Rewriting a mail protocol would be another technological solution.
The thing to consider is that it costs a company money to install new software or switch to a new protocol. If a government is trying to regulate, then every citizen of the country is having to pay. Should the people who don't have internet access or don't care about spam have to pay to reduce the spam?
I think that software providers need to make it harder for spammers to create zombie machines, and then attempt to do filtering based on where the traffic is coming from. Another potential software solution would be to not allow people to send more than a certain amount of email in a given period of time. This could be adjusted by the ISP depending on the need of the company. I really don't think any home user account needs to be sending out more than a few emails per minute.
I find it very irritating that the various government bodies and corporations attempt to solve technological issues with new laws and regulations. I think the best way to stop spam is to create better software on the user side to eliminate it. I know that IBM has been developing a software project that just returns the spam to the spammers.
The other thing to think about is that enough people are reading spam and buying products that it's worth while for companies to hire spammers. Thus you are also hurting consumers that would want to buy from the spammers.
Probably a better solution would be software at cell companies that would parce the information down and recreate the page with less content. I'm not sure exactly what the copyright infractions would be. I've thought of making some web pages on my own computer that I could hit with my cell phone to get different information. Such as a page where I can submit a company name and it will find me the locations using whitepages.com, or check prices for stuff on newegg.
I disagree. There are a lot of people that give up their services for free. I go over to friends places and help them fix there computers. I know people that develop websites for different organizations they are members of. I have a good friend that was in a band and he refused to sell CD's he would rather put the music up on a website for people to d/l for free. It's rediculous to say that if it weren't for copyrights then no one would do any work because people make charitable donations all the time.
I think the heart of the issue is people who want to do something as a hobby and people that have to do something as a job. When I go fix someone's computer or build them a new one thats lost revenue for Best Buy or whatever other company that might have charged for the service I provided. I have another job so I really don't miss that money. If I were doing software development and had to freely distribute my software online then I would have to get another job to pay the bills.
That being said I think existing copyright laws are pretty rediculous. I think most if not all software patents are rediculous. These are areas best fit for trade secret, and if someone else finds a way to do a similar task or create a similar experience that's progress. Perhaps in trying to replicate something a new better process for that or something else is discovered. Especially since technology compounds on itself and 20 years or however a patent lasts leaves the product obsolete by the time it expires. If I had my say, copyright for works of art would be the life of the artist. I'm not sure what would be the best way to deal with arts that were created by a group, because I can easily see companies putting their little kids as contributors so that the copyright will last longer. I think for music could be based on as long as the band is still touring or something along those lines (still very weak).
Another point on the free flow of information. If you were in a band and you wrote a song then some company came along and decided they wanted it to be in their advertisment should you not have the right to decide the use of your work? This is even more important if it's something you don't support. Ex. if you are pro-life and an abortion clinc decides to put your music in the background of their ad or if they use your picture in a pamplet. From an outsiders perspective that implies that you agree with abortion.
The detail that everyone seems to be missing is that you have the option to install the software. If you want to look at porn all day, this bill won't stop you. If you wanted to have all news filtered out by the ISP that could be your option...granted you'd be rediculously ignorant, but you are free to do that.
As far as functionality, I think that an ISP could just d/l an updated HOSTS file to each machine every day that redirects the traffic to a web server running on the localhost.
It costs about $20 to buy a decent disc. Then you can play for hours and hours and get some exercise. You also get to have social interaction, and the best part is, you don't have to give anything to the RIAA.
You also have to keep in mind that IBM is a big player in linux development. I also know that HP actively does development work for linux. I'm not sure about Dell, but I'm pretty sure they do as well.
What the harddware manufactures care about is selling hardware. It's in their best interest to have as many operating systems operate on their hardware as possible.
I called SBC support once, and they wanted me to give them my password or what they thought was likely my password. That makes me VERY uncomfortable, but when it came down to having someone steal all my personal information or live without Internet, I decided to give what was likely my password...
I think Cingular also wanted me to give them my PIN number over the phone. This was even worse, because I was walking around on campus.
Have you read Art of Deception? It provides a lot of insight into ways that people use social engineering attacks.
I know that my company has regular online training for social engineering, but at the same time there are a lot of breakdowns. Also, when security upgrades were made at our facility many of the people got upset because it makes getting physical access more difficult. I don't think that very many people understand the dangers of physical access or having a user login for a few moments.
"Social Engineering, because there's no patch for human stupidity"
I'm not trying to turn off other people's TV. You would be able to filter out your own tv to control what you (and more likely your kids) get exposed to. What my idea opens up is the ability to broadcast any content and have the offending peices filtered out at the watchers set. Futher, this isn't legislation, it's technological innovation that allows people to have more control of the content that is played in their house. If enough people really care about what's being broadcast over the airwaves (or on cable), then the market should make this a profitable venture. If it's not profitable, it means that not enough people really care, so nothing should be done about it anyway.
It's for the children =)
I'm not easily offended, and I'll change the channel if I don't like the show. Unfortunatly, it's not possible to keep track of exactly what your kids are doing at all times.
The monitoring streams would have to be done by an interest group of some sort, and I'd like to think that they would take context into play for word use. Further, hopefully they would have a publically available list of what types of content are censored for each category.
I agree that parents should turn off the TV if their kids are watching something they shouldn't, but parents can't be around all the time.
I can agree that there needs to be limitations on what can be broadcast over the airwaves that is difficult (but not impossible) to block.
If you are really concerned about what your children watch, you should buy a TV that has extra parental controls. Then if you decide to get satellite or cable part of your decision process should being able to limit the types of content your children can watch. If you don't think the content is appropriate do what my parents did and cancel it.
Perhaps another thing to do would be to watch some TV with your child and make sure they understand what is right and wrong. I'm sure a majority people on/. (or the rest of the US) started watching R rated movies well before they were 17, but most of them haven't commited any sort of crime because of it. I think you create more risk of creating an excessivly naive child by attempting to overly shelter your kids.
I'm not sure if I've posted this before, but I think it would be awesome if they could somehow create a "broadcast flag" that specifies some level of indecency. Then have TV's do the censoring according to the viewers taste. If a concerned parent doesn't want any nudity, drug references, or vulgar language, then they can select options to filter out each of those types of content (video or audio). For people who don't care, they can just allow any content. I think this is similar in nature to the v-chip (which I haven't researched at all), except I believe the v-chip is on a per show basis, and I'd want to filter just the sections that are offensive.
From the feedback I've gotten with this idea you'd have to be able to sensor by default and fill in the gaps in order to allow legacy TV's to work without getting hte "bad" content.
Perhaps this is just one more reason to have streaming TV over IP instead of broadcast TV. Which leads me to my next question. What happens when they say that content on the internet needs to be filtered for decency?
You also have to consider that there is an entire album of tracks that is being made on a CD. When you buy the whole disk you cover the cost of each of those songs. When you buy one song, then you are only covering the cost of part of the CD. I think the problem is exacerbated by the fact that a lot of people aren't going to buy a track for a dollar if they haven't heard it first.
What I generally do is d/l a bunch of tracks I've never heard of, and then I'll eventually go back and listen to them. If I find something I like, then I'll check to see if it isn't on an RIAA label http://www.magnetbox.com/riaa/If it's not an RIAA CD, I'll buy it from the label's web site. If it is RIAA I'll generally delete it in protest.
What I see as being the best future for music is a system where people can pay a monthly fee and download whatever they want (much like the napster model). Then the bands will get paid in accordance with how much their music was downloaded.
In my dreams I envision a system where people can go to a site and find music and d/l what they want for free. Then if they find bands they really like, they can make a donation (like a tip jar at a live show). The problem is there are a lot of tracks I'd like to give a dollar or less, but it's not feasable to make a CC purchase for each one. So I'd want to charge a larger amount (like $15 or so) and I could give tips as I find bands.
Other features of the site would be forums so that people can discuss music and find new bands from other people that have similar interest. It would also be pretty sweet to include information about the bands (bios, discography, etc.) and have tour schedules. That way people could have a one stop music site.
...I've had a bit more details on my site, but I'm too lazy to attempt to develop it. If anyone wants to start a soureforge project... My only request is that you not charge for d/l's or access. The only way I can see to make money would be to charge money to hosts MP3's (or people could have links to their own site for free).
Wouldn't this just put Windows users one step closer to just running linux? If I have to chose between getting the Windows super drivers or the Linux drivers package for free, I'm going to choose the free version first. This also means that many manufactures are going to see a distro that they can build drivers for, thus broadening their market.
Personally I'd go for much smaller charges. If you only take a buck or so off everyone, then they probably won't care enough to actually go through the hassle of actually filing a complaint. I know I never look at my bill close enough to determine if a bartender decided to double their tip, how would I know if someone slipped in an extra small purchase.
I think the bigger concern would have to be someone managing to make fraudulent purchases with your information, which is easier with a magnetic strip than this...from what I've read in/. comments.
Does anyone have any input as how this could be used to track who comes in to your store that doesn't make purchases...or any other shopping patterns that might be worth storing/selling?
I've added a hosts file in windows to keep from having to deal with many ads. I also use firefox with flashblocker. I haven't really noticed very many ads, but then I do most of my surfing at sites that have ads at work where I can't run anything that has to be installed. (I use Maxthon which uses the IE engine)
What I want to know is why ads are served from a central host? Does it have to do with keeping the web sites honest? Could a website say that it's getting 5x the number of hits and fake the ad server into sending it extra banners, thus driving up their ad revenue? Also, my sister worked for double-click for a while (I almost disowned her, but she did hate it), and she told me that they do all sorts of logic and tracking on the ads, which ads benefit for them to serve directly. I guess it would also allow them to determine what kinds of pages a person is going to and send relevant ads no matter what the current host is... any ideas?
Slashdot Mirror
The thing to consider is that it costs a company money to install new software or switch to a new protocol. If a government is trying to regulate, then every citizen of the country is having to pay. Should the people who don't have internet access or don't care about spam have to pay to reduce the spam?
I think that software providers need to make it harder for spammers to create zombie machines, and then attempt to do filtering based on where the traffic is coming from. Another potential software solution would be to not allow people to send more than a certain amount of email in a given period of time. This could be adjusted by the ISP depending on the need of the company. I really don't think any home user account needs to be sending out more than a few emails per minute.
The other thing to think about is that enough people are reading spam and buying products that it's worth while for companies to hire spammers. Thus you are also hurting consumers that would want to buy from the spammers.
Probably a better solution would be software at cell companies that would parce the information down and recreate the page with less content. I'm not sure exactly what the copyright infractions would be. I've thought of making some web pages on my own computer that I could hit with my cell phone to get different information. Such as a page where I can submit a company name and it will find me the locations using whitepages.com, or check prices for stuff on newegg.
I think the heart of the issue is people who want to do something as a hobby and people that have to do something as a job. When I go fix someone's computer or build them a new one thats lost revenue for Best Buy or whatever other company that might have charged for the service I provided. I have another job so I really don't miss that money. If I were doing software development and had to freely distribute my software online then I would have to get another job to pay the bills.
That being said I think existing copyright laws are pretty rediculous. I think most if not all software patents are rediculous. These are areas best fit for trade secret, and if someone else finds a way to do a similar task or create a similar experience that's progress. Perhaps in trying to replicate something a new better process for that or something else is discovered. Especially since technology compounds on itself and 20 years or however a patent lasts leaves the product obsolete by the time it expires. If I had my say, copyright for works of art would be the life of the artist. I'm not sure what would be the best way to deal with arts that were created by a group, because I can easily see companies putting their little kids as contributors so that the copyright will last longer. I think for music could be based on as long as the band is still touring or something along those lines (still very weak).
Another point on the free flow of information. If you were in a band and you wrote a song then some company came along and decided they wanted it to be in their advertisment should you not have the right to decide the use of your work? This is even more important if it's something you don't support. Ex. if you are pro-life and an abortion clinc decides to put your music in the background of their ad or if they use your picture in a pamplet. From an outsiders perspective that implies that you agree with abortion.
As far as functionality, I think that an ISP could just d/l an updated HOSTS file to each machine every day that redirects the traffic to a web server running on the localhost.
I've played so much Counter Strike. I'd venture to say that I've spent fractions of a cent per hour of play.
I was once told that Di Vinci never sold a piece of art for money. Is that true?
It costs about $20 to buy a decent disc. Then you can play for hours and hours and get some exercise. You also get to have social interaction, and the best part is, you don't have to give anything to the RIAA.
What the harddware manufactures care about is selling hardware. It's in their best interest to have as many operating systems operate on their hardware as possible.
I think Cingular also wanted me to give them my PIN number over the phone. This was even worse, because I was walking around on campus.
I know that my company has regular online training for social engineering, but at the same time there are a lot of breakdowns. Also, when security upgrades were made at our facility many of the people got upset because it makes getting physical access more difficult. I don't think that very many people understand the dangers of physical access or having a user login for a few moments.
"Social Engineering, because there's no patch for human stupidity"
The problem is that dead people can't talk. The only way to torture them for information is to capture them while they are still alive.
I'm just waiting for the infrastructure to build up.
I'm not trying to turn off other people's TV. You would be able to filter out your own tv to control what you (and more likely your kids) get exposed to. What my idea opens up is the ability to broadcast any content and have the offending peices filtered out at the watchers set. Futher, this isn't legislation, it's technological innovation that allows people to have more control of the content that is played in their house. If enough people really care about what's being broadcast over the airwaves (or on cable), then the market should make this a profitable venture. If it's not profitable, it means that not enough people really care, so nothing should be done about it anyway.
It's for the children =) I'm not easily offended, and I'll change the channel if I don't like the show. Unfortunatly, it's not possible to keep track of exactly what your kids are doing at all times.
I agree that parents should turn off the TV if their kids are watching something they shouldn't, but parents can't be around all the time.
If you are really concerned about what your children watch, you should buy a TV that has extra parental controls. Then if you decide to get satellite or cable part of your decision process should being able to limit the types of content your children can watch. If you don't think the content is appropriate do what my parents did and cancel it.
Perhaps another thing to do would be to watch some TV with your child and make sure they understand what is right and wrong. I'm sure a majority people on /. (or the rest of the US) started watching R rated movies well before they were 17, but most of them haven't commited any sort of crime because of it. I think you create more risk of creating an excessivly naive child by attempting to overly shelter your kids.
Then again, the kid is probably downloading everything they want to watch for free off the Internet anyway.
I'm not going to lie. The first thing I saw with that first post was the ssh. ...I'm such a dork
From the feedback I've gotten with this idea you'd have to be able to sensor by default and fill in the gaps in order to allow legacy TV's to work without getting hte "bad" content.
Perhaps this is just one more reason to have streaming TV over IP instead of broadcast TV. Which leads me to my next question. What happens when they say that content on the internet needs to be filtered for decency?
What I generally do is d/l a bunch of tracks I've never heard of, and then I'll eventually go back and listen to them. If I find something I like, then I'll check to see if it isn't on an RIAA label http://www.magnetbox.com/riaa/If it's not an RIAA CD, I'll buy it from the label's web site. If it is RIAA I'll generally delete it in protest.
What I see as being the best future for music is a system where people can pay a monthly fee and download whatever they want (much like the napster model). Then the bands will get paid in accordance with how much their music was downloaded.
In my dreams I envision a system where people can go to a site and find music and d/l what they want for free. Then if they find bands they really like, they can make a donation (like a tip jar at a live show). The problem is there are a lot of tracks I'd like to give a dollar or less, but it's not feasable to make a CC purchase for each one. So I'd want to charge a larger amount (like $15 or so) and I could give tips as I find bands.
Other features of the site would be forums so that people can discuss music and find new bands from other people that have similar interest. It would also be pretty sweet to include information about the bands (bios, discography, etc.) and have tour schedules. That way people could have a one stop music site.
Is this because all of the IT jobs are going to be going to India? Do we really want to make it easy on them =P
Wouldn't this just put Windows users one step closer to just running linux? If I have to chose between getting the Windows super drivers or the Linux drivers package for free, I'm going to choose the free version first. This also means that many manufactures are going to see a distro that they can build drivers for, thus broadening their market.
I think the bigger concern would have to be someone managing to make fraudulent purchases with your information, which is easier with a magnetic strip than this...from what I've read in /. comments.
Does anyone have any input as how this could be used to track who comes in to your store that doesn't make purchases...or any other shopping patterns that might be worth storing/selling?
What I want to know is why ads are served from a central host? Does it have to do with keeping the web sites honest? Could a website say that it's getting 5x the number of hits and fake the ad server into sending it extra banners, thus driving up their ad revenue? Also, my sister worked for double-click for a while (I almost disowned her, but she did hate it), and she told me that they do all sorts of logic and tracking on the ads, which ads benefit for them to serve directly. I guess it would also allow them to determine what kinds of pages a person is going to and send relevant ads no matter what the current host is... any ideas?