See Fair Software Installation here on SlashDot. This is just the tip of the iceberg -- many, many applications will do this kind of thing. You CANNOT rely on the "good will" of software authors any more. There must be a technical and legal framework in place to prevent these kinds of abuses.
You make the mistake here that everybody makes. What you don't understand is that it doesn't matter who is right and who is wrong. What we're talking about is what kind of CHANCE we want to take with the environment. The bottom line is, there's a probability that one side is right and there's some other probability the other side is right. Then you look at the down side, and decide what kinds of risks you want to take on.
My feeling is that the downside of the pro-environment movement is that we have more efficient cars that cost a bit more. The downside of the fuck the environment movement is the slow heat death of all life on earth.
Let's say there's only a 20% chance the environmentalists are right. Still feel like taking that chance?
I think you and I will simply have to agree to disagree. You are correct that I do not know Ad-Aware's position on new.net. I will also agree that new.net is not "spyware", but it decidedly alters system behavior, and very little effort is made to inform users of this. I consider a system-altering component installed without a user's consent to be a trojan. I gather you do not.
Once again, I reiterate that new.net is not the only software I consider harmful. You can even make the case that it is less harmful than most.
Looks like we have some dorks moderating like idiots. Leonard's comment is decidedly NOT a troll or flamebait; it is highly relevant. Sigh. Metamoderate, people!
Agreed. My "dream os" would actually allow me to create new virtual machines inside of other VMs. An innermost, completely secure ring hides the core of the system. There is NO access to this layer, and software cannot be installed there. Successive VM layers can be added. Storage and other system resources can be lent to and shared amongst VM layers. New VM layers can be created inside of existing ones, and they inherit the outer layer's resources. The Windows family offers none of this. Unix can simulate some of it with a security model, but apps on ALL platforms are notorious for wanting more than they really need. I should be able to download whatever I want from the internet and safely run it in a secure, constrained sandbox. I think some mainframe systems can do nested VMs like this. Maybe the VMWare guys could come up with something. But it really needs to be done from the OS layer out. Trust is the hardest thing in the internet age.
blah, blah, blah. You live in a pretty dog-eat-dog world, don't you? Here's what I was thinking when I chose 2K: I get paid to write software, and my dev tools work best on 2K. Pretty simple, right? See, I don't give a crap about operating systems, most of the time. I am fully familiar with my own blame in this incident. I am perhaps less ignorant than you might think. You have, of course, completely failed to understand the point of the article. Here is the short version: Software shouldn't do crappy, mysterious things to a system it installs on. It's not about me and you. It's about the millions of people out there who are sooper-genius kernel hackers like you. I know you just want to piss on them for their ignorance, but some of us want to give'em a break.
I'd be happy to explain, Leonard. I don't know which app on your list stuck new.net into my system. I do know it was an old version, and the uninstall procedure simply did not work. In fact, if you check the web, you'll find that this is a common problem. I know that your folks have "procedures" for dealing with the resulting damaged registry system; I spent a significant amount of time on the phone with them trying to work it out. Independent of your folks, a pretty smart IT guy over here figured out the magic combination to get my registry repaired. It is absolutely crap to state that you are somehow informing users of the nature of your program. Every effort is made to ensure that the details are buried in legalese. You may have improved yourselves lately, but your earlier actions were pretty egregious. If your disclosure is so good, and you're not stealthy, why are you "working with your partners to improve awareness"? What you're saying is that you've had problems in this area. I would say the primary reason that Ad-Aware isn't touching new.net is they're terrified (rightly) of damaging a user's IP stack during the uninstall. Too bad you weren't worried about the same thing when you wrote earlier versions of your software. I understand that recent versions of new.net are improved in this area, and I applaud your decision to test it. I don't like what your software does. I don't like your stealthy distribution model, and I especially don't like the fact that the early versions of its installation routines were not tested well. The fact that there are simple ways to add new.net into the domain name resolution chain makes it more egregious. But all this is somewhat secondary to the gist of the article. Sorry if you guys came out as the poster boys. I could have chosen any number of other system-altering trojans as well. You just had the bad luck to be the boys who smacked my system on that particular day. Wouldn't it be nice for you to be in a business where you don't get beaten up by this crap every day? Consider it!
The Spam wars have taught us that a conscience and "doing the right thing" simply aren't reality for a lot of people. Unless I can recover damages from people who secretly install crap on my computer, it will be difficult to prevent. I also offer the possibility of a "signing authority", that validates that software meets the guidelines. I think this may go a long way.
NEW.NET supplies a new series of top level domains. They aren't doing this with anybody's authorization; they have simply shipped a trojan with a ton of popular free software packages that alters your IP stack to point to their TLDs. If you go to new.net and click on "enable", a Java applet will install this stack-altering crap on your system, after you foolishly allow it to do so. But, really, they install with a lot of different "free" packages.
Well how about when you have a Creative Nomad Jukebox on your system and you need to move files over to it? it isn't a normal drive. I'm not trying to give advice to super smart guys like you, who obviously don't need anybody's advice on any topic. I do agree with you; Creative software is crap. No argument there. Wish I didn't have to use it. So how are people supposed to know what is "spyware infected" and what isn't?
No security hole, huh? None, Nada, Zilch? I'm sure that's what the inventors of the Java sandbox thought when it first went out there. I'm sure that's what just about everybody has thought about every security sandbox variant that's been produced. Not one of them has come out clean.
The bottom line is, it's a big, unknown, potential point of failure. Yes, it makes sense for the runtime to cordon off memory. No problem there. Can you assemble anything you like inside the memory? Can you run what you want there? Is it purely a buffer? Can you make things there and pass them to other, system routines? I just don't trust it. I don't think you should either.
C# does allow pointers and pointer manipulation. This is mostly for programmers seeking extra performance. Like a cast in Java, declaring code as "unsafe" is equivalent to saying to the VM, "Hey, I know what I'm doing."
And therein lies the truck-sized security hole, my friend. "I know what I'm doing" is exactly where the vast majority of security compromises start. Think about it -- you trust the vendor, so you permit their "performance enhancing" code to run. Well, they didn't have any bad intentions, but it turns out that there was a buffer overrun anyway. Crap. Now you have an executable stack 'cause a clever d00d found a way.
C#'s Unsafe Code is trust-based security, through and through. It's another point of failure. Java's decision to prevent the running of machine code is a good one.
I get tired of dorks who think that Java is some kind of least common denominator. It's a pretty high denominator, in my opinion..NET looks pretty cool to me too. I just don't think "unsafe" code is a good idea.
There's tons out there. The best I've found is this document. There's plenty of work revolving around binary hyperlinks in the 80s. This patent is just bogus.
Any LISP interpreter that referred to a remote object is also prior art for this patent. Not to mention any prior knowledge management structure that did so.
It's very cool to read that the basic research to verify neural models is being done. Like someone else said, it's not definitive, but it certainly does give us good evidence that certain electro-chemical situations strengthen existing synapses and even form new ones (the filaments).
I've always felt (intuitively, not scientifically) that the brain was made up of a series of interconnected networks, each fulfilling different roles. There's a very special role, though -- our point of interest.
If synapses are altered by the current that flows through them, then point of interest is critically important because it directs where the current goes.
The upshot is that the things you find interesting (and think about) are the things that get strengthened. So what determines your interest?
Well, we're very visual creatures, so a lot of what interests us is stuff we can see. We are continually interested in a great deal of the information that comes in from our five senses.
This sort of implies that you can strengthen different points of your mind by focusing on them, directing your interest towards those points. Your interest excites those neural pathways in your mind, strengthening them.
Want to get better at programming? THINK about it. A lot. Stop thinking about what you're seeing, and move in an abstract direction instead. Don't waste your valuable brain electricity on strengthening visual neurons that take too much already.
You son of a bitch. Man, do you ever get it. I wish this could be modded higher than it is. Let me repeat:
they want to take away our general purpose devices, and replace them with specialized devices.
They want to take away our creation devices, and replace them with things that can't/won't. Talk about the ultimate reduction in speech! Think of all the speech/creativity/economic activity that has been produced by general computation. And kiss it goodbye.
That, my friends, is why a contribution to the EFF might just be in your best interest.
It occurs to me that extension of copyright has a direct cost that's quite real. Why does the government grant copyright? To encourage creativity, and the public exposition of that creativity. It helps drive the economy. But there is a cost that nobody discusses: Society/government bears the burden of enforcement. Why should the government agree, in perpetuity, to incur the cost of enforcing copyright law? What does greater society gain back in return for agreeing to enforce copyright? Not much, over a long term.
Most people think that there's some kind of right to have copyrights and patents. From where I stand, it just ain't so. Copyright and patents exist to further the aims of society, not to further the aims of individuals. Sometimes they coincide, and individuals benefit greatly.
I'm very concerned about the tendency in today's software products to reduce the capabilities of the software, and guide the user to certain services. For example, Microsoft recently made its search engine the default engine in IE if you don't type a web page address correctly. This routes a great deal of search traffic to their engine, and gives them substantial control over where the user goes next. This behavior is not configurable.
The tendency in the past has been for applications to do more and more, and have plenty of options. Now, companies aren't as concerned with what users want; they're more concerned with controlling that user's experience.
What stops Microsoft from altering IE so it doesn't show certain pages? What stops Microsoft from routing page views? Nothing. The browser is the choke point of the web.
It seems unthinkable that a company would alter its software to prevent users from accomplishing certain tasks, but it is entirely likely from where I stand. The functionality should be part of the commons. A browser should not influence the information. I suppose we could argue that Netscape did the same thing.
The final twist of the knot is the DMCA. If the browser architecture won't do what you want (no option to stop its search behavior, for example), why don't we just hack the app? You can't. That's a violation of the DMCA. So you're not allowed to alter your browsing experience. You have to take the one that's given to you.
I guess my point here is that functionality is a rightful part of the commons. We shouldn't be denied it by monopoly or anti-hacking law. Is there any chance that the right to do things is going to be recognized?
As it stands we are utterly at the mercy of Microsoft's next alteration of the browser interface...
Tivo was incorporated in 1997, before this patent was filed. Tivo's system activation date is irrelevant. I suspect that they have engineering documents and so forth dating back to then that will clearly show prior art.
I resent XP because of its relentless huxterism: Guiding or forcing me to use the sites that it prefers. There is a scary nexus in front of us that nobody seems to be talking about, and its about the freedoms we have with our general computing devices. Microsoft is very interested in guiding/forcing you to use their sites and technologies, to drive their revenue model.
Right now they are able to avoid some criticism because you can reconfigure IE. You don't have to use their search sites, and you don't have to use the home page they so thoughtfully provide for you. But, what if they took the ability to set your own home page away? What if they took away the ability to choose your own search engine? What then? Why, you say, you'd just figure out how to modify the registry or hack the program or something like that. But you can't. You just violated the DMCA by doing that. You tampered with a security system, and you're going to jail.
This isn't paranoia. It's a logical extension of what we're seeing right now. Not only will it be difficult to NOT use Microsoft's chosen service providers, it'll actually be illegal.
Ultimately, it's about freedom. Do I have the right to do as I wish with a general computation device that I own? The DMCA says no. Hollings say s no. Microsoft says no.
I think the industry has done just fine without massive regulation so far. We are entering an age where "the little guy" can do something equally as interesting as a large corporation. Clearly, they can't have that. Campaign contributions are dangerously close to ensuring that "they" succeed.
Who is "they"?
It is the RIAA. It is Microsoft. These companies believe their right to control the ultimate use of their products is more important than YOUR right to live and think in freedom.
Please. Two notes on a page? Breakthrough? Hah. It's a hell of a lot tougher than it looks.
Read Koza's three tomes for extensive research on genetic programming (the art of developing programs through genetic-evolutionary techniques).
Read about particle swarms if you want to learn about an evolutionary technique that is quietly kicking the ass of most others wherever it is used.
From a theoretical point of view, this feels like it won't solve or do anything that can't be found within the solution space anyway, by another technique.
Don't work around it. I suspect that this is the first shot in a war to divide the web into Microsoft and non-Microsoft camps. If I was Microsoft, here are the next steps I'd take:
1. Change my web serving products to have a default setting that prevents non-Microsoft browsers from using them.
2. Break the link that permits other browsers to be used for URLs. Always go to IE for them.
3. Alter web serving products to stop functioning with non-IE browsers completely.
4. Show warnings when "non-approved" sites are visited. This is not all sites, mind you: Only a specially selected few that "might not display correctly". Like Yahoo. Or Amazon.
5. Detect the presence of non-approved software being run. Warn that this sofware (like SideStep, or Mozilla) may interfere with the proper functioning of the computer.
It's the end of computing as we know it. And I feel fine.
If you ever wanted to know why encryption and privacy are important, intersecting generic packet sniffing and the DMCA should tell you. The citizenry must retain some ability to defend itself against bad law. I suppose it's the same issue as guns -- rights granted which were originally intended to ensure that the government can't disarm and dominate the people.
Without the ability to act private and say what we want, the corporate interests controlling the congress will enact more and more bad law, creating a behavioral minefield in our land of freedom.
Does a citizen have a right to hold a private conversation?
Perhaps the FBI can use its packet sniffing capability to identify pockets of resistance to the DMCA. Black helicopter forces can be dispatched to deal with said resistance.
Or, much scarier, they just might pass additional laws that make it illegal to conspire to defeat the DMCA. The packet sniffer will detect your illegal motions, even inside the room.
My friend Kurt and I built what is now Broderbund's Photo Library product. It had the ability in '97 to create a web site from photo selections. You went through a wizard where you chose which parts of the web UI you wanted to have (like gallery, thumbnails, comments, color selections, etc). So i got yer prior art right here...
Slashdot Mirror
See Fair Software Installation here on SlashDot. This is just the tip of the iceberg -- many, many applications will do this kind of thing. You CANNOT rely on the "good will" of software authors any more. There must be a technical and legal framework in place to prevent these kinds of abuses.
You make the mistake here that everybody makes. What you don't understand is that it doesn't matter who is right and who is wrong. What we're talking about is what kind of CHANCE we want to take with the environment. The bottom line is, there's a probability that one side is right and there's some other probability the other side is right. Then you look at the down side, and decide what kinds of risks you want to take on.
My feeling is that the downside of the pro-environment movement is that we have more efficient cars that cost a bit more. The downside of the fuck the environment movement is the slow heat death of all life on earth.
Let's say there's only a 20% chance the environmentalists are right. Still feel like taking that chance?
I think you and I will simply have to agree to disagree. You are correct that I do not know Ad-Aware's position on new.net. I will also agree that new.net is not "spyware", but it decidedly alters system behavior, and very little effort is made to inform users of this. I consider a system-altering component installed without a user's consent to be a trojan. I gather you do not.
Once again, I reiterate that new.net is not the only software I consider harmful. You can even make the case that it is less harmful than most.
Looks like we have some dorks moderating like idiots. Leonard's comment is decidedly NOT a troll or flamebait; it is highly relevant. Sigh. Metamoderate, people!
Agreed. My "dream os" would actually allow me to create new virtual machines inside of other VMs. An innermost, completely secure ring hides the core of the system. There is NO access to this layer, and software cannot be installed there. Successive VM layers can be added. Storage and other system resources can be lent to and shared amongst VM layers. New VM layers can be created inside of existing ones, and they inherit the outer layer's resources.
The Windows family offers none of this. Unix can simulate some of it with a security model, but apps on ALL platforms are notorious for wanting more than they really need.
I should be able to download whatever I want from the internet and safely run it in a secure, constrained sandbox.
I think some mainframe systems can do nested VMs like this. Maybe the VMWare guys could come up with something. But it really needs to be done from the OS layer out.
Trust is the hardest thing in the internet age.
blah, blah, blah. You live in a pretty dog-eat-dog world, don't you? Here's what I was thinking when I chose 2K: I get paid to write software, and my dev tools work best on 2K. Pretty simple, right? See, I don't give a crap about operating systems, most of the time.
I am fully familiar with my own blame in this incident. I am perhaps less ignorant than you might think.
You have, of course, completely failed to understand the point of the article. Here is the short version: Software shouldn't do crappy, mysterious things to a system it installs on.
It's not about me and you. It's about the millions of people out there who are sooper-genius kernel hackers like you. I know you just want to piss on them for their ignorance, but some of us want to give'em a break.
I'd be happy to explain, Leonard. I don't know which app on your list stuck new.net into my system. I do know it was an old version, and the uninstall procedure simply did not work. In fact, if you check the web, you'll find that this is a common problem. I know that your folks have "procedures" for dealing with the resulting damaged registry system; I spent a significant amount of time on the phone with them trying to work it out. Independent of your folks, a pretty smart IT guy over here figured out the magic combination to get my registry repaired.
It is absolutely crap to state that you are somehow informing users of the nature of your program. Every effort is made to ensure that the details are buried in legalese. You may have improved yourselves lately, but your earlier actions were pretty egregious. If your disclosure is so good, and you're not stealthy, why are you "working with your partners to improve awareness"? What you're saying is that you've had problems in this area.
I would say the primary reason that Ad-Aware isn't touching new.net is they're terrified (rightly) of damaging a user's IP stack during the uninstall. Too bad you weren't worried about the same thing when you wrote earlier versions of your software. I understand that recent versions of new.net are improved in this area, and I applaud your decision to test it.
I don't like what your software does. I don't like your stealthy distribution model, and I especially don't like the fact that the early versions of its installation routines were not tested well. The fact that there are simple ways to add new.net into the domain name resolution chain makes it more egregious.
But all this is somewhat secondary to the gist of the article. Sorry if you guys came out as the poster boys. I could have chosen any number of other system-altering trojans as well. You just had the bad luck to be the boys who smacked my system on that particular day.
Wouldn't it be nice for you to be in a business where you don't get beaten up by this crap every day? Consider it!
The Spam wars have taught us that a conscience and "doing the right thing" simply aren't reality for a lot of people. Unless I can recover damages from people who secretly install crap on my computer, it will be difficult to prevent.
I also offer the possibility of a "signing authority", that validates that software meets the guidelines. I think this may go a long way.
NEW.NET supplies a new series of top level domains. They aren't doing this with anybody's authorization; they have simply shipped a trojan with a ton of popular free software packages that alters your IP stack to point to their TLDs. If you go to new.net and click on "enable", a Java applet will install this stack-altering crap on your system, after you foolishly allow it to do so. But, really, they install with a lot of different "free" packages.
Well how about when you have a Creative Nomad Jukebox on your system and you need to move files over to it? it isn't a normal drive. I'm not trying to give advice to super smart guys like you, who obviously don't need anybody's advice on any topic.
I do agree with you; Creative software is crap. No argument there. Wish I didn't have to use it.
So how are people supposed to know what is "spyware infected" and what isn't?
The bottom line is, it's a big, unknown, potential point of failure. Yes, it makes sense for the runtime to cordon off memory. No problem there. Can you assemble anything you like inside the memory? Can you run what you want there? Is it purely a buffer? Can you make things there and pass them to other, system routines? I just don't trust it. I don't think you should either.
And therein lies the truck-sized security hole, my friend. "I know what I'm doing" is exactly where the vast majority of security compromises start. Think about it -- you trust the vendor, so you permit their "performance enhancing" code to run. Well, they didn't have any bad intentions, but it turns out that there was a buffer overrun anyway. Crap. Now you have an executable stack 'cause a clever d00d found a way.
C#'s Unsafe Code is trust-based security, through and through. It's another point of failure. Java's decision to prevent the running of machine code is a good one.
I get tired of dorks who think that Java is some kind of least common denominator. It's a pretty high denominator, in my opinion. .NET looks pretty cool to me too. I just don't think "unsafe" code is a good idea.
There's tons out there. The best I've found is this document. There's plenty of work revolving around binary hyperlinks in the 80s. This patent is just bogus.
Any LISP interpreter that referred to a remote object is also prior art for this patent. Not to mention any prior knowledge management structure that did so.
It's very cool to read that the basic research to verify neural models is being done. Like someone else said, it's not definitive, but it certainly does give us good evidence that certain electro-chemical situations strengthen existing synapses and even form new ones (the filaments).
I've always felt (intuitively, not scientifically) that the brain was made up of a series of interconnected networks, each fulfilling different roles. There's a very special role, though -- our point of interest.
If synapses are altered by the current that flows through them, then point of interest is critically important because it directs where the current goes.
The upshot is that the things you find interesting (and think about) are the things that get strengthened. So what determines your interest?
Well, we're very visual creatures, so a lot of what interests us is stuff we can see. We are continually interested in a great deal of the information that comes in from our five senses.
This sort of implies that you can strengthen different points of your mind by focusing on them, directing your interest towards those points. Your interest excites those neural pathways in your mind, strengthening them.
Want to get better at programming? THINK about it. A lot. Stop thinking about what you're seeing, and move in an abstract direction instead. Don't waste your valuable brain electricity on strengthening visual neurons that take too much already.
You son of a bitch. Man, do you ever get it. I wish this could be modded higher than it is. Let me repeat:
they want to take away our general purpose devices, and replace them with specialized devices.
They want to take away our creation devices, and replace them with things that can't/won't. Talk about the ultimate reduction in speech! Think of all the speech/creativity/economic activity that has been produced by general computation. And kiss it goodbye.
That, my friends, is why a contribution to the EFF might just be in your best interest.
It occurs to me that extension of copyright has a direct cost that's quite real. Why does the government grant copyright? To encourage creativity, and the public exposition of that creativity. It helps drive the economy. But there is a cost that nobody discusses: Society/government bears the burden of enforcement. Why should the government agree, in perpetuity, to incur the cost of enforcing copyright law? What does greater society gain back in return for agreeing to enforce copyright? Not much, over a long term.
Most people think that there's some kind of right to have copyrights and patents. From where I stand, it just ain't so. Copyright and patents exist to further the aims of society, not to further the aims of individuals. Sometimes they coincide, and individuals benefit greatly.
Scientific groups RUSH and SAGA were disappointed to learn of TRIUMF's success, but swore to produce even bigger explosions next time.
The tendency in the past has been for applications to do more and more, and have plenty of options. Now, companies aren't as concerned with what users want; they're more concerned with controlling that user's experience.
What stops Microsoft from altering IE so it doesn't show certain pages? What stops Microsoft from routing page views? Nothing. The browser is the choke point of the web.
It seems unthinkable that a company would alter its software to prevent users from accomplishing certain tasks, but it is entirely likely from where I stand. The functionality should be part of the commons. A browser should not influence the information. I suppose we could argue that Netscape did the same thing.
The final twist of the knot is the DMCA. If the browser architecture won't do what you want (no option to stop its search behavior, for example), why don't we just hack the app? You can't. That's a violation of the DMCA. So you're not allowed to alter your browsing experience. You have to take the one that's given to you.
I guess my point here is that functionality is a rightful part of the commons. We shouldn't be denied it by monopoly or anti-hacking law. Is there any chance that the right to do things is going to be recognized?
As it stands we are utterly at the mercy of Microsoft's next alteration of the browser interface...
Tivo was incorporated in 1997, before this patent was filed. Tivo's system activation date is irrelevant. I suspect that they have engineering documents and so forth dating back to then that will clearly show prior art.
crap. i wasn't sure how to spell that, and i clearly should have looked it up. now i've learned. :)
Right now they are able to avoid some criticism because you can reconfigure IE. You don't have to use their search sites, and you don't have to use the home page they so thoughtfully provide for you. But, what if they took the ability to set your own home page away? What if they took away the ability to choose your own search engine? What then? Why, you say, you'd just figure out how to modify the registry or hack the program or something like that. But you can't. You just violated the DMCA by doing that. You tampered with a security system, and you're going to jail.
This isn't paranoia. It's a logical extension of what we're seeing right now. Not only will it be difficult to NOT use Microsoft's chosen service providers, it'll actually be illegal.
Ultimately, it's about freedom. Do I have the right to do as I wish with a general computation device that I own? The DMCA says no. Hollings say s no. Microsoft says no.
I think the industry has done just fine without massive regulation so far. We are entering an age where "the little guy" can do something equally as interesting as a large corporation. Clearly, they can't have that. Campaign contributions are dangerously close to ensuring that "they" succeed.
Who is "they"?
It is the RIAA. It is Microsoft. These companies believe their right to control the ultimate use of their products is more important than YOUR right to live and think in freedom.
Please. Two notes on a page? Breakthrough? Hah. It's a hell of a lot tougher than it looks.
Read Koza's three tomes for extensive research on genetic programming (the art of developing programs through genetic-evolutionary techniques).
Read about particle swarms if you want to learn about an evolutionary technique that is quietly kicking the ass of most others wherever it is used.
From a theoretical point of view, this feels like it won't solve or do anything that can't be found within the solution space anyway, by another technique.
Don't work around it. I suspect that this is the first shot in a war to divide the web into Microsoft and non-Microsoft camps. If I was Microsoft, here are the next steps I'd take:
1. Change my web serving products to have a default setting that prevents non-Microsoft browsers from using them.
2. Break the link that permits other browsers to be used for URLs. Always go to IE for them.
3. Alter web serving products to stop functioning with non-IE browsers completely.
4. Show warnings when "non-approved" sites are visited. This is not all sites, mind you: Only a specially selected few that "might not display correctly". Like Yahoo. Or Amazon.
5. Detect the presence of non-approved software being run. Warn that this sofware (like SideStep, or Mozilla) may interfere with the proper functioning of the computer.
It's the end of computing as we know it. And I feel fine.
Without the ability to act private and say what we want, the corporate interests controlling the congress will enact more and more bad law, creating a behavioral minefield in our land of freedom.
Does a citizen have a right to hold a private conversation?
Perhaps the FBI can use its packet sniffing capability to identify pockets of resistance to the DMCA. Black helicopter forces can be dispatched to deal with said resistance.
Or, much scarier, they just might pass additional laws that make it illegal to conspire to defeat the DMCA. The packet sniffer will detect your illegal motions, even inside the room.
My friend Kurt and I built what is now Broderbund's Photo Library product. It had the ability in '97 to create a web site from photo selections. You went through a wizard where you chose which parts of the web UI you wanted to have (like gallery, thumbnails, comments, color selections, etc). So i got yer prior art right here...