Okay, so I can agree with paying for a broken door. Furthermore, I can say that there could be real costs involved in doing security checks to see what damage might have been done - so I'd be okay with that argument. I think they need to draw the line there, between "money spent checking what damage was done" and "money spent making sure someone else can't do the same thing".
Insofar as how he did it would be revealed at least in part by the public record of the legal case against McKinnon, and insofar as he may have communicated details of the exploits that are not in the public record to others, the fact that he did breach the system makes it more likely that others would do so, increase the risk:cost profile associated with securing the system against that type of breach, and making it more necessary to protect the systems than it would otherwise have been. So there is at least an argument that protecting at least the particular systems breached against the same type of breach that McKinnon conducted is an expense that is at least in part necessary because of his actions.
I wouldn't report any kind of crime or safety hazard if this becomes a regular tactic.
McKinnon didn't "report any kind of crime or safety hazard", and there is no reason to expect that, even if the approach the government used to here to assess damages from a violation of the law were to be accepted in that role that it would somehow affect people who "report any kind of crime or safety hazard".
Which part of the U.S. Constitution gives Congress the power to regulate content over privately-owned wires?
The FCC doesn't propose to regulate content under net neutrality principles, it proposed to regulate the treatment of customers by ISPs.
Of course that was over turned by the Supreme Court's United States v. Lopez decision which said the power was limited, and did not extend so far from "commerce" as to authorize the regulation of the carrying of handguns. The Court reasoned that if Congress could regulate something so far removed from commerce, then it could regulate anything, and since the Constitution clearly creates Congress as a body with enumerated powers, this could not be so. I would argue Congress also has no authority to regulate the data being carried over privately-owned wires.
The actions of ISPs with regard to their customers have an extremely direct nexus with commerce, unlike the act of carrying a gun in a particular place, so US v. Lopez is a pretty poor basis for an argument on the subject at hand.
I think there is an argument to be made that a web-hosting server might be considered more like a service provider than a content provider.
No, I don't think there is, really.
Backbone providers allocate bandwidth to regional providers. Regional providers allocate bandwidth to individual ISPs.
It is not just "allocating bandwidth". Backbone providers provide the physical infrastructure to which regional providers connect. Regional providers provide the physical infrastructure to which local ISPs connect. Local ISPs (even if they don't own the infrastructure, but have a contract with a telco, etc., who does) provide the physical infrastructure to which the customer's equipment at the customer site connects.
Web Hosting providers provide a service by which they connect their own equipment to infrastructure that they contract from an ISP. They don't provide (in their role as a hosting provider) wired or wireless connections to the customer's site to which the customer connects equipment. They aren't, IOW, at all alike in kind to the entities that the FCC has always stated that net neutrality principles apply to, but are, instead, situated very similarly to a home user as someone who connects equipment to the network, and provides and/or access content over that connection.
If you used that standard, the backbone providers would be the only ones "providing the pipes,"
What standard? There is no previously-mentioned standard either in your post or the one it responds to under which that is true. Backbone providers, regional providers, and local ISPs all provide connections, wired or wireless, to which customers attach equipment. The FCCs network neutrality principles are about restrictions and discrimination by the people providing those connections.
They aren't about restricting content or hosting services, indeed, they are about (among other things) maximizing the freedom of content or hosting services by preventing infrastructure providers from using their power as a gatekeeper to either directly monopolize or indirectly dictate to those markets.
Insofar as they are imposed by carriers, the principles would seem to apply there.
While not phrased in terms of packets, Apple's prohibition of Google Voice and T-Mobile's ban of tethering apps are quite clearly designed to restrict traffic by application.
Apple isn't a carrier, so, unless the decision was at AT&T's behest (there are probably more reasons for Apple to want to make GV a second class citizen than for AT&T too, since while it commoditizes the phone itself, it doesn't do much to reduce chargeable usage on the network) its not clear that denying Google Voice a place in the App Store would be a network neutrality issue.
Carrier-imposed tethering restrictions, though, would seem to violate the principals protection of the right of the user to attach non-harmful devices to the network freely.
So if you didn't have to work -- and had more money than George Lucas and Steven Spielberg -- would you be like Sall and continue to program?
Since I continue to program even though I have to work, and in a non-programming job (though I occasionally find ways to bring programming into it), I can't imagine that I would program less if all the mandatory non-programming time was taken away.
I guess as a slashdot reader I'm supposed to be for "net neutrality" however I trust profit grabbing companies more than I trust the FCC.
You don't have to trust the FCC to think the FCC should use network neutrality principles as a basis for the exercise of its existing rulemaking authority, anymore than you have to trust the FCC to think that the FCC should not use network neutrality principles as a basis for the exercise of its existing rulemaking authority.
First, the principals here have needed to be made law for several years now and congratulations on moving society forward.
Note that neither this speech nor any FCC rulemaking resulting from it will make the principles articulated into "law". The four original FCC "network neutrality principles", articulated in 2005, will remain in the same status they are now—principles articulated by the FCC which guide its regulatory action—while the two new principles articulated might acquire the same status.
Congress could make them law, but Congress hasn't yet shown much interest in doing that, and I doubt a big push by the FCC to use the principles in its rulemaking are going to change Congress's position (the members who think network neutrality is bad will continue to do so, the members who think network neutrality is good are more likely to let the FCC keep applying them without specific legislation mandating them).
The rules call for "legal content" to be unfiltered, thats a hole big enough to drive a semi through.
There are no "rules" in the speech. The principals in the speech call for openness with the stated intent of protecting the flow of legal content and the right to attach legal, non-harmful devices to the network. The speech also indicates that draft rules will soon be circulated to members of the Commission with the intent that they would be incorporated into a later Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM). Once there is an NPRM--an actual proposal of specific rules--we can discuss what the rules say. As any private filtering notionally directed at "illegal" content is likely to also interfere with some legal content, I would argue that the openness that the principals articulate as a goal for legal content make ISP-based filtering generally an unacceptable means for addressing the problems of illegal content, for which there are other means of addressing (see, e.g., the DMCA notice/counternotice process for purpotedly illegal-as-copyright-violation content.)
The rules need to have an enforcement mechanism with teeth or they will become meaningless.
While true, the FCC has taken a number of enforcement actions under its existing network neutrality principles under the past several years. So this isn't a completely new area, or one where the FCC is untested.
Aside from the spelling problem, I'm not sure what is "sudden" about it: the FCC embraced "network neutrality principles" in 2005, and has reiterated support for them and taken action based on them several times since. This new push brings new visibility to it, and extends the scope of what the FCC defines "network neutrality" to mean somewhat, but it isn't a change in the direction or basic thrust of FCC policy.
Mostly criminal vs. civil prosecution. The FCC can fine the bejeezus out of you, but it takes an act of congress to make whatever you're doing land you in prison.
That's actually not generally correct as to the difference between law and regulation. Violation of a regulation can be a criminal act, and plenty of laws that don't require regulatory action to put into concrete form establish only civil penalties. Sure, the former do take "an act of congress" to give the regulatory agency authority to make the regulation in the first place, but that's true of regulations in general whether violations or criminal or civil.
(Incidentally, "fines" are generally a criminal penalty, civil money awards are usually "damages". While going to prison requires a criminal conviction, the fact that a penalty is purely monetary doesn't mean that the offense wasn't criminal.)
Ignoring the sementics, what exactly is the difference?
The difference between laws and regulations is similar to the difference between the Constitution and regular laws. That is, regular laws by Congress are valid only within the area of authority granted Congress by the Constitution, must be adopted by the procedures established in the Constitution, and must not conflict with Constitution.
The same is true if you replace "Congress" with "regulatory agency", "Constitution" and Constitution with "laws passed by Congress".
The DMCA notice/counternotice model presents a way for dealing with potentially illegal content that doesn't involve filtering. All the speech says is that the openness principles exist to assure freedom for legal content. There is nothing to say that the rules will permit filtering by ISPs as a means of dealing with potentially illegal content.
So is Verizon. And all the other wireless providers.
Cable companies too.
No change.
The FCC announced its network neutrality principles first in 2005 (this speech adds two new principles -- non-discrimination and transparency -- to the original four.) Major providers have complained since then. They'll keep complaining now. So what?
As a web hosting provider, I feel that they've left an important part of it out, the server side. At what point does net neutrality apply to me?
Network neutrality principles apply to the people providing the pipes. Both "servers" and "clients" are users, not providers, in the context of the network neutrality rules, and so are not the subjects of them, just the intended beneficiaries. While the new speech adds two new principles, and discusses extending application of the principles into providing mobile internet as well as traditional providers, there is no indication of any change of focus.
They need to define this before they make any laws.
Congress makes laws. The FCC, within the area of regulatory authority granted by Congress, makes regulations.
I might be daft, but I don't think there is an easier way to run python in a browser.
I see three obvious ways to run Python (or, really, any language that isn't currently supported for scripting in the browser) in a browser as an equal to JavaScript:
1) implement a full interpreter environment for the language in JavaScript, 2) embed an existing embeddable interpreter for the language into the browser, and add code to bridge the browser features (DOM, etc.) you want to expose, 3) modify an existing non-embedded interpreter to run in a subprocess controlled by the browser, adding code to both sides to set up browser-to-scripting-environment communication.
#1 is probably the hardest for most languages (since you have to implement an interpreter, not just glue between an existing interpreter and the browser), but its also the only one of those that works with existing browsers without changing the browser code.
When an app offers free voice phone calling over a network infrastructure that makes its money by charging for the same thing, it's pretty clear to me who killed it.
Google Voice doesn't offer free voice calling. Its not a VoIP app (at least, at the "user" end; I presume it tunnels over a POTS to VoIP gateway, which is why if the endpoint you use is one where, like many landliens but unlike most cell plans, you pay for outgoing calls only rather than airtime, you can save money because placing a call through Google Voice has Google Voice call you [alternatively, you can call into your Google Voice number, which is presumably local from the number you would usuall use to call it, and then place the call to the real target.])
With Google Voice, you still pay whatever you would normally pay for connect time on the phone line you are using to access Google Voice.
Apple only cares about killing something when it directly competes with its own product e.g. Mac clones.
Google Voice provides features similar to a lot of the key selling points of the iPhone with regard to use as a phone (e.g., visual voicemail, with the advantage that it also transcribes the voicemail, contact management (that syncs to your phone, even without a special app)), in a way which commoditizes the mobile devices underlying it.
Apple wants the iPhone to be provide a user experience that encourages people to buy a new version of the iPhone when it is available to maintain and expand the user experience, not to be a platform for a portable service that provides the key phone features in a common way across a variety of smartphone platforms so that iPhone users are less likely to stick with the iPhone.
MacOS (the thing that used to be called System # and run on 68k machines) and Mac OS X aren't the same thing at all. Mac OS X is actually NeXTSTEP with a new display engine.
NeXTSTEP is almost certainly the operating system that originally ran on 68k-based machines that were more than superficially similar to Macintoshes that the GP was referring to (it was originally made for the 68k-based NeXT computers.) pre-X MacOS almost certainly is not the OS the GP was referring to, since it ran on Macintoshes specifically, not 68k machines that were similar to Macintoshes.
So, while what you state is factually correct, you seem to have missed GPs point entirely.
Why doesn't Google immediately release Google Voice to Cydia/Icy? (Yes, I know that Google will release a web-only version of Google voice, but a built in version has the advantage that all of the GUI pages are permanently cached.)
What do you mean "will release"? Google Voice was a fully-functional web-based service before any "Google Voice" mobile apps were released. Some of the functionality wasn't available on the mobile version of the Google Voice web page, but even that has changed now.
Also according to the article, they ran it against 10 friends who they know to be gay but who aren't "out" on Facebook. It hit 100%.
If your only tests with expected results are ones where the expected result is positive, its pretty easy to code something up that will pass the tests with 100%. For instance, this (Ruby) code would work:
"The Boston Globe reports that major MMO publishers (Blizzard, Turbine, SOE, NCSoft, and Jagex) are being sued by Paltalk, which holds a patent on 'sharing data among many connected computers so that all users see the same digital environment'
Actually, no. TFA says that Paltalk is suing based on two patents (not one) which, according to TFA relate to "technologies for sharing data among many connected computers so that all users see the same digital environment." TFA does not say Paltalk has a patent on "sharing data among many connected computers so that all users see the same digital environment." Confusing reports of what the patents relate to to what is actually covered by the patents is pretty much a universal rule for Slashdot patent stories.
According to a source with more detail, The patents involved area series of patents (apparently, not just two), including US Patent 5,822,523, which covers a "Server-group messaging system for interactive applications", and several others that build on the system in that patent.
That was what I found particularly interesting about intel's decision to push moblin. As long as Windows is a ubiquitous expectation, so is x86(outside of the very narrow and peculiar ia64 niche, which intel also owns, and that one guy running NT on alpha). That would seem like something that intel would be loath to disrupt.
As long as Windows is far and away the main support for x86 dominance, Intel's fortunes are dependent on Microsoft's business decisions, legal situation, etc. That would seem like something that Intel would be loathe to maintain. Intel wants its products to be dominant for reasons beyond the dominance of Microsoft's products.
I never understood why it was that XP had to be SO much heavier than NT, while still doing essentially the same stuff.
Because it didn't do essentially the same stuff as WinNT (or even WinNT's Win2K successor.) WinXP was designed to have essentially a superset of the functionality (including application compatibility) of the old Win9x line and the WinNT->2K line of operating systems.
Well, even Windows 9x still ran on top of DOS, but were considered OSes.
Windows 95 didn't "run on top of DOS" in the sense that Win 3.x, GEM (IIRC), and several other 3rd party windowing systems did, it was an operating system that was an updated version of DOS plus a windowing system (in fact, I think Windows 95 may have included two mutually incompatible updated versions of at least the core of DOS, one which was more backward-compatible with previous DOS versions (used for the non-GUI "DOS mode" for running legacy apps) and a different one that the windowing system ran on, which could also run well-behaved DOS apps in a command prompt window.
But, yeah, GEM lived in a world of more-fundamental-than-an-app, less-fundamental-than-the-OS analagous to what the Win95 windowing system would have been if it was a separate app. (Or analagous to X-Windows on Unix-like systems.)
Slashdot Mirror
C++ does what again?
And a technically-interesting but poorly managed open-source project can be forked by someone able to manage it better.
A technically-interesting but poorly managed proprietary project, not so much.
Insofar as how he did it would be revealed at least in part by the public record of the legal case against McKinnon, and insofar as he may have communicated details of the exploits that are not in the public record to others, the fact that he did breach the system makes it more likely that others would do so, increase the risk:cost profile associated with securing the system against that type of breach, and making it more necessary to protect the systems than it would otherwise have been. So there is at least an argument that protecting at least the particular systems breached against the same type of breach that McKinnon conducted is an expense that is at least in part necessary because of his actions.
McKinnon didn't "report any kind of crime or safety hazard", and there is no reason to expect that, even if the approach the government used to here to assess damages from a violation of the law were to be accepted in that role that it would somehow affect people who "report any kind of crime or safety hazard".
The FCC doesn't propose to regulate content under net neutrality principles, it proposed to regulate the treatment of customers by ISPs.
The actions of ISPs with regard to their customers have an extremely direct nexus with commerce, unlike the act of carrying a gun in a particular place, so US v. Lopez is a pretty poor basis for an argument on the subject at hand.
No, I don't think there is, really.
It is not just "allocating bandwidth". Backbone providers provide the physical infrastructure to which regional providers connect. Regional providers provide the physical infrastructure to which local ISPs connect. Local ISPs (even if they don't own the infrastructure, but have a contract with a telco, etc., who does) provide the physical infrastructure to which the customer's equipment at the customer site connects.
Web Hosting providers provide a service by which they connect their own equipment to infrastructure that they contract from an ISP. They don't provide (in their role as a hosting provider) wired or wireless connections to the customer's site to which the customer connects equipment. They aren't, IOW, at all alike in kind to the entities that the FCC has always stated that net neutrality principles apply to, but are, instead, situated very similarly to a home user as someone who connects equipment to the network, and provides and/or access content over that connection.
What standard? There is no previously-mentioned standard either in your post or the one it responds to under which that is true. Backbone providers, regional providers, and local ISPs all provide connections, wired or wireless, to which customers attach equipment. The FCCs network neutrality principles are about restrictions and discrimination by the people providing those connections.
They aren't about restricting content or hosting services, indeed, they are about (among other things) maximizing the freedom of content or hosting services by preventing infrastructure providers from using their power as a gatekeeper to either directly monopolize or indirectly dictate to those markets.
Insofar as they are imposed by carriers, the principles would seem to apply there.
Apple isn't a carrier, so, unless the decision was at AT&T's behest (there are probably more reasons for Apple to want to make GV a second class citizen than for AT&T too, since while it commoditizes the phone itself, it doesn't do much to reduce chargeable usage on the network) its not clear that denying Google Voice a place in the App Store would be a network neutrality issue.
Carrier-imposed tethering restrictions, though, would seem to violate the principals protection of the right of the user to attach non-harmful devices to the network freely.
Since I continue to program even though I have to work, and in a non-programming job (though I occasionally find ways to bring programming into it), I can't imagine that I would program less if all the mandatory non-programming time was taken away.
You don't have to trust the FCC to think the FCC should use network neutrality principles as a basis for the exercise of its existing rulemaking authority, anymore than you have to trust the FCC to think that the FCC should not use network neutrality principles as a basis for the exercise of its existing rulemaking authority.
Note that neither this speech nor any FCC rulemaking resulting from it will make the principles articulated into "law". The four original FCC "network neutrality principles", articulated in 2005, will remain in the same status they are now—principles articulated by the FCC which guide its regulatory action—while the two new principles articulated might acquire the same status.
Congress could make them law, but Congress hasn't yet shown much interest in doing that, and I doubt a big push by the FCC to use the principles in its rulemaking are going to change Congress's position (the members who think network neutrality is bad will continue to do so, the members who think network neutrality is good are more likely to let the FCC keep applying them without specific legislation mandating them).
There are no "rules" in the speech. The principals in the speech call for openness with the stated intent of protecting the flow of legal content and the right to attach legal, non-harmful devices to the network. The speech also indicates that draft rules will soon be circulated to members of the Commission with the intent that they would be incorporated into a later Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM). Once there is an NPRM--an actual proposal of specific rules--we can discuss what the rules say. As any private filtering notionally directed at "illegal" content is likely to also interfere with some legal content, I would argue that the openness that the principals articulate as a goal for legal content make ISP-based filtering generally an unacceptable means for addressing the problems of illegal content, for which there are other means of addressing (see, e.g., the DMCA notice/counternotice process for purpotedly illegal-as-copyright-violation content.)
While true, the FCC has taken a number of enforcement actions under its existing network neutrality principles under the past several years. So this isn't a completely new area, or one where the FCC is untested.
Aside from the spelling problem, I'm not sure what is "sudden" about it: the FCC embraced "network neutrality principles" in 2005, and has reiterated support for them and taken action based on them several times since. This new push brings new visibility to it, and extends the scope of what the FCC defines "network neutrality" to mean somewhat, but it isn't a change in the direction or basic thrust of FCC policy.
That's actually not generally correct as to the difference between law and regulation. Violation of a regulation can be a criminal act, and plenty of laws that don't require regulatory action to put into concrete form establish only civil penalties. Sure, the former do take "an act of congress" to give the regulatory agency authority to make the regulation in the first place, but that's true of regulations in general whether violations or criminal or civil.
(Incidentally, "fines" are generally a criminal penalty, civil money awards are usually "damages". While going to prison requires a criminal conviction, the fact that a penalty is purely monetary doesn't mean that the offense wasn't criminal.)
The difference between laws and regulations is similar to the difference between the Constitution and regular laws. That is, regular laws by Congress are valid only within the area of authority granted Congress by the Constitution, must be adopted by the procedures established in the Constitution, and must not conflict with Constitution.
The same is true if you replace "Congress" with "regulatory agency", "Constitution" and Constitution with "laws passed by Congress".
The DMCA notice/counternotice model presents a way for dealing with potentially illegal content that doesn't involve filtering. All the speech says is that the openness principles exist to assure freedom for legal content. There is nothing to say that the rules will permit filtering by ISPs as a means of dealing with potentially illegal content.
No change.
The FCC announced its network neutrality principles first in 2005 (this speech adds two new principles -- non-discrimination and transparency -- to the original four.) Major providers have complained since then. They'll keep complaining now. So what?
Network neutrality principles apply to the people providing the pipes. Both "servers" and "clients" are users, not providers, in the context of the network neutrality rules, and so are not the subjects of them, just the intended beneficiaries. While the new speech adds two new principles, and discusses extending application of the principles into providing mobile internet as well as traditional providers, there is no indication of any change of focus.
Congress makes laws. The FCC, within the area of regulatory authority granted by Congress, makes regulations.
I see three obvious ways to run Python (or, really, any language that isn't currently supported for scripting in the browser) in a browser as an equal to JavaScript:
1) implement a full interpreter environment for the language in JavaScript,
2) embed an existing embeddable interpreter for the language into the browser, and add code to bridge the browser features (DOM, etc.) you want to expose,
3) modify an existing non-embedded interpreter to run in a subprocess controlled by the browser, adding code to both sides to set up browser-to-scripting-environment communication.
#1 is probably the hardest for most languages (since you have to implement an interpreter, not just glue between an existing interpreter and the browser), but its also the only one of those that works with existing browsers without changing the browser code.
Google Voice doesn't offer free voice calling. Its not a VoIP app (at least, at the "user" end; I presume it tunnels over a POTS to VoIP gateway, which is why if the endpoint you use is one where, like many landliens but unlike most cell plans, you pay for outgoing calls only rather than airtime, you can save money because placing a call through Google Voice has Google Voice call you [alternatively, you can call into your Google Voice number, which is presumably local from the number you would usuall use to call it, and then place the call to the real target.])
With Google Voice, you still pay whatever you would normally pay for connect time on the phone line you are using to access Google Voice.
Google Voice provides features similar to a lot of the key selling points of the iPhone with regard to use as a phone (e.g., visual voicemail, with the advantage that it also transcribes the voicemail, contact management (that syncs to your phone, even without a special app)), in a way which commoditizes the mobile devices underlying it.
Apple wants the iPhone to be provide a user experience that encourages people to buy a new version of the iPhone when it is available to maintain and expand the user experience, not to be a platform for a portable service that provides the key phone features in a common way across a variety of smartphone platforms so that iPhone users are less likely to stick with the iPhone.
NeXTSTEP is almost certainly the operating system that originally ran on 68k-based machines that were more than superficially similar to Macintoshes that the GP was referring to (it was originally made for the 68k-based NeXT computers.) pre-X MacOS almost certainly is not the OS the GP was referring to, since it ran on Macintoshes specifically, not 68k machines that were similar to Macintoshes.
So, while what you state is factually correct, you seem to have missed GPs point entirely.
What do you mean "will release"? Google Voice was a fully-functional web-based service before any "Google Voice" mobile apps were released. Some of the functionality wasn't available on the mobile version of the Google Voice web page, but even that has changed now.
If your only tests with expected results are ones where the expected result is positive, its pretty easy to code something up that will pass the tests with 100%. For instance, this (Ruby) code would work:
Actually, no. TFA says that Paltalk is suing based on two patents (not one) which, according to TFA relate to "technologies for sharing data among many connected computers so that all users see the same digital environment." TFA does not say Paltalk has a patent on "sharing data among many connected computers so that all users see the same digital environment." Confusing reports of what the patents relate to to what is actually covered by the patents is pretty much a universal rule for Slashdot patent stories.
According to a source with more detail, The patents involved area series of patents (apparently, not just two), including US Patent 5,822,523, which covers a "Server-group messaging system for interactive applications", and several others that build on the system in that patent.
As long as Windows is far and away the main support for x86 dominance, Intel's fortunes are dependent on Microsoft's business decisions, legal situation, etc. That would seem like something that Intel would be loathe to maintain. Intel wants its products to be dominant for reasons beyond the dominance of Microsoft's products.
Because it didn't do essentially the same stuff as WinNT (or even WinNT's Win2K successor.) WinXP was designed to have essentially a superset of the functionality (including application compatibility) of the old Win9x line and the WinNT->2K line of operating systems.
Windows 95 didn't "run on top of DOS" in the sense that Win 3.x, GEM (IIRC), and several other 3rd party windowing systems did, it was an operating system that was an updated version of DOS plus a windowing system (in fact, I think Windows 95 may have included two mutually incompatible updated versions of at least the core of DOS, one which was more backward-compatible with previous DOS versions (used for the non-GUI "DOS mode" for running legacy apps) and a different one that the windowing system ran on, which could also run well-behaved DOS apps in a command prompt window.
But, yeah, GEM lived in a world of more-fundamental-than-an-app, less-fundamental-than-the-OS analagous to what the Win95 windowing system would have been if it was a separate app. (Or analagous to X-Windows on Unix-like systems.)