Expanding the firehose aspect--someone should write a program that would generate a constant high speed firehose stream of total gibberish (like, digitize white noise), send it out and let the government try to decipher it.
I remember one night several weeks ago I was attempting to set up a wi-fi connection to a computer in the far end of the house from where the router is, and as I was trying to connect with the router I noticed several names, including the one for our router, and among them was one for "wi-fi surveillance van." I checked a few minutes later and the surveillance van was gone.
Incidentally, I never did get the connection to work properly, apparently I was out of range of the router. I ended up going back to Ethernet.
In the US, claiming or trying to enforce rights not granted by copyright law constitutes the crime of copyright abuse, and one can get in big trouble by doing so. Requiring a license just to access copyrighted content it seems to me would fall squarely in this category.
If you have to get copyright clearance just to access copyrighted content you'd have to get clearance or have a license every time you access a Web site, open a book or watch anything on TV. I certainly don't see any way this would fly in the U.S.A.
Electric motors spin. Fans spin. Washing machines spin. Dancers spin. tops spin. Airplanes spin. Cars spin. Politicians spin (facts). So do lawyers. So do corporations.
"Spin" is a generic word. YOU CAN'T TRADEMARK THAT!!!
I remember several years ago a US shoemaker (Deckers?) trademarked "Ugg Boots," then proceeded to sue the pants off of Australian shoe makers who had been making that style of boot and calling them "ugg boots" as a generic term for the style for 30 years or more, for infringing their newly minted "trademark".
Is that legal? Seems like extremely dirty pool to me.
Seems as I recall Sonny Bono once made the comment that if he could, he'd make the term of copyright forever minus one day.
I guess their current intent is to do it 20 years at a time, whenever Dizzney's copyright on Mickey Mouse is about to expire.
Disgusting. I fear our congress has come under the thrall of mega-corporations and has had their eyes dazzled to do whatever is the bidding of their masters.
Some people are just trolls. They'll sue anybody over anything. We have patent trolls who buy up all sorts of questionable patents for the sole purpose of using them for litigation. We have copyright trolls who "acquire" copyrights on news stories found on the Internet, sue the owner of the web site and make all kinds of outrageous demands on them, and we even have trademark trolls. Monster Cable was one of the worst, suing anyone who used the word "Monster" in any kind of a commercial context, even sued Disney over its "Monsters Inc." movie. And now we have Disney having acquired exclusive trademark rights to the phrase, "Seal Team 6",the name given to the navy special forces team responsible for the assassination of Osama Bin Laden. I keep wondering, how long before Disney sues the navy for infringing its "trademark"?
I suppose some people see suing others as just a means of bringing in more money, with the excuse of protecting "rights" that may not even be theirs.
I do know one thing, suing potential customers is no way to build your business.
Try upgrading your RAM. Lots of time slow performance can be blamed on lack of memory, because your computer is constantly having to thrash stuff back and forth with the paging file.
1. Greed is an insatiable monster. It is never satisfied no matter how much it gets. Paul Getty I think it was, at the time a billionaire and the richest man in the world, when asked what he wanted more than anything else, replied, "More money." No matter how much a greedy person gets, it is never enough.
2. You reap what you sow. You want to be stingy with others, expect them to be just as stingy with you.
3. Suing your customers and potential customers is an excellent way to lose them. For years the RIAA and the labels have been suing people for downloading and sharing their music, sometimes for outrageous amounts (one individual,$millions for actual damages probably less than $50), so paranoid that someone else besides them might get some benefit from their works without their profiteering from it. Not only that, they want outrageous prices for their music, and then they wonder why their sales are tanking? Go figure.
A Confucius type saying these people might want to heed:
"He who screw customers soon have no customers to screw."
I don't know about other cell phone providers, but AT&T charges a penny per Kbyte, one cent minimum per text message.
I'm sure a penny for a one time confirmation message isn't going to break anybodies' bank account. And one penny certainly isn't worth suing over. Just delete the message and go on.
I think the root of this problem is we have too many lawyers with not enough to do, so they file silly lawsuits just for recreation.
People who file silly or frivolous lawsuits should be made to pay their defendants' legal expenses when they lose. That would stop a lot of these nonsensical lawsuits.
Re: Home cooking is killing the restaurant industry
Consider the implications if everybody could just cook their own food: Nobody would go to restaurants and pay for their meals any more. All the restaurants would go out of business, with millions of people going into unemployment and billions of dollars that would have been used at restaurants disappearing from the economy. With no restaurants there would be no education of new chefs, and after some time nobody would know how to cook, and all of humanity would starve to extinction!
Uh-oh! There's that old slippery slope fallacy again.
Most people I know cook at home, and also go out for occasional meals at restaurants too.
Besides, why would Kraft care? Mac and cheese is pretty much a cook-at-home item, so it seems to me cook-at-home would mean more business for Kraft.
Well here we go again. Another silly lawsuit over trivia. I think the real problem is we have too many lawyers with not enough to do, so they must file these silly lawsuits for recreation. (A bit of sarcasm here.)
Shades of Monster Cable suing Disney for Monsters, Inc. and anyone else using the word "Monster" in any kind of a commercial context, even a mom and pop clothing store that used the word "Monster" in its name. Makes me wonder if they'll sue Linux developers over the KDE desktop manager.
Suing your potential customers is no way to build goodwill.
Re: Righthaven Defies Court, Ignores Domain Name Ruling
I hope the court not only shoots down all of Righthaven's infringement suits, but orders it to pay all its defendants' legal expenses, declares it to be a vexatious litigant and cites it for contempt of court if it keeps on suing and making ridiculous demands.
(Not a lawyer, but I learned a lot about law reading Groklaw.)
Did you know you could make an earthquake sensor out of a 10 cent disposable plastic drinking cup? Just fill it with water and set it on a level surface where light can reflect off of the water. Something that reflects a straight line in the water works best. Vibrations, even too small to feel, cause ripples on the water which show up as distortions in the reflected image. This works best with a dark colored cup, light reflected by the interior of a lighter colored cup tends to obscure the reflected image.
Another way to do this is to put a sheet of white paper a few inches behind the cup, darken the room and shine a LED or other point source of light on the water at about a 45 degree angle so it reflects onto the paper. This projected image shows the ripples quite plainly.
Unless you're on a concrete slab away from civilization this doesn't really prove anything. There are all sorts of things that can cause vibrations, out of balance fans, roaring water heaters or furnaces, wind, nearby passing trains, trucks, buses or other heavy vehicles, blasting, and of course, actual earthquakes. There are no calibrations, but you can get an idea of the relative intensity of the vibrations by the nature and distinctness of the ripples in the reflected image. And it does make an interesting experiment.
What's really needed is software that will detect such malware on a computer and notify the user of same and give instructions how to remove it. Seems to me like virus protection software would be the ideal medium for this, and could provide the means of both cleaning out the malware and protecting against re-installation/re-infection.
Re: Plaintiff just spent 5K on lawyers telling everyone he is a THIEF
If you'll read the PDF, you'll see one of the questions to be determined is if the company itself put out an unprotected version as a honeypot, styling it to be a seven-day trial, just so it could install its spyware on computers of whoever would bite so they could sue and shake them down for $$$$$.
The plaintiff downloaded the software with the reasonable belief that it was as presented, a seven day free trial. When he found it didn't meet his needs he promptly uninstalled and deleted it. Same day. How is that stealing?
If either Transmagic or ITCA transmitted unprotected versions styled as free trials for the purpose of installing spyware on on unsuspecting users' computers, then suing them for infringement, this is entrapment which is every bit as illegal as using pirated software.
How is this robbing your neighbor? If you rob your neighbor he no longer has the thing you robbed him of.
If you circumvent DRM, all you've done is gained access to something you already had, whoever you got it from still has what he had. How is that stealing?
Hotz had a legally purchased PS3 which came with an advertised feature of being able to run Linux and be used as a personal computer. Sony without Hotz's consent and with no reasonable justification unilaterally removed that feature from his PS3 after he had paid to have it. Hotz found a way to get it back. How is that stealing? Seems to me the only stealing that was done was Sony removing Other OS, which Sony had vigorously advertised and promoted, and which thousands of PS3 owners had paid a premium to get.
Not only that, but Sony/SCEA now has gained case law that extends the reach of the DMCA to hardware access, as well as software. If I correctly understand the DMCA as written it says nothing about hardware, only unauthorized access to a copyrighted work. Hardware is not a copyrighted work, it is a tool. True, it may contain some copyrighted items like IC chips and Bios, but that does not make the hardware a copyrighted work, any more than sticking a copyrighted CD in your car's CD player makes your car a copyrighted work.
On the post: Irony: FBI Says Apple Letting You Remotely Kill iPhones They've Taken Is 'Big Brother-ish'
Just for grins and giggles...
On the post: Does The FBI Really Use Surveillance Vans With WiFi SSIDs Saying 'FBI_SURVEILLANCE_VAN'?
Surveillance van
Incidentally, I never did get the connection to work properly, apparently I was out of range of the router. I ended up going back to Ethernet.
On the post: University Of Calgary Refusing To Pay Access Copyright Any More
Copyright abuse
If you have to get copyright clearance just to access copyrighted content you'd have to get clearance or have a license every time you access a Web site, open a book or watch anything on TV. I certainly don't see any way this would fly in the U.S.A.
On the post: Spin Magazine Sends Cease & Desist To Twitter User @Spin
Spin
"Spin" is a generic word. YOU CAN'T TRADEMARK THAT!!!
On the post: Spin Magazine Sends Cease & Desist To Twitter User @Spin
Trademark protection
Is that legal? Seems like extremely dirty pool to me.
On the post: Waiting 100+ Years For Version 2.0
Copyright forever
I guess their current intent is to do it 20 years at a time, whenever Dizzney's copyright on Mickey Mouse is about to expire.
Disgusting. I fear our congress has come under the thrall of mega-corporations and has had their eyes dazzled to do whatever is the bidding of their masters.
On the post: European Court: Freedom Of Expression About Darfur More Important Than Louis Vuitton's Trademark
Trolls
I suppose some people see suing others as just a means of bringing in more money, with the excuse of protecting "rights" that may not even be theirs.
I do know one thing, suing potential customers is no way to build your business.
On the post: Homeland Security Demands Mozilla Remove Firefox Extension That Redirects Seized Domains
Re: MAFIAAfire slows browser
On the post: U2 Manager Still Blaming Everyone Else For Not Giving Him More Money... As U2 Sets Record For Highest Grossing Tour Ever
A few thoughts...
2. You reap what you sow. You want to be stingy with others, expect them to be just as stingy with you.
3. Suing your customers and potential customers is an excellent way to lose them. For years the RIAA and the labels have been suing people for downloading and sharing their music, sometimes for outrageous amounts (one individual,$millions for actual damages probably less than $50), so paranoid that someone else besides them might get some benefit from their works without their profiteering from it. Not only that, they want outrageous prices for their music, and then they wonder why their sales are tanking? Go figure.
A Confucius type saying these people might want to heed:
"He who screw customers soon have no customers to screw."
On the post: Lawsuits Filed Against Twitter, Facebook & MySpace For Confirming That A User No Longer Wanted Text Messages
Re: Damages
I'm sure a penny for a one time confirmation message isn't going to break anybodies' bank account. And one penny certainly isn't worth suing over. Just delete the message and go on.
On the post: Lawsuits Filed Against Twitter, Facebook & MySpace For Confirming That A User No Longer Wanted Text Messages
Frivolous lawsuits
People who file silly or frivolous lawsuits should be made to pay their defendants' legal expenses when they lose. That would stop a lot of these nonsensical lawsuits.
On the post: Kraft Threatens Cooking Teacher With Trademark Claim For Teaching Students To Cook Beyond Kraft Mac & Cheese
Re: Home cooking is killing the restaurant industry
Uh-oh! There's that old slippery slope fallacy again.
Most people I know cook at home, and also go out for occasional meals at restaurants too.
Besides, why would Kraft care? Mac and cheese is pretty much a cook-at-home item, so it seems to me cook-at-home would mean more business for Kraft.
Well here we go again. Another silly lawsuit over trivia. I think the real problem is we have too many lawyers with not enough to do, so they must file these silly lawsuits for recreation. (A bit of sarcasm here.)
On the post: Kraft Threatens Cooking Teacher With Trademark Claim For Teaching Students To Cook Beyond Kraft Mac & Cheese
Kick the KD
Suing your potential customers is no way to build goodwill.
On the post: Another Judge Slams Righthaven For Chilling Effects That Do Nothing To Advance Copyright Act's Purpose
Re: Righthaven Defies Court, Ignores Domain Name Ruling
(Not a lawyer, but I learned a lot about law reading Groklaw.)
On the post: DailyDirt: Ubiquitous Sensors Are Getting Kinda Useful
Earthquake sensor
Another way to do this is to put a sheet of white paper a few inches behind the cup, darken the room and shine a LED or other point source of light on the water at about a 45 degree angle so it reflects onto the paper. This projected image shows the ripples quite plainly.
Unless you're on a concrete slab away from civilization this doesn't really prove anything. There are all sorts of things that can cause vibrations, out of balance fans, roaring water heaters or furnaces, wind, nearby passing trains, trucks, buses or other heavy vehicles, blasting, and of course, actual earthquakes. There are no calibrations, but you can get an idea of the relative intensity of the vibrations by the nature and distinctness of the ripples in the reflected image. And it does make an interesting experiment.
On the post: ITC Not Impressed With Latest Smartphone Patent Thicket Cases
Patent thickets
On the post: FBI Hijacks Botnet, With Court Order... Then Issues Kill Signal To Millions Of Computers
Re: Re: All I can say is Holy Crap!!!
On the post: Is It Infringement To Get Your Favorite Sports Team Logo Tattooed On Your Body?
This seems to be Sue-Your_Customers season...
On the post: DRM Accused Of Sending Personal Info To Help With Licensing Shakedown
Re: Plaintiff just spent 5K on lawyers telling everyone he is a THIEF
The plaintiff downloaded the software with the reasonable belief that it was as presented, a seven day free trial. When he found it didn't meet his needs he promptly uninstalled and deleted it. Same day. How is that stealing?
If either Transmagic or ITCA transmitted unprotected versions styled as free trials for the purpose of installing spyware on on unsuspecting users' computers, then suing them for infringement, this is entrapment which is every bit as illegal as using pirated software.
On the post: Geohot Supporters Angry He Settled With Sony
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
If you circumvent DRM, all you've done is gained access to something you already had, whoever you got it from still has what he had. How is that stealing?
Hotz had a legally purchased PS3 which came with an advertised feature of being able to run Linux and be used as a personal computer. Sony without Hotz's consent and with no reasonable justification unilaterally removed that feature from his PS3 after he had paid to have it. Hotz found a way to get it back. How is that stealing? Seems to me the only stealing that was done was Sony removing Other OS, which Sony had vigorously advertised and promoted, and which thousands of PS3 owners had paid a premium to get.
Not only that, but Sony/SCEA now has gained case law that extends the reach of the DMCA to hardware access, as well as software. If I correctly understand the DMCA as written it says nothing about hardware, only unauthorized access to a copyrighted work. Hardware is not a copyrighted work, it is a tool. True, it may contain some copyrighted items like IC chips and Bios, but that does not make the hardware a copyrighted work, any more than sticking a copyrighted CD in your car's CD player makes your car a copyrighted work.
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