LOL WOW most comments and most mods I've ever gotten, and I'm not sure if it's because I said something interesting or if it's because I forgot the [sarcasm] tag:)
I believe it was from FOX news that I got that explanation - some spin DR talking about how Rove was being used as a partisan punching bag.
Personally, I sometimes wonder if we could just drop Bush off in central Iraq as a parting gift and walk away.
You didn't hear the explination? As president, Bush CANNOT LEAK CLASSIFIED INFORMATION because as the chief executive, he has the authority to DECLASIFY anything he wants. So if he said go ahead & blow a CIA cover, that cover becomes declassified by default - nothing illegal here.
The new survey found that 63 percent of Americans said they found the NSA program to be an acceptable way to investigate terrorism, including 44 percent who strongly endorsed the effort. Another 35 percent said the program was unacceptable, which included 24 percent who strongly objected to it.
What investigation is going on? Collecting huge piles of phone calls is not an investigation. If there was a spiderwebbing out from certain callers/phone numbers then you might concider it an investigation since it has a starting point - saying give me everything is not an investigation. I actually have to say that I admire Bush - he got out that sentence about we are not data-mining without laughing in the middle. Nope, no way I could have done that one.
We are collecting everything to perform and investigation, but we are not data-mining. If you are not data mining... why do you need the bulk information on hand? On the other hand, if you are just using the data to expand out from terrorist numbers - who's a terrorist today? Drugdealers, music pirates, off shore gamblers. The govt has stated that each of these groups is financially supporting terrorism.
Do we want to play 6 degrees of seperation?
Let's play aggregate numbers instead.
Assumptions:
I call/contact approximately 200 people a month between personal, business, and bills.
Everyone likewise calls/contacts approximately the same number.
30% cominality - 30% of each layer is calling the same people - leaving 70% distinct.
200 (me) * 140 (tier 1) * 140 (tier 2) * 140 (tier 3)= 548,800,000 Tier 4 - I just pased double the population of the United States
200 (me) * 140 (tier 1) * 140 (tier 2) * 140 (tier 3) * 140 (tier 4) = 76,832,000,000 Tier 5 - I am at 6 times the world population.
Don't like the 200 people premis - drop it to 100 people & you still get 2,401,000,000 Tier 5 contacts (70^4*100) (1/5 world population)
Now, yes there are problems, the initial overlap is probably higher than 30%, but it approaches 0 at tier 5 so it should ballance out. The core of the statement is evident - beyond 3 hops, there's a high statistical probablility that any given individual in the US is indirectly communicating with any other given individual. What use is that? If that's the process they are going to use, I say we present the Pirate/Global Warming argument at the next big summit.
I know that it only takes 2 hops for me to be linked to a Pakistani contact, because I talk to college friends who talk to other college friends who are from Pakistan. Since that's where the call data from this program ends (at the border)- we'll end it there as well.
Now if the NSA wants to come knock on my door, by gods they should do it because I am a miserable, mysanthropic, cretin (not illegal last I checked) not because I use the phone to order Pizza.
So D-Link units were making a NTP request, the request was denied by the server, but the D-Link engineers put it in their list of NTP servers anyway?
Yes, but worse and out of order.....
Check out NTP.org. Specifically check the Rules of Engagement, The Stratum 1 list, and RFC 1305.
Now looking at everything we have a protocol that involves 2 components, an implimentation component and a social component. The actual implimentation of the protocol is laid first as "Format your request in this fasion and we will return the responce looking like this...". However, it also has things for implimenting request timing fallback and kill requests. The social implimentation of the protocol is layed out in the RoE and the Server Lists - note the regional restrictions and the authorization requests in the server lists.
From the original article which evidently doesn't have any information on the open letter anymore - D-Link took the Stratum 1 list and shoved it into some of their router NTP lookup tables. That blows off the entire social aspect of the protocol - both the permissions and the structure.
Next they implimented only the request portion of the protocol, they ignore the backoff & get lost request structures - essentially forgoing the entire error correction portion incorperated into the RFC.
So up to the point of manufacture they have 3 strikes against them,
Failure to obey the Stratum structure of the NTP system
Failure to follow the permisions structure of the NTP system
Failure to properly impliment the NTP connection protocol
Now there was no known issue with this until the Danish exchange turned to the Stratum 1 owner and said "You are eating a hell of a lot of bandwidth here & we can't keep giving it to you for free." At which point the problem was tracked back to a series of D-Link SOHO routers. I don't recall the exact process he used , but he started sending kill requests to anything from a D-Link router. When they ignored it & kept making requests he talked to D-Link
From memory the conversation then went like this:
Dane: You're routers are hammering my server & they need to stop, you don't have permission & you're violating the rules.
D-Link: How cute, have a nickle & go get yourself some candy.
Dane: WTF? The exchange is going to charge me $8K to cover your protocol violations.
D-Link: It's not our fault & if it is talk to our Lawyer.
Lawyer: I won't talk to you unless you come to CA & argue your case.
At which point it devolved to an open letter & public shaming - which by the way seems to have worked.
[note]
IIRC someone calculated the estimated bandwidth from the D-Link routers using Stratum 1 NTP servers to be enough to continously flood a T1. So this isn't just an occasional knock on the door, it's pretty heavy usage for what amounts
to a request packet and a responce packet from each router.
Check the NTP page, there are public (open) servers and there are public (restricted) servers. There are also 3 layers of service,
Stratum 1 are principle time servers for a region & directly query atomic clocks.
Stratum 2 are general use for large regions or institutions - generally they should only be contacted by Stratum 3 servers - clients only as a last resort.
Stratum 3 are the generic NTP servers of the internet - if you're an end client you should be talking to a Stratum 3 unless none are available/unrestricted for your use.
D-Link SOHO routers do 3 things wrong.
They don't follow the NTP protocol for requests to stop using the service.
They ignore the restrictions place on the server usage - in Denmark, for use by ISP or Stratum (2/3) requests.
They hit a Stratum 1 NTP server as an end client.
So no, if you run a public NTP server that you have dutifully entered restrictions on, you are expecting everyone who comes to you to obey the NTP protocol. That includes following the restrictions, listening to the go away requests, and following the basic rules of who to talk to.
[Analogy type=bad]
In the US there are a number of parking spaces set asside for handicapped parking in almost every parking lot. Physically you can park there if you are not handicapped, but you're not supposed to (covers both ignoring restrictions and a client talking to a Stratum 1 server). If the manager of the parking lot tells you to get your car out of the spot - you should do that(refers to the kill request in the NTP protocol). In the real world if it get's this far, the cops come & give you a ticket. On the net you get open letters calling you an arogant prick who can't be bothered to figure out the basics of the protocols you are boasting about
[/Analogy]
For the record the Danish server was not the only Stratum 1 server they hit, they appear to have taken the Stratum 1 list (almost all of which restrict usage to Stratum 2 servers) and shoved it into the routers for general use - hardly the "Good internet citizen" they claim to be.
Proper queries are only denied & not re-made if the client follows the rules.
If you check the original artical, D-Link routers do not recognize the kill request, and they re-request very quickly.
So yes, he configured the NTP server correctly, AND he posted restrictions on the NTP site correctly, AND D-Link said we don't care.
It's essentially a DDOS attack on the server. There are thousands of hits with correctly formed NTP requests coming in every second - 98% of which should be directed elsewhere.
Actually according to the MPAA, they calculate that app $3Bn is lost through mass produced copies. The other $3Bn is in filesharing.
Now I might just be a bit crazy, but if say 2000 shops in the world are turning out physical copies of your work and you are loosing just as much as to the 10 million people doing filesharing, doesn't it make more sense to go after the shops churning out the DVD's by the containerload? You get to use established laws, you don't piss off your potential customers, and an individual case actually makes a difference in the level of loss. Of course it doesn't make as good (for vaying definitions of good) publicity as suing some 14 year old or a 98 year old great grandmother.
Um, if it's been in the public domain for 30+ years..... [font : mind blowingly huge, blinking]how do you trademark it?[/font]
It's.....
wait for it......
Public Domain.... Per WIKI: comprises the body of knowledge and innovation (especially creative works such as writing, art, music, and inventions) in relation to which no person or other legal entity can establish or maintain proprietary interests within a particular legal jurisdiction. This body of information and creativity is considered to be part of a common cultural and intellectual heritage, which, in general, anyone may use or exploit, whether for commercial or non-commercial purposes.
If there is a lawyer in the house correct me if I'm wrong, a smiley is a logo - certainly eligable for a trademark when first created, possibly eligible for a design patent (doubtful). It's been registered as neither, and there has been no attempt to enforce any sort of IP rights for 30+ years (in the US). If there is no person or legal entity whichhas established proprietary ownership up until now, it's by definition public domain. Once public domain, I don't see how it can be removed from the public domain.
You might as well ask people to buy DVDs and rip them for personal use. (if that isn't illegal yet)
Check out 321 & 123 Copy DVD. Both have been taken to court. If you include a CSS decryption codec in the software for copying DVD's, it's a violation of DCMA - even though the actual copying of the DVD for personal use is legal and validated under 'fair use'.
Nice manuever there - yes, it's legal to make a copy for personal use, but it's not legal to make the software to make the copy. So they get to say that they are not restricting your 'fair use' right to the material, while functionally doing exactly that. I really do admire lawyers, I can barely think 2 diametrically opposed thoughts at the same time, these guys not only think them, they can say them both simultaniously also.
Would research on that be banned?
It might as well be. When I was in school (87-91), my horticulture prof had a grant from some asian country (S. Korea or Tiawan[sp?]) to do research into getting longer fibers in the hemp plant. In order to grow the hemp, she had 4 bankers boxes of paperwork sitting in her office, and an armed guard at the greenhouse 24/7.
Know what you needed to do to get radioactive material out of the physics storage lab? Say Prof. X needs the canister of....
By the way, one of the major reasons hemp is illegal in the US is William Randolf Hurst - the newpaper guy. Hemp makes higher quality paper and has 10-20 times the per acre yeald of trees (2 harvests a year vs 1 every 5-10). Mr. Hurst owned vast tracts of forrest in the Pacific NW & felt threatened by that. So money and legality are not new aquaintences.
Um, not fearmongering terrorism, financial terrorism, as in next time this could be the NASDAQ or AMERItrade or any other big company.
It's motivation was profit
It's methods were criminal
Intimidation - the letters to users threatening a deluge of spam if they did not withdraw from Blue
Vandalism - courupting the DNS/routers to blackhole the address is technically vandalism
Bribery? - I can't think why else a backbone provider would blackhole a legitimate company (unless it was a hack in which case we have computer intrusion instead)
It's technique was criminal
DDOS attack on Tucows & blog host.
Transmition of a threat over telcom lines - whatever you say - those trans-oceanic lines are telco lines.
If I understand the law correctly, if even 1 US customer of Blue was sent that Email, then the FBI can build a case. Right now I see, unauthorized use of computer services (DDOS zombies), Blackmail (the threatening letters). I can even see DHS trying out a few of those nice new terrorism laws.
And yes, the US can & has requested extradition of people under blackmail & extortion charges, whether the 'russian speaking' country will grant the extradition is another matter - Note that if the request is made - the moment he steps into a country with extratidion he can be extradited to the US and he may or may not be allowed to talk to his embasy before it happens.
Personnally I liked the solution of $50K to the russian mafia to ruff him up, but I'm the vindictive type who likes poetic justice.
IANAL - out of the way early
John Doe v. Crazy McCracken is a civil case. It's a personal issue between the 2 litigants.
The People v Crazy McCracken is a criminal case usually - or a civil case involving the govt.
This is just like the case a couple of months ago against Google, top10models inc sued because they put thumbnails of copywriten pictures on the search results. Now, did Google violate copywrite? Um up until this trial they had done exactly nothing in violation of copywrite - they were simply cataloging what was available. Now, did top10 go after the sites neatly cataloged as violating their copywrite? No, they sued (and won) Google, saying the thumbnails were derivative works & depriving top10 of revenue.
So as I read it, had Google provided the whole image instead of the thumbnail, they would have been covered under the cataloging clause, but because they were providing a reduced resolution/size image in order to provide better service to their customers, they became more vulnerable.
Let's face it, Google is a big card catalog that references web pages, that's it. No more, no less. They do NOT review the material they put out in the searches. As such, they cannot determine child porn vs regular porn vs images from anatomy texts. If they remove adds/links when it't brought to their attention, and can show proof, then they are taking all due diligence for an automated service.
As for copywrites, unless they are going to dump the entire library of congress into their database & compare every webpage vs the contents, they can't filter for that either. Oh wait, that doesn't cover images, you don't have to submit them to the LOC or any other body so even that won't work. I guess they are just supposed to automagically know what is copywriten & what is in the public domain.
"Defendant is willing to accede to the demands of the Chinese autocrats to block the search term 'democracy,'" the complaint states, "but when it comes to the protection and well-being of our nation's innocent children, Defendant refuses to spend a dime's worth of resources to block child pornography from reaching children."
Translation: Hey they put a line of code in that says =~ s/'democracy'//ig but they won't spend a X billion dollars to create an image filtering process that can accurately determine the age of an individual in a nudie picture that can be in any of 50 different image formats.(That DARPA can't do with govt backing with standardized formats.) Oh, and elect me this fall.
Anybody else notice that ABS is 'Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene' & this drug can be made from 'acrylate and butadiene'. I don't want recycled lego's being shoved up my arm thank you very much.
My organic chem teacher used to start every lab with a new "Do NOT do this [insert process] it WILL explode" I dutifully wrote every one of them down.... by the end of the year my lab book made the Anarchist's cookbook look like Betty Crocker.
Le't hope America doesn't decide it want to go it alone so it can become the asshole/bully of the world -- though we see shades of that now.
I think it's too late for that --- Bush already took us down that road.
[waves to the nice HS officer reading the post][meta style='mocking' content='offensive' text='hopehediesofapapercutrippingupthebillofright s']
Don't know where you are, but here in the states, we see news articles about people doing murder for hire for $50 & a blowjob, I think $500,000 would get the job done even if the Russian Mafia is involved. What't the $->Ruble rate nowdays?
So as I understand it, they have just gone from possibly legal mass mailings - depending on the nature of the products they are hawking & the formatting - to extortion/blackmail and Misappropriation of computer services (DDOS) both Federal Crimes in the US & at least the extortion/blackmail claim has a history of successfull extradition.
This is the kind of briliant manuevering I have only seen from SCO's lawyers and the News of the Weird site.
FBI - moron
moron - FBI
you 2 play nice now.
I've noticed logic & $$ have very little to do with each other.... just look at Japanese gameshows.
Or wave a $100 bill around and see what is the most outragious thing someone will do to get it.
How much do they spend on bandwidth every time they push out a patch? I bet it's more than they will be issuing in credit.
When logic fails, check the $$
Slashdot Mirror
LOL WOW most comments and most mods I've ever gotten, and I'm not sure if it's because I said something interesting or if it's because I forgot the [sarcasm] tag :)
I believe it was from FOX news that I got that explanation - some spin DR talking about how Rove was being used as a partisan punching bag.
Personally, I sometimes wonder if we could just drop Bush off in central Iraq as a parting gift and walk away.
You didn't hear the explination? As president, Bush CANNOT LEAK CLASSIFIED INFORMATION because as the chief executive, he has the authority to DECLASIFY anything he wants. So if he said go ahead & blow a CIA cover, that cover becomes declassified by default - nothing illegal here.
ohh, look, just like MS I can do overflows with poorly written code --- does that make me worth 50Bn?
should be rnd(0,2)
bad fingers... bad fingers.
if ($program_info{'author'} != 'MS'){$program_info{'type'}=('Virus','Trojan','Spy ware')[rnd(0,3)];}
Whoot 1 line!
What investigation is going on? Collecting huge piles of phone calls is not an investigation. If there was a spiderwebbing out from certain callers/phone numbers then you might concider it an investigation since it has a starting point - saying give me everything is not an investigation. I actually have to say that I admire Bush - he got out that sentence about we are not data-mining without laughing in the middle. Nope, no way I could have done that one.
We are collecting everything to perform and investigation, but we are not data-mining. If you are not data mining... why do you need the bulk information on hand? On the other hand, if you are just using the data to expand out from terrorist numbers - who's a terrorist today? Drugdealers, music pirates, off shore gamblers. The govt has stated that each of these groups is financially supporting terrorism.
Do we want to play 6 degrees of seperation?
Let's play aggregate numbers instead.
Assumptions:
- I call/contact approximately 200 people a month between personal, business, and bills.
- Everyone likewise calls/contacts approximately the same number.
- 30% cominality - 30% of each layer is calling the same people - leaving 70% distinct.
This gives the following results:- 200 (me) * 1 = 200 people directly contacted.
- 200 (me) * 140 (tier 1) = 28000 tier 2 contacts.
- 200 (me) * 140 (tier 1) * 140 (tier 2) = 3,920,000 Tier 3 contacts.
- 200 (me) * 140 (tier 1) * 140 (tier 2) * 140 (tier 3)= 548,800,000 Tier 4 - I just pased double the population of the United States
- 200 (me) * 140 (tier 1) * 140 (tier 2) * 140 (tier 3) * 140 (tier 4) = 76,832,000,000 Tier 5 - I am at 6 times the world population.
Don't like the 200 people premis - drop it to 100 people & you still get 2,401,000,000 Tier 5 contacts (70^4*100) (1/5 world population)Now, yes there are problems, the initial overlap is probably higher than 30%, but it approaches 0 at tier 5 so it should ballance out. The core of the statement is evident - beyond 3 hops, there's a high statistical probablility that any given individual in the US is indirectly communicating with any other given individual. What use is that? If that's the process they are going to use, I say we present the Pirate/Global Warming argument at the next big summit.
I know that it only takes 2 hops for me to be linked to a Pakistani contact, because I talk to college friends who talk to other college friends who are from Pakistan. Since that's where the call data from this program ends (at the border)- we'll end it there as well.
Now if the NSA wants to come knock on my door, by gods they should do it because I am a miserable, mysanthropic, cretin (not illegal last I checked) not because I use the phone to order Pizza.
Yes, but worse and out of order
Check out NTP.org. Specifically check the Rules of Engagement, The Stratum 1 list, and RFC 1305.
Now looking at everything we have a protocol that involves 2 components, an implimentation component and a social component. The actual implimentation of the protocol is laid first as "Format your request in this fasion and we will return the responce looking like this...". However, it also has things for implimenting request timing fallback and kill requests. The social implimentation of the protocol is layed out in the RoE and the Server Lists - note the regional restrictions and the authorization requests in the server lists.
From the original article which evidently doesn't have any information on the open letter anymore - D-Link took the Stratum 1 list and shoved it into some of their router NTP lookup tables. That blows off the entire social aspect of the protocol - both the permissions and the structure.
Next they implimented only the request portion of the protocol, they ignore the backoff & get lost request structures - essentially forgoing the entire error correction portion incorperated into the RFC. So up to the point of manufacture they have 3 strikes against them,
- Failure to obey the Stratum structure of the NTP system
- Failure to follow the permisions structure of the NTP system
- Failure to properly impliment the NTP connection protocol
Now there was no known issue with this until the Danish exchange turned to the Stratum 1 owner and said "You are eating a hell of a lot of bandwidth here & we can't keep giving it to you for free." At which point the problem was tracked back to a series of D-Link SOHO routers. I don't recall the exact process he used , but he started sending kill requests to anything from a D-Link router. When they ignored it & kept making requests he talked to D-LinkFrom memory the conversation then went like this:
Dane: You're routers are hammering my server & they need to stop, you don't have permission & you're violating the rules.
D-Link: How cute, have a nickle & go get yourself some candy.
Dane: WTF? The exchange is going to charge me $8K to cover your protocol violations.
D-Link: It's not our fault & if it is talk to our Lawyer.
Lawyer: I won't talk to you unless you come to CA & argue your case.
At which point it devolved to an open letter & public shaming - which by the way seems to have worked.
[note] IIRC someone calculated the estimated bandwidth from the D-Link routers using Stratum 1 NTP servers to be enough to continously flood a T1. So this isn't just an occasional knock on the door, it's pretty heavy usage for what amounts to a request packet and a responce packet from each router.
- Stratum 1 are principle time servers for a region & directly query atomic clocks.
- Stratum 2 are general use for large regions or institutions - generally they should only be contacted by Stratum 3 servers - clients only as a last resort.
- Stratum 3 are the generic NTP servers of the internet - if you're an end client you should be talking to a Stratum 3 unless none are available/unrestricted for your use.
D-Link SOHO routers do 3 things wrong.- They don't follow the NTP protocol for requests to stop using the service.
- They ignore the restrictions place on the server usage - in Denmark, for use by ISP or Stratum (2/3) requests.
- They hit a Stratum 1 NTP server as an end client.
So no, if you run a public NTP server that you have dutifully entered restrictions on, you are expecting everyone who comes to you to obey the NTP protocol. That includes following the restrictions, listening to the go away requests, and following the basic rules of who to talk to.[Analogy type=bad]
In the US there are a number of parking spaces set asside for handicapped parking in almost every parking lot. Physically you can park there if you are not handicapped, but you're not supposed to (covers both ignoring restrictions and a client talking to a Stratum 1 server). If the manager of the parking lot tells you to get your car out of the spot - you should do that(refers to the kill request in the NTP protocol). In the real world if it get's this far, the cops come & give you a ticket. On the net you get open letters calling you an arogant prick who can't be bothered to figure out the basics of the protocols you are boasting about
[/Analogy]
For the record the Danish server was not the only Stratum 1 server they hit, they appear to have taken the Stratum 1 list (almost all of which restrict usage to Stratum 2 servers) and shoved it into the routers for general use - hardly the "Good internet citizen" they claim to be.
Proper queries are only denied & not re-made if the client follows the rules.
If you check the original artical, D-Link routers do not recognize the kill request, and they re-request very quickly. So yes, he configured the NTP server correctly, AND he posted restrictions on the NTP site correctly, AND D-Link said we don't care.
It's essentially a DDOS attack on the server. There are thousands of hits with correctly formed NTP requests coming in every second - 98% of which should be directed elsewhere.
Actually according to the MPAA, they calculate that app $3Bn is lost through mass produced copies. The other $3Bn is in filesharing.
Now I might just be a bit crazy, but if say 2000 shops in the world are turning out physical copies of your work and you are loosing just as much as to the 10 million people doing filesharing, doesn't it make more sense to go after the shops churning out the DVD's by the containerload? You get to use established laws, you don't piss off your potential customers, and an individual case actually makes a difference in the level of loss. Of course it doesn't make as good (for vaying definitions of good) publicity as suing some 14 year old or a 98 year old great grandmother.
should have used the preview button forgot to close the bold tag ...sigh
Um, if it's been in the public domain for 30+ years ..... [font : mind blowingly huge, blinking]how do you trademark it?[/font] .....
It's
wait for it......
Public Domain.... Per WIKI: comprises the body of knowledge and innovation (especially creative works such as writing, art, music, and inventions) in relation to which no person or other legal entity can establish or maintain proprietary interests within a particular legal jurisdiction. This body of information and creativity is considered to be part of a common cultural and intellectual heritage, which, in general, anyone may use or exploit, whether for commercial or non-commercial purposes.
If there is a lawyer in the house correct me if I'm wrong, a smiley is a logo - certainly eligable for a trademark when first created, possibly eligible for a design patent (doubtful). It's been registered as neither, and there has been no attempt to enforce any sort of IP rights for 30+ years (in the US). If there is no person or legal entity whichhas established proprietary ownership up until now, it's by definition public domain. Once public domain, I don't see how it can be removed from the public domain.
You might as well ask people to buy DVDs and rip them for personal use. (if that isn't illegal yet)
Check out 321 & 123 Copy DVD. Both have been taken to court. If you include a CSS decryption codec in the software for copying DVD's, it's a violation of DCMA - even though the actual copying of the DVD for personal use is legal and validated under 'fair use'.
Nice manuever there - yes, it's legal to make a copy for personal use, but it's not legal to make the software to make the copy. So they get to say that they are not restricting your 'fair use' right to the material, while functionally doing exactly that. I really do admire lawyers, I can barely think 2 diametrically opposed thoughts at the same time, these guys not only think them, they can say them both simultaniously also.
Would research on that be banned? ....
It might as well be. When I was in school (87-91), my horticulture prof had a grant from some asian country (S. Korea or Tiawan[sp?]) to do research into getting longer fibers in the hemp plant. In order to grow the hemp, she had 4 bankers boxes of paperwork sitting in her office, and an armed guard at the greenhouse 24/7.
Know what you needed to do to get radioactive material out of the physics storage lab? Say Prof. X needs the canister of
By the way, one of the major reasons hemp is illegal in the US is William Randolf Hurst - the newpaper guy. Hemp makes higher quality paper and has 10-20 times the per acre yeald of trees (2 harvests a year vs 1 every 5-10). Mr. Hurst owned vast tracts of forrest in the Pacific NW & felt threatened by that. So money and legality are not new aquaintences.
- It's motivation was profit
- It's methods were criminal
- Intimidation - the letters to users threatening a deluge of spam if they did not withdraw from Blue
- Vandalism - courupting the DNS/routers to blackhole the address is technically vandalism
- Bribery? - I can't think why else a backbone provider would blackhole a legitimate company (unless it was a hack in which case we have computer intrusion instead)
- It's technique was criminal
- DDOS attack on Tucows & blog host.
- Transmition of a threat over telcom lines - whatever you say - those trans-oceanic lines are telco lines.
If I understand the law correctly, if even 1 US customer of Blue was sent that Email, then the FBI can build a case. Right now I see, unauthorized use of computer services (DDOS zombies), Blackmail (the threatening letters). I can even see DHS trying out a few of those nice new terrorism laws.And yes, the US can & has requested extradition of people under blackmail & extortion charges, whether the 'russian speaking' country will grant the extradition is another matter - Note that if the request is made - the moment he steps into a country with extratidion he can be extradited to the US and he may or may not be allowed to talk to his embasy before it happens.
Personnally I liked the solution of $50K to the russian mafia to ruff him up, but I'm the vindictive type who likes poetic justice.
IANAL - out of the way early
John Doe v. Crazy McCracken is a civil case. It's a personal issue between the 2 litigants.
The People v Crazy McCracken is a criminal case usually - or a civil case involving the govt.
This is just like the case a couple of months ago against Google, top10models inc sued because they put thumbnails of copywriten pictures on the search results. Now, did Google violate copywrite? Um up until this trial they had done exactly nothing in violation of copywrite - they were simply cataloging what was available. Now, did top10 go after the sites neatly cataloged as violating their copywrite? No, they sued (and won) Google, saying the thumbnails were derivative works & depriving top10 of revenue.
So as I read it, had Google provided the whole image instead of the thumbnail, they would have been covered under the cataloging clause, but because they were providing a reduced resolution/size image in order to provide better service to their customers, they became more vulnerable.
Let's face it, Google is a big card catalog that references web pages, that's it. No more, no less. They do NOT review the material they put out in the searches. As such, they cannot determine child porn vs regular porn vs images from anatomy texts. If they remove adds/links when it't brought to their attention, and can show proof, then they are taking all due diligence for an automated service.
As for copywrites, unless they are going to dump the entire library of congress into their database & compare every webpage vs the contents, they can't filter for that either. Oh wait, that doesn't cover images, you don't have to submit them to the LOC or any other body so even that won't work. I guess they are just supposed to automagically know what is copywriten & what is in the public domain.
"Defendant is willing to accede to the demands of the Chinese autocrats to block the search term 'democracy,'" the complaint states, "but when it comes to the protection and well-being of our nation's innocent children, Defendant refuses to spend a dime's worth of resources to block child pornography from reaching children."
Translation: Hey they put a line of code in that says =~ s/'democracy'//ig but they won't spend a X billion dollars to create an image filtering process that can accurately determine the age of an individual in a nudie picture that can be in any of 50 different image formats.(That DARPA can't do with govt backing with standardized formats.) Oh, and elect me this fall.
Anybody else notice that ABS is 'Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene' & this drug can be made from 'acrylate and butadiene'. I don't want recycled lego's being shoved up my arm thank you very much.
My organic chem teacher used to start every lab with a new "Do NOT do this [insert process] it WILL explode" I dutifully wrote every one of them down .... by the end of the year my lab book made the Anarchist's cookbook look like Betty Crocker.
If it doesn't, the people involved are idiots.
This would be strange how?
Le't hope America doesn't decide it want to go it alone so it can become the asshole/bully of the world -- though we see shades of that now.t s']
I think it's too late for that --- Bush already took us down that road.
[waves to the nice HS officer reading the post][meta style='mocking' content='offensive' text='hopehediesofapapercutrippingupthebillofrigh
Don't know where you are, but here in the states, we see news articles about people doing murder for hire for $50 & a blowjob, I think $500,000 would get the job done even if the Russian Mafia is involved. What't the $->Ruble rate nowdays?
So as I understand it, they have just gone from possibly legal mass mailings - depending on the nature of the products they are hawking & the formatting - to extortion/blackmail and Misappropriation of computer services (DDOS) both Federal Crimes in the US & at least the extortion/blackmail claim has a history of successfull extradition.
This is the kind of briliant manuevering I have only seen from SCO's lawyers and the News of the Weird site.
FBI - moron
moron - FBI
you 2 play nice now.
I vote that when they start tracking it we all go to Barbara Nitke's site.
I've noticed logic & $$ have very little to do with each other.... just look at Japanese gameshows.
Or wave a $100 bill around and see what is the most outragious thing someone will do to get it.
How much do they spend on bandwidth every time they push out a patch? I bet it's more than they will be issuing in credit.
When logic fails, check the $$