..is the one that will destroy our rights in the "digital millenium."
You see, no one cared. "We'll go to Usenet." "This is crap." "They can't stop it everywhere."
Why not?
The very beginnings of censorship have started in countries that *I* personally would never have thought they would have started in. The U. S. especially is becoming more and more frightening every day, with myself shaking my head in amazement at the court rulings! If only the Supreme Court heard every case, we *might* stand a chance. But judges like the judge over the DeCSS case ruin any chance that freedom to innovate will continue. (Pun for those who caught it, intended.)
When we move from Napster to Usenet, will not the RIAA turn their guns to the news servers? Even though they are "service providers" these service providers might be found guilt of collusion for providing access to the newsgroups (alt.binaries.warez.whatever you love) because they have the *easy* ability to discontinue access to them - stop carrying the group.
Indeed, in the case of alt.young.* and alt.binaries.warez.* newsgroups, my ISP does not carry them. I do not care about alt.young.* - rather, the point is that it's not available. Because the ISP says so.
We cannot control the web, true. But ISPs can be forced to control where their users go, in some regards. And national and international efforts can lead to another "committee" whose sole goal is to produce web sites, newsgroups, and other areas of the web that we might create, that destroy these "poor corporations multi billion dollar industries." All it takes is some money and some political power.
Yet, we don't care.
Carnivore is accepted. The new law in the U. K. is accepted. Oh, we bitch, we whine, but we have given our rights up on a continuous basis. Maybe it would have been better if the Internet stayed non commercial - the information would still be free.
I'm in charge of a network of roughly 500 people and systems. I'm in charge of ensuring they do not access questionable content while they are working. That is my job. (No, I do *not* use filters. I use hand assembled URLs, and generally add them AFTER they've been visited. Not as effective, but I am not the Gestapo, and I will not be accused of mistaken filtering.) If the order came, from my government, to block access to nntp, or to port XXXX, I would do it.
I would have to, because I have a home, a wife, and a son that I must take care of.
..that when the key(s) were demanded, no one in the company could be notified.
WHAT?
Okay, okay.. maybe that's what a phonetap is all about. Getting someone to say something when they think they're safe. This was specifically business. And as a business, I would refuse to send any e-mail through the U. K. - although the allegations are not proved, look at the "Echelon made French companies lose bids" info on the 'Net, and other corporate espionage. What's to keep someone in this new department from landing on the payroll of some big company that wants all of XYZ corp's e-mail?
And if you can't find anyone how do you determine whether or not the request is real? Oh, yea, yer with the MI5 and ya need my code, even though I'm a VP of XYZ corp. Sure, here you go. You can't go the corporate attorney, you can't go here, you can't go there..
Bloody well a major mess.
(Yes, I'm paranoid. Yes, they're out to get me. No, I will only truly panic when these sort of laws go into effect in Russia.. heh.)
I've used Earthlink until I recently obtained SWBELL DSL. (Why did I switch? Because paying an extra $20.00 a month for a different ISP didn't seem very logical. Of course Bell is being sued for this very reason, but..) Their service has been great. I've never, ever got a busy signal. Customer service was always good. They had proprietary connect software, but you were NOT required to use it. And they supported alternative operating systems. (At last count I ran OS/2, BeOS, Linux, NT 4, and 2000.) I think it's great that one of the largest ISPs would refuse to put Carnivore in place. If one stands up, maybe more will, and perhaps this beast can be put to rest. Hell, if the FBI wanted to put a machine on *my* WAN they'd sure as hell have to give me a warrant or judgement specifically authorizing it.
Why develop for any platform that could be considered "emerging?" (Note: I realize that Linux will qualify as past emerging for some of you, but bear with me.)
The same question could be asked for BeOS, PalmOS, or even WindowsCE to be honest. And my opinion is basically this:
1. You can do it for free. 2. THE OPPORTUNITY IS THERE. 3. See #2. 4. See #2. 5. See #2.
Let me explain #2.
Windows: wow, I'd like to really write a kick ass check book program. Let me see what my competition is like.
*does search on Infoseek, Excite, or your favorite engine and pulls 1,517 hits on check book programs*
You've got to stand out in *that* crowd.
Now.. Linux.
*does search on Infoseek, Excite, or your favorite engine and pulls 4 hits on check book programs*
Primary program is gnuCash. Wow. You're going to stand out a *lot* better.
Any emerging platform stands as a prime development platform simply because you have a greater chance of having your product recognized and used, and as any egomaniac can tell ya, isn't that the *real* reason you code?
To help others?;)
(This maybe a sick twisted viewpoint but it *is* how I look at it.)
I've seen quite a few of these systems that transmit through the phone lines, including the ethernet stuff.
Does any of this stuff noticeably affect each other and/or the phone quality? I.e. if I run DSL, a 10MB ethernet, AND A/V distribution, I'm probably going to push the limit, eh?
DSL; I believe the problems you describe come into play with any sort of net access that you don't purchase directly.
With our WAN we purchased from AT&T (don't ask, I wasn't involved then) who then cobbled together the details for us, instead of us having to contact and sign 42 different contracts for 42 major markets. It was a "godsend".. to the CFO. It's a nightmare for me.
Today is a prime example. I fired a network admin this morning, so I came into our KC office to pursue the usual security avenues. Lo and behold, the fractional T was down. 7 hours later, it was up and running - thank God for a Qwest backup. (Is it me, or does AT&T have the worst frame network in the world?)
Anyway, the problem was so hard to have fixed because we contacted our agent, who contacted AT&T, who contacted SWBELL, who decided it wasn't their problem, and the finger pointing just kept on going.
First reference was dated 1988, and was his. (Research paper, I believe.) That is pre-web. Gopher as prior art?;)
Second reference is the government seems to have worked/paid for this. Do patents that the government has an involvement in (not necessarily beneficial involvement) get sped through the process?
Third point I see is this seems (to me, but I'm as lost in some of that text as others) to describe SQL in some ways. Or am I way off mark with that? If it can be applied to SQL, well, wouldn't the big guns Oracle and MS want to jump in? (Don't get me wrong, I won't make the mistake of cheering Microsoft here, but maybe their pockets for their lawyers could be useful for once instead of annoying.)
How far gone is the world? Christ almighty, look around. Slashdot may or may not be the forum for this, but if we can't trust the people who strut around saying, 'Please trust us!' WHO DO WE TRUST?
The government is trying to make it so we can't reverse engineer things. Corporations refuse to recognize an individual's right to privacy. What would happen if I stuck a camera in Bill Gate's window to collect marketing data? I assure you, LAWS WOULD BE PASSED, AND RESPECTED.
Privacy, anonymity, empowerment, knowledge - my only hope is that ten years in the future when the crush of corporations has squeezed all vestiges of originality and the ability to think and decide on your own is gone, that the corporations will fall and the world will have learned its lesson.
This is how the world ends, this is how the world ends, not with a bang, but a boom..
I think the idea of compression is a good one, especially for items stored temporarily, and I think Linux would be the excellent proving ground for an idea like this.
With the Win* world, the memory compression had to take place outside of the operating system, and "tacked" on to make it work. This sort of "tacking" is always unstable and likely to have problems. With Linux, of course, we have access to the source code of the actual operating system, thus there is no tacking required.
Of course the fanatics will yell that Linux runs on 8MB of RAM, and fast at that (I don't know what kernel version it is downstairs, but one of my 486s does run RedHat on 8MB, simply because I had the choice of Linux or OS/2 2.1 to run on that machine at a good speed.) Why not examine something like this? It'd make a great little feature.
(Now that I say that I can say that'd be the only problem with incorporating a feature like this: let Linux do the job of OS, and other tools do the job of everything else. Keep feature creep out. But damn, it's a cool idea to me.)
choice. The company or companies I would be upset at would be the ones that insist you take Microsoft Windows; at least in this day and age you *finally* have a choice.
In regards to this policy preventing piracy: what's to keep me from sending my Windows 98 SE license that's already running my current machine? (Not that I need to worry; I currently have *way* too many Windows licenses to care.)
(Next: Microsoft requests that my post be removed because it demonstrates a way to circumvent the copy protection process [the license code] and under the DMCA, that's not legal.)
If you don't answer the cell phone, people assume you're ignoring them.
If you don't answer your home phone, people assume (surprise!) you're not home.
I don't know why, that's just how it is for me. I am expected, for work, to answer my cell phone 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Needless to say, my batteries die.. a lot.
BTW, someone asked about pricing plans. I'm on AT&T "One-Rate"; 1700 minutes a month, $149.99. Yes, I use them. (Try doing mobile tech support for a company that has 39 offices and two tech support guys.) Quality is great, coverage is spotty (in the Midwest) only in Ft. Wayne, Indiana.
I've always, always wondered about the limitation of 53k on a 56k modem. I've hit that limit, a *lot*, literally connecting at 53,333bps. (I'm a hop, skip, and jump away from the switch, and it's all brand new wire. No DSL though where I'm at right now. Odd, eh? Blame GTE. They suck.)
We're not free here, though. We just have fewer restrictions than everyone else.
But maybe any regulation will be done to corporations who specialize in VoIP over the Internet. Much like making a phone call (corporately speaking) costs me a $0.04 connection charge now, maybe PhoneFree.Com will have to pay the same.
I laugh if they believe they can regulate VoIP in private networks, and that's where I've seen it deployed the most (leased lines).
Although, honestly, with long distance rates where they are, my company just nixed moving to VoIP because of a 5 year return on investment.
(I agree, btw, this should have been on the main page, but perhaps not. The conspiracy theorists may have taken it over.;))
Is it really so hard for corporations to understand that if we want them to know about us or our activity, then we would contact them?
For that matter, my wife is a member of several survey web sites: they (*gasp*) pay her to answer their questions, instead of trying to monitor her each and every move. Imagine that!
Anyway, I can see how well this board will protect our privacy online. I'm almost willing to say, 'Fine, let the government in.' Corporations are simply getting too big for their britches.
Downloaded Realplayer to watch something I don't even remember now.. oh, fav' radio station here in St. Louis is online now, uses RealPlayer to stream. Anyway, I downloaded RealPlayer, installed, ran it.. told it NOT to create shortcuts for those damnable programs on my Desktop. Know what really bugs me? The installer created them on my start menu. Not a big deal; right click, delete, but JESUS. If I left everything I have on my computer in default configuration, I wouldn't be able to find a thing. When's it stop?
Got really pissed when ZoneAlarm started sounding alerts. That program is awesome btw. (www.zonelabs.com; if you don't have it, GET IT.) Got even more pissed when GetRight no longer functioned. Wanted to scream when I discovered that not only had DD replaced GetRight, but it SUCKS ROCKS, insists on maximizing at odd times, and just generally got in the way.
No thanks; I register my shareware so I don't have to stare out those ads. You want to know what I do on the Internet? Pay someone else to GUESS. If I wanted someone tracking me, I'd join "AllAdvantage.Com!" At least they pay you with cold hard cash. (NOTE: That is NOT an endorsement for alladvantage.com!)
Think on this though: anyone know of a small company that's managing to compete, hasn't been swallowed by a bigger fish, and respects all the rules? (Winzip?) If you can think of one, support it.:p
Perhaps this can be better phrased along the lines of "Knowing it can be done is half the battle." Knowing the inner processes of anything provides you with an edge into breaking into the system, or cheating, or whatever you're doing, because it helps you *giggle* "drill down" to the information you need by offering known information. T.
Slashdot Mirror
..is the one that will destroy our rights in the "digital millenium."
You see, no one cared. "We'll go to Usenet." "This is crap." "They can't stop it everywhere."
Why not?
The very beginnings of censorship have started in countries that *I* personally would never have thought they would have started in. The U. S. especially is becoming more and more frightening every day, with myself shaking my head in amazement at the court rulings! If only the Supreme Court heard every case, we *might* stand a chance. But judges like the judge over the DeCSS case ruin any chance that freedom to innovate will continue. (Pun for those who caught it, intended.)
When we move from Napster to Usenet, will not the RIAA turn their guns to the news servers? Even though they are "service providers" these service providers might be found guilt of collusion for providing access to the newsgroups (alt.binaries.warez.whatever you love) because they have the *easy* ability to discontinue access to them - stop carrying the group.
Indeed, in the case of alt.young.* and alt.binaries.warez.* newsgroups, my ISP does not carry them. I do not care about alt.young.* - rather, the point is that it's not available. Because the ISP says so.
We cannot control the web, true. But ISPs can be forced to control where their users go, in some regards. And national and international efforts can lead to another "committee" whose sole goal is to produce web sites, newsgroups, and other areas of the web that we might create, that destroy these "poor corporations multi billion dollar industries." All it takes is some money and some political power.
Yet, we don't care.
Carnivore is accepted. The new law in the U. K. is accepted. Oh, we bitch, we whine, but we have given our rights up on a continuous basis. Maybe it would have been better if the Internet stayed non commercial - the information would still be free.
I'm in charge of a network of roughly 500 people and systems. I'm in charge of ensuring they do not access questionable content while they are working. That is my job. (No, I do *not* use filters. I use hand assembled URLs, and generally add them AFTER they've been visited. Not as effective, but I am not the Gestapo, and I will not be accused of mistaken filtering.) If the order came, from my government, to block access to nntp, or to port XXXX, I would do it.
I would have to, because I have a home, a wife, and a son that I must take care of.
I'd like to never see that day come.
--Talonius
..that when the key(s) were demanded, no one in the company could be notified.
.. maybe that's what a phonetap is all about. Getting someone to say something when they think they're safe. This was specifically business. And as a business, I would refuse to send any e-mail through the U. K. - although the allegations are not proved, look at the "Echelon made French companies lose bids" info on the 'Net, and other corporate espionage. What's to keep someone in this new department from landing on the payroll of some big company that wants all of XYZ corp's e-mail?
WHAT?
Okay, okay
And if you can't find anyone how do you determine whether or not the request is real? Oh, yea, yer with the MI5 and ya need my code, even though I'm a VP of XYZ corp. Sure, here you go. You can't go the corporate attorney, you can't go here, you can't go there..
Bloody well a major mess.
(Yes, I'm paranoid. Yes, they're out to get me. No, I will only truly panic when these sort of laws go into effect in Russia.. heh.)
Talonius
I've used Earthlink until I recently obtained SWBELL DSL. (Why did I switch? Because paying an extra $20.00 a month for a different ISP didn't seem very logical. Of course Bell is being sued for this very reason, but..) Their service has been great. I've never, ever got a busy signal. Customer service was always good. They had proprietary connect software, but you were NOT required to use it. And they supported alternative operating systems. (At last count I ran OS/2, BeOS, Linux, NT 4, and 2000.) I think it's great that one of the largest ISPs would refuse to put Carnivore in place. If one stands up, maybe more will, and perhaps this beast can be put to rest. Hell, if the FBI wanted to put a machine on *my* WAN they'd sure as hell have to give me a warrant or judgement specifically authorizing it.
Why develop for any platform that could be considered "emerging?" (Note: I realize that Linux will qualify as past emerging for some of you, but bear with me.)
;)
The same question could be asked for BeOS, PalmOS, or even WindowsCE to be honest. And my opinion is basically this:
1. You can do it for free.
2. THE OPPORTUNITY IS THERE.
3. See #2.
4. See #2.
5. See #2.
Let me explain #2.
Windows: wow, I'd like to really write a kick ass check book program. Let me see what my competition is like.
*does search on Infoseek, Excite, or your favorite engine and pulls 1,517 hits on check book programs*
You've got to stand out in *that* crowd.
Now.. Linux.
*does search on Infoseek, Excite, or your favorite engine and pulls 4 hits on check book programs*
Primary program is gnuCash. Wow.
You're going to stand out a *lot* better.
Any emerging platform stands as a prime development platform simply because you have a greater chance of having your product recognized and used, and as any egomaniac can tell ya, isn't that the *real* reason you code?
To help others?
(This maybe a sick twisted viewpoint but it *is* how I look at it.)
B.
Uh.
;p)
:)
Not CAT3.
This is what happens when you post while having a diabetic reaction. (Approximate blood sugar, 29.
Please turn flames on; I've got the flame retardant suit on.
I've seen quite a few of these systems that transmit through the phone lines, including the ethernet stuff.
:p
Does any of this stuff noticeably affect each other and/or the phone quality? I.e. if I run DSL, a 10MB ethernet, AND A/V distribution, I'm probably going to push the limit, eh?
Amazing what you can do with CAT 3.
-B
DSL; I believe the problems you describe come into play with any sort of net access that you don't purchase directly.
.. to the CFO. It's a nightmare for me.
With our WAN we purchased from AT&T (don't ask, I wasn't involved then) who then cobbled together the details for us, instead of us having to contact and sign 42 different contracts for 42 major markets. It was a "godsend"
Today is a prime example. I fired a network admin this morning, so I came into our KC office to pursue the usual security avenues. Lo and behold, the fractional T was down. 7 hours later, it was up and running - thank God for a Qwest backup. (Is it me, or does AT&T have the worst frame network in the world?)
Anyway, the problem was so hard to have fixed because we contacted our agent, who contacted AT&T, who contacted SWBELL, who decided it wasn't their problem, and the finger pointing just kept on going.
Blah.
B
Two things I noticed:
;)
First reference was dated 1988, and was his. (Research paper, I believe.) That is pre-web. Gopher as prior art?
Second reference is the government seems to have worked/paid for this. Do patents that the government has an involvement in (not necessarily beneficial involvement) get sped through the process?
Third point I see is this seems (to me, but I'm as lost in some of that text as others) to describe SQL in some ways. Or am I way off mark with that? If it can be applied to SQL, well, wouldn't the big guns Oracle and MS want to jump in? (Don't get me wrong, I won't make the mistake of cheering Microsoft here, but maybe their pockets for their lawyers could be useful for once instead of annoying.)
*grumble*
..trust them.
How far gone is the world? Christ almighty, look around. Slashdot may or may not be the forum for this, but if we can't trust the people who strut around saying, 'Please trust us!' WHO DO WE TRUST?
The government is trying to make it so we can't reverse engineer things. Corporations refuse to recognize an individual's right to privacy. What would happen if I stuck a camera in Bill Gate's window to collect marketing data? I assure you, LAWS WOULD BE PASSED, AND RESPECTED.
Privacy, anonymity, empowerment, knowledge - my only hope is that ten years in the future when the crush of corporations has squeezed all vestiges of originality and the ability to think and decide on your own is gone, that the corporations will fall and the world will have learned its lesson.
This is how the world ends, this is how the world ends, not with a bang, but a boom..
-B
I think the idea of compression is a good one, especially for items stored temporarily, and I think Linux would be the excellent proving ground for an idea like this.
With the Win* world, the memory compression had to take place outside of the operating system, and "tacked" on to make it work. This sort of "tacking" is always unstable and likely to have problems. With Linux, of course, we have access to the source code of the actual operating system, thus there is no tacking required.
Of course the fanatics will yell that Linux runs on 8MB of RAM, and fast at that (I don't know what kernel version it is downstairs, but one of my 486s does run RedHat on 8MB, simply because I had the choice of Linux or OS/2 2.1 to run on that machine at a good speed.) Why not examine something like this? It'd make a great little feature.
(Now that I say that I can say that'd be the only problem with incorporating a feature like this: let Linux do the job of OS, and other tools do the job of everything else. Keep feature creep out. But damn, it's a cool idea to me.)
-B
choice. The company or companies I would be upset at would be the ones that insist you take Microsoft Windows; at least in this day and age you *finally* have a choice.
In regards to this policy preventing piracy: what's to keep me from sending my Windows 98 SE license that's already running my current machine? (Not that I need to worry; I currently have *way* too many Windows licenses to care.)
(Next: Microsoft requests that my post be removed because it demonstrates a way to circumvent the copy protection process [the license code] and under the DMCA, that's not legal.)
-T
If you don't answer the cell phone, people assume you're ignoring them.
If you don't answer your home phone, people assume (surprise!) you're not home.
I don't know why, that's just how it is for me. I am expected, for work, to answer my cell phone 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Needless to say, my batteries die.. a lot.
BTW, someone asked about pricing plans. I'm on AT&T "One-Rate"; 1700 minutes a month, $149.99. Yes, I use them. (Try doing mobile tech support for a company that has 39 offices and two tech support guys.) Quality is great, coverage is spotty (in the Midwest) only in Ft. Wayne, Indiana.
I've always, always wondered about the limitation of 53k on a 56k modem. I've hit that limit, a *lot*, literally connecting at 53,333bps. (I'm a hop, skip, and jump away from the switch, and it's all brand new wire. No DSL though where I'm at right now. Odd, eh? Blame GTE. They suck.)
We're not free here, though. We just have fewer restrictions than everyone else.
But maybe any regulation will be done to corporations who specialize in VoIP over the Internet. Much like making a phone call (corporately speaking) costs me a $0.04 connection charge now, maybe PhoneFree.Com will have to pay the same.
;))
I laugh if they believe they can regulate VoIP in private networks, and that's where I've seen it deployed the most (leased lines).
Although, honestly, with long distance rates where they are, my company just nixed moving to VoIP because of a 5 year return on investment.
(I agree, btw, this should have been on the main page, but perhaps not. The conspiracy theorists may have taken it over.
Is it really so hard for corporations to understand that if we want them to know about us or our activity, then we would contact them?
;P)
For that matter, my wife is a member of several survey web sites: they (*gasp*) pay her to answer their questions, instead of trying to monitor her each and every move. Imagine that!
Anyway, I can see how well this board will protect our privacy online. I'm almost willing to say, 'Fine, let the government in.' Corporations are simply getting too big for their britches.
(Anyone else fear a ShadowRun future?
Downloaded Realplayer to watch something I don't even remember now.. oh, fav' radio station here in St. Louis is online now, uses RealPlayer to stream. Anyway, I downloaded RealPlayer, installed, ran it.. told it NOT to create shortcuts for those damnable programs on my Desktop. Know what really bugs me? The installer created them on my start menu. Not a big deal; right click, delete, but JESUS. If I left everything I have on my computer in default configuration, I wouldn't be able to find a thing. When's it stop?
:p
Got really pissed when ZoneAlarm started sounding alerts. That program is awesome btw. (www.zonelabs.com; if you don't have it, GET IT.) Got even more pissed when GetRight no longer functioned. Wanted to scream when I discovered that not only had DD replaced GetRight, but it SUCKS ROCKS, insists on maximizing at odd times, and just generally got in the way.
No thanks; I register my shareware so I don't have to stare out those ads. You want to know what I do on the Internet? Pay someone else to GUESS. If I wanted someone tracking me, I'd join "AllAdvantage.Com!" At least they pay you with cold hard cash. (NOTE: That is NOT an endorsement for alladvantage.com!)
Think on this though: anyone know of a small company that's managing to compete, hasn't been swallowed by a bigger fish, and respects all the rules? (Winzip?) If you can think of one, support it.
B.
Perhaps this can be better phrased along the lines of "Knowing it can be done is half the battle." Knowing the inner processes of anything provides you with an edge into breaking into the system, or cheating, or whatever you're doing, because it helps you *giggle* "drill down" to the information you need by offering known information. T.