What exactly would be my motive for volunteering my time and skills to benefit Microsoft?

Will anyone actually be stupid enough to take up this "irresistible" offer?

Heck, I wouldn't contribute anything to these gangsters even if they *paid* me ... but for *free* - they're delusional.

Paris, because even *she's* not /that/ stupid.

Colour me confused here, but since when is it the business of the *government* to intercede in civil disputes, either with the police; the army; or any other government branch such as C&E?

I know this word is bandied around so often that its meaning has become diluted, but surely this is a very literal indication of the rise of fascism ... again.

Patent disputes begin and end with *civil* measures, and have zero to do with the government, so why are government enforcers raiding trade shows, like a gang of thugs sabotaging a competitors business? What has patents got to do with Export Duty or Dangerous Goods? Are patents being given the same consideration as *firearms* now?

Scary.

But then I suppose we could ask similar questions about why *our* government is interceding in the equally *civil* disputes involving alleged copyright infringements in the UK ... by mandating data retention laws ostensibly to counter terrorism, but *actually* in capitulation to the demands of MAFIAA® goons like the BPI.

The disease of Intellectual Monopoly fanaticism has spread completely out of control. Frankly, if it were up to me, I'd declare any and all attempts to assert "property" rights on such ethereal things as illegal ... not the other way round. The "IP" industry is nothing but a bunch of gangsters, in word and in deed, and it needs to be shut down. Now. But who is going to do it? Certainly not the bent politicians who are in the MAFIAA's® pockets. By the will of the people? Not likely, we'd need a measure of actual *democracy* for that to happen. AFAICT the "will of the people" has been cast aside completely, in exchange for the will (and money) of a bunch of gangsters.

I challenge the governments of the "civilised world" to disprove that theory.

This seems rather implausible, but if this shrink claims it then it must be so, although it sounds rather "Associated (op)Press-ive" to me.

Here goes then: I hereby claim ownership of the words "and"; "the"; "or"; "but"; "a"; "I"; "if"; "then"; "there"; "what"; "why"; "who"; "where" and "when".

The above words are © 2008 Homer, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0. No distribution or reuse without attribution as prominent as any other content attribution published on the same medium or location, subject to the terms of this license.

Copyright violators will be punished to the fullest extent permissible under applicable law, or death by lethal injection, whichever is greater.

"Universal suggests that copyright owners may lose the ability to respond rapidly to potential infringements if they are required to evaluate fair use prior to issuing takedown notices,"

In other words: "Whaaah, they took away my hammer. Whaaaah".

Yes, God forbid that the MAFIAA® thugs should actually be forced to act appropriately and fairly. Surely they have an inherent right to rampage throughout society with complete impunity, to squeeze us all for every drop of blood they can get.

Or so they rather arrogantly think.

But then what else should we expect from a company that declares it "illegal" throw away promo CDs, and is part of an organisation that stalks 10 year old file-sharers at school then make threatening phone calls to them?

The only thing that keeps these thugs out of jail is their money.

F**k that!

Time to encrypt our connections with VPN.

Let's see the British branch of the New World Order snoop my AES encrypted packets. Ha! the b'stards never thought of *that* one, did they?

--

Signed,

A British ISP customer connecting via a VPN in Russia.

(Tis a very sad day indeed when I trust Russia more than my own county.)

If Comcast had good intentions then they would have been open and honest about what they were doing from the start, rather than hiding their activities then lying about them.

Then there's the particular form that this "traffic management" took, which is far more like hackers' activity than professional conduct. Injecting fake RST packets is not quite the same thing as throttling bandwidth for legitimate reasons, it's more like the kind of behaviour one might expect from MAFIAA® thugs like Media Defender and MediaSentry (whose activities are also being investigated as possibly illegal).

Yes there certainly is a conspiracy here, but it's no secret, in fact it's painfully obvious. Comcast capitulated to the demands of the MAFIAA® thugs to sabotage P2P activities on their network, did so indiscriminately using techniques akin to hackers, and then lied about it because they knew they were doing wrong.

I hope they, and the MAFIAA® thugs they now represent, get well and truly hammered by litigation, then go bankrupt. They deserve no less.

[quote]

It's emerged that hackers across all operating systems are merrily grabbing high quality DRM-free downloads from the H.264 streams recently launched for iPhone and iPod Touch owners.

[/quote]

Why are they calling these people "hackers"?

In what way is following a URL "hacking"?

And these MP4 files are unencrypted at /source/. It's not like anyone is cracking, or even circumventing, some DRM method. This was the MSBBC's choice to provide unencrypted content ... contrary to the supposedly intractable demands of their content providers (yes, they were more than happy to do that for a tiny minority of iPhone users, but not the much larger majority of Linux users. Doesn't anyone else find that odd?).

The only unethical activity going on here, is the misappropriation of MSBBC tax for the illegal state aid of a convicted monopolist.

"Hackers" ... LOL!

Just hang it over the back of that "comfy chair" ;)

Good grief! He even has his own *column* now. The MSBBC has obviously given up even *pretending* that they're impartial; they might as well make the "MSBBC" name official.

As for Pearly's "illuminating" little speech, I found Mr. T's version rather less condescending by comparison. Pearly has a real talent for stating the obvious, and taking far to long to say absolutely nothing.

Executive summary:

. Almost everyone works with computers

. Almost everyone works with computers (rephrased)

. Gives examples of who "everyone" is

. You need computer skills to succeed

. You need computer skills to succeed (rephrased)

. Oh, and maths and science ("and"? ... maths *is* a science)

. The most interesting things come from science

. There are many job opportunities in software

. Software engineering is not a solitary endeavour

. To write software you need specifications

. To learn, you should read lots of books

. But getting information from the Internet is easier

. Having curiosity helps you succeed

So the executive executive summary is:

Almost everyone (e.g. store clerks) works with computers, therefore you need science skills to succeed. Science produces interesting things and many jobs, including software engineers who need to work in a team, and acquire specifications to do their jobs properly. If you have curiosity to learn these skills by reading books and browsing the Web, then maybe you will succeed. Nobody expects success. Your chief weapons to succeed are science skills and curiosity ... and fear. You have *three* weapons to succeed - science skills, curiosity, fear and surprise. Amongst your weaponry are such diverse elements as: science skills, curiosity, fear, surprise, ruthless efficiency, an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope and a nice red uniform.

Executive executive executive summary:

. You need science skills and curiosity to succeed.

He forgot some important ones, like:

. Water is wet

. The Pope is Catholic

. Never stick your fingers into a live electrical socket

. The capitol of Nebraska is Lincoln [*]

[*] Couldn't resist the old "Kentucky Fried Movie" quip.