theos.com Dispute Ended 135
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... "
good (Score:1)
the community (Score:1)
Although, aren't crashing servers, voice mail systems going down, and people receiving threats perhaps a little too harsh?!??!
The dispute it over, but how it got there is pretty frightening..
--
the community (Score:1)
While I'll agree its not nice what Theos software was trying to do, is it really ethical to unleash a slashdot effect over it?
I mean such a thing can cause down time, possibly totally fsck up a system and many people think its a good thing.
hmm, wonder if its possible to sue someone for cause a
/.'ers, Mary Shelley, and D&D (Score:3)
(Congratulations to Theo de Raadt, btw; I for one was happy to help pound that Web server into oblivion.)
Re: the community (Score:2)
to defend itself. This is a very healthy reaction.
This is good.
Re: the community (Score:1)
if the bastards want to skrew with people they better have the server to back it up. =P~
I'm really glad of this turn out, i use OpenBSD and wouldnt want some scummy corperation messing with it.
Nice community effort (Score:2)
Threats are not good. (But /. effect is) (Score:1)
Sending threats makes us no better than them.
interesting (Score:1)
For Theo I voted with pine.
I mailed the CEO my 2-Bytes (called him silly)
and I'm not left scratching my head this time.
I think I underestimated the number of
Theo sounds like a cool guy and I'm glad he can
keep his domain.
I would NOT have mailed the software company in
order to be a part of it's recent temporary difficulties. (There's a sys-admin there pulling
his hair out right now 4 sure!)
good (Score:1)
re:Great (Score:1)
It is nice to see this - very nice.
The 'net, and
the community (Score:2)
Probably harsher than could be desired, but at least the voicemail thing was probably just unanticipated load, and likely the mail/web downage also. A consequence, in part, of the amount of attention (and derision) you draw in such a case.
That said, it's entirely possible that those so inclined will attack servers belonging to those who bring offense (the hacker luggage thing of late comes to mind). Perhaps a consequence of public exposure, but not a matter of liability except that between the crasher and crashee.
Recalling previous allegations of "threats," Theos Software's attorney may have been sensationalizing for effect -- to a corporate attorney, the prospect of a boycott or negative publicity is a "threat," whereas it doesn't seem so to most of the rest of us. "Drop this stupid litigation or no one I influence will ever buy your multi-user OS again" is the sort of thing I could entirely condone (and have done, though not on this matter).
The thing I liked about this dispute was that a corporation was held publicly accountable for its behavior, and was defeated on those grounds. That happens far too little in the US, where corporate power pretty much drives things.
(did the os/server environment used by theos-software ever come to light, BTW?)
A message to my peers (Score:5)
Thanks
Bruce Perens
Nice community effort (Score:2)
One other thing is that according to trademark law you loose your trademark if you do not defend it against misuse, and waiting three years to take any action would have qualified as such, and the judge could then strip the trademark completely, because it wasn't defended properly (ie. the company had not expended any efford to defend it.) so they might have purely on pragmatic grounds not to risk it, since by not pursuing the matter they didn't give anyone to make this kind of an ruling. (Sometimes leaving things be is better, then fighting them, especially if the risk of loosing, and the punishment in such case could be that damaging.) I have pointed this in my e-mail to them as I am sure did lot of other people knowlegeable of trademark law, so they just took the suggestions and ran with them....if they managed to get them before the mail server went down, but since I didn't get the mail back I assume it got through in time.
the tables have turned... (Score:3)
representing a "big-company" and that they would have no trouble using standard "lawyer-talk" to
intimidate someone to get their way.
Ironically,
no trouble using the
Although the
"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?
They deserved what they got. (Score:1)
The dispute it over, but how it got there is pretty frightening.
The point is worth considering, but in this case I disagree.
I have little sympathy for Theos Software. I believe their own bullying approach towards Mr. de Raadt was harsher than the treatment they received in return. They were thoroughly arrogant, unapologetically so. They sic'ed their lawyers on their less-powerful victim, and hoped that he would simply roll over and do whatever they asked, no matter how unreasonable. I would like to bankrupt anyone who acts this way, because they surely will again-- it's how they live their life.
Big deal, they got a day of crashed servers. Nowhere near the stress Mr. de Raadt felt from the legal threat (if you've ever been threatened legally, you know what I mean). In simple tit-for-tat, they deserve more than what they got.
I don't know what the "threats" were. Physical threats I'm against. But considering it's a lawyer talking, "threats" could be as simple as "I'm telling my friends never to buy Theos Software." The word "threats" by itself is too vague to put weight on, no matter how ominous it sounds.
James
Win the War (Score:2)
I like the idea that was posed earlier about a group of lawyers or something
Threats are not good. (But /. effect is) (Score:1)
1000 emails? (Score:1)
Voice Mail..? The
It seems like every domain dispute Rob sticks on slashdot, ends up being able to ke their domain name... I'm glad we use our power for good.. =)
interesting (Score:1)
This reminds me of the recent attempt to put into effect the attrocious privacy reducing banking rules called "know your customers", but the federal government was forced to change their plans, and retrack the rules, since they got deluged with hundreds of thousands of protesting e-mails before the comment period was even over, and they announced they will not be implementing them. (Of course they will try to slip them in a few years down the road, but by then we will know the power of e-mail, and we shall not let it happen...lets hope anyway.) These incidents clearly illustrate that in many ways e-mail is more influential then actual voting, because it is much easier, and immediate, and one doesn't have to wait for elections, and the perpetrator cannot hope to slip something by long before elections hoping that people will forget, because e-mail has immediate, and tangible results.
A message to my peers (Score:1)
I happen to agree, crashing someones system is well out of order. By order of numbers, the influence that Slashdot readers could pull would be more than enough to scare any company. 75 000 people saying "I will influence as many people as I can not to buy your software", is enough to scare any company. In the end all it took was a link to their site.
Nathan
1000 emails? (Score:1)
How about we flood the post office and see if we can shut it down =P
what OS? (Score:1)
Hacker Culture (Score:1)
A message to my peers (Score:1)
Consider my posting "preventative maintainance" - I have absolutely no evidence that anything untoward happened, but I want people to know how I feel for next time.
Thanks
Bruce
interesting (Score:1)
I can see it now, the winner making his thanks speech, "I'd like to thank God, my family, and Slashdot for their overwhelming support..."
A message to my peers (Score:1)
I have to make my feelings clear for next time. If my influence may keep someone from being hurt in the future, I must use it.
Thanks
Bruce
1000 emails? (Score:2)
On the other hand, I could see the post master general on another stamp hike, "Due to the proliferation of companies demanding domains from individuals, and Slashdot.org, we will not have to increase postage rates for the next 10 years."
Thoughts on recent domain disputes. (Score:3)
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.
May not be M$ but 3Com instead in UF deal (Score:1)
---
A message to my peers (Score:1)
the community (Score:1)
Argh Sengan!! (Score:1)
Dittos (Score:1)
it should be noted that internet-mediated rage never happens to speculators who camp on 1000s of domain names in hopes of selling out to a megacorporation or a politician.
it might be more neighborly for inflammatory events to be hotlinked to a "this situation sucks" site that would be configured to withstand slashdotting.
this would let all the polite, "you're silly" emails to CEOs and "you suck" emails to lawyers to be compiled and submitted to the guilty parties without becoming a denial of service attack and bringing down their servers. it could be accompanied with a nice cover letter explaining the facts of life, internet-PR-wise.
but it sure feels good to hear about the angry villagers taking down intimidating pond-scum.
How stupid can you be? (Score:1)
Nah, it has to be MS (Score:1)
God damnit. (Score:3)
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....
----
it's biology baby... (Score:2)
(I'm running on about 30 seconds of sleep w/ a nasty cold)
1000 emails? (Score:1)
Agreed (Score:1)
User Friendly, Seg Fault, and Be Dope all got the same letter. Picking on Microsoft is the primary thing in common between all three sites.
why nsi=bad, a rare victory? (Score:2)
The villagers did, in this case, knock the enemy on its ass, but this may be the exception. We need an entity more thoughtful than NSI to quickly and effectively resolve these disputes. NSI wasn't bad when
--Andrew Grossman
grossdog@dartmouth.edu
It's not how stupid, how defensive (Score:2)
Companies don't like bad press, but I don't see the harm in what he did. I have seen worse than those. I mean, there is a limit to what is a complaint. Comics strips are supposed to make fun of stuff. That is the nature of a joke. Dilbert makes fun of management, Calvin and Hobbes was about a strange childhood.
This must have prior decisions, and those will probably guide what happens to User Friendly. If he has made fun of everyone equally, then he should not have a problem. Of course, you never know. If it is Microsoft, he could bring a suit against them for misleading the public in their publications. Just a mean thought.
Nice community effort (Score:1)
Good pay. Nice city. (Score:1)
Nice sentiment, tho.
Pathetic... (Score:3)
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.
the tables have turned... (Score:1)
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.
---------
Just a minor point re: the pintos...
As I understand it, two separate accidents involving the Pinto happened in rapid succession in the Elkhart, IN area. Ford acts like nothing major was wrong. Elkhart attorney Mike Cosentino files suit against Ford on behalf of victims... and launches a rather long career based on that one lawsuit.
A better example of investigative reporters screwing things up would be the DC-10 falling engine incidents. Wonderful airplane, unfortunate reputation.
The most publicized case of Falling Engine syndrome was later traced to maintenance crews taking shortcuts in reattaching the engine...
.COM (Score:1)
Domain Types and Why Some People are Hypocrites. (Score:1)
"They can't do that!" but yet, last I checked Theos was a singular person, Theos software a commercial entity, now who has more right to a .COMmercial domain?
Hypocrisy here is stunning, sometimes.
A message to my peers (Score:3)
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
- deb
"Death Star" is slang for AT&T logo. (Score:1)
When protest becomes a denial-of-service attack (Score:2)
However, if I said or meant "everybody write them an email to bring down their server", that would be wrong.
Thanks
Bruce
Operation "Foot Bullet" in progress (Score:1)
If it is MS, I just can't fathom the stupidity of this stunt. Even if you only have three functioning brain cells, that's two more than you'll need to figure out that this is a rather dumb thing to do. I can't see how news of MS getting uptight and suing people for saying naughty things about MS, is good PR. Especially now.
I guess that MS has finally decided to write off the ABB crowd (anything but Bill), because no way in heck they can possibly think that this development will win them converts over from the other side.
NEWS FLASH - White House lawyers have confirmed recent rumors that President Clinton has filed a defamation lawsuit against the producers of the "Mad-TV" TV show, and actor Wil Sasso. The lawsuit claims that the show has made numerous slanderous comments about Mr. Clinton, repeatedly hinting that Mr. Clinton is a sex-starved womanizer who regularly cheats on his wife.
In related news, there are unsubstantiated rumors about the Cat Lovers of America and the World Society (CLAWS) getting ready to file their own defamation lawsuit against the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film company, claiming MGM has unfairly maligned the feline species in their "Tom And Jerry" cartoons. A CLAWS spokesman declined to comment on the rumor.
Not pathetic at all. (Score:4)
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
Ya doof... (Score:2)
Uh, sir? Causing an a computer system to fail under load doesn't actually damage it. If a crash were damage to property, Netscape Communicator would be illegal, now, wouldn't it?
Let's not get hysterical.
I don't know (Score:1)
Do the "people" have to resort to gut-level reactions MBAs are so adept at?
Just wondering.
It's not how stupid, how defensive (Score:1)
I have a +3 browser for only 2000gp. (Score:1)
basic articles are good (Score:1)
what OS? Here's what nmap says... (Score:1)
Port State Protocol Service
25 open tcp smtp
53 open tcp domain
80 open tcp http
113 open tcp auth
2049 filtered tcp nfs
TCP Sequence Prediction: Class=random positive increments
Difficulty=26484 (Worthy challenge)
No OS matches for host (see http://www.insecure.org/cgi-bin/nmap-submit.cgi).
Translation: It doesn't know.
Darn... (Score:1)
Oops!! (Score:1)
I'm ready to donate $ to legal fund! (Score:1)
What needs to be created is a legal fund for those people who are being harrassed and intimidated by lawyers armed with the endless amount of money supplied by big corporations.
Slashdot readers and the rest of the Internet community should unite against this clear and present danger to our right to free speech.
Who else is willing to contribute?
Why the secrecy? (Score:1)
BTW sorry for a spelling error or two if they are present, but I keep sugesting that rob implements a spelling feature, so we do not have to discuss spelling since it is silly, and most are just typos made because the posts are written posthaste within a browser.
Not hypocracy (Score:1)
"Perens", by the way, is latin for "Traveling". It's a pretty generic word. Yet, in my chutzpah I grabbed it all for myself, along with the .net and .org . Somehow, I can still sleep nights knowing that :-)
Bruce
Why the secrecy? (Score:1)
Not hypocracy (Score:1)
I should have a standard disclaimer about my methods for stimulating debate, should they get read as flame! ;-)
Business, sure... if he were doing that, why not? But I just think sometimes people (in general, not just here) like to apply rules selectively. But that's everyone... including me! *g* :)
Not pathetic at all. (Score:1)
I'm generalising r.e. business, most things in the world revolve around money, and that makes most people act in certain ways.
As for the organism analogy, fair enough :) I just disliked the 'gloat' attidude.
There seem to be two schools of oldtimers... the ones who are willing to help... and those who mock.... :)
As with the 'right way'... that is the way of business generally. I think they *approached* it the right way in some regards, but lost a lot of the human aspects, i.e. elementary human politeness. Ignoring all phone calls was rather immature of them.
But anyway, standard disclaimer - I just like being controversial...I should note explicityly when my tongue is not even slightly in my cheek! :)
what OS? Here's what nmap says... (Score:1)
Perhaps this explains (Score:1)
Simple, I remember mocking Microsoft a few years ago for their explanation of WinNuke:
"This attack does not do any actual damage to your data files. A reboot of the system will restore it to normal."
Err, huh? :) What if it was an NT Server, without 500 users with open files. No damage? I think not.
I think you can draw your own inference here.
The Logo.... I have the T-Shirt.... (Score:1)
.org? (Score:1)
Nah, it has to be MS (Score:1)
Nice community effort (Score:1)
Seems like asking for the domain was a perfectly reasonable thing for them to do.
...curious (Score:1)
Does that mean people did more to theos-software.com than just browing the site. Hacking?
On a related story, the UF thing seems a hoax designed to get UF some attention. I cannot see why they don't reveal who the threat came from.
How odd? (Score:1)
How do stars who get tons of fan mail, or criminals who get tons of hate mail (before
Just take a reality check before you criticize free speech.
Dittos (Score:1)
Man, I gotta disagree most strongly here. Having some 75,000 angry geeks hammering on your email, web and voicemail servers is merely the online equivalent of a bunch of angry, vocal picketers on the public pavement outside your head office. Those servers have been opened to the public to give information and take feedback.
Well they got their feedback. In spades!
...curious (Score:1)
If you assume that the OS's used for www.theos.com and www.theos-software.com can handle equal loads (I don't know how THEOS and openbsd compare), you would expect a page like www.theos-software.com to crash the server more.
If you didn't notice, the page on www.theos.com was a single page with no graphics, while www.theos-software.com was quite graphical. Theo's page may be able to handle hundreds of times more hits, all other things being equal.
Nice community effort (Score:1)
Theos.com says that before theos software contacted him the theos.com web site was EMPTY. (his own capitalization).
Seems like asking for the domain was a perfectly reasonable thing for them to do.
But www.theos.com also says:
Increasingly, the hosts in that domain have become more of an integral part of the OPENBSD project infrastructure.
So maybe www.theos.com was unused, but other names are apparently being used. And Altavista has pages starting with http://www.theos.com/~deraadt/ dating back to last July anyway, so it wasn't totally unoccupied.
1000 emails? (Score:1)
The Logo: Here Are The References (Score:1)
which
Summary: Geek prints t-shirt. T-shirt is enormously popular.
Lawyers representing famous Borg personality send threatening letter.
Geek hasn't the financial wherewithal to fight them. No more T-shirt.
See:
The "Borg Gates" t-shirt! [yyz.com]
Bill is Such a Bully [go.com]
Australian Cybermalls News - February 1998 - Bully Billionaire Bops Borg-Boy [ausmall.com.au]
As you might be able to tell, I researched this quite a bit at one
time. Including email correspondence with the t-shirt's designer.
Not hypocracy (Score:1)
(hey rob, when're ya plugging in a spell checker? =-] )
If domains are property... (Score:1)
(I'm not a lawyer but I play one on
If domains are property now this whole situations brings up a very interesting question. Many jurisdictions allow use of deadly force to defend your property. Now if someone is trying to hijack your domain name would you be able to use an internet equivalent of deadly force? Now I realise that this wouldn't apply here because Theos Software had lawyers and that, by some magic I will never understand, makes everything they do nice and legal. But what about if someone is trying to steal a domain name from you by some other method, say hacking your DNS server, or hacking InterNIC (with all the stuff that's been going on with them lately it wouldn't surprise me in the least), would you be able to "kill" them to defend your property. I really don't know what an internet version of death would be exactly, perhaps a crontab'd DoS or something else of that nature.
the people vs the govt (Score:1)
Now if only the people could get rid of the government....
reply to article? (Score:1)
anyway, i just wanted to congratulate theo. it appears that in addition to openbsd kernel hacking, he can hack lawyers too.
Posting letters people send you w/o permission? (Score:1)
(1) Prohibited by law
(2) Always in bad taste
(3) Always explicitly permitted
Same question, but if the letter/email already contains words to the effect that, "permission to reveal the contents of this letter/email to others is not given." Is publically posting the letter/email now
(1) Prohibited by law
(2) Always in bad taste
(3) Always explicitly permitted
The FCC, for example, prohibits you from divulging the contents of anything you might hear on a scanner (radio) without the parties' permission (bordcast and amateur radio excepted).
Harnessing the Slashdot Effect (Score:1)
I think anybody thinking of a lawsuit over the Slashdot Effect would have a pretty difficult time proving that the Slashdot Effect was a coordinated effort on the part of any particular entity/organization. You can't sue an angry mob - just individuals who do unlawful things. Last time I checked, visiting a corporation's web page on the Internet was not unlawful - hell, it's why they put it there in the first place!
Rather like (excuse the reference - they showed Star Trek 6 twice on Thursday) Capt. Kirk as captain being responsible for the actions of the members of his crew. If we were employees of a company or if we were servicemembers in a military unit, our employer/commanding officer might be held responsible. And I don't take orders from Rob! (After all, he sucks. :) )
I agree with later posts. E-mails and visiting websites is not only a form of free speech; as such it's a valid form of protest. This doesn't mean that one person flooding a mailserver with thousands of spurious e-mails is OK - but thousands of individual users, each with a distinct opinion and reason, should be free to make reasonable efforts to communicate their displeasure to companies.
We should not let the frailness of technology (ie, inability of mailservers to handle bazillions of emails) to hamper our rights to free speech. We're the masters here.
Nice community effort (Score:1)
"Slashdot effect" also happens with other sites (Score:1)
I have a friend with a well-visited site (no Slashdot or UF, but still getting about 80000 pageviews per week) who puts up links of the week. I've noticed that some of the sites she's listed have become "slashdotted" right after she puts the links up, but in a few hours the servers come right back up (in most cases.)
Speaking of that, I noticed a mini-/. effect after my first post here. Just 300 more, but still-that's nice. I got the same effect after Yahoo fixed my link though.
"Death Star" is slang for AT&T logo. (Score:1)
Breathed used to get sued a lot.
Snugglebunnies.
If domains are property... (Score:1)
Why the AT&T "Death Star" logo means Microsoft: (Score:1)
Check out the User Friendly Cartoon for Dec 13, 1998 [userfriendly.org] and you'll see the connection...
Opinions are MINE, not my employer's -- Hedengren, in Finland.
Operation "Foot Bullet" in progress (Score:1)
I guess that MS has finally decided to write off the ABB crowd (anything but Bill), because no way in heck they can possibly think that this development will win them converts over from the other side.
Somehow I doubt it's us. If it is, I'll be very surprised.
Simon
A message to my peers (Score:1)
Depends how it's done, I guess. It probably depends on whether it's an individual acting, or a company policy. (But of course, I'm no lawyer.)
A boycott is not at all illegal, for example. (In fact, it's usually more effective than voting if you want to actually change the world.)
Why the secrecy? (Score:1)
It's similar to the oft-depicted hostage negotiation tactic of teling the armed man to "Just put the gun down."
If Illiad had revealed the name to be, say, Microsoft, the Redmond's legal department would have, from a PR standpoint, less to gain from volunatrily ending their threats.
Dust Puppy (Score:1)
May not be M$ but 3Com instead in UF deal (Score:1)
-Hal
Nice community effort (Score:1)
Just because theres no web page DOES NOT mean the domain is unused.
Copyright Status of Image (Score:1)
Commander-in-Chief Taco? (Score:1)
A message to my peers (Score:1)
Oh puh-leeze Bruce. That type of thinking is why the community is so fragmented now. This is the thinking of the slaves who would tell mas'a about the escape plans of the other slaves to curry favor.
If we turn on each other over every little disagreement, the internet will be controlled by corporate CEOs and entertainment moguls instead of the hackers and techies who built it.
LK