Actually, there is. Georg Cantor proved in the late 19th Century that there are infinite sets that are larger than other infinite sets. It drove him, literally, insane.
The fallacy here is that any trademark is contained within a particular set (category of usage) and should not be concerned that they cannot control all the instances of their trademark in the whole universe. TLDs are categories. A trademark owner should only be concerned about the TLD appropriate to their trademark category. gTLDs are a homogenized mess, and owners cannot control the names in this mess. I would argue they shouldn't even be concerned.
I don't disagree with you. I was, subtly, making fun of them with the comic, oops... cosmic, cop analogy. Their paranoia is driven by a perceptual fallacy. Oh no, there is more space, so there are going to be more bad things coming to fill it. It doesn't make sense, because when I look for faux news, I will go to fox.com and not fox.xxx.
The question comes up what is the use of a TLD these days, to locate something? It is an organizing method, that allows someone to narrow their search and evaluate what sort of entity a website represents. There are two ways I can think of to, explicitly, use a TLD for searching:
1). enter a name (partial URL) in the address bar and let the browser fill in the rest with a default (usually HTTP and .com).
2). Narrow a search on a search engine by specifying a particular TLD or sub-domain.
There is undoubtedly an implicit use of TLDs by search engines for ranking but I don't know what they do.
I don't like the idea of allowing generic TLDs because you lose the ability to evaluate the website as being within a category. I also don't want to be forced to search for Sarah Palin within "fox.com" as well as ".fox". Redundancy does not make searches easier here, because one instance of a name may be different than another. Maybe that is what the Copyright Alliance is paranoid about. They feel that trademark owners have to control all instances of their trademark names within the domain name space. That doesn't make sense, in part, because trademarks are already limited to being within a certain category or categories that must be spelled out as part of the registration process. In general, I don't see a larger namespace as a problem because I, personally, don't want to have to search multiple categories of TLDs to find something. The default is usually ".com", and that is fine with me. If I am trying to find the whitehouse where the US president lives, I won't pay attention to or search on whitehouse.com, whitehouse.jobs, whitehouse.travel, or whitehouse.xxx. I know to look for whitehouse.gov. I, nor anyone else should care what is at ".whitehouse".
I don't see this project as being revolutionary. First off, they are just talking about putting APIs in the browser to allow for direct browser to browser communication. Applications, separate from a browser, already exist to transmit such peer to peer media streams. Also, I don't think the addition of a P2P architecture for browser communication is meant to replace a client-server model for HTTP or HTTPS. It seems more appropriate to consider this as a complement to a client-server model to support collaboration over a browser. A great deal of web content is of transitory interest and, thus, inappropriate for distributing via a P2P architecture. As an aside, I would hate to see the effect on home routers by the consequent oversaturation of the NAT tables. That could be fixed, however, with more capable embedded routers and a transition to IPV6.
As to the issue of bypassing censorship, a P2P architecture for a browser could be used by a government to pinpoint all the users. Imagine if China was paranoid about copyright infringement. They could easily identify and jail all those infringers that, in the US, are hidden behind a leased IP address and judicial constraints on identifying the attached computer/user.
The architecture of the internet and, thus, the world wide web is already decentralized and distributed. The aspects for which control is centralized, a single DNS system and a single domain registration and IP address assignment system
need centralized control to avoid fragmentation of the internet. Governments attempt to censor, via domain seizures for example, ultimately encourage fragmentation. Attempts to counter censorship should not also encourage fragmentation.
I have not really thought this through, but if you are thinking that a P2P architecture for browser communication will completely replace a client-server model, I believe that would also encourage fragmntation. It certainly could make information harder to find. Imagine looking through Google search results to find news about a particular topic without depending on results from specific domains.
The word Mozilla came about as the internal name for the Netscape browser. Mozilla = Mosaic + killer. Mosaic being one of the first graphical browsers and developed at NCSA, Univ. of Illinois in 1992.
"Mozilla can in no way shape or form be held liable for an extension (especially when it is not even their extension but written by a third party)"
Is that true? Let's suppose first that ICE actually exercised due process in obtaining the seizures through court order etc. If the code was a core part of Firefox, could ICE then get a court order to force Mozilla to remove a feature that helped in circumventing the domain seizure? Suppose it was an Apple approved app on an Ipad. That's not much different than being a core feature of an Ipad. In Mozilla's case they offer the add-on on their website as an officially approved one. Is this much different than the Ipad scenario? We all know that anyone can write and install an add-on for Firefox without Mozilla's approval. The issue here is that Mozilla has put their seal of approval upon the Mafiaafire add-on. ICE is asking them to take that back and I assume they realize that won't make Mafiaafire go away.
BTW: Mozilla did not approve the Firesheep add-on but that was not the result of government pressure.
You demonstrate what a friend of mine, who is a DA in Santa Clara County (Silicon Valley), once said to me. He said, that prosecutors look to eliminate software engineers from juries because, for them, no amount of evidence is ever enough (I'm a software engineer). I would never vote to convict someone based solely on a Myspace profile, but I would consider it as additional circumstantial evidence if all the investigation I laid out in my comment had been done to authenticate the profile. The existence of malware, including rootkits, can be discovered by good forensic analysis. Apparently though, HBGary (yes, THAT HBGary!) has developed a super-stealthy rootkit called 12 Monkeys. They are claiming it is undetectable. From the emails that were stolen from them, by Anonymous, they planned on selling it for about $240K. If you have enemies that dedicated towards framing you, there may not be much hope. http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/02/black-ops-how-hbgary-wrote-backdoors-and-root kits-for-the-government.ars/3
You can defend against bad forensics experts and bad experts in general by getting your own. Society can't give up on prosecuting people because the experts might be incompetent or malevolent. In the Julie Amero case her conviction was overturned.
Any computer evidence, purporting to be a statement from someone, that is admitted as evidence needs to be minimally authenticated so as to count as an exception to the hearsay rule. In this Myspace case that would be tying the source IP address for the posting to a computer most likely used by only that person. Further issues can be brought up by the defense.
That's quite a rant! For the life of me though, I can't figure out your objection to Tim Berners-Lee. He does say that internet technology should be based on standards (i.e. protocols) that are royalty-free. This is important for such standards to avoid fragmentation of the internet. That idea in no way precludes the existence of technology patents or copyrighted material being protected as content on the internet.
Re: First Amendment Invocation is Specious Edge-Casing
I am having trouble understanding your arguments.
"The First Amendment as you know doesn't trump freedom of association and...the First Amendment."
What does this mean? Freedom of assembly is part of the first amendment. Is association somehow different?
"As the publisher, Linden Lab has the right to publish or not publish content."
Isn't that right a first amendment right?
I think that raises a good point. Apart from the issue of whether 512(f) applies when there is no actual takedown, I think that Ozimals actually believes there is copyright infringement going on and shouldn't be penalized for filing a DMCA takedown. I do think they are confused, and try to make some distinction between "idea" and "concept". They are claiming that Amaretto ranch copied their concepts and this is covered under copyright law.
The difference between expression and idea becomes less clear when the medium is digital in nature. Art created via CGI is generated from scripts and data. A virtual bunny is created using Linden Labs scripting language (LSL). The crux of the issue is whether the details that Ozimals say were copied, are copyrightable as expression or these "concepts" are really just ideas. It looks to me like they are just ideas. So, either Ozimals is being disingenuous or they should fire their copyright attorney. My point is that the difference between expression and idea may not always be clear.
At any rate they would have done much better had they patented their implementation of breedable virtual animals. There are a couple of reasons that might not work. Firstly, The script would be specific to LSL and since that is only useful within Second Life doesn't Linden Labs have some rights involving any patents? Secondly, I suspect someone researcher, somewhere, in synthetic biology has already dealt with virtual reproduction.
Second Life has definitely gone downhill if it is resorting to "farmville" tactics where you have to constantly nurture your virtual life or it will die. Given that, it will definitely continue to exist because of the easily addicted and those virtually deluded individuals who are horrified at the idea of letting their virtual bunnies or horses starve to death.
I recall explaining to my, German, girlfriend the meaning of the lyric from the Aerosmith song, Sweet Emotion:
"...can't catch me 'cause the rabbit done died.."
At that time, pregnancy tests that included rabbits (or any live animals) had long been discontinued. What is not commonly known is the rabbit died regardless of outcome of the pregnancy test. http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1239/in-old-time-pregnancy-tests-did-the-rabbit-real ly-die
There is a way to show it is very likely, if not beyond a reasonable doubt, that someone's profile was authentic. It takes a lot more than accepting the profile on it's face. Myspace would have to maintain, and still possess. logs showing the time and source IP address for the last couple of profile changes. You would have to subpoena Myspace to get that information. You would have to subpoena the ISP that leased that IP address to locate the computer or router the posting came from. Finally, you would have to be able to conclude that the person in question was the only one with access to that computer and Myspace account at the time in question. Forensic examination of the computer may, or may not, uncover evidence of Myspace access in the browser history. Forensic examination should also include an investigation to determine that the computer in question wasn't infected with malware that allowed remote execution A competent prosecutor would have done all that!
Now, if all that information was available, it is still possible that a very clever criminal set this all up and deleted all evidence on the computer of their manipulations. This is pretty damn hard to do. I know a fair amount about computer forensics but I am not sure I wouldn't miss some detail, somewhere.
Wouldn't this be a valid counterargument to the dissenting judges opinion. Why isn't hearsay allowed if a "reasonable juror" could conclude that the evidence in question was authentic.
I haven't thought this through for security holes, but this is a simple protocol and software configuration to allow for multiple encrypted connections, each using a different key, and priority given to a fixed subset.
Excuse the formatting, Allowed HTML gets in the way here
WAP sends (public key, SSID, MAC Address) to any host
host chooses symmetric key for session, encrypts this key with WAP public key, sends to WAP
all further communication between WAP and host uses session key.
Configure WAP with a set of fixed MAC addresses which will get priority over guest connections. Under Linux, use HTB queuing discipline to set up traffic shaping based on MAC address. Fixed set gets priority. Left over bandwidth is split equally between guest connections.
I'm not sure I am convinced of the following argument. I throw it out to see how it can be shot down.
If there was a system in place such that every WI-FI access point was public (promiscuous), it seems that seems would settle down to an equilibrium where some percentage of users were parasites (didn't bother to pay for connectivity) and the rest were hosts. The result would be that the total use of bandwidth ends up divided among fewer paying customers. If the providers had some fixed cost for providing bandwidth then they would end up charging the hosts more than they would otherwise. So, even without a system with rates based on actual usage, the hosts end up paying more in the long run by opening up their WI-FI connection.
How does BT forcing your home router to be publicly available interact with the Digital Economy Act. It doesn't seem to make sense to hold someone responsible if they have no choice. Is there some detail that straightens this out?
An important question in developing a protocol is whether we want to allow anonymous access or not. If so, that means smart criminals could use such a connection to mask their identities. The porn-raid culprit could have avoided being caught if he hadn't used the same log-in ID from a university computer using a secure token belonging to him. To be sure that he was not caught the culprit should have always used an anonymous connection to a public network or piggybacked onto an unencrypted or weakly encrypted WI-FI connection. In addition he should use MAC address spoofing and a spoofed user-agent.
I think anonymous access can be very useful despite this potential drawback. The government is likely to lean the other way and attempt to outlaw it when the opportunity arises. A new protocol is a new opportunity. A protocol, similar to WPA enterprise, could be used to allow anyone, who registers with the government, access to any promiscuous (public) network by authenticating with a government owned, or contracted, authentication server. The wonderful side-benefit of this is less likelihood of SWAT raids upon the innocent, at least as far as computer crimes go.
Another way to gain anonymity on the web is to use an onion router network like TOR. So, anonymity is not totally lost if anonymous access to public WI-FI is eliminated.
A side note:
I had an interesting exchange on Slashdot with someone about the Dutch guy who was convicted of making death threats via the internet but was determined not to have committed a crime by using someone else's WI-FI connection.
I believe my comment exchange was with the Dutch culprit himself doing some sock-puppeting on Slashdot to clear his name. He was fluent in Dutch but absolutely lied about what was in the Dutch court documents. I called him on that but he kept it up. Here was a very technical guy, but he still didn't bother to spoof his MAC address.
On the post: Copyright Maximalists Come Out Against New TLDs Because It Creates 'More Space' For Infringement
Re: Re:
Actually, there is. Georg Cantor proved in the late 19th Century that there are infinite sets that are larger than other infinite sets. It drove him, literally, insane.
The fallacy here is that any trademark is contained within a particular set (category of usage) and should not be concerned that they cannot control all the instances of their trademark in the whole universe. TLDs are categories. A trademark owner should only be concerned about the TLD appropriate to their trademark category. gTLDs are a homogenized mess, and owners cannot control the names in this mess. I would argue they shouldn't even be concerned.
On the post: Copyright Maximalists Come Out Against New TLDs Because It Creates 'More Space' For Infringement
Re: Re: Re: After R'ing TFA
The question comes up what is the use of a TLD these days, to locate something? It is an organizing method, that allows someone to narrow their search and evaluate what sort of entity a website represents. There are two ways I can think of to, explicitly, use a TLD for searching:
1). enter a name (partial URL) in the address bar and let the browser fill in the rest with a default (usually HTTP and .com).
2). Narrow a search on a search engine by specifying a particular TLD or sub-domain.
There is undoubtedly an implicit use of TLDs by search engines for ranking but I don't know what they do.
I don't like the idea of allowing generic TLDs because you lose the ability to evaluate the website as being within a category. I also don't want to be forced to search for Sarah Palin within "fox.com" as well as ".fox". Redundancy does not make searches easier here, because one instance of a name may be different than another. Maybe that is what the Copyright Alliance is paranoid about. They feel that trademark owners have to control all instances of their trademark names within the domain name space. That doesn't make sense, in part, because trademarks are already limited to being within a certain category or categories that must be spelled out as part of the registration process. In general, I don't see a larger namespace as a problem because I, personally, don't want to have to search multiple categories of TLDs to find something. The default is usually ".com", and that is fine with me. If I am trying to find the whitehouse where the US president lives, I won't pay attention to or search on whitehouse.com, whitehouse.jobs, whitehouse.travel, or whitehouse.xxx. I know to look for whitehouse.gov. I, nor anyone else should care what is at ".whitehouse".
On the post: W3C Steps Up: Wants To Create A Decentralized, Distributed Web System
Not a big deal
As to the issue of bypassing censorship, a P2P architecture for a browser could be used by a government to pinpoint all the users. Imagine if China was paranoid about copyright infringement. They could easily identify and jail all those infringers that, in the US, are hidden behind a leased IP address and judicial constraints on identifying the attached computer/user.
The architecture of the internet and, thus, the world wide web is already decentralized and distributed. The aspects for which control is centralized, a single DNS system and a single domain registration and IP address assignment system
need centralized control to avoid fragmentation of the internet. Governments attempt to censor, via domain seizures for example, ultimately encourage fragmentation. Attempts to counter censorship should not also encourage fragmentation.
I have not really thought this through, but if you are thinking that a P2P architecture for browser communication will completely replace a client-server model, I believe that would also encourage fragmntation. It certainly could make information harder to find. Imagine looking through Google search results to find news about a particular topic without depending on results from specific domains.
On the post: Homeland Security Demands Mozilla Remove Firefox Extension That Redirects Seized Domains
Re: Mozilla does not allow searching for this plugin
On the post: Homeland Security Demands Mozilla Remove Firefox Extension That Redirects Seized Domains
Re: Re: Re:
"...But a person within Mozilla, who said he could not be quoted because of confidentiality agreements, said that the organization had already worked out a deal with Toho that allows it to keep using the name. Besides, he said, the Mozilla mascot is not Godzilla -- just your garden-variety Tyrannosaurus rex."
from:
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/19/business/compressed-data-and-now-the-sequel-every-zi lla-meets-the-lawyers.html
http://www.dnforum.com/f26/zilla-lawsuit-your-opinions-thread-147938 .html
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2008/11/godzilla-terror/
The word Mozilla came about as the internal name for the Netscape browser. Mozilla = Mosaic + killer. Mosaic being one of the first graphical browsers and developed at NCSA, Univ. of Illinois in 1992.
On the post: Homeland Security Demands Mozilla Remove Firefox Extension That Redirects Seized Domains
Re:
On the post: Homeland Security Demands Mozilla Remove Firefox Extension That Redirects Seized Domains
Re: Re:
Is that true? Let's suppose first that ICE actually exercised due process in obtaining the seizures through court order etc. If the code was a core part of Firefox, could ICE then get a court order to force Mozilla to remove a feature that helped in circumventing the domain seizure? Suppose it was an Apple approved app on an Ipad. That's not much different than being a core feature of an Ipad. In Mozilla's case they offer the add-on on their website as an officially approved one. Is this much different than the Ipad scenario? We all know that anyone can write and install an add-on for Firefox without Mozilla's approval. The issue here is that Mozilla has put their seal of approval upon the Mafiaafire add-on. ICE is asking them to take that back and I assume they realize that won't make Mafiaafire go away.
BTW: Mozilla did not approve the Firesheep add-on but that was not the result of government pressure.
On the post: Laptop Rental Provider Sued For Spying On Renters Via Surreptitious Webcam Software
Re:
On the post: Court Says Prosecutors Can't Just Assume A MySpace Profile Is Legit
Re: Re: Re: More generally...
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/02/black-ops-how-hbgary-wrote-backdoors-and-root kits-for-the-government.ars/3
You can defend against bad forensics experts and bad experts in general by getting your own. Society can't give up on prosecuting people because the experts might be incompetent or malevolent. In the Julie Amero case her conviction was overturned.
Any computer evidence, purporting to be a statement from someone, that is admitted as evidence needs to be minimally authenticated so as to count as an exception to the hearsay rule. In this Myspace case that would be tying the source IP address for the posting to a computer most likely used by only that person. Further issues can be brought up by the defense.
On the post: Second Life Dragged Into Legal Dispute Over Copyright Of Virtual Horses And Virtual Bunnies
Re: $7Billion Virtual Goods Market
On the post: Second Life Dragged Into Legal Dispute Over Copyright Of Virtual Horses And Virtual Bunnies
Re: First Amendment Invocation is Specious Edge-Casing
"The First Amendment as you know doesn't trump freedom of association and...the First Amendment."
What does this mean? Freedom of assembly is part of the first amendment. Is association somehow different?
"As the publisher, Linden Lab has the right to publish or not publish content."
Isn't that right a first amendment right?
On the post: Second Life Dragged Into Legal Dispute Over Copyright Of Virtual Horses And Virtual Bunnies
Re:
The difference between expression and idea becomes less clear when the medium is digital in nature. Art created via CGI is generated from scripts and data. A virtual bunny is created using Linden Labs scripting language (LSL). The crux of the issue is whether the details that Ozimals say were copied, are copyrightable as expression or these "concepts" are really just ideas. It looks to me like they are just ideas. So, either Ozimals is being disingenuous or they should fire their copyright attorney. My point is that the difference between expression and idea may not always be clear.
At any rate they would have done much better had they patented their implementation of breedable virtual animals. There are a couple of reasons that might not work. Firstly, The script would be specific to LSL and since that is only useful within Second Life doesn't Linden Labs have some rights involving any patents? Secondly, I suspect someone researcher, somewhere, in synthetic biology has already dealt with virtual reproduction.
On the post: Second Life Dragged Into Legal Dispute Over Copyright Of Virtual Horses And Virtual Bunnies
Re:
On the post: Second Life Dragged Into Legal Dispute Over Copyright Of Virtual Horses And Virtual Bunnies
Re: VIrtual bunnies
"...can't catch me 'cause the rabbit done died.."
At that time, pregnancy tests that included rabbits (or any live animals) had long been discontinued. What is not commonly known is the rabbit died regardless of outcome of the pregnancy test.
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1239/in-old-time-pregnancy-tests-did-the-rabbit-real ly-die
On the post: Court Says Prosecutors Can't Just Assume A MySpace Profile Is Legit
Re: More generally...
Now, if all that information was available, it is still possible that a very clever criminal set this all up and deleted all evidence on the computer of their manipulations. This is pretty damn hard to do. I know a fair amount about computer forensics but I am not sure I wouldn't miss some detail, somewhere.
On the post: Court Says Prosecutors Can't Just Assume A MySpace Profile Is Legit
counterargument
On the post: Is It Possible To Salvage Open WiFi?
suggested protocol
Excuse the formatting, Allowed HTML gets in the way here
WAP sends (public key, SSID, MAC Address) to any host
host chooses symmetric key for session, encrypts this key with WAP public key, sends to WAP
all further communication between WAP and host uses session key.
Configure WAP with a set of fixed MAC addresses which will get priority over guest connections. Under Linux, use HTB queuing discipline to set up traffic shaping based on MAC address. Fixed set gets priority. Left over bandwidth is split equally between guest connections.
On the post: Is It Possible To Salvage Open WiFi?
economic argument
If there was a system in place such that every WI-FI access point was public (promiscuous), it seems that seems would settle down to an equilibrium where some percentage of users were parasites (didn't bother to pay for connectivity) and the rest were hosts. The result would be that the total use of bandwidth ends up divided among fewer paying customers. If the providers had some fixed cost for providing bandwidth then they would end up charging the hosts more than they would otherwise. So, even without a system with rates based on actual usage, the hosts end up paying more in the long run by opening up their WI-FI connection.
On the post: Is It Possible To Salvage Open WiFi?
Re:
On the post: Is It Possible To Salvage Open WiFi?
anonymous or not?
I think anonymous access can be very useful despite this potential drawback. The government is likely to lean the other way and attempt to outlaw it when the opportunity arises. A new protocol is a new opportunity. A protocol, similar to WPA enterprise, could be used to allow anyone, who registers with the government, access to any promiscuous (public) network by authenticating with a government owned, or contracted, authentication server. The wonderful side-benefit of this is less likelihood of SWAT raids upon the innocent, at least as far as computer crimes go.
Another way to gain anonymity on the web is to use an onion router network like TOR. So, anonymity is not totally lost if anonymous access to public WI-FI is eliminated.
A side note:
I had an interesting exchange on Slashdot with someone about the Dutch guy who was convicted of making death threats via the internet but was determined not to have committed a crime by using someone else's WI-FI connection.
http://www.techdirt.com/blog/wireless/articles/20110319/00082913559/dutch-court-says- breaking-into-encrypted-wifi-router-to-use-connection-is-legal.shtml
I believe my comment exchange was with the Dutch culprit himself doing some sock-puppeting on Slashdot to clear his name. He was fluent in Dutch but absolutely lied about what was in the Dutch court documents. I called him on that but he kept it up. Here was a very technical guy, but he still didn't bother to spoof his MAC address.
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