently notable, then we wouldn't have history on wikipedia. Obviously wiki is a bit more than that.
Aren't there those prepaid credit card things which you can put money on with no identification and of no limited amount? What's the point here?
I don't know that much about SSH, so I was under the impression that you can't really access anything without a direct client in SSH. Terminal equivalent would not be restrictive, so that would work. But seeing as how SSH is important, of course you should include it in Wiki. Just have a part of "optional components not included by default".
Wikipedia is ideally not meant to be biased, it is meant to document things, such as what is and isn't supported barebones on the OS, otherwise it is being abused for marketing instead of as an encyclopedia as intended. I am not saying that this is the case now, but if only "positive things" were included for a wiki article, then it heads more towards the "cia editing their own entries to remove bad things" type stuff.
For what it's worth, I apologize for bringing out a counter-issue/debate in such an inflammatory fashion....I do think the information was worth a post of opposing opinions but did not mean to do so in the fashion of a personal attack.
-PM
I wonder if someone can check the backtraces of who made the windows server 2008 wikipedia entry because it is notoriously absent of the fact that it doesn't include anything for SSH .
I'm confused if this was meant to be for my comment or the GP, but regardless, its not about the Unix Liability, that has been proven that SCO has nothing. They literally declared bankruptcy the morning before (on a sunday) the determinations to amount owed were to be handed out (which would have nullified any later bankruptcy options). They had already made the determinations that SCO has no IP in Unix for their claims. So we know that they have no IP for unix, however this has been about dodging money. They have been basiclly expending Novell's money via lawyers, and bankruptcy is simply adding to that. However, even the court appointed debt trustee is having issues with the way things are going.
I agree with you completely in that the IP follows, but I don't think thats the issue, it seems to be more about shifting the cash liabilities out of Novell's reach. Novell doesn't have a suit against YCM even if YCM "controls the Unix IP" because SCO says "here, we'll still keep the liability". YCM is just getting their money back from their investment in SCO (YCM = Microsoft owned Acacia - see other posts in this thread). Sorry if this is worded in a confusing fashion, I do that quite a bit lol.
yeah, I probably look like one at this point and smell like one too, lol. However, is it automatically impolite to post a correction (and state someone is incorrect) as a reply to misinformation? Regardless of if my wording was considered insulting?
Eh not so much trigger happy, you are welcome to your opinions. However, holier-than-thou due to admission of possibly being wrong is a bit elitist, as I mentioned. I know you said to you it was FUD, that was why I explained the situation (because we have a debate going and/or to show that it was indeed, not the FUD that you think it is/these are not the FUD statements you are looking for (pun)). Is it wrong to have opposing views in a debate and/or to supplant a statement with information, even if that information disagrees with what someone says/opines(sp?)? I would certainly hope not.
I called you a moron after I felt I had received an insult from you. Our perceptions of "when insult flinging started" are not the same. I did not feel nor take offense to you when I stated you were wrong/incorrect (as you yourself stated you may be). I do not like namecalling, but apparently you missed the implied subtlety there. I do not like people getting +5s for bad info, that spreads FUD. Don't think that was aimed at you, if it happens in situations where I can make an informed decision that the information provided is incorrect, I would post a correcting reply the same as now to whoever it is, period. Also your feelings on a +5 are equally subjective, that doesn't even have any relevance to this discussion, thats implying a "rain on your parade" situation, which is not the case. This isn't a "mod GP down", you know slashdot isn't intended for such a method. I don't know where the feigning ignorance goes on but posting misinformation and/or stating "it may be wrong" doesn't mean someone else is wrong for stating contradictory information. misinformation != accurate info. Simple as that.
I could easily compare this to someone saying (redacted) "we can neither confirm nor deny the torture done to the individual that we related with 9/11" (if you know the situation I'm referencing) and you can imagine how that feels when the question asked was an educated question with evidence. Doesn't get you off the hook.
Look, I just stated you were wrong. With the "limited information" you had, you were wrong. Could I have been more polite? Sure, absolutely. You decided to open a Bevets style flamewar with the "god comment". I would not have given you an insult had you not earned one by firing the first shot and making it sound like I cared about my ego or someone else's. I said you were completely wrong. Is that bad to have an opinion that your information was incorrect, or did you already state that for me?
I don't have problems admitting my mistakes, in fact I enjoy asking for information when I am wrong, whereas you defend yourself. I think you might want to learn the difference between welcome criticism and provocation of others. If I am wrong, sure, call me on it. Also, I do care about +5, because I wouldn't want someone to have misinformation as a top post because other people will be misinformed. That wasn't aimed at you, that was aimed at correction of data. I've had it happen to me and I asked mods to mod down my posts when I did.
I didn't address your critique because I didn't want a flamewar. It's not that I am 100% right, I may or not be, and thats immaterial.
I also didn't claim it was MS FUD. I claimed that YCM has ties to Microsoft. The correct company is JGD Management Corp. d/b/a (doing business as) York Capital Management. Know who owns JGD and also has a board of directors straight from microsoft? JGD (Acacia) (SEC link).
So yeah, sorry if you got offended, but try not to start an insult fling and you might not get called a douchebag next time. I welcome snarky comments, not elitism.
Let me try to explain better. YCM is accepting the company, but SCO is retaining the lawsuit liability of this specific case with novell for themselves. Meaning they have all this money but the money has nothing to do with the liability. Novell may have money owed to them by SCO in far excess of 36M or even 46M. We're talking 10+ years of business that got 0% royalties instead of 100% royalties as owed (note: not 96 or 95%, they were supposed to get 100% and return back a percentage after).
If you did some damn research instead of being a typical slashie with bad information, you would have gone to groklaw as mentioned and seen more details than the original website. Part of being a smart slashie is doing your own research in addition to articles posted because we all know they aren't always correct, summary and article for that matter. Don't attack my ego because you didn't do research and are thusly a moron because you got a +5 with incorrect information.
Regardless, if you had read at grok, you would have seen: "Among the excluded assets are "Seller's litigation with Novell and IBM, and its claims and choses in action other than the Linux Litigation." The total purchase price, SCO says, consisting of cash and non-cash components is "in the estimated aggregate amount of up to $36,000,000". SCO has to reimburse up to $50,000 of York's fees and expenses in connection with the deal. And if York is designated as "stalking horse" under the Bid Procedure Order, and if others outbid York, SCO has to pay them a $780,000 breakup fee and reimbursement of all expenses incurred by York up to $300,000."
So yeah, I'm not god, but I do my due dilligence and don't post out my ass (you forgot to wipe).
Wrong. The liability for the lawsuit would not be transferred by the deal, so YCM would take everything BUT the lawsuit's liability, therefore making them "magically liable for nothing". Thats why YCM wants to do this deal, they get no risk out of it other than managing a company. Also look a little deeper, YCM has some ties to microsoft.
go take a look at http://www.nysun.com/article/64860 and you'll see that this case is still up in the air. Looks like gov't is still trying to hide a slipup again.
that was so golden I had to check the site again to see if I misread it.
Meanwhile, piratebay should win this one, there's nothing wrong other than a stupid media company yet again.
It would also result in
4) Whitelist and blacklist dancing like hotmail and many other services are known to have problems with. Welcome to the "shoot first ask questions later" business model which just maybe, maybe, causes some problems.
additionally
5) Violation of privacy. Since when should you have to identify yourself with a company you're not even doing business with by choice or otherwise? You do business with your own ISP, not the ones that other people connect to. Just because your customers use a common carrier doesn't mean you have to have an agreement with the common carrier, thats why common carrier requirements were created and need to be added to data services. And no, that doesn't stop QOS.
Yep. I live in an upper middle class chicago suburb with 450K people in about a 3.5 mile area. Probably 9 out of 10 residents have comcast (formerly AT&T Broadband Internet) because we're in the exact situation the GP had mentioned. RCN says they do chicago but they can't even offer in my area (flat out no, they won't even specify how many people need to be willing to sign, its just a flat "we can't"), dialup is ridiculous, satellite not even capable (line of sight/HOA), and DSL is not available as we are too far as well as too far from independent providers as well.
FYI, those are MY packet dumps (designerfx = me):D thats why I asked. I have more of them if you'd like to see and/or explore (I'm on comcast). Also I've made the EFF aware of the new update. I talked to one of their lawyers last time around and they said they were watching the incident but no indication of action to be taken @ that time (look around page 22-25 of the forums when I posted that conversation).
I only learned what I know thanks to Robb explaining as I tested with his advice, so I have no idea what the ICMP spoof thing is. Do you have a link of some stuff I could read to understand how that works/how to prevent that? Or does that even happen often, anyway? Also sounds like they might be doing it to FTP and SSC (I don't know what SSC is but it was mentioned on the forums) as well.
unfortunately, it's not a misconception.
Also the original forum post from DSLreports user funchords = Robb. Notice the stuff said. I helped him investigate and can verify that comcast has been and still does this, via Wireshark. They send RST packets to you and the people you're uploading to on a random 1-18 second timer if the user is not a comcast user themselves. (It used to be an automatic 8 second timer but now they added a small degree of "randomization"...they seem to be exploring it, there was a week where it would block 35% of incoming requests in this fashion instead of 100%, 50% the next week, etc.) Also I know how to monitor but not how to make my router ignore RST flags, so it's not like I had a way to get around it.
However, sandvine doesn't seem to work over encrypted connections so if you force encryption it appears that they can't insert a RST flag.
But what about the 1,401 album images?
Wow, shills come early today! Someone mark the parent -1 already to save us some time...apparently they've never looked on wikipedia either. Wikipedia states: "An affirmative defense is simply a term of art from litigation reflecting the timing in which the defense is raised. It does not distinguish between "rights" and "defenses," and so it does not characterize the substance of the defendant's actions as "not a right but a defense."
One day, the trolls will evolve. They will stab themselves in the throats, and society will steal their shoes as gratitude. Too bad it took me 5 seconds longer to post the reply than it took the troll to make it.
hey, if you have a good self image is good for yourself :) However, 18% bodyfat is not supermodel range, ...sorry to burst your bubble stoke the flames...you can still be hot/attractive at 18 but its where that 18% is that matters on that one. If all 18% is in your ass would be pretty funny looking, etc. I think there's a certain phrase we have in mind for that, hahahahaha. /not the thinnest guy myself, but still
Performance increases are flatlining? Since when? That would imply innovation is decreasing, and that would be incorrect. Do you even know what you're talking about? I seem to recall an individual from IBM that has a method to completely re-engineer storage as we know it and increase it 100 fold. Not Linear. Nvidia (and previously ATI) in their high competition moments have doubled the speeds of their graphics cards every 6-12 months. Video game systems increase exceedingly more than double their processing capacity per 2-4 year generations. The PS3 can handle 55.3 billion operations , where the Ps2 could only handle 6.5 billion operations.
People do indeed pay for processing power, thats what money is. Things are getting better, and faster, and cheaper, as they always have in the first place. You still have to spend on average 400-700$ for a decent up to date PC, and 700-1000 for a medium gaming rig, and 1500 for a real gaming rig, and 3 grand for an insane gaming rig. That hasn't changed one bit in probably 8 years now. Paying less than those amounts is similar to comparing buying a new but inexpensive car (like a civic) versus buying a 10-20 year old thing to just "get around town"(like an 87 or 97 buick/cadillac).
Windows will be gone in 10 to 15 years hopefully, things will continue get better at that point.
The easiest answer for piracy has been the same from the start: You aren't stealing something that is free. However, not having intrusive copy protection is both easier on the programming and better for the company. Just pray that upper management doesn't give you a speech about how your product being stolen affects the companies bottom line and the "need for protection" to go along with that.
Most warez sites will actually remove things if you ask them politely especially if its not something bogged down. Legal threats and/or warnings and/or copyright/patent claims will never get such a result, welcome to the streisand effect.
Emails from xyz person saying "can you please remove xyz I'd prefer it not to be on piratebay" etc, gets quite reasonable responses, welcome to the reverse of the streisand effect.
A company I worked for had their files removed simply from emailing admin respectfully. And for a non-english torrent site they sure responded in polite and common english rather quickly (less than 1hr range). In fact I will personally bet $500 cash any day any time that anything on a major torrent tracker if the owner requested in a personal and polite fashion (no boilerplate/template emails) to be removed, would at least have the specific torrent they request removed with little to no publicity. Probably not even banning the original seeder, and I will even write the email for them if they want (Exception being riaa/mpaa/any company above 5mil in net profit per year, you have no reason to whine on slashydots).
Sure. /pirating EA for life if its even worth playing, to play with friends in front of a bigscreen //not going to support a jagoff company thats also known to abuse their employees. Bad ethics all around.
Cracked versions of EA games (madden NFL 08, fifa 08), or use an emulator like daemon. Not that I like EA one bit, they've dived far off the deep end the last few years and I hope they rot in hell ever since buying exclusive deals to shut out competition and also decided to treat programmers like slave labor. Non MMO hmm how about Steam gaming? At least they finally have begun to get things right, essentially.
Umm since when was it our job to hold hands for the poor? Teaching people about computers without them being willing I would compare to giving money to the hobo who wants to buy liquor. Sounds nice, makes you feel good and idealistic, but isn't going to change the situation next time around. Give a man a fish vs teach a man to fish argument. It's like expecting people to watch an annoying flash advertisement on the internet. Lets not play "shift the blame away from those whose fault it actually is".
This is not like "protecting the children" when people get screwed. This is "leaving the sick for dead" aka shutting off net access to zombie'd pc's and/or DDOS sources and letting them know whats going on. Last I checked, there were ISP's that do that. Sure, blame the OS, whose fault is it for running windows or unsecured windows or any other unsecured os again? I run windows on occasion due to lack of linux knowledge in certain situations but overall I'd prefer more control of my computer than less. You think there might be something wrong with default windows security settings until and through Vista? I wonder why that might be, hmm? Kinda interesting how that doesn't happen by default in a Linux OS.
So you get a virus, you lose some serious stuff (maybe research papers for college, credit card data, important resumes, work critical stuff), but you still gotta use that computer. I don't think anyone in their right mind would just return that computer unless they are choosing their own ignorance. Or pay with more money, people learn very fast from financial punishments for bad decisions. There's no lack of ignorance between willful ignorance and blind ignorance, and neither deserve sympathy. Even if you started with rumors from churchgoers of "you haven't gone to church enough lately, thats why you got a virus" might be completely ass-backwards but at least its more than people just accepting something at face value and doing nothing about it. Sometimes, even through garbage like that, the light clicks on and someone says "that doesn't sound right, maybe I should go research/think for myself/use my brain" and voila, evolution.
As directly said, if they don't evolve, they die. It is indeed not our job to hold people's hands through all parts of lives. We grow em up through when they can't take care of themselves, but not all years of their lives, just the first 12-24 years depending on religion/family situation/poverty level/etc. All years is not our job. No. Computer skills are not one of those "necessary to breathe/eat/fulfill the lowest level of the hierarchy of needs" skills.
Also the "we" who deal with DDOS attacks are not the same folks who deal with spam. Spam affects consumers more than system admin/webhosts, and DDOS vice versa. If you are a webhost and have problems filtering spam then again it is your fault that you haven't come up with better spam filters, etc.