Well aside from the fact that Rackspace isn't an ISP so they're not acting as a common carrier in this respect, even if they were they'd have to respect the law. Inciting religious hatred is against the law and is not protected by freedom of speech, nor is inciting violence - this move is arguably both and if Rackspace don't want to be seen to condone it they have little choice but to remove the service.
Do you think any revenge attacks will be perpetrated against the secular West, miles away behind their curtain of security theatre, or against the troops already out there doing an incredibly difficult job in trying to win over the people on the ground? And if it's the latter, do you think that will change views in the West or just cement them?
The issue with those is that there are techniques to prevent their effectiveness (not to mention launch counter measures if you really want to go down that route - and if these are sites offering illegal content there's no reason to assume they won't) based on IP. Unless you've also got a ton of IP addresses to sacrifice, a distributed attack is always going to be much harder to defeat long term (not to mention it's probably cheaper to hire a botnet than to do what you suggest - and again if this company is admitting to illegal behaviour there's no reason to think they wouldn't resort to botnets).
Even 20 is doubtless needlessly long - most content makes its money in the first two or three years, after that it tends only to be the content that's taken to the public's heart that still generates profit, and that's exactly the kind of content that it's in the public interest to not be subject to copyright. What I'd like to see is something like copyright expiring after maybe 7 years for personal use, but if you intent to use it commercially (either to sell directly or to advertise another commercial product/site) increase that to maybe 20 years (because if it's still selling after it's free to the public, there is a valid business model to protect). This would still allow content producers to make money hand over fist, but it wouldn't culturally cripple society or punish genuine enthusiasts the way it can right now, and it also wouldn't allow big artists to rest on their laurels after a couple of big hits, they'd have to work for their living like the rest of us (which again benefits society as it means they generate new content instead of spewing out endless "best of" albums).
Then what's the difficulty in using the correct terms? The fact is, if you say "intellectual property infringement" to most people, they won't care, if you say "theft" you're using a word that carries much more power in the public's perception. If infringing property is as bad as theft, use the correct term and live with the fact that most sensible people will laugh it off, if you don't think it's as bad as theft then you're even more of a hypochrite for telling people to equate the two (although ultimately I suspect you're a label shill or a troll in it for the lulz).
They even admit (in TFS and TFA) that it's already happening in Hollywood - albeit we only have their word for it, and a company capable of employing a DoS attack is likewise capable of lying about its clients to make it sound bigger than it is.
Indeed, on the other hand try coming to the UK and driving a steady 70MPH in the fast lane and see how popular that makes you with the speedfreaks behind.
If it's true that Hollywood have used their services, then the company may be in India but their paymasters certainly are not (and if it's not true, then congrats to the company on making a lot of extra enemies online for no real reason).
On the other hand, if the labels wish to do away with the laws in this area and have a vigilante free-for-all, I'm sure the "pirates" wouldn't mind one bit. The labels have already demonstrated their technical incompetence, the reason they're having to resort to these measures is because the "pirates" run technical rings around them time after time, now the labels think they can fight fire with fire but something tells me they're the ones who will end up burned.
A punch to the face can under some circumstances cause the death of the victim. Therefore a response up-to and including deadly force is entirely proportionate tyvm.
No, you're confusing the issue, there is already sufficient precedent to show that if your response is reasonable but there were unintended consequences that you were unaware of at the time (the "circumstances" you mention, for instance, some guy starts a fight with you and you don't know he has a severe brain condition) then you will not be liable, but that doesn't justify instantly going for the extreme response ("Oh, well I knew some people could die from a punch so I thought there was no real difference if I just shot the guy in the head" is not likely to hold up in court).
The difference is, if corporations commit these acts they'll get a slap on the wrists, if individual users do the same in kind they'll probably face at the least unfairly disproportionate fines if not jail time - yet another way our laws have been restructured to protect the interests of big business at the cost of society.
I have a 360. I have a 250GB hard drive. In fact, I have two (the Modern Warfare special edition "super elite" and the new slim) and they both have 250GB hard drives.
Exactly what I was going to say - XBMC was an amazing use of technology that only came about as a direct result of people hacking the hardware to allow homebrew. So much so that it has grown beyond its original platform and is now a mature media player for other systems, and even today I have my old XBOX in the bedroom because it's just so damn convenient being able to stream stuff from my media centre, over the network to play on it using XBMC. That and the emulators available meaning I could replay my old games without having to have a bunch of systems in the living room were the reasons I continued using the XBOX even after I'd upgraded to a 360 for gaming.
Maybe they're planning to put Swype on it - that helps a lot with typing on touch screen mobiles and I think Samsung have some kind of a deal to have it on their mobiles already even though it's still in beta elsewhere. If they're expecting people to use this as a lightweight web browser then that's probably a good compromise, but I agree I'd hate to do any serious typing on it (even with a bluetooth keyboard, you have the issue of how you comfortably prop up a tablet device and keep your lap free for the keyboard - if you go the route of a stand then you may as well have a netbook).
If it's because you're a nerd you're probably asking the wrong audience! Personally I can't see the advantages over a netbook or ultra-portable laptop, but the disadvantages (lack of keyboard, plus I don't see how I'm meant to hold it for prolonged periods, e.g. for watching a movie, the keyboard on a netbook functions as a stand to hold it upright on my lap) are off-putting. The gadget fan in me can see the attraction of a killer interface for controlling technology in the home, but since most of my technology can't talk to one device right now, and the devices in question are a little pricey to use as fancy remote controls, I do have issues seeing how I can possibly justify one of these right now.
I guess it depends what you're using them for. For web browsing I like the saturated colour, it tends to make things a little easier to distinguish on a small screen (my experience is with the HTC Desire), and menus and apps look visually very appealing. For movies/Youtube the screen is small enough that the colours aren't really off-putting, but on a slightly bigger screen, for watching TV or feature length movies I'd probably find it too much.
Yeah, totally agree. This makes me wonder if the Music industry has finally realised we are the ones holding all of the cards, not vice versa.
No, what this is is that the music industry have basically pushed for and got ridiculous laws that unfairly give all the power to them, and now they're playing the "hey let's stop fighting" card in the hopes that people will make the same assumption as you, that we've somehow "won" and stop fighting. They'd be more than happy with the current status quo, massively biased in their favour as it is.
I think you've hit on exactly the issue - especially considering how much console FPSs tend to compensate for the clumsiness of the input mechanism (usually there is some degree of autoaim involved). It's not so noticable in 2D, but to achieve this effect in 3D without either making it look like your sights are incredibly inaccurate (because you're hitting people even when it's cleared you're off by a fraction in either direction and the game is "compensating") or else you're going to have to have the sights "jump" to cover the target, too much jumping and it's going to feel very fake. The other alternative is of course to not compensate, but when people see their frag count drop off a cliff they're probably not going to want to play your game so much, even if it is a lot more accurate. The final difficulty is that you need to offer 2D and 3D modes of play without undue disadvantage to one or the other group of gamers (if everyone playing in 2D mode is more accurate, you've pretty much killed 3D in your game, meanwhile if everyone in 3D mode is more accurate, you'll get massive backlash from consumers who don't want to splash out on a new TV just to compete in multiplayer).
It's a valid counter point. Apply the original argument to the Atari 2600 (that you can turn off colour, ergo it's obviously just a gimmick) and all games today would still be black and white. Who is to say that in 30 years time all games won't be in 3D by default and even the idea of having a switch back to 2D won't be seen as quaint (I hope that's not the case, 3D movies make me feel sick enough, but it may well be - just because something's new and there's an option to turn it off doesn't mean it's nothing but a gimmick).
Yes it baffles me that you can buy into a situation like that will full prior knowledge and still be allowed to even raise an action in court. In most situations if you knowingly put yourself in a position of harm in order to benefit through legal action (for instance, throwing yourself in front of a car so you can sue the insurance company) and were stupid enough to admit it, you'd be looking at prison time.
So previously they paid nothing for finding and reporting bugs, but nobody complained because that's the industry norm. Suddenly they start paying a token thank you gratuity and you're acting like this makes them villains? How much are MS paying? (I'll give you a clue, it rhymes with "hero" but it doesn't make them heros any more than this move makes Google villains...)
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Well aside from the fact that Rackspace isn't an ISP so they're not acting as a common carrier in this respect, even if they were they'd have to respect the law. Inciting religious hatred is against the law and is not protected by freedom of speech, nor is inciting violence - this move is arguably both and if Rackspace don't want to be seen to condone it they have little choice but to remove the service.
Do you think any revenge attacks will be perpetrated against the secular West, miles away behind their curtain of security theatre, or against the troops already out there doing an incredibly difficult job in trying to win over the people on the ground? And if it's the latter, do you think that will change views in the West or just cement them?
The issue with those is that there are techniques to prevent their effectiveness (not to mention launch counter measures if you really want to go down that route - and if these are sites offering illegal content there's no reason to assume they won't) based on IP. Unless you've also got a ton of IP addresses to sacrifice, a distributed attack is always going to be much harder to defeat long term (not to mention it's probably cheaper to hire a botnet than to do what you suggest - and again if this company is admitting to illegal behaviour there's no reason to think they wouldn't resort to botnets).
Because they've never gone after innocent parties before now?
Even 20 is doubtless needlessly long - most content makes its money in the first two or three years, after that it tends only to be the content that's taken to the public's heart that still generates profit, and that's exactly the kind of content that it's in the public interest to not be subject to copyright. What I'd like to see is something like copyright expiring after maybe 7 years for personal use, but if you intent to use it commercially (either to sell directly or to advertise another commercial product/site) increase that to maybe 20 years (because if it's still selling after it's free to the public, there is a valid business model to protect). This would still allow content producers to make money hand over fist, but it wouldn't culturally cripple society or punish genuine enthusiasts the way it can right now, and it also wouldn't allow big artists to rest on their laurels after a couple of big hits, they'd have to work for their living like the rest of us (which again benefits society as it means they generate new content instead of spewing out endless "best of" albums).
Then what's the difficulty in using the correct terms? The fact is, if you say "intellectual property infringement" to most people, they won't care, if you say "theft" you're using a word that carries much more power in the public's perception. If infringing property is as bad as theft, use the correct term and live with the fact that most sensible people will laugh it off, if you don't think it's as bad as theft then you're even more of a hypochrite for telling people to equate the two (although ultimately I suspect you're a label shill or a troll in it for the lulz).
They even admit (in TFS and TFA) that it's already happening in Hollywood - albeit we only have their word for it, and a company capable of employing a DoS attack is likewise capable of lying about its clients to make it sound bigger than it is.
Indeed, on the other hand try coming to the UK and driving a steady 70MPH in the fast lane and see how popular that makes you with the speedfreaks behind.
If it's true that Hollywood have used their services, then the company may be in India but their paymasters certainly are not (and if it's not true, then congrats to the company on making a lot of extra enemies online for no real reason).
On the other hand, if the labels wish to do away with the laws in this area and have a vigilante free-for-all, I'm sure the "pirates" wouldn't mind one bit. The labels have already demonstrated their technical incompetence, the reason they're having to resort to these measures is because the "pirates" run technical rings around them time after time, now the labels think they can fight fire with fire but something tells me they're the ones who will end up burned.
A punch to the face can under some circumstances cause the death of the victim. Therefore a response up-to and including deadly force is entirely proportionate tyvm.
No, you're confusing the issue, there is already sufficient precedent to show that if your response is reasonable but there were unintended consequences that you were unaware of at the time (the "circumstances" you mention, for instance, some guy starts a fight with you and you don't know he has a severe brain condition) then you will not be liable, but that doesn't justify instantly going for the extreme response ("Oh, well I knew some people could die from a punch so I thought there was no real difference if I just shot the guy in the head" is not likely to hold up in court).
The difference is, if corporations commit these acts they'll get a slap on the wrists, if individual users do the same in kind they'll probably face at the least unfairly disproportionate fines if not jail time - yet another way our laws have been restructured to protect the interests of big business at the cost of society.
I have a 360. I have a 250GB hard drive. In fact, I have two (the Modern Warfare special edition "super elite" and the new slim) and they both have 250GB hard drives.
Exactly what I was going to say - XBMC was an amazing use of technology that only came about as a direct result of people hacking the hardware to allow homebrew. So much so that it has grown beyond its original platform and is now a mature media player for other systems, and even today I have my old XBOX in the bedroom because it's just so damn convenient being able to stream stuff from my media centre, over the network to play on it using XBMC. That and the emulators available meaning I could replay my old games without having to have a bunch of systems in the living room were the reasons I continued using the XBOX even after I'd upgraded to a 360 for gaming.
Maybe they're planning to put Swype on it - that helps a lot with typing on touch screen mobiles and I think Samsung have some kind of a deal to have it on their mobiles already even though it's still in beta elsewhere. If they're expecting people to use this as a lightweight web browser then that's probably a good compromise, but I agree I'd hate to do any serious typing on it (even with a bluetooth keyboard, you have the issue of how you comfortably prop up a tablet device and keep your lap free for the keyboard - if you go the route of a stand then you may as well have a netbook).
If it's because you're a nerd you're probably asking the wrong audience! Personally I can't see the advantages over a netbook or ultra-portable laptop, but the disadvantages (lack of keyboard, plus I don't see how I'm meant to hold it for prolonged periods, e.g. for watching a movie, the keyboard on a netbook functions as a stand to hold it upright on my lap) are off-putting. The gadget fan in me can see the attraction of a killer interface for controlling technology in the home, but since most of my technology can't talk to one device right now, and the devices in question are a little pricey to use as fancy remote controls, I do have issues seeing how I can possibly justify one of these right now.
I guess it depends what you're using them for. For web browsing I like the saturated colour, it tends to make things a little easier to distinguish on a small screen (my experience is with the HTC Desire), and menus and apps look visually very appealing. For movies/Youtube the screen is small enough that the colours aren't really off-putting, but on a slightly bigger screen, for watching TV or feature length movies I'd probably find it too much.
Also, Strategic Artificially Intelligent Nuclear Transport unit 5 seems to have developed a personality and believes it is "alive".
That reminds me of the family Flanders in the Simpsons, meticulously scrubbing and drying the dishes, then loading them into the dishwasher.
I guess somewhere like Japan where space is limited and you pay a premium for it, the more devices you can combine into one unit the better.
Yeah, totally agree. This makes me wonder if the Music industry has finally realised we are the ones holding all of the cards, not vice versa.
No, what this is is that the music industry have basically pushed for and got ridiculous laws that unfairly give all the power to them, and now they're playing the "hey let's stop fighting" card in the hopes that people will make the same assumption as you, that we've somehow "won" and stop fighting. They'd be more than happy with the current status quo, massively biased in their favour as it is.
I think you've hit on exactly the issue - especially considering how much console FPSs tend to compensate for the clumsiness of the input mechanism (usually there is some degree of autoaim involved). It's not so noticable in 2D, but to achieve this effect in 3D without either making it look like your sights are incredibly inaccurate (because you're hitting people even when it's cleared you're off by a fraction in either direction and the game is "compensating") or else you're going to have to have the sights "jump" to cover the target, too much jumping and it's going to feel very fake. The other alternative is of course to not compensate, but when people see their frag count drop off a cliff they're probably not going to want to play your game so much, even if it is a lot more accurate. The final difficulty is that you need to offer 2D and 3D modes of play without undue disadvantage to one or the other group of gamers (if everyone playing in 2D mode is more accurate, you've pretty much killed 3D in your game, meanwhile if everyone in 3D mode is more accurate, you'll get massive backlash from consumers who don't want to splash out on a new TV just to compete in multiplayer).
It's a valid counter point. Apply the original argument to the Atari 2600 (that you can turn off colour, ergo it's obviously just a gimmick) and all games today would still be black and white. Who is to say that in 30 years time all games won't be in 3D by default and even the idea of having a switch back to 2D won't be seen as quaint (I hope that's not the case, 3D movies make me feel sick enough, but it may well be - just because something's new and there's an option to turn it off doesn't mean it's nothing but a gimmick).
Yes it baffles me that you can buy into a situation like that will full prior knowledge and still be allowed to even raise an action in court. In most situations if you knowingly put yourself in a position of harm in order to benefit through legal action (for instance, throwing yourself in front of a car so you can sue the insurance company) and were stupid enough to admit it, you'd be looking at prison time.
So previously they paid nothing for finding and reporting bugs, but nobody complained because that's the industry norm. Suddenly they start paying a token thank you gratuity and you're acting like this makes them villains? How much are MS paying? (I'll give you a clue, it rhymes with "hero" but it doesn't make them heros any more than this move makes Google villains...)