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Cybercrime and Patents in Europe
Posted by
michael
on Fri Nov 09, 2001 08:49 AM
from the what-you-dont-know-can-hurt-you dept.
from the what-you-dont-know-can-hurt-you dept.
Hairy1 writes: "The Council of Europe has been working on a Cyber Crime Treaty for some time. The final version is now available, and makes interesting reading." The submitter points out that treaty signers will be obligated to create legislation, as the UK already has, to force people to disclose passwords and encryption keys to the authorities. The U.S. may well sign this treaty - we've participated in the drafting process. On a slightly different note, people are up in arms because the European Patent Office has decided, apparently on its own, that software programs are patentable. Update: 11/09 15:23 GMT by M : A reader sent in this interesting bibliography of the treaty's history.
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Cybercrime and Patents in Europe
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Patents (Score:4, Informative)
Eurolinux goes ballistic over Euro patent 'coup' [theregister.co.uk]
Amusing. (Score:5, Insightful)
RIP in UK (Score:3, Informative)
Hmm (Score:2, Interesting)
Ok, I'm sure loads of other countries have participated, but it seems to me that this will be nothing but red tape to businesses.
As a citizen of "europe" I have yet to see the EU write one single peice of legislation that a) makes sense, b) actually has an effect other than to annoy people c) does any good. d) doesnt cost tonnes of money for sod all.
Don't get me wrong, I'm glad government are trying to get a hand into formalising these sorts of things, but what we really need is competant people advising them. I mean, look at what incompetance in these matters [stand.org.uk] gave us the last time.
I won't hold my breath.
Software Patents? (Score:1, Funny)
Hello World!
Software isn't patentable... (Score:4, Flamebait)
All this latest directive does is clarify that an implementation in software has no effect on an invention's patentability: If you could get an patent on a method for doing something by using LEGO bricks, you could likewise get a patent on a method for doing the same thing using software.
What's the big deal?
Re:Software isn't patentable... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is more or less how software patents are supposed to work over here in the U.S., too. However, because the PTO has pathetically little software expertise, the result is that you can patent pretty much any stupid idea that is obvious to everyone else if your patent description ends with "...on a computer!"
The other big problem with this is that the patent system is explicitly not supposed to cover algorithms or mathematical formulae, because these are deemed fundamental properties of nature. However, patenting software is a surprisingly easy backdoor to patenting algorithms. E.g. RSA Data Security and the RSA patent which held back public key cryptography by a decade or more, and would have been worse if RSA had succeeded in convincing the PTO that their patent actually covers all forms of PK crypto.
EU protecting privacy? (Score:5, Interesting)
Read the report here [eu.int] . If passed it would make it illegal to idenitfy users on the internet without their permission. Keep your fingers crossed.
Not all things that come out of the EU are bad. Belive it or not
This is an interesting development. (Score:2, Insightful)
And everyone fighting against encryption... it's a losing battle. "Criminals" don't exactly pay attention to "the law", and if they're not completely braindead and know that a given piece of encryption software is crippled by the fact that the government has the keys to the backdoor, don't you think that they'll either use something else or maybe just not incriminate themselves via any digital media? Law-abiding citizens are the only ones that lose here, unless you like the idea of every Jane Government sticking their nose in your business whether you've done anything wrong or not.
On the bright side, if software becomes patentable, maybe this will strengthen the notion of Code As Speech in the US courts? I sure hope that the US legislators in charge of ratifying this bill (are there any? what body would be in charge of this?) runs this by the RIAA and MPAA before they sign it.
DOJ Wrote it! (Score:5, Interesting)
What to do for us EU citizens? (Score:5, Informative)
So, what can we (EU citizens) actively do?
I've already signed the EuroLinux Petition [eurolinux.org]
Maybe a membership with FSF Europe [fsfeurope.org]?
What else? Find politicians that'll listen?
give my keys to the athorities? (Score:1)
I feel safer, don't you?
So I don't own My Hard Drive anymore? (Score:2, Interesting)
Don't get me wrong - child porn is bad, But taking away my rights to my own property is NOT the way to stop it. By all means, monitor for child porn, nail the ftp sites that hst it, but stay the hell away from my hard drive.
how the fuck (Score:1, Insightful)
An assembler or compiler is merely a filter for some text. This number when transfered to another processor type will generate complete different results, most likely garbage. Clearly the object code means different things to different processors, so they can't use binary.
Source code? Well that doesn't actually do anything other that represent algorithms, or thought process (pseudo code); which in turn represents free speech. You know, that thing the US used to have.
CoE - U.S. Law? (Score:2, Insightful)
right (Score:1, Interesting)
you like they signed
-Global warming treaty
-Chemical weapons treaty
-Land mines treaty
-nuclear weapons treaty
US won't sign shit
Forced to disclose Passwords??? (Score:3, Insightful)
You would think that a law like this would violate everyone's '5th Amendment Rights':
nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself... full text [cornell.edu].
Being force to disclose passwords to authorities, IMHO, would be equivalent to testifying agaist yourself...
Never Laughed So Hard (Score:1)
That writ says NOTHING! I read it to article 9 and didn't see anything resembling a real statement for or agains something. Each and every passage that really says something "may or may not" be implemented by "a party". I'm considering moving to a place where there are real LAWS not lax guidelines. When I'm being shot for something, I want to know WHY!
Well, once in a while, my sig makes sense.
5th amendment (Score:1)
If it is true that the treaty forces countries to create legislation that makes it illegal to not provide keys on demand, how could the U.S. possibly sign this since the treaty? The 5th amendment prevents the gov't from forcing a person to testify against themselves. I believe that Mitnick used the 5th amend. to keep his encryption keys secret. I think that it was even discussed on slashdot a while back too.
"nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself" [usconstitution.net]
James
P.S. Does the search feature for stories even work anymore?
Mathematics (Score:5, Interesting)
According to the EuroLinux article,
Patenting mathematics is outright crazy. It's the same sort of crazy that allows the patenting of software, but in the past one could always say: patenting algorithms is like patenting mathematics, and thus clearly nonsense. reductio ad absurdum has come along and bit us all on the arse.Trying to imagine a world where mathematics is patentable is both hard and disturbing. Can you imagine if only licensed physicists were allowed to use Hilbert space theory? If one needed to pay a levy every time one used Shannon's law to help design a product? Where would we be if the finite element methods could only be applied to engineering analyses with the blessings of its creators?
How much mathematical progress would be made, if every mathematician had to check whether the work they were building on was patent-encumbered? If every publication had to first get the approval of some patent holders, with the possibility of a required payment?
It quickly gets surreal. Many statements in mathematics are equivalent when viewed in the appropriate fashion. Many too are based on certain sets of axioms. What does patentable mean when viewed in this light?
This to me is a clear sign that extreme IP advocates have just completely lost the plot.
Re:Mathematics (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's the part on Mathematics:
First, note that the Patent office, evidently not being staffed by mathematicians, believe that they have not rendered mathematics patentable. Or, in other words, explanation-free protests based on the statement that they have will only confuse them, and cause them to distrust the protesters. After all, "These are a particular example of the principle that purely abstract or intellectual methods are not patentable."
I see three problems with this:
- "Purely abstract or intellectual methods" often are algorithms. For example, we tend to express the mathematical concept of "graph reachability" as the algorithm that tells us whether a given node is reachable from another. It can be defined other ways (including second order existential logic), but we tend to think of it algoritmically first, moreso for complicated properties.
- "A mathematical method for designing electrical filters is not patentable; nevertheless filters designed according to this method would not be excluded from patentability by Art. 52(2) and (3)." Functions are only relevent in terms of the results. (Merely specifying a domain is rarely useful.) If one can create a mathematic concept, then proceed to creatively patent the (useful, for the Patent Office's amazingly low standard of "useful") results that can come from concept and associated functions, then the only useful part of the concept is effectively patented. Combine this with the next problem ->
- An increasing amount of math is taking place on computers. For instance, the famouse and importent 4-Color problem was proven by a computer. This will only increase over time. Therefore, there may be no difference between the abstract math and the concrete implementation, which means there is no difference between patenting math and patenting an algorithm.
Remember that as you protest to the EU. They don't speak our language and, frankly, they don't know jack shit about math. And it shows. They honestly think that under these rules, math is still unpatentable.Therefore, despite protests from the Patent Office that mathematics are not patentable, damn near every discrete mathematics definition and algorithm is patentable, or close enough that a the prospect of fighting a patent would scare anybody.
(And frankly, I don't think we stand a chance in Hades of convincing them otherwise. The more ignorant you are, the more you think you know on a given topic, and I'd lay money these people honestly believe they know mathematics. Which means they will not listen to people like us.)
"Bush to blame" according to Wired. (Score:2, Interesting)
This Wired Article makes interesting reading. It gives the impression that the preasure to alter Europes (mainly very strict) privacy laws has come from as high up as Bush Himself [wired.com]
As we all know, wherever America goes, Europe gets dragged along kicking and screeming!
However, I definately couldn't imagine the Duch or the Danes going along with such draconian anti-privacy laws, even if we in the UK seem complacent about our privacy and rights.
Very important things (Score:3, Insightful)
Second, the Council of Europe didn't write this law, the US did; as such, I wouldn't expect many (if any) continental EU countries to sign it, especially considering it may contradict some of their EU responsibilities and they'd rather be part of the EU than pass this law.
Third, if they somehow did pass this law, we could always create a country in Antarctica.
forced disclosure of passwords (Score:2)
Use Best Practices (Score:2, Insightful)
Or we need to develop an "under duress" password capability that destroys the data if used.
Whoops, I gave you the wrong password. My bad.
At least this way... (Score:1)
It'll be too late, of course. Your key will be used to decrypt all your old messages. (Is there a statute saying how long you need to remember your passphrase after you change keys?)
You want my password? (Score:3, Funny)
Terrible.. (Score:5, Interesting)
One things i've noticed though, is the amount of UK ISP's (Freeserve, AOL to name two), to me, seem to be abusing their shadow proxies (cisco cache engines I presume)..
For, whilst using AOL or FreeServe, you try and telnet to _any_ outside mailserver on port 25, you get their mailserver. It's actually _impossible_ to get to any other SMTP service whilst dialled-up with one of these ISP's.
Now, sure this could be because they're attempting to optimize their network, but on the other hand, they could have their SMTP relays configured to store/cache messages locally - ideal for RIP bill investigations..
Scary thought..
Is Source Code a Patent Violation? (Score:1)
"If you publish the source code for a patented algorithm, are you violating the patent?"
If this holds up as yes in the US ane EU, does this mean we can scoot around the patents as long as we distribute the software in source-code ONLY form?
Patrent Law - Big Deal (Score:1)
A big problem with the big(gest hehe) European software company I work for is that since software has always been unpatentable in Europe, we are getting creamed with infrigment claims from US companies. The patent game for big corporations consist of:
Bloated Software Company A: "Hey, we have a patent on that! Pay us money or we'll sue!"
Bloated Software Company B: "Oh yeah, we'll we have patent of something your selling, so shut up!" etc.
Problem is taht a lot of Europeans companies (like the one I work for) can't tell anyone to shut up. This legelation will only help European countries compete by encouraging software patents.
At odds with "anti terrorist" legislation? (Score:2, Interesting)
It states:
Article 3 Illegal interception
Each Party shall adopt such legislative and other measures as may be necessary to establish as criminal offences under its domestic law, when committed intentionally, the interception without right, made by technical means, of non-public transmissions of computer data to, from or within a computer system, including electromagnetic emissions from a computer system carrying such computer data. A Party may require that the offence be committed with dishonest intent, or in relation to a computer system that is connected to another computer system.
Given the number of organisations that the UK government is planning to give access to your IT data under "anti terrorist legislation" (eg Guardian article [guardian.co.uk]), this will surely require some tricky legal manouvers to get every man and his dog working for the government classed as "with right" to intercept?
Also, what it'll be interesting to see how the data that the ISPs are being told to collect for "anti terrorist" means will be classed as "with right" to intercept, given the provisions in the human rights act on privacy...
Oceania? (Score:1)
Don't you love how this works? (Score:3, Insightful)
It HAS happened and It DOES happen, EXACTLY like this. Let's not get fooled again.
Hmm...barrier to entry? (Score:2)
What effect might this have down the road on the few countries like Bulgaria where neither the culture nor the law recognizes things like copyright protection? If one of these countries wishes to join, what laws will be imposed upon them?
Funny how the system works (Score:2)
By Steve Gold, Newsbytes Special to the E-Commerce Times January 14, 2000
Unconfirmed reports circulating on the Usenet suggest that the U.S. government is working with the European Union (EU), Japan, Canada and other countries, including South Africa, on a draft cybercrime treaty that would try to ban hacking and Internet eavesdropping utilities.
Interesting how only the powers that be should now be allowed [loc.gov] to eavesdrop and crack into computer systems, even though they're so intent on making it illegal for everyone else.
It's too bad that we have to trust a bunch of mostly technologically uninformed politicians to draft law these days. I'm sure their intentions are all good in trying to prevent terrorism, but sadly they've been duped, like much of American society, into believing that government can provide us with safety and security in all aspects of life. Unfortunately, in this effort to provide a safe and secure country, our liberties are getting trampled on in the process.
there go my emigration plans (Score:1)
Max
So create your own "backdoor"... (Score:1, Interesting)
Misleading - in the UK a warrant is needed (Score:2)
As for the EU patent office, they are typical of EU beaurocracy gone mad. The UK had already decided against [slashdot.org] software patents. I hope we see more software groups lining up behind the EuroLinux call.
Phillip.
Computer languages ARE languages (Score:2)
The important point here is that the definition has nothing to do with physical devices. Of course, most computer languages can be understood by particular physical devices (electronic computers), but that is not required--and it only came about later. Even after the advent of electronic computers, some computer languages were still being invented for the purpose of communicating with people. Two good examples illustrating this are APL and MIX.
APL (A Programming Language) was invented by Ken Iverson, a Harvard mathematician. His sole purpose was to have a good way to describe algorithms to people. Physical computers were not even a consideration. Later, other people thought that it would be a good idea to implement the language, and interpreters for computers were crafted, but that was strictly secondary.
MIX was invented by Don Knuth, a Stanford mathematician. His primary purpose was to have a "formal, precise way" to "present the various techniques" detailed in his book Art of Computer Programming (I'm quoting from the preface). Although algorithms described in MIX could be executed on a (idealized) computer, Knuth's primary purpose was communicate to people.
Both these languages are intended to be used to describe algorithmic calculations, but not all computer languages need do this. Prolog [cmu.edu] is an example, where you just describe the input and output of the program (e.g. input "a list" and output "an ordered list", where "ordered" means "i LE j implies list[i] LE list[j]"), without necessarily describing how to calculate the output. And Prolog was invented primarily to be executed on a computer.
If an algorithm is described in English, then plainly, there are free-speech protections. What if Esperanto were used? Again, free-speech protections should apply, but note that Esperanto is an artificial language. So, I think that the same provisions should apply if the language is APL or MIX. From there, we surely get protection for Prolog, Java, C, etc.: all human-readable languages.
Has this line of reasoning been used in the courts? If not, why?
CPPA equivalent (Score:1)
You just try (Score:1)
Reasoning by analogy? (Score:1)
Now, IANAL, but I bet these cases (physical safes) have already been confronted, and I bet that if these password cases show up in USA courts, the laws will be interpreted in a similar manner.
As for 5th ammendment issues, I would be interested in a knowledgeable person telling me if you can use this to keep the govt out of your diary, or other physical stuff you have produced. I think not, as the 5th is designed to keep the govt from torturing prisoners -- not protect the individual's right to commit crimes if they can be clever about hiding, encrypting or otherwise documenting their crime. Now, if the only way into your safe (or your file) requires violating the 5th ammendment (torturing you for your password), then can we suggest that refusing to reveal the password is prima facia evidence of obstructing justice -- which is a different crime than (perhaps) that covered by the original search warrant? Where are the /. lawyers (you know, the ones that can write "IAAL" when you need them?).
I know this is a joke but. (Score:1)
Re:Is it just me... (Score:2)
That's funny. I was thinking that a power vacuum, US military, or UN martial law would provide a good opportunity to prosylatize Christianity and educate women with impunity. Free DVDs were pretty far down on the list.
I DO IT WRONG, some more ;) (Score:1)
Laying here in the shadows of my room, I squint up at my love. My Ms. Portman.
I am sore and tired after fucking her for eight solid hours. My chapped and aching
dick is soaking in grits to relieve the pain. She gets on her knees and starts lapping
the grits up out of the bowl. She places her beautiful hands on my penis and starts to
lick the grits off my achy piece.
Massaging my nutsack she....
WAIT, I DO IT WRONG!!!!
Yanking my dick out of her mouth I throw her to the ground and shove it in to her
gaping freshly fisted ass. [goatse.cx]
"OH BIG ASS SPORK, err, OOOHHHH BANNED IP!! Fuck my ass, fuck my ass good. DEEPER, my stallion, deeper!!
Make a Beowulf cluster of sperm on my back!!"
"Imagine a Beowulf cluster of this baby!"
I DO IT WRONG!!!!
Due to excessive bad posting from this IP or Subnet, comment posting has temporarily been disabled. If it's you, consider this a chance to sit in the timeout corner. If it's someone else, this is a chance to hunt them down. If you think this is unfair, please email jamie@mccarthy.vg.
HAHAHAHAA fuckers! I am not ssooo wrong I can't recover! All your trolls are belong to... forget it...
The
This is version 0.6 of a troll HOWTO, sort of a companion piece to jsm's excellent troll FAQ. As a draft, comments and criticism are always welcome, if not appreciated
Section 1 - Trolling techniques
There are techniques used by successful trolls to elicit the maximum amount of responses from unthinking
Timing
Because you're posting as an AC, your troll will generally be ignored in favour of posters using their accounts, and so getting in early is essential. A good guideline is to get into the first 20 posts, so that people reading the article will see the troll before it is swamped out. One way of increasing the speed with which you get your troll into play is to prepare them beforehand, and then quickly customise them for the current article. This is easier than it sounds since
Note that this is why Jon Katz stories are pretty worthless as trolling material - by the time you've found the article and prepared a troll there's already 50+ posts on it, most of them flaming Jon Katz anyway
Exposure
Once you've got your troll in, you need people to actually read it. You also want replies -
Accounts
An alternative to the time-honoured tradition of AC trolling is that of creating a "troll" account. This gives you the advantage of posting at 1 rather than 0, and slashbots are more likely to take you seriously, especially if you at least sound reasonable. If you do this, try to avoid posting stuff where it is obvious you're a troll under the account - post it anoymously instead - some slightly more canny readers actually check your user info before they reply. Not many though
The ultimate goal of the troll account is to secure the +1 bonus, which is currently received once you hit 26 points of Karma. To get there, employ the techniques of karma whoring that we see every day on
Layout
To get people reading it a troll needs to be easily readable. Make sure you break it down into easily digestible paragraphs, use HTML tags where appropriate (but always make sure you close them properly) and use whitespace appropriately.
Size
Generally a troll shouldn't be too short, otherwise it'll get lost in the crowd. A workable minimum is a couple of medium paragraphs. Conversely, it shouldn't be too long, or no-one will bother to read it. Keep it to a happy medium.
Spelling
Whilst spelling is important if you want the troll to be taken "seriously", key spelling mistakes can draw out the spelling zealots, especially if you mis-spell the name of a venerated
Subject
The subject line needs to draw attention to your post without making it obvious that it is a troll. A simple statement of the main point of your argument can work here.
Style
Once you realise that most moderators don't bother to read past the first paragraph or two, you can use this fact to craft trolls that can be moderated up as "Insightful" (note that I mean this in the
Linking
As we all know, a post with links is considered "informative" by the
Feeding
The ideal troll requires no feeding - it runs on its own, generating flamewars between clueless
Know your audience
Always keep in mind the kind of things advocated on
Arrogance
Be arrogant. You, as a troll, know that you're right. No other explanation could exist. The wronger the "fact", the more assertively you should state it. Make it clear that you are better than everyone else - you know the truth and they are just too stupid to realise it. Use plenty of sarcasm, and use "quotes" to show it to people too dumb to realise.
Offensiveness
Being offensive in your initial troll can be counter-productive - it causes moderators to mark you down as flamebait in general. But if you're feeding, then you can get away with calling
Indifference
Great for articles with a political or social bent, this kind of troll expresses complete indifference to the topic at hand, wondering who on Earth cares about it. An alternative method is to say that the topic only concerns a certain group of people - criminals, idiots, hackers (always use this instead of crackers) or whatever group you want to offend.
Sympathy
Appear to take the same stance as the people you're trying to troll - claim you're as much a fan of Linux as the next man, but... This way you can make all kinds of claims in the sure knowledge that you actually know what you're talking about. A great phrase to use here is "In my experience". Remember to act like all the things you're pointing out are unfortunate but true.
The common touch
Always accuse
The 31337 touch
The opposite of the above. Claim that technology or whatever is only for the elite of society and that any attempt to open it up for everyone is wrong, an attack on intellectualism and possibly even dangerous. If people were meant to understand these things then they would, and it's their fault if they're too stupid to learn.
Contradiction
Never be afraid to contradict yourself, even in the space of a single sentence. The phrases "I am a top programmer who codes in VB" or "I am a supporter of open source who uses NT at work and 95 at home" will be sure to get a response from some weenie smugly pointing out the contradiction. Confuse the issue more by engaging in contradiction when you are feeding - this will confuse
Clues
If you're feeling brave, give the reader clues that this is an obvious troll. The classic example here is dmg's stock phrase "I am often accused of trolling (whatever that is)", but also feel free to use phrases like "I have not read the article, and I don't know much about XYZ but I feel I must comment". If anyone responds to a troll with these kinds of clues in it, feel free to bask in the glow of knee-jerk
Denial
If you're unlucky someone will accuse you of being a troll (surely not!) and try and ruin it for you. If you don't want it all to end there, then be sure to counter it by accusing them of being small-minded and petty, saying that it's easier for them to say it's a troll than to accept that people have different opinions. Be sure to say this in the subject line, especially if their subject was the infamous "YHBT. YHL. HAND."
Claiming credit
Given that
As for when to post it, that's a matter of opinion really. You can either post it straight away or leave it will after people start biting. Remember that the troll forum is also frequented by non-trolls, and sometimes you may get a self-declared "troll-buster" try and expose you. But remember,
There is no real current forum at the moment thanks to various spammers hitting the sids, but try trolltalk, the original troll sid started by 80md and osm way back in the day. Generally all postings are done there as an AC, with your name at the end of the post. Include a link to the troll somewhere in the text, which ideally will be directly to the post and its replies - click on the #XX link in the thread to get there.
Ending the troll
Sometimes you just get bored with a troll, or people start posting genuinely thoughtful stuff in reply (it does happen). When this happens it might be time to own up to the troll with a helpful "YHBT. YHL. HAND." post. Sometimes people will carry on a discussion of the issue, and if you're really lucky (and it was a great troll) they will completely fail to believe you and carry on arguing. If that happens, pat yourself on the back for writing a great troll
The cheap $3 crack
Finally, when all else fails and your troll gets moderated down to (-1, Troll) within ten seconds of you posting it, the only honourable thing to do is to accuse the moderators of smoking the cheap $3 crack (again) and give up
Section 2 - Types of troll
The Maniac
Probably the most popular kind of troll, the Maniac holds an opinion on something, and won't budge from that opinion no matter what evidence to the contrary is presented. If challenged, the Maniac will simply get more and more agitated and abusive, deriding his opponents as "idiots", "wrong-thinking", "dangerous" and "subversive". Generally the Maniac takes a position that opposes the prevalent
Maniacs can be crafted for practically every article
Here are some fruitful avenues to explore:
The Right-Wing Maniac
Always popular, the right-wing maniac (RWM) is a God-fearing, gun-toting, flag-waving American, and proud of it. They don't care about the rest of the world, unless it's to "prove" that America is better than everything else, and they cannot stand liberal whining over civil rights. They hate the moral decay of America and want it to revert into a nation of heterosexual, Christian whites like it was meant to be. Woe betide anyone that dares to suggest otherwise.
Religion
There are two ways to approach this kind of maniac. The harder to pull off is the militant atheist, but this is quite common amongst
Ideology
Pick a philosophy, any philosophy. This troll is a troll with a cause - they have found some kind of ideological truth, and are out to expose every other philosophy as a sham. Whether it be libertarianism, objectivism, communism or capitalism, this troll will point out the obvious "flaws" in any other philosophies, whilst spouting dogma about their own. And the best thing is - you don't even need to know that much about what you're spouting - making doctrinaire mistakes will get both sides of the argument flaming you, adding to the fun.
Software
This is an old favourite and crops up in many forms, covering the gamut from OS maniacs (Linux zealots, MS-apologists or embittered BSD fanatics), language maniacs (Pascal vs. C, C vs. C++, C++ vs. Java, Perl vs. Python, VB vs. everything), application maniacs(GIMP vs. Photoshop, Netscape vs. IE, vi vs. emacs) and also includes people who complain about how technology should only be for the 31337 hackers.
Guns
Americans love their guns, and will always fight passionately for their Constitutionally guarenteed rights to bear arms and shoot people. Even the slightest hint of criticism of this will bring down the wrath of a thousand and one enraged gun-owners on you, so it's always a great point to work into a troll
The Expert
The Expert is someone who is "savvy" in their particular field, and is perfectly willing to give their opinion on any topic even vauguely related to their field. The Expert is most likely to be from a field which
Some possible angles to exploit:
Industry knowledge
The expert knows the computing industry from the inside - as a long-term pro, they can dispense knowledge knowing that they can "speak for the industry". Their smug self-satisfaction is bound to annoy, as is any suggestion that things aren't the way that
Helpful hints
With their tech-savvy (or law-savvy or whatever) experience, the expert is obviously the best person to point out what's wrong with things or to give out useful "factual" information. In fact this probably works best with lawyer trolls - for all that
Offtopic Trolls
Not really a "troll" in the strict Jargon File sense of the word, but they certainly should be included here
Offtopic trolls, like any other, come in almost as many colours as an iMac, but generally not as cute. But then again, a good offtopic "troll" can affect more people than a repulsive little gumdrop on your desk, because you need to have someone SEE your desk before they can react. Simple? Moreso than even my overblown prose could indicate. Some basic examples:
The serial troll
Write a story. Keep expanding it. It doesn't matter what article you post it under, so long as it's high up. If you want people to recognize you, pick a couple themes or symbols, and carry them on throughout the story. Other alternatives include back linking or including the entire story, but adding more each time. Be funny if you want. Or if you don't feel like being funny, just be really weird. Someone will react.
The random troll
This has nothing to do with anything. Be it a stream of consciousness rant, or a description of the corner of your desk. Another favorite is a monologue, read as if spoken from any one given entity to another. The more outlandish, the better (a pair of socks talking to a mousepad, for example). If you really wanted to be artsy, work in an actual metaphor or legitimate meaning behind it, but it's not necessary.
The vaguely related troll
Start out with a comment about the article. Have a definite opinion of it. Then, after a little while, disintegrate into randomness. All roads eventually can eventually lead to cheese (yum), Natalie Portman, cannibalism, toasters, squirrels, futons, you name it. All it takes is a little bit of creativity. Oh, and feel free to use other trolls' motifs. Open source and all that
General tips:
If it's funny for a fleeting moment, then it's worth posting.
Puns. Puns are only less vile than mimes, but it's hard to mime on
Obscure cultural references and injokes are always good. SOMEONE will get them eventually.
Several drafts of a serial or random post are common, but true elegance is being able to come up with something on the spot that still makes the top 40 posts (on a post-heavy article)
Section 3 - Useful trolling links
The following links contain background information useful for trolls needing quick quotes and "expert" opinions to include.
General purpose links
ddi.digital.net/~gandalf/trollfaq.html - How to deal with USENET trolls - learn your enemy
www.don-lindsay-archive.org/skeptic/arguments.h
www.altairiv.demon.co.uk/troll/trollfaq.html - USENET troll HOWTO
www.baiting.org - Baiting.org
www.fieldingtravel.com/df/index.htm - Fielding's DangerFinder - A guide to what and where's dangerous
Religious links
www.godhatesamerica.com/ - God Hates America
www.chalcedon.edu/creed.html - The Creed of Christian Reconstruction
www.demonbuster.com - How to cast out your demons and do spiritual warfare
riceinfo.rice.edu/armadillo/Sciacademy/riggins/
www.icr.org/ - Institute for Creation Research
www.xenu.net - Operation Clambake - The fight against Scientology on the net
www.hom.net/~angels/ - Citizens for the Ten Commandments
www.bju.edu/rcnbc.html - The difference between Catholics and Christians
www.geocities.com/prazske00/biblequotes.html - Bible quotes by category
Political/economy links
www.aynrand.org - The Ayn Rand Institute
www.reason.com - Libertarian site
www.freerepublic.com - Right-wing stuff
www.jbs.org - Excellent site for all kinds of right-wingery
www.dack.com/web/bullshit.html - Web economy bullshit generator
Crackpot science links
www.fixedearth.com - The Earth Is Not Moving
www.jir.com/index.htm - The Journal