his point deserves some honest thought and debate.
Which is why scholars, scientists and philosophers who can discern reality from fiction - you know, who don't believe in weekly turning wine into blood of a long dead jew, or a bearded old jealous men having created everything 6000 years ago - have been discussing that point for at least 30 years.
It's excusable that he's late to the party. It's not that he tries to pass it off as something insightful when it's redundant at best.
One problem with information on the Internet is that it's accuracy can be dubious at best.
I see you've not been to a book store or a news stand lately.
Most of the information available anywhere is dubious at best. Finding the good among the crap has always been the real challenge in information.
Technology has made it easier to produce and disseminate crap, but it has also made searching and sorting and cross-referencing and automated fact-checking easier. I guess it roughly equals out.
The catholic church has become very political in the past few decades, mostly in making sure that ten years later, when the facts are in, you can interpret whatever they said in the "correct" way, aka so that it turns out they were right all along.
He is, of course, entirely missing the point. Since we have recorded history and very likely long before that, man has engaged in creating fantasy worlds. Stories, day-dreams, visions of possible futures or pasts have been with us for as long as we can reliably say.
There is absolutely nothing new about this at all, only a new way of expression. What he demonstrates is his inability to see the core of the matters, beyond the new clothes.
and what i am telling you is that it is impossible to award ANY peace prize to ANYONE without making a political statements, action, reason, or raise one opinion above another.
Yes, as a side-effect it will always be a politically-interpretable statement. Just like giving the Oscar to an actor can always be seen as a support of his sense of fashion, or the type of role he portrays. However, the intention of the Oscar is clearly to award good acting, not a particular role or style. The purpose and intent of a peace price should be to reward peaceful conflict resolution, or working towards peace, or other actions of peace - not a particular political opinion.
Every single peace price can be seen as an endorsement of a particular politicial view. However, over time a balance can make clear that it is not about particular views.
Again, I am not saying that the peace price isn't a political statement - but the statement should be about peace, not about political views.
There's a difference between awarding a price for political actions, and awarding a price for political reasons.
The criticism I linked to is not what the price stands for, but who decides whom it is rewarded to, and for what reasons. Nobel did not intend the price to be used as a means to raise one political opinion above the other.
Which isn't. The real crime is that ISPs have been running a ruinous business model for years, in attempts to drive out competition and gain market share. The prices that are currently everywhere here in Europe are below costs already. Yes I got that info first-hand from the CEO of a large Telco/ISP.
It's all driven by investors, because "the stock market" (whoever that is) believes that only the first 2-3 (depending on country size) competitors can be profitable. Ironically, this belief is the direct cause for only the #1 being profitable (the old, ex-government-held telcos).
The real crime is that you have been led to believe that Internet access or phone calls don't cost anything. That crime is costing jobs in the Telco industry, and is forcing many smaller ISPs to shut down because they can't compete on insane prices. The invisible hand has a clear strategy: Drive everyone out of business until a small oligopoly remains, which can then proceed to rise prices until it is profitable enough to repay all the investments. Since entry costs into the market are considerable (once termination costs have risen sufficiently), that oligopoly won't be broken without government intervention.
Phone calls and Internet access should not be free, they should be priced realistically.
There was an interesting interview in a german online magazine about how Nobel's ideas have been betrayed by politicians. This years peace price - just like many in the recent years and decades - has nothing to do with peace and everything to do with politics.
They've done nothing about people installing other OSes on their own devices, and I think that will continue to be that way.
But I don't see any commercial offerings. They've not happened for the iPhone. Nobody is selling an iPhone with Linux pre-installed anywhere that I have seen. At least that is what I read into "going forward".
In the (badly translated, original conversation was in german) words of a judge of one of Germanys highest courts: There are only three reasons for any judgement: It's always been like that, we don't do that kind of stuff here and where would we end up if we'd allow that? - All the rest is just post-fact argument on why you got there.
In the case of RIAA/MPAA, there is an actual, easily identifiable, damaged party. As such, damages can be paid directly and their main purpose can be - well, offset damage. As such, they should be measures as "actual damage done + a bit more as punishment".
In the case of spam, society at large is the primary victim, not any one individual. Undoing any damage is near impossible because the overhead of distributing a few cents of compensation to millions of victims is unfeasable. As such, the main purpose is deterence, not undoing the damage. As such, the fine should be calculated against the profits * 1/chance-of-getting-caught + some margin so that the business model of "spam until you get caught, pay fine, continue spamming" becomes unprofitable.
Because (non-geek) users care mostly about being able to use the thing. Freedom, Free Software, "cutting edge" (aka "half of the stuff doesn't work yet) and other concerns like that take a distant second to turning it on and having whatever it is you need ready and waiting in front of you.
Geek people simply don't get what users want, and that's why "Linx on the desktop" won't happen for another 10 years. And that's why the iPhod, not the Nomad, is the #1 MP3 player. Why iPhones catch the headlines, not Android. Why - despite the great sales numbers - commercial developers still see the iPhone as the #1 for the forseable future, not Android. Heck, it's even why windos, as crappy as it is, still beats Linux hands down, one leg tied up, because it simply is there and it works - barely, but it works. And that is what users care about, that and that alone.
What I dont understand is why they dont make the clients of the spammers accountable.
Because you need evidence that they actually contracted the spammer. Without that requirement, I could bancrupt you if you are my competitor by contracting with a spammer to send out spam for your homepage.
And I guess spammers - since they are already criminals - don't think much about covering the tracks to their clients and selling that to them as an extra service.
Excellent. I've been saying for 15+ years that the way to stop spam is to make the fines if caught so high that no matter how much the spamming earns you, the fine will bancrupt you. Everything else means that, taking the low chances for being actually caught into account, the rational choice for spammers remains to continue spamming.
Now this is settled, we can work on raising the conviction rate.
ISPs should be responsible for filtering out bot activity,
Once your machine has been compromised and is part of a spam-botnet, the "bot activity" is SMTP mail. Which your ISP can't filter out without blocking your regular mail as well.
. After all, it's not entirely their fault they got infected...
So? They are still a danger to others. The fact that someone forced you to down a bottle of Vodka doesn't mean the drunk driving rules don't apply to you. The fact that matters is that you are drunk, not how you got there.
They are also part of this community we call the Internet. As part of a society, your individual rights are balanced by the rights of everyone else. If you are too much of a burden on society, then society can decide that they want nothing to do with you.
On the other hand, ISPs should cut off virus-infected computers. Apparently, they ARE sniffing or monitoring in some way in order to cut you off.
They could also be using outside reports. Say, if three different sources report you as a spam source, it is likely they are right. In that case, they would have established a reasonable reason to check your traffic and verify the accusations before taking further action.
If it is really botnet activity, why not just block the botnet activity but not the non-botnet activity?
Most botnets these days work quite fine after losing connection to the command nodes, so your spammer-bot will continue to spam, and spam is simply SMTP traffic. You can't cut it off without cutting that person's ability for regular mail as well.
This isn't like quarantining carriers of a deadly disease.
No, it's worse. A disease only spreads. A botnet causes damage (spam, DDoS attacks, etc.) even to systems that are immune.
But people are here supporting the idea of severing a person's internet connectivity because they've been a victim of some asshole on the internet.
Not at all. People here are supporting the idea of preventing further damage. Since you've already demonstrated that you can't do it yourself, someone else has to do it. Since only you have access to your computer and can stop the problem at the source, the next step is your connection.
At the very least, if there is some set of criteria for disconnecting somebody from the internet, there must also be criteria for how to get reconnected and a very clear and doable set of instructions how to get back online.
Absolutely, yes. In fact, I wouldn't cut off their connection. I would force them to a server where they can download security and cleaning software, as well as the latest patches for all major operating systems, and have a list of phone numbers to contact for more support.
A court would find that you set up this scenario specificially so you could escape the issue, and jail you anyways. There is only one thing that judges like less than guilty people and that is guilty people who try to play with them.
The copyright lobby is using every conceivable way of defending their position. Legal, doubtfully legal, illegal. Against the masses, against individuals. Changing laws, creating new laws, ignoring laws.
It's only fair to reply in kind, using several different ways. Lobby counter-work is important, as is legal support for the innocents caught in the net, as is legal support for the guilty so that they get a fair trial and a fair punishment and not these ridiculous witch-burnings. Technological counters to protect our privacy against the dragnets are important, and at times a counter-attack can reveal what legal activities would have never managed to uncover - as in this case.
I, too, support the Pirate Party more than a DDoS. Which is why I'm a member of my local PP chapter, but not of Anonymous. But that doesn't mean I don't like what they're doing.
And frankly, the press articles on this and the revelations about the dirty tricks played by those who label themselves the righteous are a lot more likely to change public opinion and then maybe politicians' minds than the most civilized and measured talking.
You can not win against a trained slimebag with words alone. You are going up against people who have been lying professionally for many years, and the truth is harder to convince people with, because it is more complex, less black-and-white, and usually incomplete. A clear, simple and well-rounded lie will always beat it. Everything else is the stuff of books and movies, but not the real world.
4) because I prefer to get my bits from the official location. Yea, I know a checksum should be good enough but I'm old school here.
Actually, from a strictly security-POV, a checksum and a distributed distribution model is better, because it makes man-in-the-middle attacks considerably more difficult.
Of course, only as long as you have a trustworthy channel to get the checksum through and actually bother to verify it.
Slashdot Mirror
his point deserves some honest thought and debate.
Which is why scholars, scientists and philosophers who can discern reality from fiction - you know, who don't believe in weekly turning wine into blood of a long dead jew, or a bearded old jealous men having created everything 6000 years ago - have been discussing that point for at least 30 years.
It's excusable that he's late to the party. It's not that he tries to pass it off as something insightful when it's redundant at best.
One problem with information on the Internet is that it's accuracy can be dubious at best.
I see you've not been to a book store or a news stand lately.
Most of the information available anywhere is dubious at best. Finding the good among the crap has always been the real challenge in information.
Technology has made it easier to produce and disseminate crap, but it has also made searching and sorting and cross-referencing and automated fact-checking easier. I guess it roughly equals out.
The catholic church has become very political in the past few decades, mostly in making sure that ten years later, when the facts are in, you can interpret whatever they said in the "correct" way, aka so that it turns out they were right all along.
He is, of course, entirely missing the point. Since we have recorded history and very likely long before that, man has engaged in creating fantasy worlds. Stories, day-dreams, visions of possible futures or pasts have been with us for as long as we can reliably say.
There is absolutely nothing new about this at all, only a new way of expression. What he demonstrates is his inability to see the core of the matters, beyond the new clothes.
and what i am telling you is that it is impossible to award ANY peace prize to ANYONE without making a political statements, action, reason, or raise one opinion above another.
Yes, as a side-effect it will always be a politically-interpretable statement. Just like giving the Oscar to an actor can always be seen as a support of his sense of fashion, or the type of role he portrays. However, the intention of the Oscar is clearly to award good acting, not a particular role or style. The purpose and intent of a peace price should be to reward peaceful conflict resolution, or working towards peace, or other actions of peace - not a particular political opinion.
Every single peace price can be seen as an endorsement of a particular politicial view. However, over time a balance can make clear that it is not about particular views.
Again, I am not saying that the peace price isn't a political statement - but the statement should be about peace, not about political views.
There's a difference between awarding a price for political actions, and awarding a price for political reasons.
The criticism I linked to is not what the price stands for, but who decides whom it is rewarded to, and for what reasons. Nobel did not intend the price to be used as a means to raise one political opinion above the other.
Which isn't. The real crime is that ISPs have been running a ruinous business model for years, in attempts to drive out competition and gain market share. The prices that are currently everywhere here in Europe are below costs already. Yes I got that info first-hand from the CEO of a large Telco/ISP.
It's all driven by investors, because "the stock market" (whoever that is) believes that only the first 2-3 (depending on country size) competitors can be profitable. Ironically, this belief is the direct cause for only the #1 being profitable (the old, ex-government-held telcos).
The real crime is that you have been led to believe that Internet access or phone calls don't cost anything. That crime is costing jobs in the Telco industry, and is forcing many smaller ISPs to shut down because they can't compete on insane prices. The invisible hand has a clear strategy: Drive everyone out of business until a small oligopoly remains, which can then proceed to rise prices until it is profitable enough to repay all the investments. Since entry costs into the market are considerable (once termination costs have risen sufficiently), that oligopoly won't be broken without government intervention.
Phone calls and Internet access should not be free, they should be priced realistically.
There was an interesting interview in a german online magazine about how Nobel's ideas have been betrayed by politicians. This years peace price - just like many in the recent years and decades - has nothing to do with peace and everything to do with politics.
why is it suddenly so hard to find a laptop with a good screen?
Because nobody is buying them. Everyone wants cheap.
today I can't get a laptop with an equivalent screen for under 850.
Watch the invisible hand at work. Welcome to capitalism. Supply and demand and all that.
Uh, what?
(reading this on a > 3.6 MP display)
Kid, if you want more than 2 MP - there's this thing called "buying stuff" that you could try.
They've done nothing about people installing other OSes on their own devices, and I think that will continue to be that way.
But I don't see any commercial offerings. They've not happened for the iPhone. Nobody is selling an iPhone with Linux pre-installed anywhere that I have seen. At least that is what I read into "going forward".
You'd be surprised.
In the (badly translated, original conversation was in german) words of a judge of one of Germanys highest courts: There are only three reasons for any judgement: It's always been like that, we don't do that kind of stuff here and where would we end up if we'd allow that? - All the rest is just post-fact argument on why you got there.
There is a very important legal difference here.
In the case of RIAA/MPAA, there is an actual, easily identifiable, damaged party. As such, damages can be paid directly and their main purpose can be - well, offset damage. As such, they should be measures as "actual damage done + a bit more as punishment".
In the case of spam, society at large is the primary victim, not any one individual. Undoing any damage is near impossible because the overhead of distributing a few cents of compensation to millions of victims is unfeasable. As such, the main purpose is deterence, not undoing the damage. As such, the fine should be calculated against the profits * 1/chance-of-getting-caught + some margin so that the business model of "spam until you get caught, pay fine, continue spamming" becomes unprofitable.
You can run Windows or linux on Mac computers and Apple has done nothing to hinder that.
On the contrary, it's providing Boot Camp and (at least for windows) hardware drivers exactly for that purpose.
Nevertheless, the iPad and iPhone are locked-down devices, so in their particular cases, I think the submitter is still right.
Why wouldn't users love that?
Because (non-geek) users care mostly about being able to use the thing. Freedom, Free Software, "cutting edge" (aka "half of the stuff doesn't work yet) and other concerns like that take a distant second to turning it on and having whatever it is you need ready and waiting in front of you.
Geek people simply don't get what users want, and that's why "Linx on the desktop" won't happen for another 10 years. And that's why the iPhod, not the Nomad, is the #1 MP3 player. Why iPhones catch the headlines, not Android. Why - despite the great sales numbers - commercial developers still see the iPhone as the #1 for the forseable future, not Android. Heck, it's even why windos, as crappy as it is, still beats Linux hands down, one leg tied up, because it simply is there and it works - barely, but it works. And that is what users care about, that and that alone.
What I dont understand is why they dont make the clients of the spammers accountable.
Because you need evidence that they actually contracted the spammer. Without that requirement, I could bancrupt you if you are my competitor by contracting with a spammer to send out spam for your homepage.
And I guess spammers - since they are already criminals - don't think much about covering the tracks to their clients and selling that to them as an extra service.
Excellent. I've been saying for 15+ years that the way to stop spam is to make the fines if caught so high that no matter how much the spamming earns you, the fine will bancrupt you. Everything else means that, taking the low chances for being actually caught into account, the rational choice for spammers remains to continue spamming.
Now this is settled, we can work on raising the conviction rate.
A 1 billion dollar fine is absurd.
At $100 per mail, it is considerably below what the MPAA/RIAA thinks a song or movie copy is worth.
ISPs should be responsible for filtering out bot activity,
Once your machine has been compromised and is part of a spam-botnet, the "bot activity" is SMTP mail. Which your ISP can't filter out without blocking your regular mail as well.
. After all, it's not entirely their fault they got infected...
So? They are still a danger to others. The fact that someone forced you to down a bottle of Vodka doesn't mean the drunk driving rules don't apply to you. The fact that matters is that you are drunk, not how you got there.
They are also part of this community we call the Internet. As part of a society, your individual rights are balanced by the rights of everyone else. If you are too much of a burden on society, then society can decide that they want nothing to do with you.
On the other hand, ISPs should cut off virus-infected computers. Apparently, they ARE sniffing or monitoring in some way in order to cut you off.
They could also be using outside reports. Say, if three different sources report you as a spam source, it is likely they are right. In that case, they would have established a reasonable reason to check your traffic and verify the accusations before taking further action.
If it is really botnet activity, why not just block the botnet activity but not the non-botnet activity?
Most botnets these days work quite fine after losing connection to the command nodes, so your spammer-bot will continue to spam, and spam is simply SMTP traffic. You can't cut it off without cutting that person's ability for regular mail as well.
This isn't like quarantining carriers of a deadly disease.
No, it's worse. A disease only spreads. A botnet causes damage (spam, DDoS attacks, etc.) even to systems that are immune.
But people are here supporting the idea of severing a person's internet connectivity because they've been a victim of some asshole on the internet.
Not at all. People here are supporting the idea of preventing further damage. Since you've already demonstrated that you can't do it yourself, someone else has to do it. Since only you have access to your computer and can stop the problem at the source, the next step is your connection.
At the very least, if there is some set of criteria for disconnecting somebody from the internet, there must also be criteria for how to get reconnected and a very clear and doable set of instructions how to get back online.
Absolutely, yes. In fact, I wouldn't cut off their connection. I would force them to a server where they can download security and cleaning software, as well as the latest patches for all major operating systems, and have a list of phone numbers to contact for more support.
Geek solutions to legal problems don't work.
A court would find that you set up this scenario specificially so you could escape the issue, and jail you anyways. There is only one thing that judges like less than guilty people and that is guilty people who try to play with them.
I like the term. I think I may copy it.
The copyright lobby is using every conceivable way of defending their position. Legal, doubtfully legal, illegal. Against the masses, against individuals. Changing laws, creating new laws, ignoring laws.
It's only fair to reply in kind, using several different ways. Lobby counter-work is important, as is legal support for the innocents caught in the net, as is legal support for the guilty so that they get a fair trial and a fair punishment and not these ridiculous witch-burnings. Technological counters to protect our privacy against the dragnets are important, and at times a counter-attack can reveal what legal activities would have never managed to uncover - as in this case.
I, too, support the Pirate Party more than a DDoS. Which is why I'm a member of my local PP chapter, but not of Anonymous. But that doesn't mean I don't like what they're doing.
And frankly, the press articles on this and the revelations about the dirty tricks played by those who label themselves the righteous are a lot more likely to change public opinion and then maybe politicians' minds than the most civilized and measured talking.
You can not win against a trained slimebag with words alone. You are going up against people who have been lying professionally for many years, and the truth is harder to convince people with, because it is more complex, less black-and-white, and usually incomplete. A clear, simple and well-rounded lie will always beat it. Everything else is the stuff of books and movies, but not the real world.
4) because I prefer to get my bits from the official location. Yea, I know a checksum should be good enough but I'm old school here.
Actually, from a strictly security-POV, a checksum and a distributed distribution model is better, because it makes man-in-the-middle attacks considerably more difficult.
Of course, only as long as you have a trustworthy channel to get the checksum through and actually bother to verify it.