But add on regulations, and the potential for profit goes up
So forget free market let's just regulate everything so that a few fat cats can make tons of money? For some reason I don't think anyone would propose a bill with that intention let alone pass it.
Ever heard of a thing called the Constitution? Maybe even the 2nd Amendment? You know, right to bear arms? I don't personally own a gun, but I am not for the infringment of ANY of my constitutional rights.
Secondly, there are legitimate reasons to own a handgun, such as self defense. Granted, criminals often use guns, but that fact is, gun control rarely stops them. I believe I read somewhere that around 80% of guns used in violent crimes were not registered to the person who used them. These guns were bought illegally. Like I said earlier, passing a gun control law in hopes of stopping people looking to commit MURDER is very unlikely going to stop the criminals. Remember, these people have already made a conscious decision to TAKE ANOTHER HUMAN BEING'S LIFE. Do you really think they're going to feel bad about buying a gun off the street?
On the other hand, legitimate gun owners who want to protect their families and homes will have trouble purchasing guns because of stupid gun control laws. It's just another case of a law that hurts honest people but looks good on a politician's resume.
While the sellers might be in Ohio, anyone in the whole wide world can purchase their items, right? Perhaps even someone in another state?
A little while ago there was a supreme court case by the name of Gibbons v. Ogden. Aaron Ogden had filed suit in New York against Thomas Gibbons for operating a rival steamboat service between New York and New Jersey ports. Ogden had exclusive rights to operate steamboats in New York under a state law, while Gibbons held a federal license. Gibbons lost the case and appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which reversed the decision. The Court held that the New York law was unconstitutional, since the power to regulate interstate commerce, which extended to the regulation of navigation, belonged exclusively to Congress.
Now, you can see how Ohio issuing "ebay licenses" is quite similar to New York issuing steamboat licenses. While the commerce does take place in their state, it also crosses state lines, and is therefore interstate commerce.
I completely agree. Think about it. Ebay scammers are _already_ breaking the law, so what qualms could they possibly have about "selling on ebay without a license." That would be like passing a law that makes it illegal for drug dealers to sell without a license. The best possible impact this could have would be forcing scammers to move their operations out of state.
Meanwhile, all the honest sellers on ebay would be set back tremendously.
But all is not despair. Do you smell that? I do, it's the smell of legislation that will never be passed. This is just another one of those bills we keep seeing that has absolutely no chance of ever becoming law, serving the sole purpose of allowing the senator to say "LOOK I WAS AGAINST EBAY SCAMMING!!!!111" Honestly, it's sad that this is what our "representatives" spend most of their time doing, but hey, at least they have the sense not to actually pass it, right?
I don't think anyone is talking about the people who do the actual pirating of the software (i.e. serve it via bittorrent). We're talking about the future of the bittorrent protocol itself.
While it may seem silly to believe that a protocol for file transfer could be in trouble because a few people used it for illegal file sharing, think about what happened to Kazaa. Sharman Networks wasn't necessarily distributing any copyrighted material on their own, they were merely providing a method of hooking up with other people who have copyrighted material (ala suprnova).
While this may not be technically _illegal_, they are still propogating criminal activities and as such _someone_ is always going to be after them. Folks like the *AA have managed to harass Sharman networks to the point that it's questionable whether they'll be able to carry on, in spite of the fact that they weren't doing anything technically "illegal". People seem to think you can always hide behind the actual law, but in this day and age, blatantly exploiting loopholes such as this will surely result in some retaliation.
This is why software should be copyrighted instead of patented. The kinds of things you can get patents on these days are just downright silly. A patent on a music jukebox? A patent on user verification system? Give me a break. These patents are not meant to protect the "inventors" IP, but rather to simply scheme the court system into getting money that they don't deserve. All software patents do is hold back the industry. Think about it, what if someone had patented the idea for a GUI? Where would we all be today?
On the other hand, if software was copyrighted, the inventor's IP would still be protected (his actual code) but the idea would still be useful to other developers.
I completely agree. Honestly, if people are stupid enough to fall for these pharming/phishing scams, they deserve to be ripped off. There is plenty of information out there about how to be safe, but some people just don't want to take the time to learn about these types of things. As far as I'm concerned, if you don't take the necessary measures to protect yourself, you deserve whatever you get.
Dude, the thing with sarcasm is that if you don't at least go to a certain point with it, it becomes hard to tell in this instance whether you're being sarcastic or just being an idiot.
Well, sure, as many people have pointed out, by disabling your firewall you are leaving yourself open to attacks. In addition, the LAND attack is merely a DOS attack and thus does not pose much threat to home computers (and servers would have firewalls).
However, that is far from the point. The point is that 8 years after an attack was discovered, Microsofts commercial OS was STILL vulnerable to it. Obviously, if they're leaving themselves open to such vintage attacks as LAND, their security testing processes can't be all that great can they? What's there to assure us another more dangerous attack won't be discovered in the near future?
At least in my opinion, this is yet another argument for open source. The MS developers that worked on this part of the code probably just threw some old stuff together and called it a day. The module was probably review by few other people and thus such an obvious vulnerabilty was released in the final product. With an open source product like Linux, this kind of stuff rarely if ever happens. So many people are scrutinizing the code that the chances of an obvious vuln going unnoticed are next to nothing.
I guess what I'm saying is, before you leave your critical data to a company propogating closed source products like MS, you should at least make sure they have their proverbial shit together first.
If you're going to pay this much for a cooling system to compensate for the overclocking you've done, couldn't you just pay for a faster processor?
Once you have the top-of-the-line processor, what need is there for overclocking? What possible task could you have that would be that CPU intensive. Sure, there are some, but those are few and far between. I think this really comes down to (as was said earlier) a bunch of 13 year olds trying to show up their middle school buddies with how much they overclocked their CPUs so they can play UT2004 with all the visual effects on high:-/
It really comes down to one simple questioning: who do you want raising our children? Their parents or the government? Many parents claim that they cannot watch their children all the time and as such cannot control what kind of content their children see.
What kind of values are you instilling in your children if you have to watch them all the time to make sure they don't look at pornography?
I think this is the real problem. If children want to get porn, they can get porn. Parents need to start taking responsibility for their own children and teach them some values so they don't WANT to get porn.
Just my two cents.
-py
Perhaps you are forgetting that YOU TOO can vote. YOU TOO can influence people's opinions. However, if the majority of people in America disagree with your ideas, YOU can still do what you want. No one is forcing YOU to drive 30-40 minutes to work and live like an "animal". But if you're just bitching on slashdot because you're a slave to soceity and you're unhappy about it, take your whining elsewhere.
All the RIAA is doing is trying to protect their property. They try to protect their tracks for the same reason car dealers don't leave keys in the cars on the lot. The fact is, when you illegally download copyrighted material you _are_ breaking the law. Whether or not you think this law is correct is one thing, but a company cannot be faulted for trying to protect the rights afforded to them by law.
The golden days of Kazaa were over as soon as Napster went under and they became the most popular p2p app out there. From then on out, Kazaa users were plagued by lawsuits, spyware, and the possibility of government intervention.
The key to keeping an app used largely for illegal purposes (yeah, I know there are some legit ones but come on guys) is keeping a low profile. Regardless of whether you think it's "right" for the government to do things like this to companies who are not committing any crimes themselves, the fact is they _are_ helping to propogate illegal activity and _someone_ is going to find a way to mess with them. Personally, I used Ares. I've never had problems finding anything on it and I can use it without fear of being prosecuted because it's not one of the headliner p2p apps.
Just my two cents.
-py
Slashdot Mirror
But add on regulations, and the potential for profit goes up
So forget free market let's just regulate everything so that a few fat cats can make tons of money? For some reason I don't think anyone would propose a bill with that intention let alone pass it.
-py
Ever heard of a thing called the Constitution? Maybe even the 2nd Amendment? You know, right to bear arms? I don't personally own a gun, but I am not for the infringment of ANY of my constitutional rights.
Secondly, there are legitimate reasons to own a handgun, such as self defense. Granted, criminals often use guns, but that fact is, gun control rarely stops them. I believe I read somewhere that around 80% of guns used in violent crimes were not registered to the person who used them. These guns were bought illegally. Like I said earlier, passing a gun control law in hopes of stopping people looking to commit MURDER is very unlikely going to stop the criminals. Remember, these people have already made a conscious decision to TAKE ANOTHER HUMAN BEING'S LIFE. Do you really think they're going to feel bad about buying a gun off the street?
On the other hand, legitimate gun owners who want to protect their families and homes will have trouble purchasing guns because of stupid gun control laws. It's just another case of a law that hurts honest people but looks good on a politician's resume.
-py
While the sellers might be in Ohio, anyone in the whole wide world can purchase their items, right? Perhaps even someone in another state?
A little while ago there was a supreme court case by the name of Gibbons v. Ogden. Aaron Ogden had filed suit in New York against Thomas Gibbons for operating a rival steamboat service between New York and New Jersey ports. Ogden had exclusive rights to operate steamboats in New York under a state law, while Gibbons held a federal license. Gibbons lost the case and appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which reversed the decision. The Court held that the New York law was unconstitutional, since the power to regulate interstate commerce, which extended to the regulation of navigation, belonged exclusively to Congress.
Now, you can see how Ohio issuing "ebay licenses" is quite similar to New York issuing steamboat licenses. While the commerce does take place in their state, it also crosses state lines, and is therefore interstate commerce.
-py
I completely agree. Think about it. Ebay scammers are _already_ breaking the law, so what qualms could they possibly have about "selling on ebay without a license." That would be like passing a law that makes it illegal for drug dealers to sell without a license. The best possible impact this could have would be forcing scammers to move their operations out of state.
Meanwhile, all the honest sellers on ebay would be set back tremendously.
But all is not despair. Do you smell that? I do, it's the smell of legislation that will never be passed. This is just another one of those bills we keep seeing that has absolutely no chance of ever becoming law, serving the sole purpose of allowing the senator to say "LOOK I WAS AGAINST EBAY SCAMMING!!!!111" Honestly, it's sad that this is what our "representatives" spend most of their time doing, but hey, at least they have the sense not to actually pass it, right?
Good God I hope so...
-py
I don't think anyone is talking about the people who do the actual pirating of the software (i.e. serve it via bittorrent). We're talking about the future of the bittorrent protocol itself.
While it may seem silly to believe that a protocol for file transfer could be in trouble because a few people used it for illegal file sharing, think about what happened to Kazaa. Sharman Networks wasn't necessarily distributing any copyrighted material on their own, they were merely providing a method of hooking up with other people who have copyrighted material (ala suprnova).
While this may not be technically _illegal_, they are still propogating criminal activities and as such _someone_ is always going to be after them. Folks like the *AA have managed to harass Sharman networks to the point that it's questionable whether they'll be able to carry on, in spite of the fact that they weren't doing anything technically "illegal". People seem to think you can always hide behind the actual law, but in this day and age, blatantly exploiting loopholes such as this will surely result in some retaliation.
-py
Sorry to reply to my own post, but come on. This is slashdot. Redundancy is an art.
This is why software should be copyrighted instead of patented. The kinds of things you can get patents on these days are just downright silly. A patent on a music jukebox? A patent on user verification system? Give me a break. These patents are not meant to protect the "inventors" IP, but rather to simply scheme the court system into getting money that they don't deserve. All software patents do is hold back the industry. Think about it, what if someone had patented the idea for a GUI? Where would we all be today?
On the other hand, if software was copyrighted, the inventor's IP would still be protected (his actual code) but the idea would still be useful to other developers.
Just my two cents
-py
I completely agree. Honestly, if people are stupid enough to fall for these pharming/phishing scams, they deserve to be ripped off. There is plenty of information out there about how to be safe, but some people just don't want to take the time to learn about these types of things. As far as I'm concerned, if you don't take the necessary measures to protect yourself, you deserve whatever you get.
-py
Dude, the thing with sarcasm is that if you don't at least go to a certain point with it, it becomes hard to tell in this instance whether you're being sarcastic or just being an idiot.
That was totally NOT COOL. I almost did work. *shudders*
Well, sure, as many people have pointed out, by disabling your firewall you are leaving yourself open to attacks. In addition, the LAND attack is merely a DOS attack and thus does not pose much threat to home computers (and servers would have firewalls).
However, that is far from the point. The point is that 8 years after an attack was discovered, Microsofts commercial OS was STILL vulnerable to it. Obviously, if they're leaving themselves open to such vintage attacks as LAND, their security testing processes can't be all that great can they? What's there to assure us another more dangerous attack won't be discovered in the near future?
At least in my opinion, this is yet another argument for open source. The MS developers that worked on this part of the code probably just threw some old stuff together and called it a day. The module was probably review by few other people and thus such an obvious vulnerabilty was released in the final product. With an open source product like Linux, this kind of stuff rarely if ever happens. So many people are scrutinizing the code that the chances of an obvious vuln going unnoticed are next to nothing.
I guess what I'm saying is, before you leave your critical data to a company propogating closed source products like MS, you should at least make sure they have their proverbial shit together first.
-py
If you're going to pay this much for a cooling system to compensate for the overclocking you've done, couldn't you just pay for a faster processor?
:-/
Once you have the top-of-the-line processor, what need is there for overclocking? What possible task could you have that would be that CPU intensive. Sure, there are some, but those are few and far between. I think this really comes down to (as was said earlier) a bunch of 13 year olds trying to show up their middle school buddies with how much they overclocked their CPUs so they can play UT2004 with all the visual effects on high
Just my two cents.
-py
It really comes down to one simple questioning: who do you want raising our children? Their parents or the government? Many parents claim that they cannot watch their children all the time and as such cannot control what kind of content their children see.
What kind of values are you instilling in your children if you have to watch them all the time to make sure they don't look at pornography?
I think this is the real problem. If children want to get porn, they can get porn. Parents need to start taking responsibility for their own children and teach them some values so they don't WANT to get porn. Just my two cents. -py
Perhaps you are forgetting that YOU TOO can vote. YOU TOO can influence people's opinions. However, if the majority of people in America disagree with your ideas, YOU can still do what you want. No one is forcing YOU to drive 30-40 minutes to work and live like an "animal". But if you're just bitching on slashdot because you're a slave to soceity and you're unhappy about it, take your whining elsewhere.
All the RIAA is doing is trying to protect their property. They try to protect their tracks for the same reason car dealers don't leave keys in the cars on the lot. The fact is, when you illegally download copyrighted material you _are_ breaking the law. Whether or not you think this law is correct is one thing, but a company cannot be faulted for trying to protect the rights afforded to them by law.
The golden days of Kazaa were over as soon as Napster went under and they became the most popular p2p app out there. From then on out, Kazaa users were plagued by lawsuits, spyware, and the possibility of government intervention. The key to keeping an app used largely for illegal purposes (yeah, I know there are some legit ones but come on guys) is keeping a low profile. Regardless of whether you think it's "right" for the government to do things like this to companies who are not committing any crimes themselves, the fact is they _are_ helping to propogate illegal activity and _someone_ is going to find a way to mess with them. Personally, I used Ares. I've never had problems finding anything on it and I can use it without fear of being prosecuted because it's not one of the headliner p2p apps. Just my two cents. -py