Re: (free markets and evolution) was Re: Microsoft: A Day Of
David Honig wrote: > >If we accept the concept of free market based on fair competition then a > >consumer does have a right to expect one producer to not interfere with > >their choice of going with another producer. > > So we ban advertising, whose sole purpose is to chose ME > not THEM? no, we ban shooting the others so they can't be choosen anymore. > >Producers do NOT have a right to keep other > >vendors out > > But that is a corollary of why they exist! nope. they exist to sell their products. you CAN make a living if other people do the same, you know?
Re: Crypto-Anarchy/Anarcho-Capitalist Errors in Understanding
David Honig wrote: > > protection of patent monopolies, > > Individual inventors get patents, what extra rights do > corps get? patent portfolios. a long time ago, in a country not very far away (i.e. the US of A) patents were rare and only granted after extensive examination for really worthy inventions. but ever since the micro-patentism started (i.e. "let's go and get a patent on this line of code, too") a single patent is in most cases pretty much worthless. but a good number of interrelated patents are a different matter, and no single inventor is so inventive that this is a viable path for an individual. > >specially extended copyrights > > Other than the recent digital-millenium-copyright-crap, > and UCITA, what special privledges exist for corps? depends on whether you believe in an afterlife. if you don't, extending copyright to death + XX years is pretty much a corporate advantage. (yes, sometimes it benefits your kids, but reality tells that this is the rare exception, rather then the rule) > >Microsoft would be a whole different company if it did not have the > >benefits given to it by the government as a large corporate entity. > > Zap the government, and microsoft would lose sales to government, > is *all*. Zap the government, and industry would rely on trade > secrets and technical means to protect what patents protected > before. this made my day. I'm one of the people being sued (i.e. "big daddy government, please hit this guy for me") by the DVD CCA for - guess what - TRADE SECRET "misappropriation". (known better as DeCSS here) looks like neither the technical means nor the "trade secret" works without the government...
Re: Crypto-Anarchist Free Market Model
David Honig wrote: > >Oh, Ignore that guy stabbing the supplier in the back with a knife while > >he steals money out of his pocket and distracts the customer with flashy > >lights and loud noises (and the occassional blackmail attempt). > > I don't think MS ever used violence, or the threat of it. > Ergo, it ain't nobody's business what they do. if you are a company, then going bancrupt is the equivalence of dying. someone threatening you - overt or implied - with driving you out of business is the equivalent of a murder threat, right? I think the court records have several statements in them that aren't exactly very remote from this.
gaming software to scan users disks
Wednesday April 05 10:00 PM EDT Online game backs away from privacy threat John Borland, CNET News.com Sony's popular online game EverQuest dodged a public relations bullet today, as a new policy was rescinded after some players had called it a potentially massive violation of their privacy. Game developers Verant Interactive, worried about tools which allow people to cheat or disrupt the online game, wanted to examine players' personal computers for "hacking tools" as a part of a new software upgrade. As recently as last night, executives said they would bar people from the game who didn't agree to open their systems to the digital bloodhounds' inspection. But after an outcry on electronic bulletin boards devoted to the game and threats by some devoted players to leave the game, the company backtracked. "We can admit when we make mistakes, and I believe this is a case where we owe an apology to our player base," wrote Verant Interactive chief executive John Smedley in a message to players this afternoon. "In our haste to try and thwart people from damaging the game, we went overboard." Privacy concerns have been an increasingly potent weapon with which consumers can change corporate policy online. Recent concerns over Internet advertising firm DoubleClick's plans to collect and distribute personal information gave that company's reputation a black eye and forced it to swerve from its goals. Even companies as powerful as Intel have been affected, as when the chipmaker backed away from its controversial Pentium III "serial number" identification system. EverQuest is one of the most popular "massively multiplayer" games now on the market. Like peers Ultima Online or Asharon's Call, it creates an online world in which tens of thousands of players can interact at once. But the game's developers were concerned about unauthorized software that apparently gave some players extra information that they could use to take advantages of others, or even try to disrupt the game's servers. In a message to players yesterday, the company said it was changing its game software to include a small program that would identify these "hacking" programs when players tried to use them. "You also grant us permission to access, extract and upload data relating to any program that we, in our reasonable discretion, determine interferes with the proper operation of EverQuest," the new clause read. After the complaints erupted, the company took an online poll this morning and had backed down by late this afternoon.
Re: Microsoft: A Day Of Satisfaction As Corporate Bully
X-Loop: openpgp.net From: Tom Vogt <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > it's been amusing to follow these personal attacks. a few years ago, > I've been branded as a nazi, now I'm a socialist - all by people I've > never met and who haven't read anything by me but a couple mails. funny. I'm sure others will point out, but I fail to see the contradiction. You might be a nazi, and nazis are a subset of socialists. [And you definitely expose socialist ideas.] Mark
Re: Microsoft: A Day Of Satisfaction As Corporate BullyGetsComeuppance
X-Loop: openpgp.net From: Tom Vogt <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > Of course not. They wouldn't. Europe is largely socialist, > > ROTFL > > let me guess: you've never been to europe. The whole world is largely socialist, not only Europe, it's just that the percentage is larger in Europe than in the US. OTOH, Japan is probably even more socialist. And if we start adding China... [Reese, don't make the mistake of believing that only the government is socialist; most people are - even those claiming to be capitalists will tell you that the state must do this and that.] Mark
Re: Crypto-Anarchy/Anarcho-Capitalist Errors in Understanding
X-Loop: openpgp.net From: Jim Choate <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Economics doesn't recognise rights, that's politics. Don't confuse the > two. Just like Tom Vogt believes that being a Nazi prevents one from being a socialist, you fail to understand that politics is a subset of economics, the one where interactions are not voluntary. Free market economics assumes property rights. > As a matter of fact how can the business harm the right of the consumer > if the consumer can get up and walk away? That was MY point. > I've NEVER seen a economics text that mentioned civil rights with respect > to economic exchange. Most especialy with respect to defining a free > market. If you've got a reference I'll take a look at it. I don't know what "civil rights" mean for Americans. All free-market economics talks about rightfully owned property and voluntary exchange. You can't have free markets without property rights. Not violating property rights is the only demand for a free market. > After all, we've posited there are no 3rd parties so who is going to > define those rights let alone protect them? Er... well, you should hire a teacher. I know how to define AND protect them *myself*. Lucky me. > No, this is a confusing and mis-guided view of free markets. Ahem. > > > It further > > > means that one business can not, and still say in a free market with fair > > > competition, act in a manner that injects intentional and additional > > > difficulties in their ability to market their product. > > > > Wow... you know of many companies which inject difficulties in THEIR ability > > to market their product? Wow... look, ma, Microsoft is doing the best they > > can NOT to sell Windows 2000! > > We're talking about two businesses here in a free market, focus that > attention - turn the TV off. The first business can't inject difficulties > in the marketing of the second company. I was pointing that you said "THEIR ability" (meaning *their own*). > Bottem line, free market means non-interference between business with > market differentiation by price and quality as percieved by the consumer > as the only factor of success. > > Is that clearer? It was from the start. It's still wrong (in my use of the term, of course). However, feel free to use your own definitions. [Oh, I forgot... you need someone else to define terms for you.] Mark
Re: Chinese Internet Audio/Visual Regulations, Napster
X-Loop: openpgp.net From: Bill Stewart <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Because of University pressure, the Napster folks are redesigning their > search engines to prefer local downloads over distant ones. > That's easy with a central database service - are there practical ways to > do it in a distributed database, especially one that's designed > as a moving target to avoid filtering? Have you read about Freenet, http://freenet.sourceforge.net ? It's design solves this problem. Mark
RE: Disk INsecurity:Last word on deletes, wipes & The Final Solution.
I am not aware of any high-end data recovery outfits that use software solutions. Everybody I know of in that space uses STM's. I believe it was Peter Gutmann who publicized the fact that you can buy STM workstations that ship with vacuum chucks for all popular platter sizes. --Lucky Green <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> "Among the many misdeeds of British rule in India, history will look upon the Act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest." - Mohandas K. Gandhi, An Autobiography, pg 446 http://www.citizensofamerica.org/missing.ram > -Original Message- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf > Of Gary Jeffers > Sent: Thursday, April 06, 2000 16:20 > To: Multiple recipients of list > Subject: Disk INsecurity:Last word on deletes, wipes & The Final > Solution. > > > Jim Choate writes "...Fourier Analysis..." for ressurecting wiped > data. > >This is interesting but a question arises: How do you interrogate the > data? That is: what INT's (pc interrupts) do you use to look at > the data? Actually, maybe I should say the sectors rather than > the data. Are > these undocumented DOS? > >Also, I hear stories of companies that unwipe data. Who are these > companies? What is the name of the software that they use? Is it > available to cops only? Where can we get it? > > Yours Truly, > Gary Jeffers > > BEAT STATE > __ > Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com > > >
Re: Re: Microsoft: A Day Of Satisfaction As Corporate Bully
X-Loop: openpgp.net From: David Marshall <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > An interesting aside to this: If the average person isn't a little > mentally deficient in this regard, how are the sales of books like > "Word for Dummies" (or "Linux for Dummies" for that matter) and > "Windows 98 for Dummies" explained? They've made a killing on these > books. Those knowledgeable buy them for the fun of it, and recommend them to those less knowledgeable. Mark
Re: Microsoft: A Day Of Satisfaction As Corporate Bully
At 11:46 AM 06/04/00 +0200, Tom Vogt wrote: >Reese wrote: >> >get real. while there are no guns involved, and thus the word "force" >> >might be debatable, the amount of choice available to a) end-users and >> >b) resellers is far from what it would be in a theoretical free market. >> > >> >> Dell started shipping with Linux installed last year, other manufacturers >> have followed suit. > >that's the point: last year. No, the point is that whatever monopoly M$ might have tried to bring to fruition, if they even did, is crumbling by simple virtue of the market economy moving in a direction M$ can't go. The lawsuit is less about breaking up a monopoly, more about swatting a very successful firm that hasn't been paying protection money. Reese
Re: Disk INsecurity:Last word on deletes, wipes & The Final Solution.
On Thu, Apr 06, 2000 at 06:56:47PM -0400, Lucky Green wrote: > I am not aware of any high-end data recovery outfits that use software > solutions. Everybody I know of in that space uses STM's. I believe it was > Peter Gutmann who publicized the fact that you can buy STM workstations that > ship with vacuum chucks for all popular platter sizes. > > --Lucky Green <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Have any of your contacts in this arena given you any sense of how many layers of data their operational STM systems used day to day in their recovery business (not some theoretical system they don't really have up and usable) can actually recover off a typical disk platter ? Is it 1, 2, 5, or 25 discrete layers ? And what kind of bit error rate in the recovered date do they achieve with the STMs ? How automated is the process ? Can they prepare a platter, pump down the chamber and read out multiple layers of data almost as if reading a disk with the drive electronics or is there a lot of human operator intervention and twiddling required to set things up to retrieve a sector ? I assume the actual interpretation of the STM scan output as encoded binary data is completely automated and that they are not ever working from raster images by hand using the human eye and brain as a kind of OCR (unlike IC mask reverse engineering of a few years back) ? Do they often recover overwritten information at all ? I would imagine that most disk recovery work involves drives that went bad leaving valuable data inaccessible via normal disk reading mechanisms due to problems like corrupt servo tracks and damaged media surfaces and heads rather than actual overwritten information. Sure there might be cases of a sector or two that needs to be read in order to correctly understand the rest of the data, but massive recovery of gigabytes should be rare I would think... -- Dave Emery N1PRE, [EMAIL PROTECTED] DIE Consulting, Weston, Mass. PGP fingerprint = 2047/4D7B08D1 DE 6E E1 CC 1F 1D 96 E2 5D 27 BD B0 24 88 C3 18
Re: Microsoft: A Day Of Satisfaction As Corporate
At 05:48 PM 06/04/00 -0400, Marcel Popescu wrote: >[Reese, don't make the >mistake of believing that only the government is socialist; most people >are - even those claiming to be capitalists will tell you that the state >must do this and that.] I see this as well, and get really upset at myself when I catch myself doing it. We all acknowledge certain things that _should_ be done, the problem is acknowledging _who_ should do them. Reese
Re: Crypto-Anarchist Free Market Model
At 10:52 AM -0400 4/6/00, Tom Vogt wrote: >David Honig wrote: >> >Oh, Ignore that guy stabbing the supplier in the back with a knife while >> >he steals money out of his pocket and distracts the customer with flashy >> >lights and loud noises (and the occassional blackmail attempt). >> >> I don't think MS ever used violence, or the threat of it. >> Ergo, it ain't nobody's business what they do. > >if you are a company, then going bancrupt is the equivalence of dying. >someone threatening you - overt or implied - with driving you out of >business is the equivalent of a murder threat, right? You're being foolish. --Tim May -- -:-:-:-:-:-:-: Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
Re: (free markets and evolution) was Re: Microsoft: A Day Of
At 10:15 AM -0400 4/6/00, David Honig wrote: >At 06:08 PM 4/5/00 -0400, Jim Choate wrote: >> >>On Wed, 5 Apr 2000, David Honig wrote: >>> News flash: the universe doesn't owe you the number >>> of 'choices' you imagine you deserve. >> >>News flash: True enoug but premeditated predation is not acceptable >>either in a free market either. > >Any business behavior *not* including the use of force >is permitted. And how can you stop other behaviors, >except through (implicit) use of force? > >Surely intel can crush the graphics market, by giving >away their graphics chip with every cpu. Surely ms >can package whatever it wants in its 4 color shrink wrapped >boxes. Its not pretty, but its prettier than state intervention. > >Business is predation, so is organic life, and premeditation >only means you're thinking about it, instead of stumbling >upon your food, or waiting for the tides to stream it past >your filters. Remember that you are dealing in this discussion with Jim Choate's Interpretation of Reality, which generally bears little resemblance to ordinary notions of history, constitutional law, electromagnetism, etc. According to Choatenomics, those who try to drive competitors out of business are practicing "predation," which in Choatenomics is illegal. The fact that the Sherman Antitrust Act nor any later acts has any language about "trying to drive competitors out of business" should be a clue that Choatenomics is nonoverlapping with reality as the rest of us know it. --Tim May -- -:-:-:-:-:-:-: Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
