From the ruling: 7. Ritz, at all times material, acted intentionally and with the intent to gather as much DNS and other information as possible about Sierra and its principals, agents and related entities and persons. Ritz made the information he gathered available to several persons, including a competitor of Sierra, SuperNews and SuperNews accessed that information. Ritz has admitted that SuperNews personnel accessed the zilla queries file where it resided on his computer via http connection.
8. The intended purpose of a zone transfer is primarily one of redundancy. Zone -3- transfers are the means by which a primary authoritative domain name server copies the domain structure to a secondary authoritative domain name server for the purpose of redundancy. Generally, both of those servers pertain to the same domain. In all intended uses of a zone transfer, the secondary server is operated by the same party that operates the primary server. A secondary intended purpose for zone transfers is to permit trouble shooting in which case zone transfers may sometimes be undertaken via the manually conducted host -l command. In those instances, however, the person conducting the diagnosis acts with the authorization of the operator of the system and is usually the network administrator for the system.
9. The evidence presented at trial produced no treatises or authoritative sources to suggest that any other intended purpose exists for a zone transfer. The academic and technical resources put in evidence at trial uniformly indicate that zone transfers have no intended purposes beyond those mentioned above.
10. The literature available on the subject all refers to access attempts such as the host -l command issued by Ritz under the circumstances of this case as "unauthorized." Microsoft itself, as well as various other, authorities all refer to zone transfers conducted by an individual other than the network administrator or an authoritative name server as "unauthorized."
11. Ritz accessed Sierra's computer, copied and disclosed information found on that computer beginning at least with the February 27, 2005 access and continuing thereafter through the summer of 2005. Ritz made several access attempts which were also unsuccessful after April 1, 2005.
12. Publication of the zilla queries file containing information about Sierra including its internal domain structure created a grave security risk for Sierra. That information, in the -4- hands of outsiders with malicious intent. threatens the integrity of Sierra's computer system. Publication of that information also competitively injured Sierra since a competitor such as SuperNews can use the information to better evaluate and compete with Sierra.
13. Ritz has port scanned thousands of computed, including those of Sierra.
14. Ritz frequently attempted to access Sierra's computers from a variety of locations in case Sierra was blocking access from his known IP address. He also concealed the IP address of his point of origin in order to shield himself from blame or, as he put it, "taking the beat."
15. Ritz has participated in approximately eighteen UseNet death penalties ("UDP"). A UDP is an attempt to force a Usenet service provider to change its behavior by threatening to have peers cancel their relationships with the target of the UDP, canceling messages propagated from the target of the UDP and if that fails, to go to other providers to convince them to cease doing business with the target. Once he was armed with Sierra's internal domain structure and published that information. Ritz called for a UDP against Sierra.
16. Ritz has issued Internet mail bombs and undertaken efforts which resulted in disconnecting third parties from the Internet
This guy was not doing ANYTHING legitimate. He was trying to damage their business through whatever means he could, including attacking their customer base. On top of it all, he began to try to circumvent the actions they took to prevent him from accessing the information. He started using proxies to bypass an IP block. To say this has any effect on a secondary DNS doing a zone transfer for DNS purposes is beyond stupid.
I agree completely. Furthermore, I am stunned (STUNNED, I tell you!) that Windows Live could possibly be designed to work with Windows exclusively. This is a terrible crime that must be *yawn*
When Americans (as a society) decided that the schools should shoulder the burden of raising their kids and teaching them morals and values, the schools gained the right to punish students for anything they do anytime, anywhere. Now I realize that, of course, that applies to no one here, but on the whole it is true. We have made the school systems in educators, parents, and to a limited extent law enforcement.
And when you tell them to shove it, you are telling them that you don't need compensation.
That's how it works. When you get bad service in a restaurant and the manager offers to comp part of your meal, you don't get to demand $50 worth of free drinks.
And when you sign a contract that states no level of uptime is guaranteed, you don't get to sue when it goes down.
The following notice has been posted on the school's website. Looks like some attitude was involved which would make more sense. Too bad the principal isn't allowed to provide more details about the use of software.
Portable Firefox still sticks a directory in %homedir%\Application Data. That is writing to the hard drive, in a location that even a non-admin has full control over.
If the electric company wanted to install a hot tub that I didn't have to pay for, didn't have to run, and could bury in the backyard, I would be more than ok with that. Kind of the way users of XP and prior could do with a browser. It does seem that Vista users get iexplore.exe as the process displaying folders, etc. At least in my Parallels install.
And that is absolute bullshit. It is not now, and never was, "built-in to the OS".
There are quite a lot of programs that use the IE ActiveX plugin, but in almost all cases, that works perfectly well using other browser engines instead. For instance: Steam embeds IE, but I can run it on Linux and have Gecko (the Mozilla/Firefox engine) render those message-of-the-day windows.
Or maybe you're confusing Internet Explorer with Windows Explorer? Wouldn't be the first time.
Funny, when I open My Computer, the process is listed as iexplore.exe....
Perhaps it is just me, but I don't see where the EU should be able to FORCE Microsoft to make their browser more standards-compliant. If Microsoft CHOOSES to do things proprietarily and therefore serve an inferior product, there should be nothing stopping them.
Further, I don't see why MS should be forced to "bundle" other browsers into the OS itself, since OEMs can already choose to add them to a standard install. Or do most European customers buy a retail copy of Windows?
Actually, regardless of right or wrong, this ends up being just plain stupid. The first part of the complaint seeks to give them more equal footing on customers' computers. The second serves to weaken that footing by removing one of Opera's only advantages through draconian measures.
By your logic, companies that display a Visa/Mastercard logo shouldn't be allowed to sell socks six pairs to a package because you only need two pairs.
I don't think I need to tell you how foolish that is.
I went to a gas station and tried to buy a drink and some chips with my debit card. They don't do cards on purchases less than $5. The transaction fee is prohibitively expensive on small purchases, wiping out any profit from the sale.
The only jobs this bill is going to create are the Intellectual Property police that staff this new agency. And since they're going to be funded through seizures of private property, it's hard to see how that will act as anything but a leech on the economy.
But just think, we can have an Intellectual Property Czar with absolutely no hyperbole.
The problem is this: a widespread boycott would just serve as fuel that they are losing even more money to piracy. There is obviously no problem with their distribution model, with the product they are producing, or the ways in which they have decided to "defend their copyrights."
Who cares about increasing the blood supply so that there are fewer times of crisis when you can choose which voicemail to listen to first? GET YOUR DAMN PRIORITIES STRAIGHT!
Lives can be saved by listening to your voicemails in the order you want. Lives can be saved by not having buttons on your phone. LIVES CAN BE SAVED BY NEVER HAVING TO WORRY ABOUT YOUR PHONE FALLING AND THE BATTERY POPPING OFF!
Why you Apple Haters can't see this is beyond me. I weep for our future.
Also, look at the customer agreement you agreed to ON THE DATE OF THAT AD, most notably this clause:
"6. b. In addition, Customer agrees not to:
vii. restrict, inhibit or otherwise interfere with the ability of any other person to use or enjoy Comcast equipment or services, including, without limitation, posting or transmitting any information or software which contains a virus or other harmful feature, or generating levels of traffic sufficient to impede others' ability to send or retrieve information;" [emphasis mine] http://web.archive.org/web/20010405061019/www.comcastonline.com/subscriber-v3-clr.asp
Now, I'm no lawyer but it sounds like you gave up your "right" to saturate the link all day every day, or even during peak times. In fact, that could be read as "You agree that we can limit your usage if we feel that you are taking more than your share of our service." I suspect that is where Comcast and others get to set a limit and not provide a precise number.
Except it is a stolen car, and you don't get your goods out of police impound. Usually impounded (and thereby forfeited) goods are auctioned off to whomever wants them. At least they are where I am from.
In response to "stolen" data.... Ever used a PE boot disk? Works wonders on borked installs to get data off a hard drive where the native OS won't boot. You are still in possession of your data. They are simply refusing to facilitate that retrieval, since you are not a legal, paying customer.
From the ruling:
7. Ritz, at all times material, acted intentionally and with the intent to gather as much DNS and other information as possible about Sierra and its principals, agents and related entities and persons. Ritz made the information he gathered available to several persons, including a competitor of Sierra, SuperNews and SuperNews accessed that information. Ritz has admitted that SuperNews personnel accessed the zilla queries file where it resided on his computer via http connection.
8. The intended purpose of a zone transfer is primarily one of redundancy. Zone
-3-
transfers are the means by which a primary authoritative domain name server copies the domain structure to a secondary authoritative domain name server for the purpose of redundancy. Generally, both of those servers pertain to the same domain. In all intended uses of a zone transfer, the secondary server is operated by the same party that operates the primary server. A secondary intended purpose for zone transfers is to permit trouble shooting in which case zone transfers may sometimes be undertaken via the manually conducted host -l command. In those instances, however, the person conducting the diagnosis acts with the authorization of the operator of the system and is usually the network administrator for the system.
9. The evidence presented at trial produced no treatises or authoritative sources to suggest that any other intended purpose exists for a zone transfer. The academic and technical resources put in evidence at trial uniformly indicate that zone transfers have no intended purposes beyond those mentioned above.
10. The literature available on the subject all refers to access attempts such as the host -l command issued by Ritz under the circumstances of this case as "unauthorized." Microsoft itself, as well as various other, authorities all refer to zone transfers conducted by an individual other than the network administrator or an authoritative name server as "unauthorized."
11. Ritz accessed Sierra's computer, copied and disclosed information found on that computer beginning at least with the February 27, 2005 access and continuing thereafter through the summer of 2005. Ritz made several access attempts which were also unsuccessful after April 1, 2005.
12. Publication of the zilla queries file containing information about Sierra including its internal domain structure created a grave security risk for Sierra. That information, in the
-4-
hands of outsiders with malicious intent. threatens the integrity of Sierra's computer system. Publication of that information also competitively injured Sierra since a competitor such as SuperNews can use the information to better evaluate and compete with Sierra.
13. Ritz has port scanned thousands of computed, including those of Sierra.
14. Ritz frequently attempted to access Sierra's computers from a variety of locations in case Sierra was blocking access from his known IP address. He also concealed the IP address of his point of origin in order to shield himself from blame or, as he put it, "taking the beat."
15. Ritz has participated in approximately eighteen UseNet death penalties ("UDP"). A UDP is an attempt to force a Usenet service provider to change its behavior by threatening to have peers cancel their relationships with the target of the UDP, canceling messages propagated from the target of the UDP and if that fails, to go to other providers to convince them to cease doing business with the target. Once he was armed with Sierra's internal domain structure and published that information. Ritz called for a UDP against Sierra.
16. Ritz has issued Internet mail bombs and undertaken efforts which resulted in disconnecting third parties from the Internet
This guy was not doing ANYTHING legitimate. He was trying to damage their business through whatever means he could, including attacking their customer base. On top of it all, he began to try to circumvent the actions they took to prevent him from accessing the information. He started using proxies to bypass an IP block. To say this has any effect on a secondary DNS doing a zone transfer for DNS purposes is beyond stupid.
I think the issue is that they copied the game board's layout, possibly right down to the various colors (whatever they mean).
It is up to the club to SEEK that letter. If they don't do so, it shows they have no interest in honoring Ford's trademark.
I agree completely. Furthermore, I am stunned (STUNNED, I tell you!) that Windows Live could possibly be designed to work with Windows exclusively. This is a terrible crime that must be *yawn*
You'd have to be a damn good salesman to sell a used car for more than it cost you new, plus the interest you paid on the loan...
Claim? They are registered trademarks. http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=i15246.6.1 http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=i15246.6.2 http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=i15246.6.4
Interestingly, the Black Mustang Club has a dead trademark. http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=i15246.6.4
But until the club actually agrees to and signs such a license, they must attack and prevent. Such is the nature of trademark law in the US.
Except that VT isn't actually involved in this case in any way. Care to RTS?
When Americans (as a society) decided that the schools should shoulder the burden of raising their kids and teaching them morals and values, the schools gained the right to punish students for anything they do anytime, anywhere. Now I realize that, of course, that applies to no one here, but on the whole it is true. We have made the school systems in educators, parents, and to a limited extent law enforcement.
Welcome to America in the 21st century.
And when you tell them to shove it, you are telling them that you don't need compensation.
That's how it works. When you get bad service in a restaurant and the manager offers to comp part of your meal, you don't get to demand $50 worth of free drinks.
And when you sign a contract that states no level of uptime is guaranteed, you don't get to sue when it goes down.
Fixed that for you.
Portable Firefox still sticks a directory in %homedir%\Application Data. That is writing to the hard drive, in a location that even a non-admin has full control over.
If the electric company wanted to install a hot tub that I didn't have to pay for, didn't have to run, and could bury in the backyard, I would be more than ok with that. Kind of the way users of XP and prior could do with a browser. It does seem that Vista users get iexplore.exe as the process displaying folders, etc. At least in my Parallels install.
Still no monthly charge for IE, though.
Funny, when I open My Computer, the process is listed as iexplore.exe....
Perhaps it is just me, but I don't see where the EU should be able to FORCE Microsoft to make their browser more standards-compliant. If Microsoft CHOOSES to do things proprietarily and therefore serve an inferior product, there should be nothing stopping them.
Further, I don't see why MS should be forced to "bundle" other browsers into the OS itself, since OEMs can already choose to add them to a standard install. Or do most European customers buy a retail copy of Windows?
Actually, regardless of right or wrong, this ends up being just plain stupid. The first part of the complaint seeks to give them more equal footing on customers' computers. The second serves to weaken that footing by removing one of Opera's only advantages through draconian measures.
By your logic, companies that display a Visa/Mastercard logo shouldn't be allowed to sell socks six pairs to a package because you only need two pairs.
I don't think I need to tell you how foolish that is.
Insightful.
I went to a gas station and tried to buy a drink and some chips with my debit card. They don't do cards on purchases less than $5. The transaction fee is prohibitively expensive on small purchases, wiping out any profit from the sale.
But just think, we can have an Intellectual Property Czar with absolutely no hyperbole.
The problem is this: a widespread boycott would just serve as fuel that they are losing even more money to piracy. There is obviously no problem with their distribution model, with the product they are producing, or the ways in which they have decided to "defend their copyrights."
Nope. It's all piracy, all the time.
Who cares about increasing the blood supply so that there are fewer times of crisis when you can choose which voicemail to listen to first? GET YOUR DAMN PRIORITIES STRAIGHT!
Lives can be saved by listening to your voicemails in the order you want. Lives can be saved by not having buttons on your phone. LIVES CAN BE SAVED BY NEVER HAVING TO WORRY ABOUT YOUR PHONE FALLING AND THE BATTERY POPPING OFF!
Why you Apple Haters can't see this is beyond me. I weep for our future.
Less making sense, more complaining please.
Since prison isn't a deterrent to any crime, let's just stop throwing money there and close them down, right?
Also, look at the customer agreement you agreed to ON THE DATE OF THAT AD, most notably this clause:
"6. b. In addition, Customer agrees not to:
vii. restrict, inhibit or otherwise interfere with the ability of any other person to use or enjoy Comcast equipment or services, including, without limitation, posting or transmitting any information or software which contains a virus or other harmful feature, or generating levels of traffic sufficient to impede others' ability to send or retrieve information;" [emphasis mine]
http://web.archive.org/web/20010405061019/www.comcastonline.com/subscriber-v3-clr.asp
Now, I'm no lawyer but it sounds like you gave up your "right" to saturate the link all day every day, or even during peak times. In fact, that could be read as "You agree that we can limit your usage if we feel that you are taking more than your share of our service." I suspect that is where Comcast and others get to set a limit and not provide a precise number.
It also says they guarantee 1500 kbps. If you're going to hold them to PART of that ad, you must hold them to all and accept the lower speed.
Except it is a stolen car, and you don't get your goods out of police impound. Usually impounded (and thereby forfeited) goods are auctioned off to whomever wants them. At least they are where I am from.
In response to "stolen" data.... Ever used a PE boot disk? Works wonders on borked installs to get data off a hard drive where the native OS won't boot. You are still in possession of your data. They are simply refusing to facilitate that retrieval, since you are not a legal, paying customer.