1) Which card will give a screen, right out of the
box, with XFree86 standard configuration
2) Which card has the most goodies, acceleration,
3D instructions, multiprocessing, cheese-grating,
etc., best supported under XFree86
For question one, lots of popular cards work,
if they've been out for a while.
``(C) CERTIFICATION WITH RESPECT TO ADULTS.--A certification under
this paragraph is a certification that the library--
``(i) is enforcing a policy of Internet safety that includes the
operation of a technology protection measure with respect to any
of its computers with Internet access that protects against
access through such computers to visual depictions that are--
``(I) obscene; or
``(II) child pornography; and
``(ii) is enforcing the operation of such technology protection
measure during any use of such computers.
I believe, given what Michael Sims (yes, that Michael Sims,
Slashdot/YRO editor) did against Censorware Project,
this information is important to this discussion. And
I'll take any karma hit for it.
The http://censorware.org site
has been taken down since the following was posted, more than a month now.
Date: Sat, 04 Nov 2000 16:49:46 EST
To: CYBERIA-L@LISTSERV.AOL.COM
From: Jonathan Wallace <jw@BWAY.NET>
Subject: The Censorware Project
I've been trying hard to avoid washing dirty laundry in public, but a
couple of recent posts have raised the issue and I'd like to give an
account of what happened to the Censorware Project (the site at
http://censorware.org is now offline). What we have here is the
spectacle of a group member who volunteered to act as webmaster
effectively closing a group which wants to continue, because the
domain happened to be registered in his name.
The Censorware Project was originally an informal collective of six
people who collaborated online to fight censorware: Seth Finkelstein,
Bennett Haselton, Jamie McCarthy, Mike Sims, Jim Tyre and
myself. After Seth left the group, the remaining five
continued. Several of us had never met or even spoken on the phone,
yet for some time--around two years as I recall--we had a remarkably
easy collaboration. There was no funding, no hierarchy, no titles, not
even project managers. Someone would suggest a project and take the
responsibility for a part of it, others would sign up for other
elements, and proceeding this way we got a remarkable amount of work
done, including reports on X-Stop, Cyberpatrol, Bess and other
products.
Even though two of us were attorneys--Jim and myself--we never
incorporated the group or wrote a charter or any contracts among
ourselves. Mike Sims was obliging enough to register the domain, just
as other members paid for press releases and the other incidental
expenses which came along.
Robert Frost said that "nothing gold can stay," and the Censorware
Project was no exception. Over the summer, Mike Sims' reaction to a
perceived slight was to take the site down for a week, exactly as Seth
says in his mail. He sent us mail at the time saying something like
"The Censorware Project is over." I replied to him that, given that
the group was a collective and we all had an interest in its work
product, the domain, and the goodwill it had achieved, the decision
was not his to make. Sims did not reply.
Mike put the site back up a week later without explaining, let alone
apologizing for, his actions. Given his continuing failure to answer
any email from me (and I think from others) and the overall signs that
Sims thought the group was exclusively his, I wrote him several emails
requesting that he turn the domain over to Jamie or Bennett, as I felt
we could no longer trust him to administer it. We also found out
during that time that important email from people trying to contact
us, including members of the press, was not being answered by Sims,
nor being forwarded to other members.
I ultimately became exasperated that my name was listed as a principal
on what had now become a "rogue" site I had no control over. Over
about a five week period, I wrote Sims several more emails asking him
to delete my name from the site if he wasn't going to transfer the
domain. Again, I received no reply.
Today, Sims took the Censorware Project site offline again, with a
message which says "Due to demands from some of the people who
contributed, in however minor a fashion, to this site, it has been
taken down." Judging from some email I received from him today, this
means me.
Its a sad thing, both because we got some good work done and because
some of the other members of the group were eager to continue and in
fact have continued working, while deprived of the Censorware Project
site, name, email aliases and public recognition. These further
efforts are appearing on Bennett Haselton's Peacefire site,
www.peacefire.org. (I applaud the work but take no credit as I have
not been involved in some time.)
On the page currently at www.censorware.org Sims makes the following
request: "If you are interested in volunteering to fight censorware,
please contact me." One of the reasons I made this post was so that
anyone considering working with Mike can make an informed decision.
MAPS is the equivalent of blockades and total
sanctions. Every man, women, and child (i.e.
site) in the targeted country (i.e. ISP) is
going to be made to suffer, under the theory
that they will then be motivated to fight
the enemy (the spammer or all supporters).
Note a basic finding is that one has no idea about the
actual content of the categories. It's
common for "Sex" to have everything from feminism to gay rights.
Akamai acknowledged today that the technique is effective but said it
would be short-lived.
"Akamai has a lot of mechanisms in our system that
would render this approach ineffective immediately,"
said company representative Jeff Young. "Akamai will
shut down the delivery of content that is accessed in
this way, so users that would follow these
instructions would very quickly be served broken
images and downed sites."
Ramos: I begin by reference to your honor's analogy about the orphan
asking for the mercy of the court. This is the orphan not only
asking for the mercy of the court but asking the court for
compensation for the loss of the parents the orphan killed.
The court: But plaintiffs have argued, and I think persuasively,
that defendant is capable of exercising supervisory powers over its
service.
This is a key element of the ruling. Napster was not just
providing a device, with no assocation with the user after a sale.
To wit:
Although defendant, as I said, contends that it is technologically
difficult to distinguish copyrighted and authorized from not
copyrighted or copyrighted and unauthorized, defendant has taken
great paints to inform the court about methods it uses for blocking
users about whom rights holders complain. The defendant can in fact
police, and will have to given the nature of its program and the
very purposes of it, police its service. And the court finds that,
in fact, the defendant does have the right and ability to supervise.
I've now checked out the charges. The Livid-dev people have plenty of reason to be livid at Declan. Consider this extensive critique of Declan's actions:
- irresponsibly sensationalized an innocent effort to get DVDs running under Linux into a Grand Piracy Conspiracy against the MPAA/DVD Forum, against all evidence and contrary to reality
- made the situation worse with followups equally inaccurate [ real people are suffering real problems as a result, with colassal financial loss looming, not to mention possible criminal charges which, while they are innocent (at least in intent, though perhaps not on a technicality as the laws have been so severely revamped in favor of the MPAA in the last couple of years, at least in the US and UK), will probably devistate them financially to defend against. ] - a refusal to take responsibility for your own shoddy work, blaming instead the victims for not wanting to talk to you, or not talking to you in a timely enough manner to meet your schedule, or a short deadline. While these may have contributed, you are the one who went with the story as is, knowing you didn't have the full [ one 15 year old developer has already informed you on this list that he was in school at the time and unable to get, much less respond to, your requests before your ran your story ] - an arrogant, unrepented, and calous attitude, where you appear to be more concerned with the (remarkably mild) flames you have received here, yet show little or no concern to the lives you've helped to throw into disarray through the inaccurate stories that were run
I would imagine if I were one directly affected, my perspective of your behavior would be even less flattering.
Definitely read the threadWired article on legal threats. Classic Declan.
I think the original writer read too much into Jamie's posting the link. But, frankly, I understand the reaction.
I have known Declan McCullagh since 1994, and helping him was one of the greatest regrets of my free-speech work. I can attest from personal experience that he will backstab people and increase their risk of being sued, if he sees any advantage to it. I've posted about this a while back on the dvd-discuss list, so I'm not trolling.
HOWEVER... I know of no "rapport" of his with slashdot (but, umm, actually that would explain a few things... hmm...). What is this rapport of which you speak?
There's something here to keep in mind. These issues, these legal battles, they aren't just flame-wars. We can't killfile the MPAA. We can't bitbucket a court order. We can't give a judge negative karma. Too many people have bought into the idea that we exist in a world that is unaffected by the powerful forces which shape society. Governments, large corporations, big-money. They are real. They affect you. If the actions of programmers are inimical to these interests, they can fight back with a vengeance. This lesson MUST always be remembered.
Like, ah, snatch, box and pussy all have other meanings, man. Even in a Walt Disney movie, you can say, We're going to snatch that pussy and put him in a box and bring him on the airplane
Here is part of the second press release that went out regarding the topic (posted with general permission, though all blame and negative karma is my fault)
Date: Fri, 23 Jun 2000 18:36:36 -0500 From: "Bennett Haselton" Sender: owner-peacefire-press@iain.com To: peacefire-press@iain.com Subject: Wired News reporter responds to plagiarism charges Reply-To: Bennett Haselton
[sent to journalists on Peacefire's press contacts list]
(this is unpleasant business and not exactly news, so I wouldn't blame you for skipping this message, but original post about the Wired article did get a lot of responses)
The Wired News reporter, Declan McCullagh, who wrote the story about the BAIR filter based on our report at: http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,36923, 00.html has responded to our plagiarism accusations in a message posted to a message board on WELL.com, copied below (the actual message boards are only available to WELL customers).
I do believe, as Declan says, that he spent time verifying our results (that was why we offered him an exclusive, which I thought was only fair). However, his report at http://www.well.com/user/declan/bair/ did not uncover anything new that wasn't already covered in our report at http://www.peacefire.org/censorware/BAIR/ , which Declan read before he started his tests, and which included a section, "How you can duplicate these results in your own experiment". (In science, as in journalism, it's important for peers to verify your results, but the first discoverer is still supposed to get credit -- since it's a lot easier to verify someone else's discoveries, if you know exactly what to look for and what the results are going to be.)
I think what Declan did was a disgrace; if I were an editor, I would consider firing him. Certainly we're not giving any more advance copies of our reports to Wired News -- which might be cheerful news for everyone else.
Slashdot Mirror
Yahoo's Complaint for Declaratory Relief, (.pdf, 3.2MB), December 21, 2000
English Translation of French ruling (.pdf), November 20, 2000
French Court Imposes Speech Restrictions Beyond Its Borders, November 20, 2000
"It would be easier to give Bella Azbug a hickey on the nose than to sue a cartoonist for libel" - Steve Dallas, Bloom County
Apple is not going to sue. It's not worth it. There has to be a reason to go to all the trouble for calling in lawyers.
Besides, journalists are invulnerable.
1) Which card will give a screen, right out of the box, with XFree86 standard configuration
2) Which card has the most goodies, acceleration, 3D instructions, multiprocessing, cheese-grating, etc., best supported under XFree86
For question one, lots of popular cards work, if they've been out for a while.
For question two, that's a whole debate.
``(i) is enforcing a policy of Internet safety that includes the operation of a technology protection measure with respect to any of its computers with Internet access that protects against access through such computers to visual depictions that are--
``(I) obscene; or
``(II) child pornography; and
``(ii) is enforcing the operation of such technology protection measure during any use
of such computers.
http://sethf.com/anticensorware/smartfilter/gotali st.php e stevils.php
http://sethf.com/anticensorware/smartfilter/great
4. The CDA was a criminal law.
This bill is a funding condition.
I believe, given what Michael Sims (yes, that Michael Sims, Slashdot/YRO editor) did against Censorware Project, this information is important to this discussion. And I'll take any karma hit for it.
The http://censorware.org site has been taken down since the following was posted, more than a month now.
Date: Sat, 04 Nov 2000 16:49:46 EST
To: CYBERIA-L@LISTSERV.AOL.COM
From: Jonathan Wallace <jw@BWAY.NET>
Subject: The Censorware Project
I've been trying hard to avoid washing dirty laundry in public, but a couple of recent posts have raised the issue and I'd like to give an account of what happened to the Censorware Project (the site at http://censorware.org is now offline). What we have here is the spectacle of a group member who volunteered to act as webmaster effectively closing a group which wants to continue, because the domain happened to be registered in his name.
The Censorware Project was originally an informal collective of six people who collaborated online to fight censorware: Seth Finkelstein, Bennett Haselton, Jamie McCarthy, Mike Sims, Jim Tyre and myself. After Seth left the group, the remaining five continued. Several of us had never met or even spoken on the phone, yet for some time--around two years as I recall--we had a remarkably easy collaboration. There was no funding, no hierarchy, no titles, not even project managers. Someone would suggest a project and take the responsibility for a part of it, others would sign up for other elements, and proceeding this way we got a remarkable amount of work done, including reports on X-Stop, Cyberpatrol, Bess and other products.
Even though two of us were attorneys--Jim and myself--we never incorporated the group or wrote a charter or any contracts among ourselves. Mike Sims was obliging enough to register the domain, just as other members paid for press releases and the other incidental expenses which came along.
Robert Frost said that "nothing gold can stay," and the Censorware Project was no exception. Over the summer, Mike Sims' reaction to a perceived slight was to take the site down for a week, exactly as Seth says in his mail. He sent us mail at the time saying something like "The Censorware Project is over." I replied to him that, given that the group was a collective and we all had an interest in its work product, the domain, and the goodwill it had achieved, the decision was not his to make. Sims did not reply.
Mike put the site back up a week later without explaining, let alone apologizing for, his actions. Given his continuing failure to answer any email from me (and I think from others) and the overall signs that Sims thought the group was exclusively his, I wrote him several emails requesting that he turn the domain over to Jamie or Bennett, as I felt we could no longer trust him to administer it. We also found out during that time that important email from people trying to contact us, including members of the press, was not being answered by Sims, nor being forwarded to other members.
I ultimately became exasperated that my name was listed as a principal on what had now become a "rogue" site I had no control over. Over about a five week period, I wrote Sims several more emails asking him to delete my name from the site if he wasn't going to transfer the domain. Again, I received no reply.
Today, Sims took the Censorware Project site offline again, with a message which says "Due to demands from some of the people who contributed, in however minor a fashion, to this site, it has been taken down." Judging from some email I received from him today, this means me.
Its a sad thing, both because we got some good work done and because some of the other members of the group were eager to continue and in fact have continued working, while deprived of the Censorware Project site, name, email aliases and public recognition. These further efforts are appearing on Bennett Haselton's Peacefire site, www.peacefire.org. (I applaud the work but take no credit as I have not been involved in some time.)
On the page currently at www.censorware.org Sims makes the following request: "If you are interested in volunteering to fight censorware, please contact me." One of the reasons I made this post was so that anyone considering working with Mike can make an informed decision.
War Is Hell :-(
What other reports have an extensive discussion of The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and the legal risks involved in anticensorware investigations?
Hey, at least enjoy the section header quotes :-)
Note a basic finding is that one has no idea about the actual content of the categories. It's common for "Sex" to have everything from feminism to gay rights.
SmartFilter - I've Got A Little List is ati st.php
http://sethf.com/anticensorware/smartfilter/gotal
Please also read the discussion about Federal legislation in this area, and legal risks for investigators.
Type in as:
http://www.insaneclownposse.com
http://www.gcsextreme.com
http://www.extreme-offroad.com
If you don't type that EXACTLY (http and www,
not case-sensitive), you will get a misleading result
I'm puzzled. This article starts with the phrase "Journalistic Integrity". That must be a typo for something, but I can't figure out what.
I think the original writer read too much into Jamie's posting the link. But, frankly, I understand the reaction.
Yeah, Declan is well-known and says popular things. But he also backstabs and uses people who are fool enough to trust him.
For the most recent example (that I know), check out this Peacefire press release about Declan plagiarism
Ironically, I told the guy not to deal with Declan. Being proven right was a very sad I-told-you-so.
I will check out your charges.
I have known Declan McCullagh since 1994, and helping him was one of the greatest regrets of my free-speech work. I can attest from personal experience that he will backstab people and increase their risk of being sued, if he sees any advantage to it. I've posted about this a while back on the dvd-discuss list, so I'm not trolling.
HOWEVER ... I know of no "rapport" of his with slashdot (but, umm, actually that would explain a few things ... hmm ...). What is this rapport of which you speak?
Or given very long jail sentences.
There's something here to keep in mind. These issues, these legal battles, they aren't just flame-wars. We can't killfile the MPAA. We can't bitbucket a court order. We can't give a judge negative karma. Too many people have bought into the idea that we exist in a world that is unaffected by the powerful forces which shape society. Governments, large corporations, big-money. They are real. They affect you. If the actions of programmers are inimical to these interests, they can fight back with a vengeance. This lesson MUST always be remembered.
This reminds me of stories of Communist Party cells where every member was an FBI agent reporting on all the others.
Adds new meaning to the idea of a robotic actor
And killing the audience
Date: Fri, 23 Jun 2000 18:36:36 -0500
From: "Bennett Haselton"
Sender: owner-peacefire-press@iain.com
To: peacefire-press@iain.com
Subject: Wired News reporter responds to plagiarism charges
Reply-To: Bennett Haselton
[sent to journalists on Peacefire's press contacts list]
(this is unpleasant business and not exactly news, so I wouldn't blame you for skipping this message, but original post about the Wired article did get a lot of responses)
The Wired News reporter, Declan McCullagh, who wrote the story about the BAIR filter based on our report at:, 00.html
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,36923
has responded to our plagiarism accusations in a message posted to a message board on WELL.com, copied below (the actual message boards are only available to WELL customers).
I do believe, as Declan says, that he spent time verifying our results (that was why we offered him an exclusive, which I thought was only fair). However, his report at http://www.well.com/user/declan/bair/ did not uncover anything new that wasn't already covered in our report at http://www.peacefire.org/censorware/BAIR/ , which Declan read before he started his tests, and which included a section, "How you can duplicate these results in your own experiment". (In science, as in journalism, it's important for peers to verify your results, but the first discoverer is still supposed to get credit -- since it's a lot easier to verify someone else's discoveries, if you know exactly what to look for and what the results are going to be.)
I think what Declan did was a disgrace; if I were an editor, I would consider firing him. Certainly we're not giving any more advance copies of our reports to Wired News -- which might be cheerful news for everyone else.
[more detail snipped]