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Comment Re:Hostile Action from Spammers (Score 3, Informative) 68

Excuse me, but what is the US Constitution's Second Amendment for, exactly?

"No free man shall ever be de-barred the use of arms. The strongest reason for the people to retain their right to keep and bear arms is as a last resort to protect themselves against tyranny in government." --Thomas Jefferson

"That the people have a right to keep and bear arms; that a well regulated militia composed of the body of the people trained to arms, is the proper. natural and safe defense of a free State. That standing armies in time of peace are dangerous to liberty, and therefore ought to be avoided, as far as the circumstances and protection of the community will admit; and that. in all cases, the military should be under strict subordination to and governed by the civil power." --George Mason

"The said constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms." --Samuel Adams

"Americans have the right and advantage of being armed -- unlike the citizens of other countries, whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms." --James Madison

"Are we at last brought to such a humiliating and debasing degradation that we cannot be trusted with arms for our own defense? Where is the difference between having our arms under our own possession and under our own direction, and having them under the management of Congress? If our defense be the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?" --Patrick Henry

"[A]rms like laws discourage and keep the invader and the plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property. The balance of power is the scale of peace. The same balance would be preserved were all the world destitute of arms, for all would be alike; but, since some will not, others dare not lay them aside. And while a single nation refuses to lay them down, it is proper that all should keep them up." --Thomas Paine

Comment Re:Interesting... (Score 3, Informative) 376

Internet Explorer may not have an auto-update system, but Microsoft Windows has an update system rivaling that of Ubuntu and OS X in automaticness, if not scale.

Since Windows encourages users to allow automatic updates installed at 3am every morning and also by default installs any pending critical updates at system power down, it doesn't seem like any supported version of Internet Explorer should remain unpatched for too long.

Ubuntu and Mint, at least, check daily. In Ubuntu when there are security updates you see a red arrow in the notification area, when non-security updates are available you see a orange sun(?). Also, if you go to "System"->"Software Sources" and then the "Updates" tab you can set it to apply security updates automatically (this really should be default, IMHO).

I still think Ubuntu's update system rivals Windows and OS X as it not only updates the base OS and OS vendor applications, it updates everything on the system.

Music

Submission + - Apple cracks down on the Hymn Project (hymn-project.org) 2

An anonymous reader writes: Ever since the initial launch of the iTunes Music Store, an intrepid group of programmers over at the Hymn Project have engaged in a marvelous cat-and-mouse game with Apple. Now they're finally being hobbled by Apple's lawyers.

The purpose of the project has always been to provide software that can be used to losslessly remove Digital Rights Management (DRM) protection from music purchased through iTunes, so that the buyer may exercise their right of fair use and play the music on non-Apple devices (Hear Your Music aNywhere).

The software has gone through many incarnations. The original hymn has been succeeded by JHymn, QTFairUse6, MyFairTunes, and others. Regardless of the program, the emphasis has always been squarely on fair use — not piracy. Any discussions of piracy have been strongly and actively discouraged on the site's forums.

For years now, Apple has been content to mostly ignore the Hymn Project. At worst, they would introduce subtle changes to new versions of iTunes that would break the Hymn software. Nobody really knows if this was done intentionally, but it was usually just a matter of time before a new solution was found. This seemed like a reasonable approach for Apple to take. After all, why should they care? The DRM was only in place to placate the record companies. Apple CEO Steve Jobs has even expressed his opinion that all music should be free of DRM.

Well, now things have changed. Recently, a new program called Requiem was announced that appears to be a complete crack of the iTunes DRM scheme. Previous programs had relied on various forms of trickery or memory hooks to access the unencrypted audio data — none had ever completely cracked the encryption algorithms.

Requiem seems to have been the last straw. Earlier this week, the ISP hosting the site received a Cease and Desist order from Apple Legal, demanding that all downloads be removed from the site, and that the site post no links to any programs that could remove DRM from Apple music or video. Reportedly, similar C & D orders were also sent to at least one of the project's developers, and to another ISP where Reqiuem had been hosted. Ironically, Requiem was never actually hosted on the Hymn site — merely mentioned and linked to in one of the forums. Nevertheless, the Hymn Project has now come into the crosshairs of Apple's lawyers and, lacking legal resources, has seen no choice but to comply with the order.

Democrats

Submission + - Democrats: Colleges must police copyright, or else (news.com) 1

Brian Knotts writes: "News.com reports that congressional Democrats have introduced a bill creating a new corporate welfare program, which would force colleges into subscribing to music services, or else lose $100 billion of federal financial aid programs.

Unsurprisingly, the MPAA is on board with the bill.



"We very much support the language in the bill, which requires universities to provide evidence that they have a plan for implementing a technology to address illegal file sharing," said Angela Martinez, a spokeswoman for the MPAA.
"

OS X

Submission + - Darwin 9.0 Code Released (macnn.com)

mr100percent writes: MacNN reports that Apple has released the source code to Darwin 9.0, the backbone of OS X 10.5 Leopard. x86 and PPC versions are available. According to Apple's developer mailing list, some key drivers are missing however.
Censorship

Submission + - Law firm says copyright prevents viewing HTML (typepad.com)

Greg Beck writes: "This law firm's website contains the following terms in its "User Agreement":

"We also own all of the code, including the HTML code, and all content. As you may know, you can view the HTML code with a standard browser. We do not permit you to view such code since we consider it to be our intellectual property protected by the copyright laws. You are therefore not authorized to do so."

It also prohibits linking to the site without permission, quoting anything from the site, or referring to the site owner by name."

Feed Trent Reznor: CD Outdated... But If We Have To Sell It, Why Not Make It Cool? (techdirt.com)

Earlier this month we wrote about how Trent Reznor/Nine Inch Nails was creatively marketing his new album (and how the RIAA was incorrectly trying to takedown songs from file sharing systems, even though it was part of Reznor's promotional plan). Two separate submissions today make an interesting point about Reznor's strategy. First, comes from Cixelsid, who points out an article that's actually from last month, where Reznor talks about why he's giving away DRM-free music on USB drives hidden at his concerts:

"The USB drive was simply a mechanism of leaking the music and data we wanted out there. The medium of the CD is outdated and irrelevant. It's really painfully obvious what people want -- DRM-free music they can do what they want with. If the greedy record industry would embrace that concept I truly think people would pay for music and consume more of it."
It's always nice to see a musician recognize this simple fact. However, it's made even more interesting when combined with this submission from John about the new Nine Inch Nails CD. According to some photos on Flickr, the CD changes color after it's been played. Basically, it changes colors when it gets hot (like those old t-shirts or mugs or whatever). Now, this is simply a gimmick, but it's an interesting one for someone who believes the CD is irrelevant. Whether on purpose or not, Reznor (or, perhaps someone associated with him) recognizes that, these days, if you want someone to buy the actual CD, you need to give them an additional reason to -- especially if it's a reason that can't easily be replicated. A color changing CD is exactly that. It's an additional reason for buying the CD, simply for the "cool" factor. It won't work for everyone (in fact, this type of thing only works for some of the first who do it), but it shows a pretty smart way of thinking about things. Don't expect people to just buy the same old thing (especially when many consider it irrelevant) unless you offer something of value with it that gives them a reason to actually buy. You can still sell CDs, but not if they're just delivering the same thing that can be more efficiently delivered in other ways.

Feed Microsoft's 'Men in Black' kill Florida open standards legislation (newsforge.com)

It was just a bit of text advocating open data formats that was slipped into a Florida State Senate bill at the last minute with no fanfare, but within 24 hours three Microsoft-paid lobbyists, all wearing black suits, were pressuring members of the Senate Committee on Governmental Operations (COGO) to remove the words they didn't like from Senate bill 1974.
Privacy

Submission + - A usable Freenet

An anonymous reader writes: It seems that the Freenet Project has updated their user-docs a bit. It actually looks usable nowadays. In these days of the upcoming Big Brother society, Freenet feels more imminent than ever.
Republicans

Submission + - Ron Paul for president

chessmasterjoe writes: "DR. Ron Paul is a man running for president that is very friendly to the internet. Please google him and check out his voting record . If you believe in freedom and liberty do yourself and the USA a favor and vote for Ron Paul. I am sure that he would do an interview if we asked him. You only have to listen to him talk to see that he is not your typical politician. He is intelligent, articulate,easy to understand and a true founding father type of guy."

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