Actually the key to it might be getting companies to agree to a standard EULA, or a few variants of the EULA--Thus real lawyers could read it and parse it to more common terminolgy which is what the program would spit out. That would neatly solve most of the problems--assuming (a) companies would agree to submit their EULAs to whoever's writing the software, (b) that the companies agree with what the plain english version says, and (c) that companies agree not to alter the EULA once it's submitted.
Thus this becomes a difficult task, but I don't think it would be impossible.
Perhaps I'm just not nerdy enough, but what are you (and others in this post) doing that you find that Mozilla has "interface issues"?!!? I mean, it's a browser people, so you go back, forward and reload. And the extensions and themes seem to work properly. So really, what are you doing or trying to do that Mozilla doesn't work properly? Besides the occasional pages that may not render exactly right.
Its nothing so simple as checking/not checking a box. You (and I) live in the U.S., which has gone with an opt-out system for most advertising such as you mention. Thus you have to waste at least a full day over 2 or 3 months to get off the lists.:)
Nah, as I posted above, I'll keep my hotmail account as a spam catcher. I aggregate my accounts at fastmail.fm which is one of the best--I'm actually willing to pay for it. In any case between hotmail, fastmail and my own rules, it's very rare that I see spam in my inbox. I got rid of OE/outlook a while ago, and have gotten used to accessing/composing all my email thru the web.
Time to let go? Never. My hotmail account (it gets switched every 6 months or so) is the ultimate spam catcher! Pretty much anything that comes to that address I know is spam. You all make it sound like there's some other use for a hotmail account. =)
But arguably, you could just as easily note that there are far more idots using Word than there are using AIX, correct? So the real problem is that it is difficult to envision what different I/O flows an idiot or several idiots might actually use. Smarter people, are usually relatively predictable, until they start making the creative leaps. Having taught MS office to biz students in college, I can atest personally that there are many ways that I wouldn't think of that they managed to screw things up.:-)
At the risk of sounding dumber than usual...
Does anyone know what exactly the costs are that are associated with wiretapping? I mean maybe I just have recieved some misinformation someplace, but I always thought wiretapping-at least on traditional phone lines--was a simple matter of flipping a couple of switches or some other quick solution--IIRC, I thought I had heard someplace that phone companies had built in backdoors to allow that. So I guess my thought is--what is so costly about presenting a subpoena to a VOIP provider and telling them to set up a data feed to the government on a particular account?
Actually, where I live in Missouri, USA, there is such a law---I'm required to have a safety inspection of my car done before I can get new license plates every 2 yrs. thus, bad inspection = no plates.
I would also say that not everyone who goes out on the web necessarily has knowledge of spam/malware, etc. Reference the poster above who has the relative that removed spybot and adaware. Also reference my grandmother who wants to email her grandkids. Absolutley zero knowledge for the most part about the web, but basically (thankfully) she lets my dad and I maintain the computer--firewall, spybot, etc. There are always plenty of idiots out floating around the web.
I suppose that would make sense, but the problem is your analogy....at this point, most people (aside from/.'ers of course) wouldn't consider their computer to be as important as thier car--esp. I would guess, those still on dialup, or as one post above mentioned, those who think WinME as the god of OS's. Perhaps in another decade or so when PCs have become much more common-place, such a law/idea/practice would be possible, but in today's world, there are still a lot of questions and misconceptions about computers, the net, and other high tech widgets (i.e. most non-techies can give you the basics of how thier car works, yet there are some technical people I know that couldn't really explain how a computer works).
Your other problem is that the type of analogy you suggest is much more vague with computers--what type of damages would apply, and is there a limit on the damages? Also, even if that other person's computer isn't protected, shouldn't yours be?
I could go further, but I think that illustrates just a couple of the problems with such a scenario.
^^Ditto this. As I noted in another comment above, this isn't necessarily a perfect system, but its a good start, and especially so if it is adopted in other countries, as some of Linx's other policies evidently have been. Linx's former policy, drawn up in May 1999, has been widely adopted in the web world as a model of best practice.
This system gives a good logical starting point to help eliminate at least some of the spam that is distributed each day.
This is indeed possible which is why it's important that whoever is in charge of actually shutting down the sites conducts proper due diligence (i.e. makes a case that any reasonable person could follow). That being said, I think this is also good because it's at least a start--if we want to get rid of spam (not that I'm saying that's possible) the ISPs and companies will have to work together which is what this is starting to do--companies may find that they can work with Linx to follow best practices or some such that will make it more difficult for competitors to do what you're talking about. As the sayings go--you have to start somewhere, and this is as good as anything yet.
Which is arguably what they should have done--I mean if you're a business leader, and you're doing anything on a global scale, it is part of your job to check such things out, rather than making assumptions. Granted some problems such as the time-zone color issue would be difficult to spot, but just doing some further testing with people from the locale would have brought a lot of this to light, I would guess.
I also would say that such things would be hard for any company that is doing global business. MS just got picked on because it's such an easy target--there are hundreds of other such stories about most any major company (go take an international business class if you don't believe me).
Slashdot Mirror
Actually the key to it might be getting companies to agree to a standard EULA, or a few variants of the EULA--Thus real lawyers could read it and parse it to more common terminolgy which is what the program would spit out. That would neatly solve most of the problems--assuming (a) companies would agree to submit their EULAs to whoever's writing the software, (b) that the companies agree with what the plain english version says, and (c) that companies agree not to alter the EULA once it's submitted. Thus this becomes a difficult task, but I don't think it would be impossible.
Perhaps I'm just not nerdy enough, but what are you (and others in this post) doing that you find that Mozilla has "interface issues"?!!? I mean, it's a browser people, so you go back, forward and reload. And the extensions and themes seem to work properly. So really, what are you doing or trying to do that Mozilla doesn't work properly? Besides the occasional pages that may not render exactly right.
Its nothing so simple as checking/not checking a box. You (and I) live in the U.S., which has gone with an opt-out system for most advertising such as you mention. Thus you have to waste at least a full day over 2 or 3 months to get off the lists. :)
Nah, as I posted above, I'll keep my hotmail account as a spam catcher. I aggregate my accounts at fastmail.fm which is one of the best--I'm actually willing to pay for it. In any case between hotmail, fastmail and my own rules, it's very rare that I see spam in my inbox. I got rid of OE/outlook a while ago, and have gotten used to accessing/composing all my email thru the web.
Time to let go? Never. My hotmail account (it gets switched every 6 months or so) is the ultimate spam catcher! Pretty much anything that comes to that address I know is spam. You all make it sound like there's some other use for a hotmail account. =)
But arguably, you could just as easily note that there are far more idots using Word than there are using AIX, correct? So the real problem is that it is difficult to envision what different I/O flows an idiot or several idiots might actually use. Smarter people, are usually relatively predictable, until they start making the creative leaps. Having taught MS office to biz students in college, I can atest personally that there are many ways that I wouldn't think of that they managed to screw things up. :-)
At the risk of sounding dumber than usual...
Does anyone know what exactly the costs are that are associated with wiretapping? I mean maybe I just have recieved some misinformation someplace, but I always thought wiretapping-at least on traditional phone lines--was a simple matter of flipping a couple of switches or some other quick solution--IIRC, I thought I had heard someplace that phone companies had built in backdoors to allow that. So I guess my thought is--what is so costly about presenting a subpoena to a VOIP provider and telling them to set up a data feed to the government on a particular account?
Actually, where I live in Missouri, USA, there is such a law---I'm required to have a safety inspection of my car done before I can get new license plates every 2 yrs. thus, bad inspection = no plates.
I would also say that not everyone who goes out on the web necessarily has knowledge of spam/malware, etc. Reference the poster above who has the relative that removed spybot and adaware. Also reference my grandmother who wants to email her grandkids. Absolutley zero knowledge for the most part about the web, but basically (thankfully) she lets my dad and I maintain the computer--firewall, spybot, etc. There are always plenty of idiots out floating around the web.
I suppose that would make sense, but the problem is your analogy....at this point, most people (aside from /.'ers of course) wouldn't consider their computer to be as important as thier car--esp. I would guess, those still on dialup, or as one post above mentioned, those who think WinME as the god of OS's. Perhaps in another decade or so when PCs have become much more common-place, such a law/idea/practice would be possible, but in today's world, there are still a lot of questions and misconceptions about computers, the net, and other high tech widgets (i.e. most non-techies can give you the basics of how thier car works, yet there are some technical people I know that couldn't really explain how a computer works).
Your other problem is that the type of analogy you suggest is much more vague with computers--what type of damages would apply, and is there a limit on the damages? Also, even if that other person's computer isn't protected, shouldn't yours be?
I could go further, but I think that illustrates just a couple of the problems with such a scenario.
^^Ditto this. As I noted in another comment above, this isn't necessarily a perfect system, but its a good start, and especially so if it is adopted in other countries, as some of Linx's other policies evidently have been.
Linx's former policy, drawn up in May 1999, has been widely adopted in the web world as a model of best practice.
This system gives a good logical starting point to help eliminate at least some of the spam that is distributed each day.
This is indeed possible which is why it's important that whoever is in charge of actually shutting down the sites conducts proper due diligence (i.e. makes a case that any reasonable person could follow). That being said, I think this is also good because it's at least a start--if we want to get rid of spam (not that I'm saying that's possible) the ISPs and companies will have to work together which is what this is starting to do--companies may find that they can work with Linx to follow best practices or some such that will make it more difficult for competitors to do what you're talking about. As the sayings go--you have to start somewhere, and this is as good as anything yet.
Which is arguably what they should have done--I mean if you're a business leader, and you're doing anything on a global scale, it is part of your job to check such things out, rather than making assumptions. Granted some problems such as the time-zone color issue would be difficult to spot, but just doing some further testing with people from the locale would have brought a lot of this to light, I would guess. I also would say that such things would be hard for any company that is doing global business. MS just got picked on because it's such an easy target--there are hundreds of other such stories about most any major company (go take an international business class if you don't believe me).