Xanthir 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (90) comment rss

  • On the post: Is Technology On The Verge Of Killing Copyright Dead?

    Xanthir ( profile ), 03 Feb, 2009 @ 06:23am

    Re: Re: Re: Darknets

    What I was trying to say that, *currently*, darknets are used heavily to traffic in illegal data. This means that, right now, if law enforcement can find a darknet, there's a decent chance they can use it to arrest some bad people.

    A slight correction of myself here. Darknets are used *mostly* for legitimate corporate purposes, where they're called "intranets". ^_^ However, *personal* use of darknets is generally an indicator of nefarious activity currently.

  • On the post: Is Technology On The Verge Of Killing Copyright Dead?

    Xanthir ( profile ), 03 Feb, 2009 @ 06:21am

    Re: Re: Darknets

    "actual bad stuff" happens with all sorts of everyday tools. people get stabbed with scredrivers, run over by cars, and hit with baseball bats. email systems are used to deliver scams, malicious web pages are loaded with malware, and pagers and mobile phones are used as triggers for explosives. that doesn't make the tools bad, only the people who use them for bad things.

    Ah, you misunderstand me. This wasn't my point at all.

    What I was trying to say that, *currently*, darknets are used heavily to traffic in illegal data. This means that, right now, if law enforcement can find a darknet, there's a decent chance they can use it to arrest some bad people.

    If the copyright nazis antics push ordinary people to start employing darknets (for morally neutral purposes, mind you), that reduces the useful correlation between darknets and illegal activity.

    Thus the copyright nazis are making it harder for *themselves* to catch copyright infringers, and possibly making it harder for law enforcement to catch *actual* bad people.

    It's sort of like how encryption was originally a pretty strong indicator that you *were* doing something that you needed to hide. Nowadays there's still a good bit of that feeling left, but encryption is used casually for many completely neutral reasons, which makes it more difficult to find people using encryption to do bad things.

    This isn't necessarily a *bad* trend (encryption really *is* useful for ordinary people), but it's an interesting one. Darknets are a more interesting case, because they are *only* useful to keep yourself from being discovered by a powerful antagonist. The fact that ordinary people are being forced to employ these tools is *fascinating*.

  • On the post: Is Technology On The Verge Of Killing Copyright Dead?

    Xanthir ( profile ), 02 Feb, 2009 @ 08:53am

    Darknets

    The linked article basically proposes that copyright will become obsolete due to the widespread adoption of 'darknets', tiny subsets of the internet that only a small number of people can access.

    I find it interesting that copyright might push people to widespread adoption of darknets, because they actually *are* a somewhat dangerous tool. *Actual* bad stuff (like kiddie porn) is passed around on darknets already. This sort of thing might make it legitimately difficult for cops to crack down on real bad people.

    Thanks a lot, copyright crusaders. Keep pushing us. You're giving birth to the very uber-privacy world which you fear.

  • On the post: Getting Into The Supreme Court's Mind On Software Patents…

    Xanthir ( profile ), 30 Jan, 2009 @ 05:17am

    Re: Re: Software as an apparatus

    My best guess, in hindsight, don't invent any software someone else might find threatening or valuable then you don't have to worry about it getting stolen. *grin*

    Pfah, what would that help? It's quite simple, really. If you want to invent something, but are scared of the big boys 'stealing' it, just free it. Slap a GPL notice on it and go crazy. Most companies won't touch it, because they like their code proprietary, and if they happen to grab it anyway and try to patent, you've got prior art on them now.

  • On the post: Newspapers Are Not The Only Source Of Journalism

    Xanthir ( profile ), 30 Jan, 2009 @ 05:13am

    Re: I want to go next on your time machine!

    "What Jefferson really meant was not 'newspapers' but journalism."
    You must have jumped in your magical time machine and asked Jefferson what he meant by "newspapers" in his quote, because for Techdirt to say it's about journalism means this time travel had to have been done.

    Because most historians, people with reading comprehensions, and the government party to which Jefferson addressed with the quote, all know the quote was directed at freedom of the press, and not specifically newspapers or journalists.

    To think otherwise, especially in regard to a dying business model, is ignorant and, quite frankly, pathetic.

    That, um, is the same thing, at least in the context that Mike used it.

    Did *you* perhaps fail reading comprehension, and think that Mike was defending the newspaper business model or something?

  • On the post: Silicon Valley Patent Attorneys Register Their Own Patents; Sue Google, Microsoft, Yahoo And Others

    Xanthir ( profile ), 04 Dec, 2008 @ 09:49am

    Re: Time Relativity

    I'm not American, but in my county as well people are continuously finding loop holes or pretty much very dirty ways to make easy, steamy piles of cash. Is it only me that feels like most of the gov's legislation, regardless of the area it addresses, was written in days when people, overall , had a higher sense of morale and human decency ? Old laws against new situations, maybe its time a generation like mine ( gen X ) starts thinking about a new set of constitutional heroes that provide an onramp off this cobble stone road we've been treading on for so long.

    No, and especially not in these circumstances. People have *always* been assholes. One thing that's changed is the ease with which people can magnify their assholeishness, though, as technology allows faster travel and communication.

    Plus, patent law is just five kinds of fucked up.

  • On the post: Guns N' Roses Loves Online Music, On Its Own Terms

    Xanthir ( profile ), 21 Nov, 2008 @ 06:24am

    Re:

    I think when a person/band or company create something it should be up to them to to decide how, when & where it is released/sold/streamed. No one else even if they are creating business for the group should be allowed to distribute the music in any form or method

    Despite being radically against copyright, I agree with this (I think, at least - you may be saying something other than what I think you are).

    Several months ago, G&R did not authorize their music to be released. It was at that point solely their intellectual property, and taking it without permission is thus stealing.

    Now that they're willingly releasing it, though, it's the property of whomever downloads it. If the blogger chose to release the tracks on his site now, it would be completely ethical (as long as G&R is streaming the whole album).

    In other words, go read some Crosbie Fitch. He's got the right idea here that pulls copyright down but keeps up the rights to privacy.

  • On the post: Verizon Wireless Tries To Grow The Mobile Web By Breaking It

    Xanthir ( profile ), 21 Nov, 2008 @ 06:15am

    Re: back in the day

    I remember several flavors of mobile-friendly standards way back in 99-01. whatever happened to those?
    Seems like there was more awareness and activity to support the mobile web user back then then there is now. Or is it a problem of finding the time to support 2 platform versions of the same content and functionality?

    This is it. Keeping different forms of the same content identical and updated is a lot of work for very little reward. As well, transcoders are simply a lot better now than they used to be, so it's simply not nearly as necessary to mess around with a site solely for mobile browsers.

    Steps can certainly be taken, mind you. Hackish layouts may be difficult to transform, and "media queries" can aid in building sites that morph based on the capabilities of the viewer.

    I happen to have a Helio phone, and use Opera Mini on it. Thing works wonderfully.

  • On the post: Study Says Lots Of Kids Are Making Sneaky Purchases Online With Parents' Cookied Credit Card Info

    Xanthir ( profile ), 14 Nov, 2008 @ 01:42pm

    Or

    Just beat the shit out of your kid the first time you see this happen. That's stealing. If they don't know that it's wrong, you have failed.

  • On the post: Washington Post Story Convinces Service Providers To Pull The Plug On Major Spam Enabler

    Xanthir ( profile ), 13 Nov, 2008 @ 06:15am

    Re: Re: Not just whack-a-mole

    Let's see ...

    ISP's monitoring network data to prevent copyright infringment - bad.
    ISP's monitoring network data to prevent spamming - good?

    I fail to see how you can have it both ways.

    While I hate spam as much as anyone else, ISPs should not be required to police their network to prevent illegal activity - not for any reason.

    Well, it's actually quite simple. Copyright infringement is merely a legal issue to ISPs - there's no reason for them to care about it until people get lawyered up. Spam, on the other hand, is something with actual *effects* on them. If we could eliminate all spam in an instant, the effects on network congestion would be IMMENSE. Thus, ISPs have a good reason to police themselves and each other for spam - it's for their own survival.

  • On the post: Get Ready To Pay Up Just To Let People Know How To Contact Your Company

    Xanthir ( profile ), 07 Nov, 2008 @ 06:24am

    The REAL use for new TLDs

    It seems that the major use these new TLDs are put towards is making clever domain names when you remove the dots. ^_^

    (I am, of course, in favor of this. The cute domain names, that is. Not the obvious money grab.)

  • On the post: Big Guns Come Out In Effort To Show RIAA's Lawsuits Are Unconstitutional

    Xanthir ( profile ), 31 Oct, 2008 @ 07:50am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    This seems a touch nit-picky.

    Just the same, let's recap - 1) moving car, 2) open container, 3) known hot beverage, 4) voluntarily wedged between her legs.

    SHE removed the lid. SHE put it between her legs. SHE chose to do so in a moving vehicle.

    Why then is the entire culpability thrown to McD's? What of her own part taken in creation of this incident?

    Oh, she certainly did something stupid. Few people will disagree with that. The issue is that, if McDonalds had been heating their coffee to an industry-declared "safe temperature", the worst she would have suffered is first-degree burns. If she'd sued after this, we could have easily written her off as a fake victim. She was dumb, she got punished for it, case closed.

    The reason McD's is fully liable is because their coffee was too hot. It wasn't an accident. It wasn't a one-time thing. They specifically heated their coffee hotter than the healthy regulations said was safe. (I heard they did it so that people's coffee would still be drinkably hot when they got to work.) Due to their flaunting of the health code despite health inspectors warning them for it, what *should* have been a minor burn due to a stupid action turned into major physical damage that resulted in immense pain and required surgery to correct.

    She burned herself so bad, they had to give her skin grafts. In the groin. That wasn't her fault. That was McDonalds' fault. That's why the court ruled in her favor. She was dumb, but McDonalds was willfully negligent in their actions.

  • On the post: Devices Monitor Whether You're A Good Conversationalist

    Xanthir ( profile ), 30 Oct, 2008 @ 06:37am

    Re: Huh

    Well, yeah. The best inventions are ones the inventors want to use.

  • On the post: Forget Net Neutrality Laws; Just Strengthen Privacy Laws

    Xanthir ( profile ), 08 Oct, 2008 @ 06:22am

    Privacy Laws aren't bad

    I've seen several tech issues where stronger privacy laws would solve the problem in a simple way, honestly.

  • On the post: Piracy Is A Part Of The Market

    Xanthir ( profile ), 07 Oct, 2008 @ 06:43am

    Re: Re: Re: Eventually.

    The psychology is just baffling in this case. You can justify stealing digital merchandise but say you would never steal physical merchandise. I don't buy that argument at all. You steal digital merchandise because the odds of getting caught are slim to none. Given those same odds you would steal physical merchandise as well. Thieves are thieves and the risk of getting caught is the only thing that stops them.

    Uh, no. Stealing is stealing, but this is infringing. Quite a bit different in law, and ethically completely different. After all, infringers aren't ripping the files out of the copyright owner's hard drive (that would be stealing IP). Someone who actually bought the material is sharing it with others. Dude, you learned about this in kindergarten.

  • On the post: Piracy Is A Part Of The Market

    Xanthir ( profile ), 07 Oct, 2008 @ 06:38am

    Re: Eventually.

    The operative phrase in the previous post, which all too many simply missed in order to be the first to trot out the timeworn "infinite goods" argument, was "they may eventually buy more than they steal".

    We're not missing that phrase. We're challenging its validity directly.

    It's built on false analogies. Stealing a sneaker actually results in losses - you put time and money into making that sneaker, and now you don't have it anymore. It's *gone*. Infringing on copyright, on the other hand, doesn't result in losses. You create some content, someone infringes your copyright, and you still have your content. You can still go out and sell it.

    In your example, Nike is looking at a balance sheet like this:
    -$100 -$100 -$100 ... -$100 +$2 +$2 +$2 ...
    And hoping that they get enough +$2 on the right to make up for all the -$100 on the left. This probably isn't going to work (though this general principle is a recognized business tactic, in the form of loss leaders). On the other hand, someone with an infinite good is looking at a balance sheet like this:
    -$0 -$0 -$0 ... -$0 +$2 +$2 +$2 ...
    Looks quite a bit different to me.

  • On the post: People Gave Chrome A Shot, But They're Going Back To Their Original Browser

    Xanthir ( profile ), 25 Sep, 2008 @ 06:04am

    Use it and others

    As Craig (comment #2) pointed out, Firefox really isn't a browser, but rather a suite of web applications that happens to browse the internet as well. It's an integral part of my job, and I couldn't work without it, so no Chrome for me here at work.

    At home, though, I'm enjoying Chrome quite a bit, even if it is an extremely early beta. I'll be eagerly watching for FF to pull a lot of Chrome's features as well.

  • On the post: Bands Avoiding iTunes For The Wrong Reasons

    Xanthir ( profile ), 28 Aug, 2008 @ 11:56am

    Re: Re: iTunes suck

    Seriously. Converting the files into a portable format is so easy that I was able to teach my (non-technical) dad how to do it. I had to set everything up originally, but even a mildly techie person can do this with a bit of googling. I didn't know a thing about how to do this before I sat down for 20 minutes and learned.

  • On the post: The First Step Is For Microsoft To Admit It Has A Problem

    Xanthir ( profile ), 22 Aug, 2008 @ 07:23am

    HTML has grown to incorporate new tags which do nothing more than push the design from displaying information to making a website look pretty. Add in CSS, and it pushes further people developing bad, bad code.

    Especially now that most people code for IE only, because it's the most used browser. Don't take my word for it, go look for yourself.

    Um, wow. Have you, um, actually coded anything in the past 5 years? 'cause html4 deprecates the presentational tags like <b>, <u>, and <center>. You're not supposed to use them anymore. They've been deprecated for years. People still use them, sure, but it shows you as quite a bit behind the times when you call them "new" tags.

    And CSS promoting bad coding? Seriously, what the hell? CSS frees us from those horrifying nested table layouts that we were all forced to use in the old days. We're this close to being able to create any website with a purely semantic structure and have it look however we want. You cleanly separate things out: content and structure go in the html, appearance goes in the CSS. This is good coding, and it makes sites so much easier to code.

    Finally, no one who knows what the hell they're doing codes for IE only. Firefox takes up somewhere between 15% and 20% of the browser market (more if your audience is rather technical). This is a market section that cannot be ignored. Of course a lot of 'webdesigners' are blithering idiots who couldn't fight their way out of a for loop, but that's neither here nor there. There are incompetent morons in any field.

    "Most people" don't code for IE anymore (again, this statement speaks of someone without recent practical experience). We code more or less to the standards, and then supply fixes where IE screws up. Luckily we don't even have to really *know* the standards, as just coding toward Firefox takes you 95% of the way there.

  • On the post: Singer At New Media Conference Turns Off Audience Member Cameras

    Xanthir ( profile ), 22 Aug, 2008 @ 07:05am

    Crap

    Man, I really love Richard Cheese too. What an ass.

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