OK Martin if you are listening I just have to ask this. First lets skip a few years back. Intel had this great idea of putting a processor ID number in their CPUs. Such a number could have been of great use to encryption programs and on line commerce. However it represented a seriously abusable technology. Several hackers quickly proved that it could never adequately be turned off and protected from those who would like to spam you or worse steal your on line identity. And Intel never really made the direct claim that they would not sell the information on who has what number. The issue got so inflamed that Intel finally relented and abandoned the idea.
Now we skip ahead to Windows XP and the windows product activation. My question is how are you differentiating this from what Intel did, to make it more palatable? Yes I know that there are several different numbers involved including MAC addresses, and the serial number, all tied up neatly into a hash. If you reduce this down to its pure binary it still boils down to a number. This is exactly what Intel was crucified for and for me personally, it is unacceptable.
I personally purchased a Windows 2000 license even though I was once given the opportunity to pirate it because I am a firm believer that those who create should indeed be paid for their work. But with the current state of the Windows Product Activation I will never be using XP. I am also an avid Linux user but it is far easier to run certain programs on my Windows 2000 machine. As time progresses and my Windows 2000 machine becomes more and more outdated, I will be porting more and more applications to the Linux+wine environment, since I'm being prevented from upgrading to Windows XP by the WPA.
There is one thing I would like to see RedHat do. (They might have already done this and I just havent read anything about it. But I dont think they have) I would like them to come out with some sort of syncronization manager so that some company using say RHEL 3 could allow employees at home running say FC3, to syncronize, making sure both are using the same gcc, libc, and other libraries so that executables could be portable. Would that even be possible?
Yes its pretty trivial to recompile, but this is one thing that I think they, kind of lost when they went to thier new business model.
According to the article, these spammers were in compliance with the CAN-SPAM act. The act isn't meant to prevent people from spamming; it's meant to make it easy to filter the spam out.
The CAN-SPAM act is the YOU CAN SPAM act and its another example of big business buying politians to pass a bad law. Its their attempt to rewrite the definition of spam to mean something that they do not do and not unsolicited commercial email.
Now, I'm not sure exactly what the spammer's case is. What exactly did this guy do that was illegal? If he got the ISP to filter or refuse mail from them, as far as I can tell that's precisely in keeping with the intent of the act.
He got a major black list, that many ISPs use, to list them as a source of spam. Just the fact that they are protesting so loudly that they are meeting the rules of that bad law, tells me right off that they are a spam house.
I wish more spammers would get compliant with the act, so that I can ignore them even more efficiently. And I wish that the FTC would start stringing some noncompliant spammers up by their gonads until the rest of them come into compliance.
And I wish that more and more of the destributed black lists will target those that send out mail with "ADV:" in the subject line to tick off more and more spammers that supposedly adhear to that terrible piece of legislation. Spammers have tried to sue SPEWS before. They're still there. };-)
This case has marks of a SLAPP suit. Depending on what state he lives in, there may be effective countersuits, but I'm not a lawyer. When you find out where I can pitch in to buy the guy one, let me know.
Now that I agree with.
But as for your subject line, Ive been a regular reader of the newgroup news.admin.net-abuse.email for years and years. Just filter it is tantimount to saying just hit delete. That news group has acronymed that to JHD for years. One individual once put it like this. "Saying JHD to an anti-spammer is almost the same as running up a tall hill in a full suit of armor in a thunderstorm, holding your sword up high and screeming at the top of your lungs, ALL GODS SUCK!"
This is a freedom of speech issue, and probably a slam-dunk in terms of a countersuit... since the victim was reporting to the ISPs that their customers were in violation of AUP provisions regarding the sending of unsolicited electronic junk mail, NOT violations of the ICANSPAM act.
Very good point. Most/.ers know very well the EFFs stance on spam and are not too thrilled with it. Its the only issue, (supporting the spammers position), that has kept me from supporting them. Although I can, sort of see their position, (barely) I want to see if they are going to support this individual in defending his free speech rights against the spammer.
Ive been waiting around for a case like this because it will bring out the true position of organizations like the EFF. If they do the right thing here and support this individual who complained, then more power to them. If they do nothing or even support the spammer, then that will confirm to me just where they stand. And Im sure others will take notice as well. If they decide to go that route then I say the EFF can go FOAD.
I like to run game servers so I tend to eat up upload speed. Having a contention ratio at all in that environment is not very friendly. My appartment was going to offer their own T1 service to each appartment. They needed 30 appartments to sign up. I said no thank you, because I new they were going to supply all 30 appartments with a T1 that had to share just 1 T1 going out to the net. A 30 to 1 contention ratio would have killed my hosting games on the net. Try and host games on a cable modem even today and prepare to first get chewed out by the cable company then have your service yanked.
Cable rep: Oh sure, we now offer 6Mb download speed comparable to high speed DSL.
/. Customer: Whats the contention ratio?
Cable rep: um....er....whats that?
/. Customer: Kindly shove it where only your proctologist can find it. *click*
I personally think that there should indeed be a law that all internet access providers must have their contention ratio prominently displayed. What good is 6Mb download if you have to share that with a thousand subscribers? Yes I know that DSL has its own contention ratios at the DSLAM but nowhere near the mess that cable trys to sell. But still they should be required to display this information as well.
I just wish companies that have determined that they are not going to bother making any money on older games, would at least consider open sourcing them so that the fan base can have it, and move the game they like forward.
I know that there are actually a great deal of fans of Descent 3 who happen to be coders, who would be overjoyed if Volition would open source the code.
I trust them as much as I trust anyone else I acquire code from to run on my computer.
How about open source? I know I trust open source software far beyond any software that is closed just by its very nature.
Do you trust the people who wrote your BIOS
I wholeheartedly DO NOT trust BIOS makers, Escpecially Phoenix, after some of the stunts that they have pulled and are still pulling. Makes me glad that there is an open source BIOS project in the works. Same goes for NICs. My mother board and NICs are beginning to be considered old. You know what? Thats fine by me. They still serve me very well and will do everything I need them to do for the forseeable future. Ill bide my time until I see the open source firmware projects come of age.
I might actually agree with you and trust M$ to only use their new acquisition to do what its intended to do if there were no well documented trail of evil megalomaniacal intentions from M$ dating all the way back to the DRDOS fiasco all the way up to XP WPA. (And before anyone says its only an ID number in the WPA and no personal information, then I would ask, why did/. crucify INTEL for just including an individual number into their processors?)
I hear that in postgresql 8 they are going to start addressing the scaleability issue by adding tablespaces. I might have heard wrong, but if they do, I think that will go a long way to help cure this perception.
I'ld like to see a law passed requiring Broadband companies to list contention ratios and update the info occasionally on a web page.
Oh ya you got Megabit download speeds, just be prepared to share that with 100 other subscribers oh and forget running any game servers or we'll yank your service.
And yes DSL has contention ratios as well through a little gadget called a DSLAM.
Hmmm. Serious question. Has anyone setup or thought of running a blocking list based strickly on known zombies, kind of like the focus over at RFC ignorant?
I dont know if such a list could be made usefull though.
Slashdot Mirror
(DONs Tinfoil hat and crosses eyes) What me paranoid? No really? ;P
Dude, those protesting the Intel scheme were paranoid as well. Whats your point?
Just because Im paranoid doesnt mean they arent really out to get me. ;P
Why do visions of this movie flash into my head? Virtuosity
Now we skip ahead to Windows XP and the windows product activation. My question is how are you differentiating this from what Intel did, to make it more palatable? Yes I know that there are several different numbers involved including MAC addresses, and the serial number, all tied up neatly into a hash. If you reduce this down to its pure binary it still boils down to a number. This is exactly what Intel was crucified for and for me personally, it is unacceptable.
I personally purchased a Windows 2000 license even though I was once given the opportunity to pirate it because I am a firm believer that those who create should indeed be paid for their work. But with the current state of the Windows Product Activation I will never be using XP. I am also an avid Linux user but it is far easier to run certain programs on my Windows 2000 machine. As time progresses and my Windows 2000 machine becomes more and more outdated, I will be porting more and more applications to the Linux+wine environment, since I'm being prevented from upgrading to Windows XP by the WPA.
Yes its pretty trivial to recompile, but this is one thing that I think they, kind of lost when they went to thier new business model.
EEEP! Dont give them ideas for the next patent suit.
It still boils down to numeric identification, the same thing Intel was crusified for and MS can shove it.
Oh really? Then I guess removing the WPA for XP is not out of the question hu? (All of /. chants snowball-hell)
Ive heard it before. "Whats the problem? Its just a number identifying you and there is no personal identifying information."
Now where did I hear that before? Oh ya Intel.
The sad thing is I might just purchase XP if it werent for the WPA.
The CAN-SPAM act is the YOU CAN SPAM act and its another example of big business buying politians to pass a bad law. Its their attempt to rewrite the definition of spam to mean something that they do not do and not unsolicited commercial email.
Now, I'm not sure exactly what the spammer's case is. What exactly did this guy do that was illegal? If he got the ISP to filter or refuse mail from them, as far as I can tell that's precisely in keeping with the intent of the act.
He got a major black list, that many ISPs use, to list them as a source of spam. Just the fact that they are protesting so loudly that they are meeting the rules of that bad law, tells me right off that they are a spam house.
I wish more spammers would get compliant with the act, so that I can ignore them even more efficiently. And I wish that the FTC would start stringing some noncompliant spammers up by their gonads until the rest of them come into compliance.
And I wish that more and more of the destributed black lists will target those that send out mail with "ADV:" in the subject line to tick off more and more spammers that supposedly adhear to that terrible piece of legislation. Spammers have tried to sue SPEWS before. They're still there. };-)
This case has marks of a SLAPP suit. Depending on what state he lives in, there may be effective countersuits, but I'm not a lawyer. When you find out where I can pitch in to buy the guy one, let me know.
Now that I agree with.
But as for your subject line, Ive been a regular reader of the newgroup news.admin.net-abuse.email for years and years. Just filter it is tantimount to saying just hit delete. That news group has acronymed that to JHD for years. One individual once put it like this. "Saying JHD to an anti-spammer is almost the same as running up a tall hill in a full suit of armor in a thunderstorm, holding your sword up high and screeming at the top of your lungs, ALL GODS SUCK!"
Very good point. Most /.ers know very well the EFFs stance on spam and are not too thrilled with it. Its the only issue, (supporting the spammers position), that has kept me from supporting them. Although I can, sort of see their position, (barely) I want to see if they are going to support this individual in defending his free speech rights against the spammer.
Ive been waiting around for a case like this because it will bring out the true position of organizations like the EFF. If they do the right thing here and support this individual who complained, then more power to them. If they do nothing or even support the spammer, then that will confirm to me just where they stand. And Im sure others will take notice as well. If they decide to go that route then I say the EFF can go FOAD.
I like to run game servers so I tend to eat up upload speed. Having a contention ratio at all in that environment is not very friendly. My appartment was going to offer their own T1 service to each appartment. They needed 30 appartments to sign up. I said no thank you, because I new they were going to supply all 30 appartments with a T1 that had to share just 1 T1 going out to the net. A 30 to 1 contention ratio would have killed my hosting games on the net. Try and host games on a cable modem even today and prepare to first get chewed out by the cable company then have your service yanked.
Cable rep: um....er....whats that?
I personally think that there should indeed be a law that all internet access providers must have their contention ratio prominently displayed. What good is 6Mb download if you have to share that with a thousand subscribers? Yes I know that DSL has its own contention ratios at the DSLAM but nowhere near the mess that cable trys to sell. But still they should be required to display this information as well.
Yes but didnt Volition inherit the rights when Outrage was disbanded?
I know that there are actually a great deal of fans of Descent 3 who happen to be coders, who would be overjoyed if Volition would open source the code.
How about open source? I know I trust open source software far beyond any software that is closed just by its very nature.
Do you trust the people who wrote your BIOS
I wholeheartedly DO NOT trust BIOS makers, Escpecially Phoenix, after some of the stunts that they have pulled and are still pulling. Makes me glad that there is an open source BIOS project in the works. Same goes for NICs. My mother board and NICs are beginning to be considered old. You know what? Thats fine by me. They still serve me very well and will do everything I need them to do for the forseeable future. Ill bide my time until I see the open source firmware projects come of age.
I dont.
I might actually agree with you and trust M$ to only use their new acquisition to do what its intended to do if there were no well documented trail of evil megalomaniacal intentions from M$ dating all the way back to the DRDOS fiasco all the way up to XP WPA. (And before anyone says its only an ID number in the WPA and no personal information, then I would ask, why did /. crucify INTEL for just including an individual number into their processors?)
And now we are going to trust them to make anti-spyware software that DOESNT GIVE THEM AND THEIR AFILLIATES A BACKDOOR? O_o Sorry but no.
I hear that in postgresql 8 they are going to start addressing the scaleability issue by adding tablespaces. I might have heard wrong, but if they do, I think that will go a long way to help cure this perception.
Oh ya you got Megabit download speeds, just be prepared to share that with 100 other subscribers oh and forget running any game servers or we'll yank your service.
And yes DSL has contention ratios as well through a little gadget called a DSLAM.
I dont know if such a list could be made usefull though.
Ya they could probably save the $80 on one, seeing how thier servers are glowing bright enough.
Never happened.
Ya I know they made a special version and they endorse running it in wine.
Thats not the same.
eDonkey advertises? Hmmm. How long is it before we see the eDonkey suit against emule and emuleplus? >_
You emacs spawn of satin. Get thee back to the pit of hades from which thee came. All bow down to vi. :)
Sorry for following up to myself but this is an even better link