Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 24 Jan 2013 @ 10:58am
Re:
You know that paper you linked to above?
One of the weaknesses it mentioned was the Domain Name System.
Remember the specifics of the SOPA fight about "breaking the Internet"?
The key feature was that SOPA, as it was currently written, would prevent the DNS servers from being secured properly - since they would be forced to allow redirects from an untrustworthy source.
Now who's the one believing pre-conceived notions regardless of facts?
Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 24 Jan 2013 @ 10:28am
Re:
It seems to me that much of the intel on "cyber warfare" is classified.
While I have no doubt that some of it is, most of it is not. And of the stuff that is clasified, it is likely that much of it is over-classified.
Why can I say this? Because the protocols that run the Internet and allow the communication are open.
Vulnerabilities in software and hardware are published openly by responsible companies and the government - take a look over at US-CERT's page - because you can bet that the same vulnerabilities are being traded on the black market.
The IP address ranges that are being used for attacks are controlled by the regional RIRs like ARIN and RIPE, and handed out to ISPs in an open manner - because without this, the Internet would not work.
We're not dealing with classified technology that guides military aircraft or such - this is technology that millions of companies and billions of people have access to. There's no reason for most of it to be classified.
Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 24 Jan 2013 @ 8:11am
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Hi AJ! Since Mike seems to have had enough of your childish sociopathic stalkerish trolling, I'd be glad to step in so you have someone to talk to. We all know you're just doing this for attention, so have mine.
Also, I'm sure you'd be glad to debate me, since you're not a coward or scared to say what you believe in (and it would be hypocritical after just calling Mike those things if you were to run away).
So, I've got some loaded questions, which I insist you answer with yes or no answers, of which I will then take your answers (if you're man enough to respond) completely out of context and accuse you of lying. Won't that be fun? We'll start with your favorites: copyright and ethics.
1) Is it ethical for the government to automatically put anything creative under copyright the moment it is created (or put into a fixed form) if the creator has not expressed a desire to have it copyrighted?
2) Is it ethical for a company that owns the rights to a work to restrict someone from making, sharing, or distributing a work that other person created that is vaguely similar or contains small portions of the original work?
3) Is it ethical for the government to extend the copyright term length to prevent an existing work from going into the public domain despite that it was created under a different assumed balance between the creator's rights and the public's?
4) Is it ethical for the government to shorten the copyright term length for the opposite reason as 3)?
I look forward to your responses. I'm sure you won't run away, like a coward, hypocrite, and a fake would.
Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 22 Jan 2013 @ 11:40am
Re: Re: Re: Re: The future
Could using a VPN an interference with technical measures if implemented by the open WIFI owner?
An answer to that question from the copyright maximalist camp is a big Hobson's choice.
If the answer is yes, then the open wifi provider is a service provider. As long as they can meet the other requirements, then they've got safe harbors against being held liable for their user's infringement.
If the answer is no, then they can implement the VPN to hide their users from the copyright holders.
Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 22 Jan 2013 @ 11:13am
Re: Re: The future
Do you really want a discussion on this? Here is the section in the entirety:
---
USC 17 Section 512
subsection H
(i) Conditions for Eligibility.— (1) Accommodation of technology.— The limitations on liability established by this section shall apply to a service provider only if the service provider—
(A) has adopted and reasonably implemented, and informs subscribers and account holders of the service provider’s system or network of, a policy that provides for the termination in appropriate circumstances of subscribers and account holders of the service provider’s system or network who are repeat infringers; and
(B) accommodates and does not interfere with standard technical measures.
(2) Definition.— As used in this subsection, the term “standard technical measures” means technical measures that are used by copyright owners to identify or protect copyrighted works and—
(A) have been developed pursuant to a broad consensus of copyright owners and service providers in an open, fair, voluntary, multi-industry standards process;
(B) are available to any person on reasonable and nondiscriminatory terms; and
(C) do not impose substantial costs on service providers or substantial burdens on their systems or networks.
---- http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/512
So, yes, there has to be a policy, and it has to be reasonable. I doubt most that an ordinary reasonable person would consider cutting someone's internet access off based on unproven accusations as reasonable.
Let's look at the definitions. The one about a broad consensus is interesting. Are a few ISPs (5? 6?) and a few lobbying organizations a broad consensus? I'd like to see you try to support that. And what about those words about "open, fair, voluntary" - since these 6 strikes proposals were anything but open, and I highly doubt fair or voluntary.
How about the requirements of the "standard technical measures" being available to any person on reasonable and nondiscrimintory terms? Many have been asking how the infringement detection system would work for the years that various strikes proposals have been under way. No information has been forthcoming.
Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 22 Jan 2013 @ 8:42am
Re: Re:
They're not stopping email checking at Starbucks, you buffoon.
How do you figure that? Either a business can offer wifi to their customers, or they can't. If they offer it, they have very little control over what their customers use it for. Throttling won't stop someone from infringing copyright - if either the business does it, or their ISP throttles the whole connection.
If you had the slightest bit of technical knowledge, you would understand this. Let me give you a scenario of what happens.
Customer goes into Starbucks and orders their expensive coffee. They sit down and use their laptop to connect to the wifi. The laptop has a bit torrent client running, and when it sees that internet connection, it goes and announces itself to the swarm, and says its sharing some music or movie, and the IP address it is at - which is the coffee shop's IP.
Now, one of two things will happen, depending if the infringement detection is monumentally stupid, or just dumb. It it is monumentally stupid, as soon as it sees an IP in the swarm sharing something, it adds it to the strikes list. Or, if it just dumb, it starts downloading the content from the laptop. It may only get a few pieces if the connection is throttled, but a few pieces is all it needs to add the IP to the strikes list. Either way, the coffee shop IP is now on the list.
Repeat this 6 times. Coffee shop is either cut off completely by their ISP, or is forced to stop offering wifi to everyone - regardless if someone is checking their email or infringing copyright.
Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 22 Jan 2013 @ 7:27am
Re: Re: Re: Newsflash
President Lyndon Johnson started a war on poverty back in the 60's. Like President Richard Nixon's war on drugs it has been a roaring success.
Actually, FDR started the war on poverty in the 1930s - he just didn't call it a war. It was called the New Deal. And it was making huge progress for 50 years. Eisenhower - a Republican - kept it up and even expanded on it. LBJ's Great Society was just a continuation of it.
Those programs built the middle class in this country. Then came the 80s, 90s, and 2000s, with a huge resurgence of conservatism, where much of it was dismantled, defanged, ignored, defunded or funds raided. And look at where we are now.
Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 18 Jan 2013 @ 10:05am
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: This blog amazes me
Some random commenter saying a blog is inconsistent isn't proof of inconsistency. How about linking to an example of two posts or comments by Mike that show his alleged inconsistentcy.
Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 17 Jan 2013 @ 3:00pm
Re: This blog amazes me
Did you bother to read the article? Do you understand what a nuanced view is?
And serious, the NRA isn't a lobbying organization? Are you brain-damaged? I'll agree they're not the "normal" lobbying organizations - they're one of the most powerful.
While there are certainly some negative connotations, a lobby/lobbyist is not all bad. There are some good ones, ones that I'm fine with calling lobbyists as well as supporting myself with support and money - the ACLU and EFF, for instance.
Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 17 Jan 2013 @ 1:02pm
Re: Tech Dirt Display Ignorance of Patent System
Oh c'mon, you gotta do better than that. If you're gonna argue facts, history, reason and logic, you better have them on your side.
The Industrial Revolution was not because of patents. The Industrial Revolution as a whole can be summed up in one word: Coal. The exploding use of coal as a fuel instead of wood and other fuels (peat, even dung).
Why did coal use explode around 1700? Sure, an invention. Thomas Savery's steam powered water pump, invented in 1698. Later, the Newcomen steam engine, 1712, was used to pump water. (Why were water pumps important? Coal is underground. You dig a hole to get it out, and those holes fill with water, surprising quickly.)
Savery's pump was patented, I'll admit. It was also a direct copy of an invention by Edward Somerset from 1662. Guess that was one of the first bogus patents. Now, lets imagine for a second if Savery had sued to stop Newcomen from making the steam engine, because it used the same process. Perhaps the last 300 years would have been very, very different.
As to why did the Industrial Revolution happen in the UK? Well, obvious - that's where the coal was very plentiful, and easy to get to, assuming you had a water pump.
Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 17 Jan 2013 @ 12:14pm
Nosal
There's some really good quotes in the Nosal ruling beyond what were cited.
"Ubiquitous, seldom-prosecuted crimes invite arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement."
-With a network as open as MIT's, and with a user base as smart, technologically competent, and occasionally mischevious as MIT's is known to be, you can take for certainty that similar actions frequently occur and are NOT prosecuted.
"The government assures us that, whatever the scope of the
CFAA, it won’t prosecute minor violations. But we shouldn’t
have to live at the mercy of our local prosecutor."
-That sentence after the first that was quoted sticks out to me. Nor die.
"And it’s not clear we can trust the government when a tempting target comes along."
-Right after the above. Aaron was too tempting a target.
Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 17 Jan 2013 @ 10:25am
Re: Please
If you think The Pirate Bay is more user friendly than HBO Go or Netflix, you're crazy.
You're making the mistake that there are only one or two features that make A more user friendly than B.
I absolutely agree that the user interface of TPB is crap. On that, Netflix would win (although judging from the article, HBO Go might be worse than TPB).
On availability of content, TPB wins dramatically.
Options - to me, downloading the content is far more important, so TPB wins out in my preference. I don't dispute that streaming is important for some - but what good is a streaming option if you can't stream what you want to watch? Likewise, last I looked at Netflix, there were only two levels of size/quality/bitrate for most Netflix stuff (and only one for the rest) - yet for much content on TPB, you can get something to play on a phone to full blu-ray quality and every step in between.
Price? Dead obvious - TPB.
All this shows is that there is a huge oppurtunity being missed. Where is the service that offers both download and streaming, with many quality levels, with a simple to understand UI, and that has every bit of content I could ever want? **I would gladly pay for such a service.** Hell, make it like cable for all I care - offer a basic service with access to "standard" content, and let me add on the Science/Learning package, have the Sports option, the Movie package - whatever. But if you want me to stop being a pirate, goddammit let me pay you for your stuff in a way that makes sense.
Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 17 Jan 2013 @ 9:06am
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
songwriter or creator of a work that is so popular as to have the capacity to even generate that much money is so rare a human on this earth that they, and their heirs should absolutely have the right to reap the reward.
Do we really know how rare those talents were, and are?
Fitzgerald was born into an upper-middle class family and all the privileges of it - including high quality education from various private Catholic schools, and later to Princeton. How many millions of other people could have written masterpieces if they had that type of education - along with the access to all the knowledge and culture of that time? And again, the resources to distribute a book to such wide audiences was only available to large publishing houses - how many of those millions could have been able to have the reach if the Internet had existed 100 years ago?
Those questions are impossible to answer, I know. But I know that we'll never be able to answer them for future generations if all the knowledge and culture is locked up behind copyright so that only the privileged few with money can afford to access it.
Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 17 Jan 2013 @ 6:39am
Re: Re: Re:
We can only hope that the various governments of Europe would be that stupid. If they thought the ACTA protests were a big thing, this would dwarf them.
On the post: California Senator Leland Yee Tells Gamers To Shut Up And Let The Grown Ups Talk
Re: Re:
You just admitted you're a witch! Burn the witch!
On the post: TechCrunch Admits That Using Facebook Comments Drove Away Most Of Their Commenters
Re:
I don't think this mean what you think it means.
Hint: they're not laws.
On the post: Just Two More Days To Unlock Your Phone, Then You'll Be Breaking The Law
Re: Re: Re: Re:
On the post: Cyber War: A One-Sided Battle Against A Trumped Up Enemy
Re:
One of the weaknesses it mentioned was the Domain Name System.
Remember the specifics of the SOPA fight about "breaking the Internet"?
The key feature was that SOPA, as it was currently written, would prevent the DNS servers from being secured properly - since they would be forced to allow redirects from an untrustworthy source.
Now who's the one believing pre-conceived notions regardless of facts?
On the post: Cyber War: A One-Sided Battle Against A Trumped Up Enemy
Re:
While I have no doubt that some of it is, most of it is not. And of the stuff that is clasified, it is likely that much of it is over-classified.
Why can I say this? Because the protocols that run the Internet and allow the communication are open.
Vulnerabilities in software and hardware are published openly by responsible companies and the government - take a look over at US-CERT's page - because you can bet that the same vulnerabilities are being traded on the black market.
The IP address ranges that are being used for attacks are controlled by the regional RIRs like ARIN and RIPE, and handed out to ISPs in an open manner - because without this, the Internet would not work.
We're not dealing with classified technology that guides military aircraft or such - this is technology that millions of companies and billions of people have access to. There's no reason for most of it to be classified.
On the post: Global Hackathons Prepared To Carry Forward The Work Of Aaron Swartz
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Also, I'm sure you'd be glad to debate me, since you're not a coward or scared to say what you believe in (and it would be hypocritical after just calling Mike those things if you were to run away).
So, I've got some loaded questions, which I insist you answer with yes or no answers, of which I will then take your answers (if you're man enough to respond) completely out of context and accuse you of lying. Won't that be fun? We'll start with your favorites: copyright and ethics.
1) Is it ethical for the government to automatically put anything creative under copyright the moment it is created (or put into a fixed form) if the creator has not expressed a desire to have it copyrighted?
2) Is it ethical for a company that owns the rights to a work to restrict someone from making, sharing, or distributing a work that other person created that is vaguely similar or contains small portions of the original work?
3) Is it ethical for the government to extend the copyright term length to prevent an existing work from going into the public domain despite that it was created under a different assumed balance between the creator's rights and the public's?
4) Is it ethical for the government to shorten the copyright term length for the opposite reason as 3)?
I look forward to your responses. I'm sure you won't run away, like a coward, hypocrite, and a fake would.
On the post: Aaron Swartz's Death Leads To Public Attention Towards Prosecutorial Overreach
Re: Re: Re: Re:
On the post: Six Strikes Administrator: Loss Of Open WiFi Access At Cafes Is Acceptable Collateral Damage
Re: Re: Re: Re: The future
An answer to that question from the copyright maximalist camp is a big Hobson's choice.
If the answer is yes, then the open wifi provider is a service provider. As long as they can meet the other requirements, then they've got safe harbors against being held liable for their user's infringement.
If the answer is no, then they can implement the VPN to hide their users from the copyright holders.
On the post: Six Strikes Administrator: Loss Of Open WiFi Access At Cafes Is Acceptable Collateral Damage
Re: Re: The future
---
USC 17 Section 512
subsection H
(i) Conditions for Eligibility.— (1) Accommodation of technology.— The limitations on liability established by this section shall apply to a service provider only if the service provider—
(A) has adopted and reasonably implemented, and informs subscribers and account holders of the service provider’s system or network of, a policy that provides for the termination in appropriate circumstances of subscribers and account holders of the service provider’s system or network who are repeat infringers; and
(B) accommodates and does not interfere with standard technical measures.
(2) Definition.— As used in this subsection, the term “standard technical measures” means technical measures that are used by copyright owners to identify or protect copyrighted works and—
(A) have been developed pursuant to a broad consensus of copyright owners and service providers in an open, fair, voluntary, multi-industry standards process;
(B) are available to any person on reasonable and nondiscriminatory terms; and
(C) do not impose substantial costs on service providers or substantial burdens on their systems or networks.
----
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/512
So, yes, there has to be a policy, and it has to be reasonable. I doubt most that an ordinary reasonable person would consider cutting someone's internet access off based on unproven accusations as reasonable.
Let's look at the definitions. The one about a broad consensus is interesting. Are a few ISPs (5? 6?) and a few lobbying organizations a broad consensus? I'd like to see you try to support that. And what about those words about "open, fair, voluntary" - since these 6 strikes proposals were anything but open, and I highly doubt fair or voluntary.
How about the requirements of the "standard technical measures" being available to any person on reasonable and nondiscrimintory terms? Many have been asking how the infringement detection system would work for the years that various strikes proposals have been under way. No information has been forthcoming.
By my count, this law is already on a 3rd strike.
On the post: Six Strikes Administrator: Loss Of Open WiFi Access At Cafes Is Acceptable Collateral Damage
Re: Re:
How do you figure that? Either a business can offer wifi to their customers, or they can't. If they offer it, they have very little control over what their customers use it for. Throttling won't stop someone from infringing copyright - if either the business does it, or their ISP throttles the whole connection.
If you had the slightest bit of technical knowledge, you would understand this. Let me give you a scenario of what happens.
Customer goes into Starbucks and orders their expensive coffee. They sit down and use their laptop to connect to the wifi. The laptop has a bit torrent client running, and when it sees that internet connection, it goes and announces itself to the swarm, and says its sharing some music or movie, and the IP address it is at - which is the coffee shop's IP.
Now, one of two things will happen, depending if the infringement detection is monumentally stupid, or just dumb. It it is monumentally stupid, as soon as it sees an IP in the swarm sharing something, it adds it to the strikes list. Or, if it just dumb, it starts downloading the content from the laptop. It may only get a few pieces if the connection is throttled, but a few pieces is all it needs to add the IP to the strikes list. Either way, the coffee shop IP is now on the list.
Repeat this 6 times. Coffee shop is either cut off completely by their ISP, or is forced to stop offering wifi to everyone - regardless if someone is checking their email or infringing copyright.
On the post: Obama Tasks CDC With Study Of Video Games And 'Violent Media'
Re: Re: Re: Newsflash
Actually, FDR started the war on poverty in the 1930s - he just didn't call it a war. It was called the New Deal. And it was making huge progress for 50 years. Eisenhower - a Republican - kept it up and even expanded on it. LBJ's Great Society was just a continuation of it.
Those programs built the middle class in this country. Then came the 80s, 90s, and 2000s, with a huge resurgence of conservatism, where much of it was dismantled, defanged, ignored, defunded or funds raided. And look at where we are now.
On the post: NRA: Games To Blame For Violence! Also, Here's A Shooting Game For 4-Year-Olds!
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: This blog amazes me
On the post: Carmen Ortiz Releases Totally Bogus Statement Concerning The Aaron Swartz Prosecution
Re: Re: Re:
Well, this explains a lot.
And we wonder why the system is so fucked up.
On the post: NRA: Games To Blame For Violence! Also, Here's A Shooting Game For 4-Year-Olds!
Re: This blog amazes me
And serious, the NRA isn't a lobbying organization? Are you brain-damaged? I'll agree they're not the "normal" lobbying organizations - they're one of the most powerful.
While there are certainly some negative connotations, a lobby/lobbyist is not all bad. There are some good ones, ones that I'm fine with calling lobbyists as well as supporting myself with support and money - the ACLU and EFF, for instance.
On the post: Former Chief Judge Of Patent Court: We Need To Strengthen, Not Weaken, The Patent System Because [Reasons]
Re: Tech Dirt Display Ignorance of Patent System
The Industrial Revolution was not because of patents. The Industrial Revolution as a whole can be summed up in one word: Coal. The exploding use of coal as a fuel instead of wood and other fuels (peat, even dung).
Why did coal use explode around 1700? Sure, an invention. Thomas Savery's steam powered water pump, invented in 1698. Later, the Newcomen steam engine, 1712, was used to pump water. (Why were water pumps important? Coal is underground. You dig a hole to get it out, and those holes fill with water, surprising quickly.)
Savery's pump was patented, I'll admit. It was also a direct copy of an invention by Edward Somerset from 1662. Guess that was one of the first bogus patents. Now, lets imagine for a second if Savery had sued to stop Newcomen from making the steam engine, because it used the same process. Perhaps the last 300 years would have been very, very different.
As to why did the Industrial Revolution happen in the UK? Well, obvious - that's where the coal was very plentiful, and easy to get to, assuming you had a water pump.
On the post: Law Professor James Grimmelmann Explains How He Probably Violated The Same Laws As Aaron Swartz
Nosal
"Ubiquitous, seldom-prosecuted crimes invite arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement."
-With a network as open as MIT's, and with a user base as smart, technologically competent, and occasionally mischevious as MIT's is known to be, you can take for certainty that similar actions frequently occur and are NOT prosecuted.
"The government assures us that, whatever the scope of the
CFAA, it won’t prosecute minor violations. But we shouldn’t
have to live at the mercy of our local prosecutor."
-That sentence after the first that was quoted sticks out to me. Nor die.
"And it’s not clear we can trust the government when a tempting target comes along."
-Right after the above. Aaron was too tempting a target.
On the post: HBO's One Attempt At A Standalone Digital Service Sucks
Re: Please
You're making the mistake that there are only one or two features that make A more user friendly than B.
I absolutely agree that the user interface of TPB is crap. On that, Netflix would win (although judging from the article, HBO Go might be worse than TPB).
On availability of content, TPB wins dramatically.
Options - to me, downloading the content is far more important, so TPB wins out in my preference. I don't dispute that streaming is important for some - but what good is a streaming option if you can't stream what you want to watch? Likewise, last I looked at Netflix, there were only two levels of size/quality/bitrate for most Netflix stuff (and only one for the rest) - yet for much content on TPB, you can get something to play on a phone to full blu-ray quality and every step in between.
Price? Dead obvious - TPB.
All this shows is that there is a huge oppurtunity being missed. Where is the service that offers both download and streaming, with many quality levels, with a simple to understand UI, and that has every bit of content I could ever want? **I would gladly pay for such a service.** Hell, make it like cable for all I care - offer a basic service with access to "standard" content, and let me add on the Science/Learning package, have the Sports option, the Movie package - whatever. But if you want me to stop being a pirate, goddammit let me pay you for your stuff in a way that makes sense.
On the post: 'Quantum Copyright:' At What Point Does A Legal Copy Become Infringement?
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Do we really know how rare those talents were, and are?
Fitzgerald was born into an upper-middle class family and all the privileges of it - including high quality education from various private Catholic schools, and later to Princeton. How many millions of other people could have written masterpieces if they had that type of education - along with the access to all the knowledge and culture of that time? And again, the resources to distribute a book to such wide audiences was only available to large publishing houses - how many of those millions could have been able to have the reach if the Internet had existed 100 years ago?
Those questions are impossible to answer, I know. But I know that we'll never be able to answer them for future generations if all the knowledge and culture is locked up behind copyright so that only the privileged few with money can afford to access it.
On the post: Carmen Ortiz Releases Totally Bogus Statement Concerning The Aaron Swartz Prosecution
Re:
From her statement, is you replace "appropriate" with "routine" it all fits.
Just because actions that are wrong, or ethically questionable, have become institutionalized does not absolve the perpetrators of those actions.
On the post: GEMA Vs. YouTube Hits The Three Year Mark As Rate Negotiations Fall Through Again
Re: Re: Re:
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