There's this thing called national sovereignty which makes it somewhat difficult to legislate internet matters. How do you enforce your policies on a foreign nation? Put them into the peering agreement?
approach to fighting spam. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work. (One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may have other flaws which used to vary from state to state before a bad federal law was passed.)
( ) Spammers can easily use it to harvest email addresses ( ) Mailing lists and other legitimate email uses would be affected ( ) No one will be able to find the guy or collect the money ( ) It is defenseless against brute force attacks ( ) It will stop spam for two weeks and then we'll be stuck with it ( ) Users of email will not put up with it ( ) Microsoft will not put up with it ( ) The police will not put up with it ( ) Requires too much cooperation from spammers ( ) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once ( ) Many email users cannot afford to lose business or alienate potential employers ( ) Spammers don't care about invalid addresses in their lists ( ) Anyone could anonymously destroy anyone else's career or business
Specifically, your plan fails to account for
( ) Laws expressly prohibiting it (X) Lack of centrally controlling authority for email (X) Open relays in foreign countries ( ) Ease of searching tiny alphanumeric address space of all email addresses ( ) Asshats (X) Jurisdictional problems ( ) Unpopularity of weird new taxes ( ) Public reluctance to accept weird new forms of money ( ) Huge existing software investment in SMTP ( ) Susceptibility of protocols other than SMTP to attack ( ) Willingness of users to install OS patches received by email ( ) Armies of worm riddled broadband-connected Windows boxes ( ) Eternal arms race involved in all filtering approaches ( ) Extreme profitability of spam ( ) Joe jobs and/or identity theft (X) Technically illiterate politicians ( ) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with spammers ( ) Dishonesty on the part of spammers themselves ( ) Bandwidth costs that are unaffected by client filtering ( ) Outlook
and the following philosophical objections may also apply:
(X) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever been shown practical ( ) Any scheme based on opt-out is unacceptable (X) SMTP headers should not be the subject of legislation ( ) Blacklists suck ( ) Whitelists suck ( ) We should be able to talk about Viagra without being censored ( ) Countermeasures should not involve wire fraud or credit card fraud ( ) Countermeasures should not involve sabotage of public networks ( ) Countermeasures must work if phased in gradually ( ) Sending email should be free ( ) Why should we have to trust you and your servers? ( ) Incompatiblity with open source or open source licenses ( ) Feel-good measures do nothing to solve the problem ( ) Temporary/one-time email addresses are cumbersome ( ) I don't want the government reading my email (X) Killing them that way is not slow and painful enough
Furthermore, this is what I think about you:
(X) Sorry dude, but I don't think it would work. ( ) This is a stupid idea, and you're a stupid person for suggesting it. ( ) Nice try, assh0le! I'm going to find out where you live and burn your house down!
approach to fighting spam. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work. (One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may have other flaws which used to vary from state to state before a bad federal law was passed.)
( ) Spammers can easily use it to harvest email addresses ( ) Mailing lists and other legitimate email uses would be affected (X) No one will be able to find the guy or collect the money ( ) It is defenseless against brute force attacks ( ) It will stop spam for two weeks and then we'll be stuck with it ( ) Users of email will not put up with it ( ) Microsoft will not put up with it ( ) The police will not put up with it ( ) Requires too much cooperation from spammers ( ) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once ( ) Many email users cannot afford to lose business or alienate potential employers ( ) Spammers don't care about invalid addresses in their lists ( ) Anyone could anonymously destroy anyone else's career or business
Specifically, your plan fails to account for
( ) Laws expressly prohibiting it (X) Lack of centrally controlling authority for email ( ) Open relays in foreign countries ( ) Ease of searching tiny alphanumeric address space of all email addresses (X) Asshats (X) Jurisdictional problems ( ) Unpopularity of weird new taxes ( ) Public reluctance to accept weird new forms of money ( ) Huge existing software investment in SMTP ( ) Susceptibility of protocols other than SMTP to attack ( ) Willingness of users to install OS patches received by email ( ) Armies of worm riddled broadband-connected Windows boxes ( ) Eternal arms race involved in all filtering approaches (X) Extreme profitability of spam ( ) Joe jobs and/or identity theft ( ) Technically illiterate politicians ( ) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with spammers ( ) Dishonesty on the part of spammers themselves ( ) Bandwidth costs that are unaffected by client filtering ( ) Outlook
and the following philosophical objections may also apply:
( ) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever been shown practical ( ) Any scheme based on opt-out is unacceptable ( ) SMTP headers should not be the subject of legislation ( ) Blacklists suck ( ) Whitelists suck ( ) We should be able to talk about Viagra without being censored ( ) Countermeasures should not involve wire fraud or credit card fraud ( ) Countermeasures should not involve sabotage of public networks ( ) Countermeasures must work if phased in gradually ( ) Sending email should be free ( ) Why should we have to trust you and your servers? ( ) Incompatiblity with open source or open source licenses ( ) Feel-good measures do nothing to solve the problem ( ) Temporary/one-time email addresses are cumbersome ( ) I don't want the government reading my email ( ) Killing them that way is not slow and painful enough
Furthermore, this is what I think about you:
( ) Sorry dude, but I don't think it would work. ( ) This is a stupid idea, and you're a stupid person for suggesting it. ( ) Nice try, assh0le! I'm going to find out where you live and burn your house down!
take it at face value: doing something just because M$ wants you to [is stupid].
Absolutely. Doing something just (that is, only) because $ENTITY wants you to is stupid (for all values of $ENTITY), because it means you haven't thought about whose interests it serves and whose it goes against. However, the argument is (at least implicitly) that the specification should be used because it serves the community's interest of having a good software for reading (and writing) Microsoft Office documents.
See the difference? One is "because Microsoft says so", the other is "because it's useful".
But let's assume that your argument works: when someone claims that "If Microsoft didn't want it to be used, they would not have released it", it follows that you think that "using it is stupid". Your argument is independent of what "it" is, so we could have "it" refer to Windows XP, or Visual Studio 2008, or Office, or anything Microsoft has ever released. If your argument is valid, it follows that you can be made to think that using anything Microsoft has released is stupid, by repeating the initial claim for the desired values of "it".
Using Michael Moore - and Cuba - is a VERY bad example.
Why is that?
Moore is [...] a leftist prop[a]gandist.
It seems you 'murrkans have the choice of rightist propaganda and leftist propaganda. Might as well choose the true kind, right?;-) By the way, !(propaganda => falsehood): "The most effective propaganda is often completely truthful" (thus spake wikipedia).
(notice my non-use of the term liberal or left-wing here).
I noticed. Since you stress it, you must be trying to convey something with the distinction. What's your definition of leftist and left-wing, and how are they distinct?
while (not agrees_to_EULA) agrees_to_EULA = pop_up_EULA_dialog(); real_main();
Sure, you may have the right to run it. It's just not useful unless you agree to the EULA. Do you have the right to work around the check? Do you have the right to change the conditional jump into a different unconditional one? What are the legalities here?
Create new standards for networking devices, rather than rely totally on proprietary software.
Standards and software are not the same thing. How would an FOSS implementation of existing standards be insufficient in freeing us from relying totally on proprietary software? How would a new standard guarantee that we won't rely on proprietary software? Are the current standards not implementable in FOSS? What makes new standards different?
If the issue is lack of open-source drivers because there are no available specs for the NICs, the solution isn't new standards, it's a NIC with available specs. If the issue is the proprietary firmware in networking gear that you don't have a good way of replacing with your own code, again the solution isn't new standards. The solution is networking gear that lets you install your own code replacing the proprietary firmware.
Thank you! It's an interesting example, underscoring what I've intuitively known for a while: the things you need to do as a blocker, if you want a low rate of false positives* are
* Determine what the transferred information is; this is tricky if encrypted, or encoded in a non-standard way.
* Determine if the transferred information is copyrighted; this is non-trivial as there may be many different representations of a sound, video or even text. I've heard of hashing sounds such that the hashes are similar if the sounds sound alike, but how do you do the same for text (capturing translations or minor rewrites)?
* Determine whether the receiver has a valid license to the work (as the parent example points out). Basically, a computer has to know about meatspace state of affairs (which can of course be changed unbeknownst to the computer in question).
(*no, the people forcing ISPs to block don't really care, because magically they won't be affected)
Actually after thinking a bit it dawned on me to try a false user agent in Opera. I managed to get through to my email. WTF?! Ignorant web developers piss me off.
Where's my +5 Redunda^WInformative?;-)
Re:You need to clarify your question
on
Ethics In IT
·
· Score: 1
Many even have recognisable personality disorders like NPD.
Yeah, don't you just hate people with Neurotypical Personality Disorder?
Slashdot Mirror
I for one welcome our... *blink* our sleep-depri... *yawn* sleep-deprived overl... *bigyawn* overlor... *snore*
There's this thing called national sovereignty which makes it somewhat difficult to legislate internet matters. How do you enforce your policies on a foreign nation? Put them into the peering agreement?
In any case, your post advocates a
(X) technical (X) legislative ( ) market-based (X) vigilante
approach to fighting spam. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work.
(One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may
have other flaws which used to vary from state to state before a bad federal
law was passed.)
( ) Spammers can easily use it to harvest email addresses
( ) Mailing lists and other legitimate email uses would be affected
( ) No one will be able to find the guy or collect the money
( ) It is defenseless against brute force attacks
( ) It will stop spam for two weeks and then we'll be stuck with it
( ) Users of email will not put up with it
( ) Microsoft will not put up with it
( ) The police will not put up with it
( ) Requires too much cooperation from spammers
( ) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once
( ) Many email users cannot afford to lose business or alienate potential employers
( ) Spammers don't care about invalid addresses in their lists
( ) Anyone could anonymously destroy anyone else's career or business
Specifically, your plan fails to account for
( ) Laws expressly prohibiting it
(X) Lack of centrally controlling authority for email
(X) Open relays in foreign countries
( ) Ease of searching tiny alphanumeric address space of all email addresses
( ) Asshats
(X) Jurisdictional problems
( ) Unpopularity of weird new taxes
( ) Public reluctance to accept weird new forms of money
( ) Huge existing software investment in SMTP
( ) Susceptibility of protocols other than SMTP to attack
( ) Willingness of users to install OS patches received by email
( ) Armies of worm riddled broadband-connected Windows boxes
( ) Eternal arms race involved in all filtering approaches
( ) Extreme profitability of spam
( ) Joe jobs and/or identity theft
(X) Technically illiterate politicians
( ) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with spammers
( ) Dishonesty on the part of spammers themselves
( ) Bandwidth costs that are unaffected by client filtering
( ) Outlook
and the following philosophical objections may also apply:
(X) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever been shown practical
( ) Any scheme based on opt-out is unacceptable
(X) SMTP headers should not be the subject of legislation
( ) Blacklists suck
( ) Whitelists suck
( ) We should be able to talk about Viagra without being censored
( ) Countermeasures should not involve wire fraud or credit card fraud
( ) Countermeasures should not involve sabotage of public networks
( ) Countermeasures must work if phased in gradually
( ) Sending email should be free
( ) Why should we have to trust you and your servers?
( ) Incompatiblity with open source or open source licenses
( ) Feel-good measures do nothing to solve the problem
( ) Temporary/one-time email addresses are cumbersome
( ) I don't want the government reading my email
(X) Killing them that way is not slow and painful enough
Furthermore, this is what I think about you:
(X) Sorry dude, but I don't think it would work.
( ) This is a stupid idea, and you're a stupid person for suggesting it.
( ) Nice try, assh0le! I'm going to find out where you live and burn your house down!
Your finding advocates a
( ) technical (X) legislative ( ) market-based ( ) vigilante
approach to fighting spam. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work.
(One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may
have other flaws which used to vary from state to state before a bad federal
law was passed.)
( ) Spammers can easily use it to harvest email addresses
( ) Mailing lists and other legitimate email uses would be affected
(X) No one will be able to find the guy or collect the money
( ) It is defenseless against brute force attacks
( ) It will stop spam for two weeks and then we'll be stuck with it
( ) Users of email will not put up with it
( ) Microsoft will not put up with it
( ) The police will not put up with it
( ) Requires too much cooperation from spammers
( ) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once
( ) Many email users cannot afford to lose business or alienate potential
employers
( ) Spammers don't care about invalid addresses in their lists
( ) Anyone could anonymously destroy anyone else's career or business
Specifically, your plan fails to account for
( ) Laws expressly prohibiting it
(X) Lack of centrally controlling authority for email
( ) Open relays in foreign countries
( ) Ease of searching tiny alphanumeric address space of all email addresses
(X) Asshats
(X) Jurisdictional problems
( ) Unpopularity of weird new taxes
( ) Public reluctance to accept weird new forms of money
( ) Huge existing software investment in SMTP
( ) Susceptibility of protocols other than SMTP to attack
( ) Willingness of users to install OS patches received by email
( ) Armies of worm riddled broadband-connected Windows boxes
( ) Eternal arms race involved in all filtering approaches
(X) Extreme profitability of spam
( ) Joe jobs and/or identity theft
( ) Technically illiterate politicians
( ) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with spammers
( ) Dishonesty on the part of spammers themselves
( ) Bandwidth costs that are unaffected by client filtering
( ) Outlook
and the following philosophical objections may also apply:
( ) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever
been shown practical
( ) Any scheme based on opt-out is unacceptable
( ) SMTP headers should not be the subject of legislation
( ) Blacklists suck
( ) Whitelists suck
( ) We should be able to talk about Viagra without being censored
( ) Countermeasures should not involve wire fraud or credit card fraud
( ) Countermeasures should not involve sabotage of public networks
( ) Countermeasures must work if phased in gradually
( ) Sending email should be free
( ) Why should we have to trust you and your servers?
( ) Incompatiblity with open source or open source licenses
( ) Feel-good measures do nothing to solve the problem
( ) Temporary/one-time email addresses are cumbersome
( ) I don't want the government reading my email
( ) Killing them that way is not slow and painful enough
Furthermore, this is what I think about you:
( ) Sorry dude, but I don't think it would work.
( ) This is a stupid idea, and you're a stupid person for suggesting it.
( ) Nice try, assh0le! I'm going to find out where you live and burn your house down!
(My first of these; how did I do?)
Head asplodes, captcha "saplings"
See the difference? One is "because Microsoft says so", the other is "because it's useful".
But let's assume that your argument works: when someone claims that "If Microsoft didn't want it to be used, they would not have released it", it follows that you think that "using it is stupid". Your argument is independent of what "it" is, so we could have "it" refer to Windows XP, or Visual Studio 2008, or Office, or anything Microsoft has ever released. If your argument is valid, it follows that you can be made to think that using anything Microsoft has released is stupid, by repeating the initial claim for the desired values of "it".
Does this sound right or wrong to you?
</sarcasm>
If the issue is lack of open-source drivers because there are no available specs for the NICs, the solution isn't new standards, it's a NIC with available specs. If the issue is the proprietary firmware in networking gear that you don't have a good way of replacing with your own code, again the solution isn't new standards. The solution is networking gear that lets you install your own code replacing the proprietary firmware.
Thank you! It's an interesting example, underscoring what I've intuitively known for a while: the things you need to do as a blocker, if you want a low rate of false positives* are
* Determine what the transferred information is; this is tricky if encrypted, or encoded in a non-standard way.
* Determine if the transferred information is copyrighted; this is non-trivial as there may be many different representations of a sound, video or even text. I've heard of hashing sounds such that the hashes are similar if the sounds sound alike, but how do you do the same for text (capturing translations or minor rewrites)?
* Determine whether the receiver has a valid license to the work (as the parent example points out). Basically, a computer has to know about meatspace state of affairs (which can of course be changed unbeknownst to the computer in question).
(*no, the people forcing ISPs to block don't really care, because magically they won't be affected)
(use these four boxes in defense of freedom, in said order)
Has this been confirmed by netcraft?
Because the brain responds to motion. If it's animated, it's more likely you will look at it (and then fork over some money).
Informative? That's scary.
Informative to the slashdot crowd? That's really scary.
(captcha: disarm)