Er... you do realize that it was a joke right? If I were you I would change your sarcasm detection details because they try to mislead you when you use them!
Fairly common in Europe (or at least Spain), where there's a lot of competition among ISP's (some places are still subject to some monopoly, but they're an over(under?)whelming minority). Not being able to use P2P reduces users' satisfaction, and leads to saying "byebye" and choosing another carrier.
An anonymous reader writes to tell us that Slashdot has a new website that not only shows you how cool their new hardware melting system is, but actually allows you to give it a try with your own servers.
Yeah, interesting, in a sick, twisted interpretation of that word;)
Here we have to go through all those "you won't steal a car" ads before getting to see a film in a theatre, when renting, or even before the copies we buy. And, lo!, no film I've ever downloaded from the internet had ever such warning. It's like they're trying to "educate" the wrong crowd. (Maybe they think that, if you're paying, you're a customer, and so you're still willing to play by their rules, whatever they may be, whereas if you're a 'pirate' you're a lost case... or stuff, maybe supposing they even think about the hand that feeds them is a little far-fetched...).
Reminds me of all those C&D that are sent out by companies, with no legal base whatsoever, trying to scare you into complying.
And, yes, while we're at it, let's not prosecute fiscal fraud (since it's so hard to check the company's books, and not too many companies want theirs scrutinized).
The same can be applied to websites collecting info on users to sell it to spammers. It's really, really (really!) hard to prove they've sold it, but that wouldn't stop legislators from sanctioning that law, would it?
If the EU passes a law that adds IP addresses to the list of protected private data, that only means it is illegal to collect them and store them. And if you get caught, face the consequencies, just like with any other law.
There's no European equivalent to RIAA... maybe there's such an organization on a country level, but I can assure you that sharing is completely legal in Spain, since fair use covers any kind of private copy, no matter whether you own the original or not (and yes, P2P falls into that category).
Yeah, the guys here surely think like you; luckily I've manage to infect some dozens of computers with Firefox Portable so people can have an alternative.
And if you still wonder why, you may want to ask Secunia.
They don't want you to have FLAC. They don't want you to notice that, due to their compression levels, and to the quality of the songs themselves, you would hear the same were they to provide a zipped 16 bit 48Khz wav file...
Ok, let's stop being idiotic right here. Security through obscurity doesn't refer to the password, it refers to the system. I bet my linux box is quite secure as it is now, but if I gave you my root password surely things wouldn't be quite as dandy.
So, in the real world example, S-T-O would mean that we don't know how the baking system works, but we trust it to be secure even when a bank account number is leaked. On the contrary, we could use the security by desing approach, when we know exactly the way bank accounting works, so we can spot flaws and resolve them (this way we can simulate hypothetical situations like "I've got a bank account number, what steps can I follow to take advantage of that fact and make myself rich?" If the answer is none, our system's secured against that attack, being free and all).
And, as a sidenote in case you haven't got it yet, keeping my root password away from strangers' eyes doesn't make it S-T-O.
That depends. It's not really that you are tied to a particular network; in Spain, you are forbidden to use the rest of the Spanish networks, that is, your phone won't connect to them, or accept any of their sims.
It's true that you can get your phone unlocked for a small fee, but at least here, after the initial 18 months of the contract have passed, you can ask your provider to unlock it, or to tell you how to do it, but at no cost whatsoever.
Anecdotically, a friend of mine who lives in Ireland told me that any time he buys a new phone from his carrier, he asks them to unlock it as soon as they can (he has a Spanish vodafone sim card that he uses when he's here), and they do it for him (good credit history, etc.).
That was my first thought, but the tinfoil-hatter inside of me tells me they could have had a perfect css2-parsing engine ready, just in case things got ugly...
In other, unrelated news, alx5000 has been reported to have blown up a dozen Government buildings in the last 24 hours. When inquired about these events, alx5000 said to admit to modifying governmental property, but remarked he is merely "trying different things" and testing the Government response.
In Spain we pay that levy to compensate artists* for their losses**. And copyright infringement is not illegal if there's no profit involved (no metaphysical interpretation of profit is allowed; profit in this case is just money, not 'enjoyment out of something'). So if I upload a song to a P2P service for free, I'm abiding the law, as I would be by copying a CD and giving it to a friend.
And we all know it's not a fair tax (there are some associations fighting it back, we'll get to see the results in a couple of months... or years), but dura lex sed lex.
The problem comes when they try both to make you pay the levy and prosecute you for infringenment. That makes no sense whatsoever. A levy automatically legitimizes the creation of private copies; if you can also be punished for it, you're paying twice for the same crime: presumably reducing somebody else's profits from their IP.
* Most of the money goes to SGAE, some kind of Spanish RIAA, whose members are not record labels but musicians and performers, who will then allegedly share the profit among its members. There's been some controversy lately on this topic, but I won't go into it.
** Yet to be even estimated realistically. I have never bought a Bruce Springsteen CD, but I have paid 45+79+69+81=274 euros just for tickets for concerts. That makes it more than 9 really expensive CDs. In 5 years.
wp... or virtually anything you want. You just have to get to any search form, right click on its input box and select "Add search keyword" (I use Spanish FF, YMMV). Then it asks you for a name, a keyword, and the folder to save the "bookmark". I have wpe for Spanish Wikipedia, urban for urbandictionary, imdb for... imdb, and so on.
Slashdot Mirror
Er... you do realize that it was a joke right? If I were you I would change your sarcasm detection details because they try to mislead you when you use them!
Go and play a little with this tool. Choose a fixed amount of defects and play with chip dimensions.
Fairly common in Europe (or at least Spain), where there's a lot of competition among ISP's (some places are still subject to some monopoly, but they're an over(under?)whelming minority). Not being able to use P2P reduces users' satisfaction, and leads to saying "byebye" and choosing another carrier.
An anonymous reader writes to tell us that Slashdot has a new website that not only shows you how cool their new hardware melting system is, but actually allows you to give it a try with your own servers.
Yeah, interesting, in a sick, twisted interpretation of that word ;)
;) )
Here we have to go through all those "you won't steal a car" ads before getting to see a film in a theatre, when renting, or even before the copies we buy. And, lo!, no film I've ever downloaded from the internet had ever such warning. It's like they're trying to "educate" the wrong crowd. (Maybe they think that, if you're paying, you're a customer, and so you're still willing to play by their rules, whatever they may be, whereas if you're a 'pirate' you're a lost case... or stuff, maybe supposing they even think about the hand that feeds them is a little far-fetched...).
Reminds me of all those C&D that are sent out by companies, with no legal base whatsoever, trying to scare you into complying.
(Sorry about my English, I just woke up
And, yes, while we're at it, let's not prosecute fiscal fraud (since it's so hard to check the company's books, and not too many companies want theirs scrutinized).
The same can be applied to websites collecting info on users to sell it to spammers. It's really, really (really!) hard to prove they've sold it, but that wouldn't stop legislators from sanctioning that law, would it?
If the EU passes a law that adds IP addresses to the list of protected private data, that only means it is illegal to collect them and store them. And if you get caught, face the consequencies, just like with any other law.
There's no European equivalent to RIAA... maybe there's such an organization on a country level, but I can assure you that sharing is completely legal in Spain, since fair use covers any kind of private copy, no matter whether you own the original or not (and yes, P2P falls into that category).
Tough audience, indeed...
The Googles, they do nothing!
Civil Disobedience FTW!
Yeah, the guys here surely think like you; luckily I've manage to infect some dozens of computers with Firefox Portable so people can have an alternative.
And if you still wonder why, you may want to ask Secunia.
There's no emoticon for what I'm feeling.
They don't want you to have FLAC. They don't want you to notice that, due to their compression levels, and to the quality of the songs themselves, you would hear the same were they to provide a zipped 16 bit 48Khz wav file...
Ok, let's stop being idiotic right here. Security through obscurity doesn't refer to the password, it refers to the system. I bet my linux box is quite secure as it is now, but if I gave you my root password surely things wouldn't be quite as dandy.
So, in the real world example, S-T-O would mean that we don't know how the baking system works, but we trust it to be secure even when a bank account number is leaked. On the contrary, we could use the security by desing approach, when we know exactly the way bank accounting works, so we can spot flaws and resolve them (this way we can simulate hypothetical situations like "I've got a bank account number, what steps can I follow to take advantage of that fact and make myself rich?" If the answer is none, our system's secured against that attack, being free and all).
And, as a sidenote in case you haven't got it yet, keeping my root password away from strangers' eyes doesn't make it S-T-O.
That depends. It's not really that you are tied to a particular network; in Spain, you are forbidden to use the rest of the Spanish networks, that is, your phone won't connect to them, or accept any of their sims.
It's true that you can get your phone unlocked for a small fee, but at least here, after the initial 18 months of the contract have passed, you can ask your provider to unlock it, or to tell you how to do it, but at no cost whatsoever.
Anecdotically, a friend of mine who lives in Ireland told me that any time he buys a new phone from his carrier, he asks them to unlock it as soon as they can (he has a Spanish vodafone sim card that he uses when he's here), and they do it for him (good credit history, etc.).
I used you first in my laptop in '92
Getting my new cd-recorder plugged through you
If I was young, it didn't stop you coming through
Aww, awwa...
They started making peripherals for USB
with much more simple and slower technology
and now I understand the problems you can see
Aww, awwa...
USB killed the firewire stack
USB killed the firewire stack
For my Win and in my Mac
I can't find any peripheral
Aww, awww awww awww awwww...
... and your perception of irony, apparently... ;)
Linux. The OS even bricks can run.
He can always join the Mr. X initiative...
That was my first thought, but the tinfoil-hatter inside of me tells me they could have had a perfect css2-parsing engine ready, just in case things got ugly...
In other, unrelated news, alx5000 has been reported to have blown up a dozen Government buildings in the last 24 hours. When inquired about these events, alx5000 said to admit to modifying governmental property, but remarked he is merely "trying different things" and testing the Government response.
Wow, this comment got modded funny when it's actually bleeding insightfulness...
Mmmm... The way I see it, it's more like: "How can you object on X after strongly supporting Y, when Y is a preposterously stupid idea compared to X?"
In Spain we pay that levy to compensate artists* for their losses**. And copyright infringement is not illegal if there's no profit involved (no metaphysical interpretation of profit is allowed; profit in this case is just money, not 'enjoyment out of something'). So if I upload a song to a P2P service for free, I'm abiding the law, as I would be by copying a CD and giving it to a friend.
And we all know it's not a fair tax (there are some associations fighting it back, we'll get to see the results in a couple of months... or years), but dura lex sed lex.
The problem comes when they try both to make you pay the levy and prosecute you for infringenment. That makes no sense whatsoever. A levy automatically legitimizes the creation of private copies; if you can also be punished for it, you're paying twice for the same crime: presumably reducing somebody else's profits from their IP.
* Most of the money goes to SGAE, some kind of Spanish RIAA, whose members are not record labels but musicians and performers, who will then allegedly share the profit among its members. There's been some controversy lately on this topic, but I won't go into it.
** Yet to be even estimated realistically. I have never bought a Bruce Springsteen CD, but I have paid 45+79+69+81=274 euros just for tickets for concerts. That makes it more than 9 really expensive CDs. In 5 years.
wp... or virtually anything you want. You just have to get to any search form, right click on its input box and select "Add search keyword" (I use Spanish FF, YMMV). Then it asks you for a name, a keyword, and the folder to save the "bookmark". I have wpe for Spanish Wikipedia, urban for urbandictionary, imdb for... imdb, and so on.