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Quasar

BSA Rising

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Now that the threats to liberty, freedom, and privacy posed by the RIAA and MPAA have fallen into the shadows due to media neglect, the focus should fall on the next group, which is beginning to make itself heard loud and clear around the world -- the BSA, or Business Software Alliance. Purporting to be a "good guy" watchdog group, this organization has run nothing short of legalized terror campaigns on radio and TV for several years now. Like the RIAA, they have their own private "police force" of thugs, and like the RIAA and MPAA, they were pivotal in lobbying for and getting passed the loathed Digital Millennium Copyright Act and its "subpoena" powers which give such organizations sweeping powers previously reserved for the government.

BSA threatens free software developers:
http://www.gulfnews.com/Articles/news.asp?ArticleID=90419

What to do if the BSA comes after you:
http://www.penguinista.org/cgi-bin/article?articleID=723&showBody=Y

A Richard Stallman story with footnote about BSA's Argentina terror campaign which threatened prison rape and encouraged neighbors and friends to become spies:
http://world-information.org/wio/readme/992007035/1078488301

BSA publicity stunt attempts to link BSA members' products with the war on terror:
http://www.securityfocus.com/columnists/92

The time to fight back against these corporate Big Brothers is now, before their delusions of being the law itself become a reality.

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Heh. Thought you were talking about the Boy Scouts of America.

Proceed.

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I'll take the redneck route-- install whatever the fuck I want on my box, and wage battle on the front yard if need be.

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I better not let my dad see this story - I think he actually almost fell for the "JPEG Virus". I had to discuss the file-format to him before he'd get it that JPEGs can't possibly contain viruses unless a specialized viewer were installed.

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These shits are fucking out of their skulls. I mean really, if Microsoft is supporting this thing, they desperately need to change their tampons and quit trying to push all this shit on the public just because they think they can get away with patenting human skin.

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Fredrik said:

50 years from now, we'll be looking back at this time the way we look back at Nazi Germany.


We'll make a bunch of North America only games about it?

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WildWeasel said:

I better not let my dad see this story - I think he actually almost fell for the "JPEG Virus". I had to discuss the file-format to him before he'd get it that JPEGs can't possibly contain viruses unless a specialized viewer were installed.

That isnt actually entirely correct. There was a security vulnerability found in libpng earlier this week, and because most applications use that library for reading PNG files you could potentially have a virus embedded inside a PNG file. If a similar vulnerability was found in libjpeg the same could be applied to JPEG files as well.

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Fredrik said:

50 years from now, we'll be looking back at this time the way we look back at Nazi Germany.


Yes, a few mp3 sharers slapped with fines and on very rare occasions jail time will stand right up there with 11,000,000 sent to the concentration camps.

That was a really dumb thing to say..

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Ed said:

Yes, a few mp3 sharers slapped with fines and on very rare occasions jail time will stand right up there with 11,000,000 sent to the concentration camps.

That was a really dumb thing to say..

The scale is different, and the execution is more subtle, but that doesn't mean we should take it any less seriously. The intellectual property movement is doing its best to push us towards an intellectual disaster. Regardless of what they claim, the goal these people have is to seize worldwide totalitarian control of culture and information, and make a wealth out of it.

But I'm optimistic enough to believe that the intellectual property movement will be dead in 50 years.

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Fredrik said:

50 years from now, we'll be looking back at this time the way we look back at Nazi Germany.

Or the way Nazi Germany looked back at the Roman Empire.

But I'm optimistic enough to believe that the intellectual property movement will be dead in 50 years.

Fuck, I hope not. It's great that you are eager to share your work with the world, but anyone who looks to start a career solely dependent on intellectual property(the arts, mainly), they'd invariably be crushed to death by whatever oligopoly reigns in that market.

Patent-grabbing may be an interesting way for The Man to tighten his grip, but it's also the only way some small businesses can get off the ground. You suggest we should all start in the mailroom?

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There is nothing fundamentally wrong with limited-term copyright and patents, and I don't believe they should be abolished. There is something wrong with the conception that creative works are "invented", the philosophy that copyrights should better last for eternity, and the current patent system (especially with regard to software idea patents).

What I call the "intellectual property movement" is the set of organizations who use the word "intellectual property", and it mainly consists of traditional publishers who have realized that digital technology is about to make them obsolete, large corporations who collect patents not to produce great products but to eliminate potential competitors, and lawyers. They are not interested in making due profit by advancing science and art, these are the people who make a profit out of exploiting the system.

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Caco-Puff said:

We'll make a bunch of North America only games about it?

No way. Referring to it in the US will be banned because it makes people nervous that their parents were so stupid as to allow it to happen.

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I'll take the redneck route-- install whatever the fuck I want on my box, and wage battle on the front yard if need be.


And the PNG-Posting Linux users will be first!, "oh, look at me, i'm not using windows, i'm posting PNG files, i'm cool! suck my dick!", fuck off you pricks

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deathbringer said:

And the PNG-Posting Linux users will be first!, "oh, look at me, i'm not using windows, i'm posting PNG files, i'm cool! suck my dick!", fuck off you pricks

Wait a minute, does choosing the most powerful and versatile format make you a prick?

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deathbringer said:

And the PNG-Posting Linux users will be first!, "oh, look at me, i'm not using windows, i'm posting PNG files, i'm cool! suck my dick!", fuck off you pricks

How would you react when you hear that Longhorn will be using PNGs as a default image format?

Moron.

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fraggle said:

That isnt actually entirely correct. There was a security vulnerability found in libpng earlier this week, and because most applications use that library for reading PNG files you could potentially have a virus embedded inside a PNG file. If a similar vulnerability was found in libjpeg the same could be applied to JPEG files as well.

i do remember a virus that would attach or imbed itself to the Jpeg files. this was back in my win98 days. i remember it because it destroyed my porn stash.
I belive it was klez.32 or a varient that did this. also changed the extension to *.vbs. it was long ago so i may be mistaked, but it was the worst virus i have personaly had


as for groups like this... Fuck 'em! no group beyond government should have any right to enforce and preform police like actions. by they way if you forcefuly enter my house and are not police, FBI, CIA or army i AM gonna shoot your ass.

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darknation said:

I'd use open source software more if 98% of it wasn't complete fucking garbage.

I'll second that.

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I'd go open-source if there was enough of it to fill my needs. As it stands, the only decent piece of open-source Linux software that I've used to this date is XMMS, and even that had severe problems. There were no sound editors like Cool Edit. OpenOffice doesn't begin to compare to MS Office 2000. Mozilla performs best in a Windows environment. And add to that, Linux is an absolute pain for me to use because I don't know how to compile source code (this is a required skill for nearly everything).

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Fredrik said:

Wait a minute, does choosing the most powerful and versatile format make you a prick?

no, probably the "holier than thou, nose in the air" attitude makes one a prick

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WildWeasel said:

I'd go open-source if there was enough of it to fill my needs.

It fills mine, except for gaming. :-/

As it stands, the only decent piece of open-source Linux software that I've used to this date is XMMS, and even that had severe problems.

Xmms under Windows? Mine work fine in my Debian box.

There were no sound editors like Cool Edit.

Maybe you should re-search.

OpenOffice doesn't begin to compare to MS Office 2000.

Have you tried to type an equation in MSWord? What a pain in the ass! In OOo it is TeX-like.

Mozilla performs best in a Windows environment.

FUD.

And add to that, Linux is an absolute pain for me to use because I don't know how to compile source code (this is a required skill for nearly everything).

I run Linux since 2000 and I never compiled no kernel. In Debian or actual distros you don't need to compile anything (or so rarely).

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I did all the research I could. I don't type equations in MS Word (what's the friggin' point? I'm only a writer, and that's what I use MS Word for), I found no in-depth sound editors, and XMMS always crashed on me when I'd open an MP3. Sound stuttered like crap. I have decided that Linux is just not worth my time.

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WildWeasel said:

I did all the research I could. I don't type equations in MS Word (what's the friggin' point? I'm only a writer, and that's what I use MS Word for),

Yes but your old Word files are hardly readable now, I know it I own some.

I found no in-depth sound editors,

*****@crates:~$ apt-cache search sound editor
brahms - Graphical music editor and MIDI sequencer
cecilia - graphic user interface for CSound
ecawave - graphical audio file editor
gnusound - sound editor
kwave - A sound editor for KDE
noteedit - KDE Music Editor
rosegarden4 - Music Editor and MIDI/Audio Sequencer
smurf - A SoundFont editor for Linux / *nix
snd - Sound file editor
snd-doc - Sound file editor (documentation)
snd-gtk - Sound file editor (GTK+ user interface)
snd-gtk-alsa - Sound file editor (GTK+ user interface)
soundtracker - Sound module editor/player. Supporting .xm and .xi
sweep - An editor for sound samples
xwave - Wave sound file editor

That's just in my Debian Sarge, I removed crap (games and stuff).

and XMMS always crashed on me when I'd open an MP3. Sound stuttered like crap. I have decided that Linux is just not worth my time.

This is a Windows issue, not a Linux issue.

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Sephiroth said:

i do remember a virus that would attach or imbed itself to the Jpeg files. this was back in my win98 days. i remember it because it destroyed my porn stash.
I belive it was klez.32 or a varient that did this. also changed the extension to *.vbs. it was long ago so i may be mistaked, but it was the worst virus i have personaly had

...what? I'm pretty sure the extension was ALREADY .vbs, you know, script files for Windows, where you'll be getting the virus from? Sometimes, in some programs, or depending on how you have Windows set, file extensions will be hidden, so you can name something *.jpg.vbs but only the .jpg will show. Fools lots of folks... It's probably what happened to you.

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