That's dead. Today, if the destination mail agent exists, it's probably up and immediately reachable via a fast connection. So a modern mail fowarder should accept the incoming email via SMTP, and then, while holding the incoming connection open, send the email on to the destination mail agent. Any problems are immediately reported to the sender via SMTP status code.

1. Not quite what you suggest, but close.

2. Exchange (default setup) accepts all emails to the destination domain and later sends a reject message if the destination mailbox doesn't exist, so your proposal adds nothing to systems where the end mailserver is Exchange.

Any 2nd year physics student should be able to laugh this garbage right off a lab bench without even running an experiment.

Any good science student should be aware that our understanding of physics changes over time. Clearly this device is unlikely because it requires a change to the "laws" of physics.

The article explains why any good scientist should be able to laugh this off based on the reported experimental results.

CFAA may be broken but what Aaron did was still wrong

What Aaron did was not wrong (in a moral sense). What Aaron might have done could have been wrong, but no one knows what his intent was in downloading all those papers. Was he going to publish them all? Was he going to just run some analysis on them?

What is clearly wrong is the level of punishment that he could have been subject to for doing something that had hurt no one and caused no significant losses to anyone.

You are condemning him based on assumptions about his future actions.

When I was a kid, HP meant rock solid. They made bench test gear you could drive a car over.

That business was spun off, it's now called Agilent Technologies.

Then something happened. They turned into a company that would install a root kit on a reporter's computer because of an exposé -- rather than fix the problem revealed.

What happened was that HP got into the PC business. The PC business is completely different to most other businesses that HP was in: cutthroat margins, little technical innovation. PCs drove a change in mindset amongst HP's management and board.

The oteher part of the definition issu is that the relationship between Amazon and publishers is somewhat unusual. Perhaps unique.

In the case of books, while Amazon may have market power as the single buyer, to some extent, the publishers also have power as the single seller. If Amazon wants to sell (for example) Stephen King's latest novel, there is only one publisher that is selling it. Amazon cannot go elsewhere, just as (perhaps) the publisher cannot go elsewhere to sell the eBook rights.

monopsony
a market situation in which there is only one buyer

Definition s are wonderful things. For every one, one can find a different definition. So how about this:

A monopsony occurs when a firm has market power in employing factors of production. A monopsony means there is one buyer and many sellers.

If your definition of monopsony is the simple "one buyer", then perhaps, but if your definition is the one that I was using, where the buyer has market power, the evidence is that Amazon did not have this at the time. Perhaps it has now. As with monopolies, having a monopsony is not illegal, it's how you take advantage of it that matters -- as I see that you do note.

So, I will apologise for the attack, partly.

Amazon has a responsibility to not abuse their monopsony, yet they have failed to do so at every turn. Anyone who Googles around for about 5 minutes can turn up a dozen examples of Amazon abusing their dominant position to force the publisher's hands.

As people often point out, anecdotes are not the singular of data. Yes, there are cases of Amazon's behaviour that give cause for concern and probably an investigation is due. But do you honestly think that the publishers are not waging a PR war on Amazon right now?

Amazon has a responsibility to not abuse their monopsony, yet they have failed to do so at every turn.

In the past few months, the Apple fanboys have been promoting the "Amazon has a monopsony" line, which I assume was started by Apple employees in some Apple-related forums.

Perhaps Amazon has a monopsony now, but to suggest that it had one when Apple was organizing its illegal price-fixing is simply counter-factual. The publishers went to Amazon and demanded that Amazon either put up prices or Amazon would not be able to sell eBooks from that publisher any more. Amazon caved, which is a clear indication that Amazon had no monopsony.

Perhaps if Apple had focused on competing using legal means, there would be a more level playing field now.

The charges were bullshit from the get-go

Yes, it's not as though Apple consipred to increase the prices that consumers paid when buying elsewhere. Oh wait ... yes Apple did just that!

We have a well-organized political-action group in this country, determined to destroy our Constitution and establish a one-party state

There has clearly been success in creating a one-party state. The party just happens to have two faces, but inside, there is no significant difference.

Comcast has two mantras. Increase sales and cut costs.

Comcast is cr*p at doing the latter. Why did it take a callout to my house in order to get my cablecard working? The online system and their attempt to authorize the cablecard when I called in both failed, but why? All that happened during the callout was that the technician called his buddy to send the signal to authorize the cablecard. Then he changed a few connectors in the wiring -- probably to justify the callout.

They are a police force specific to a small area, that doesn't mean they are governed by corporations.

Apparently you failed to read the section on elections in the City of London:

The City has a unique electoral system. Most of its voters are representatives of businesses and other bodies that occupy premises in the City.

So, yes, they are governed by corporations.