theos.com Dispute Ended

philc writes "The dispute over the theos.com domain appears to have ended...happily, for Mr. De Raadt.". Look down the page for the term slashdot.org. Update: 03/27 02:16 by S : In related news, UM_Maverick writes "Illiad over at User Friendly says that he received a certified letter confirming that the threats from the "death star" are authentic. He has been advised not to reveal details yet, though... "

/.'ers, Mary Shelley, and D&D

This is yet another example of the old rule from the original Dungeons & Dragons: The Angry Villager Rule, which was no doubt inspired by the Frankenstein monster's demise at the hands of a mob of P.O.'d serfs. "Global Village" is a much-abused buzzphrase/metaphor, but we are beginning to see the truth in it. How does this relate to D&D? Under the rule it didn't matter how powerful your characters were, the villagers always win.

/. is certainly a village, and plenty of its residents are definitely angry. The fate of nations could hang on how Rob chooses to use such awesome power....

(Congratulations to Theo de Raadt, btw; I for one was happy to help pound that Web server into oblivion.)

A message to my peers

People, overwhelming them with polite protest is fine. Threats and attacks on their systems are out of bounds. Not that I know that system attacks or threats actually happened, but if I found out about that, I'd be the first to call the cops.

Thanks

Bruce Perens

the tables have turned...

Although I'm only speculating, I imagine that the law firm involved sort-of figured that they were
representing a "big-company" and that they would have no trouble using standard "lawyer-talk" to
intimidate someone to get their way.

Ironically, /.-ers sort-of figured that they were representing a "bigger-entity" and they would have
no trouble using the /. effect to intimidate someone to get their way.

Although the /.-ers got their way, if this happens often enough, you know what they will say...

"power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely"

This is analogous to the investigative reporters on TV. Someone buys a ford-pinto, it blows up.
No-one seems to care, so this person calls an investigative reporter, who tries to get the
story which is that there is a safety problem. Big television story and the safety problem with
the ford-pinto is corrected.

Now, there are 1000's of investigative reporters. Someone buys a suzuki-samarai, it tips over
No-one seems to care, so this person calls and investigative reporter, who is too lazy to get
the facts. Big television story, but the car doesn't tip over. So what, fake the tip-over
for the camera, no-one will care right?

Thoughts on recent domain disputes.

It's certainly good to see this come to pass. Good for Theo! Recently, several valid domain names have come under pressure, due to similarities to companies. I'm thinking of Tony Sanders recent dispute with a shoe company called Mondial. Tony is a nice guy who works at BSDI, and for a long time hosted the high-volume inet-access mailing list on his domain, earth.com. Mondial somehow was awared a trademark for selling shoes with the name "Earth". They decided to try to steal Tony's domain.

Also, consider Chris Van Allen's site [pokey.org]. Chris is the young son of Dave Van Allen, who runs a Philadelphia area ISP. The kid's been called "pokey" since birth. The Prema Toy company, of "Gumby and Pokey" fame tried to swipe his comain name as well.

Now add Theo to the pile of stories. I'm glad to say that in all three cases, the bastards didn't win, and good prevailed. Perhaps this is part of a new trend that will serve to better teach companies how to get along on the 'net.

God damnit.

I'm so pissed off right now I can't even concentrate on this paper I'm supposed to be writing. Sure, it's not due 'till Monday, but it's got to be thirty frickin' pages long and I'm on (checking) page 2.

Illiad: Have those [deleted] mother[deleters] bring it on. Nobody messes with User Friendly; it's too damn keen. We'll see how seriously the /. effect can take down a voicemail/email system when a really popular site is threatened...

Seriously though, this sounds pretty MS. It's a little known fact that the "Gates-Borg" icon that Rob uses for MS stories is actually from a T-shirt that some guy in CA put together and was forced to stop making after threats from MS's lawyers. It's a clear-cut case of parody, but they know they can bully them around because most people can't afford the lawyers. I hate corporations with money to burn.

Is there a way to countersue against frivelous lawsuits such as this one and come away with punitive damages? If so, I'd like to see how a jury decides to punish a company that has $20 billion in cash on-hand....

----

Pathetic...

This is absolutely pathetic. Some people here seem to be gloating over the fact that they are damaging other people's property. "Woohoo, how bout we slashdot these babies!"? Childish and immature are the two words that come to mind. Those who use IRC here complain about the 'good ol days' where there wasn't packetmonkeys / scriptkiddies to worry about constantly, and how immature they are to DoS a server for their own ends. But those same people seem to have no compunctions in doing it if it suits their cause.

Like it or not, it's a business world, and businesses are always going to be in dispute. That does not mean that people go out and deliberately attack servers, employees (voicemail etc) because they don't believe in something. The elitist, arrogant responses here only go to prove that point. "You're in my world now", "It's biology baby, we're gonna fight to keep you out" is the most appalling attitude I have ever heard. The `net isn't a community for those who think that they are somehow more elite powerful, on useless benchmarks such as "I was here a long time ago, play the way I do" etc etc.

I don't know that it'd be possible to sue slashdot, but there is such thing as incitement. I have absolutely no doubt, much as I *hate* to say it that some people did threaten/carry out on attacking servers maliciously, and yet others emailed their opinions. The attitude that "Well, they better have their mail servers ready if they're going to pull this kind of stunt" is not valid. What are some people smoking?

For the record, I don't agree with what they did. But they did go about it reasonably the right way - I do remember a case of one large company (possibly MS, but not definitively) actually trying to submit domain-cancel forms on 'behalf' of a domain they didn't like, much to the owners surprise, when he got an automated email from InterNIC asking him to 'confirm his submission to cancel his domain'.

The point is, this is not our domain. Others have *AS MUCH* right to use it as we. Live with it, and don't act like playground bullies if you don't like things.

A message to my peers

The problem is, I think, that what we affectionately refer to as "the slashdot effect" can actually be interpreted as a denial of service attack by those who aren't prepared for it.

I wholly agree that threats and intentional damage/attacks are absolutely out of bounds, and I think that the vast majority of slashdotters out there also agree. We, as a community, whether we like it or not, are coming under much closer scrutiny than ever before. The more exposure Linux and the OSS/FSF movement get in the media, the more people are going to be wandering in trying to find out what's going on.

What's going on is us. This whole thing that has been created isn't just about software. The Free/Open Source software movement isn't just about technology and innovation: this is a social movement that encompasses the realms of philosophy, politics, society, technology, the 'new media', and economics.

"Outsiders" are slowly (so slowly) starting to get over their terror of "those darned hackers" and the techonologies we know and love. They are beginning (much more quickly) to be exposed to the whacky wonderful unexpected strangeness that is the OSS/FSF movement.

(I do have a point...gimme a sec)

My point is this: the more popular Linux becomes, the more accomodating we're going to have to be to outsiders. The poor guys at the other end of this slashdot effect probably have no clue that the sudden spikes in traffic weren't based in the malicious intent of a bunch of "hackers" (incorrect usage of the word here, of course).

What we see as a sort of funny tendency for slashdot traffic to overload and crash servers, others are going to see as a malicious computer attack by an uncountable number of crackers.

I don't know what we can do about this. Probably nothing. People will continue to have their sites linked to from slashdot, and people will continue to experience the sudden and disconcerting results of the slashdot effect.

But...to offset these effects, maybe we should start trying to be a little less confrontational in other ways. Now, I'm not saying that we should ease up on our critiques of various Large Corporations, but if it's just a little guy who doesn't really know any better...maybe we should cut him/her a bit of slack to start.

The OSS movement isn't the small little grassroots movement it was a couple of years ago. It has become rather a tidal wave, really...a tidal wave of people with a stunning amount of enthusiasm and passion. We're not the littlest of the little guys anymore, and as a community we should start to think quite seriously about the overall impact that this community has "out there". Not just in the "we're finally starting to win" sense, but also in the "are we doing harm to others?" sense and whether that harm is acceptable, be it intentional or not.

Erm...or mebbe I'm just full of hot air :) It's late, it's Friday, and I've had way too much caffeine.

- deb

Not pathetic at all.

I disagree with many, many points in this post. A sampling:

Like it or not, it's a business world.

Not everything in this world is about business (e.g. the Internet, pre-1995). I don't value businesses much at all, and I wish they'd stop trying to control my world. We don't need 'em as much as they think. Same with litigious people.

"It's biology baby, we're gonna fight to keep you out" is the most appalling attitude I have ever heard.

I actually think the analogy of an organism defending itself is very accurate and insightful. The Internet has grown because of a certain culture and set of values, since long before it was ever commercial. It only got as far as it did because of this culture and set of values, which is now responding to an invading force that would cause problems if left unchecked. It's not the people we're keeping out, it's the attitude.

Old-timers are very welcoming to newcomers, but the newcomers have got to understand how not to screw things up. They need to respect what's been there before-- by this I mean respect for the ecosystem, not respect for their elders. If not, the ecosystem will break as surely as our real-world ecosystem is breaking. Old-timers know how the system holds together, and are worth listening to.

I don't agree with what they did. But they did go about it reasonably the right way...

I completely disagree with this. I have a hard time seeing how you can think there was anything "right" about it. They were about as hostile as can be. And talk about arrogant! As Mr. de Raadt says, if they had asked nicely up front, he would have gladly given them a link on his front page. But they didn't even give diplomacy a chance, they came out with guns firing.

Others have *AS MUCH* right to use it as we. Live with it, and don't act like playground bullies if you don't like things.

This is the crux of our argument. We have as much right to use it as they do. And Mr. de Raadt had the domain name first. Theos Software was the one acting like the bully, thinking they could get away with it. All we did was make them stop beating up on Mr. de Raadt. They caused him a lot more problems than we caused them.

James