Disqus - Latest Comments for dmarti

Re: Privacy Polls v. Real-World Trade-Offs

dmarti — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 15:00:15 -0000

Various sites have been actively promoting ad blocking software since 1996. Ad blockers are very easy to install, and don't interfere with normal web browsing. The main selling point is privacy. But the real-world rate of adoption is still tiny, even with suppliers of ad blockers having every incentive to explain or even exaggerate the privacy concerns.

Re: FCC Can’t Even Figure Out How To Stream Its Own Meetings Properly

dmarti — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 11:13:32 -0000

Then let Adobe or some service that licenses their software subscribe to the public, open-format content and stream it, or podcast it, or archive it, or whatever. Putting public information in a place or format where you have to be a party to some company's EULA to get it is unaccountable, privatized regulation, and an unjustified subsidy for one vendor's network effects.

Re: FCC Can’t Even Figure Out How To Stream Its Own Meetings Properly

dmarti — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 13:11:12 -0000

There's no way that accepting either the Real or Adobe EULA should be a condition of hearing a public meeting. That's like giving TicketMaster the exclusive contract for a courthouse.

Re: Want Recovery? Remember Antitrust is Anti-Economy

dmarti — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 09:40:14 -0000

In IT, the biggest two government problems are probably anticircumvention law, which lets incumbents use the power of the state to exclude competitors, and the patent system, where patentability creep driven by bureaucrats and judges, not legislation, has extended the system to cover algorithms and business methods.

Good for _a_ business does not necessarily equal good for business.

Re: Want Recovery? Remember Antitrust is Anti-Economy

dmarti — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 12:09:10 -0000

Regulatory capture is a better strategy than advocating for deregulation, since it helps keep barriers to entry high. So companies generally prefer regulatory capture. Generally companies only advocate for deregulation when regulatory capture looks too hard, and regulators won't play ball, as in the case of the current US antitrust system.

TLF tends to make a big deal out of less captureable regulators and ignore the ones that its supporters already have safely captured.

Re: iPhone-Google Voice Flap a Reminder of Why DMCA Needs Fixing

dmarti — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 19:03:41 -0000

Don't forget the Elcomsoft case -- a rare example of a DMCA prosecution of a non-infringer. The result was a jury nullification.

Re: Want Recovery? Remember Antitrust is Anti-Economy

dmarti — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 10:54:51 -0000

Jayel, this is TLF--where special interest groups advocating for large companies pretend to be Libertarians. Yes, antitrust is less of a problem for most people's employers than the copyright and patent systems, and many other forms of regulation, but most other regulators are already subject to Regulatory Capture by TLF sponsors.

Re: Slate’s Manjoo on Apple iPhone Regulation

dmarti — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 14:28:44 -0000

On Slashdot, the most common tag is "haha". It's a disgrace that Slate doesn't allow this functionality, since I use it with packets that travel over public airwaves.

I'm going to write the FCC, and ask them to mandate that any site running pieces from Apple users whining about Apple must implement tagging, so that non-Apple users can tag them "haha".

You're the ones who got on the Steve Jobs bus, so either sit down and shut up, or get off.

Re: One (more) reason big finance is broken.

dmarti — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 10:36:44 -0000

Make sure you're in on hiring the right-hand person for each of your direct reports, and make that person as different from his or her boss as possible. Somehow the worst examples of Corporate Controlled Flight Into Terrain are when every VP has a Mini-Me.

Sean, do you read Sacha Chua's blog? She's doing the whole startup/networking/open source thing inside a big company.

Re: The Arcane Mystery of What Everyone Does

dmarti — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 12:33:42 -0000

Steve R. -- you might want to read the Web Site User Agreement for my web site http://zgp.org/~dmarti/meta/tos/ and do something similar. (I was thinking of something like "by reading my blog you agree to send me a pony" but did that one instead.)

And please don't call people "consumers" even if they are end users of a network service. Network value comes in at the endpoints, too.

Re: The Arcane Mystery of What Everyone Does

dmarti — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 22:36:26 -0000

Why don't more proprietary software vendors use a common license? The proprietary EULAs mostly say the same things -- couldn't the BSA or somebody issue a standard one?

Re: The Technology Liberation Front » Archive » The First Sale Doctrine and Copyleft

dmarti — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 13:26:08 -0000

Copyleft licenses leave you with all the rights that you would normally have in your _first_ copy of a work. You can resell your one copy of GPL software without ever accepting the GPL.

Re: Why I’m Not a Copyright Pessimist

dmarti — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 20:23:49 -0000

Don't forget the Elcomsoft case -- the only time that a US Attorney tried to put a case of circumvention without infringement in front of a jury, the result was a jury nullification. It isn't a generational thing. Copyright expansion goes beyond most people's copynorms, and needs to back off.

Re: Make some of your own (Scripting News)

dmarti — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 15:00:02 -0000

I've been doing something like that for a few years now -- mostly counting the outgoing links from "Planet" sites: http://zgp.org/~dmarti/amn/

Re: The Technology Liberation Front » Archive » Bandwidth Cartels, Public and Private

dmarti — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 16:24:40 -0000

The US government gave out railroad/telegraph rights of way to common carriers, and fiber runs on those rights of way today. Phone and cable companies can take advantage of eminent domain to install their fiber. The usual TLF crowd looks pretty ridiculous complaining about government interference in telecoms when the carriers are sitting on those assets.

The only packets that any carrier has a right to treat non-neutrally are those that only pass over property bought from a willing private seller. Otherwise it's just the techliberation.com house rule: "socialism when I want something from the government, free markets when anyone wants something from me."

Re: The Technology Liberation Front » Archive » Jeers and Cheers for Prof. Duffy

dmarti — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 12:38:45 -0000

Google doesn't even own the original PageRank patent. Stanford does.

Where's the value in turning universities into the gatekeepers of their graduates' startups?

Google was fortunate to get angel investors early. How many graduates' startups never got off the ground because the founders couldn't get the money to license their own work?

Re: Google Search Won’t Return Links to cato-at-liberty.org

dmarti — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 22:57:03 -0000

Have you tried Google Webmaster Tools? There might be a hint in the dashboard why pages aren't getting crawled.

https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/dashboa...

Re: The Technology Liberation Front » Archive » It’s Never Been More Clear

dmarti — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 18:18:43 -0000

You're both clearly advocating for STEALING the PANTSRIGHT PROPERTY from hard-working pants cleaners. (Skill has nothing to do with it -- the sloppiest player from the worst band has copyright, and an artisan with 40 years experience who saved your irreplaceable pants from a terrible stain has none.)

Pantsright is the pants cleaner's right: If you wash my pants once, I must pay you again every day I wear them. And, when Congress extends the pantsright, for every day I wear the replacement pants.

Re: Will Stirs the High-Skilled Hornets Nest

dmarti — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 01:11:35 -0000

Good point, but why admit skilled workers as H1-Bs, indentured to a single employer, when you could give them regular green cards?

Companies often hire H1-Bs because they can hold the threat of "if we fire you, the government deports you" over them. That extra employer power gives employers incentive to replace citizens or permanent residents.

Re: Evolving Theory of Network Effects

dmarti — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 16:08:20 -0000

Why won't MSFT bother to challenge Google for all the underpaid, disgruntled AdSense publishers? Throw the webmasters a little money and some reasonable reports (Google gives them chump change and no info) and it would be a two-sided ball game for once.

The only explanation that makes sense is that they're trying to fail, so they can get some government to lay an antitrust smackdown on the only people who are even showing up to work.

Re: Copyright Industrial Policy

dmarti — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 12:47:31 -0000

Without the DMCA, you could openly sell a mod chip for PlayStation and XBox consoles "to run Linux" that would also allow the consoles to run infringing copies of Grand Theft Auto IV.

Easy access to mod chips would mean that game companies would be less likely to invest in story and detail that makes a game valuable in single-player mode, and just concentrate on MMORGs where they can make money from subscriptions.

Re: The Technology Liberation Front » Archive » Well, Not Actually for Everyone . . .

dmarti — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 13:48:36 -0000

Jim, excellent point. If you have fiber crossing your property, and the easement for the original copper wires was granted through eminent domain, you should be able to buy the easement back for whatever "fair" price the government compelled the corporate ancestor of the company to pay you.

Unless, of course, the fiber's owner can still reasonably say that the fiber is "for public use" which is where network neutrality comes in.

Re: Air-Headed E-Voting Advocacy

dmarti — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 01:22:01 -0000

Internet voting is great -- it picked the most beautiful person in the world for <cite>People</cite> magazine, didn't it?

Re: The Technology Liberation Front » Archive » Google to Offer Broadband Users Tools to Monitor ISP Traffic Management

dmarti — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 11:20:03 -0000

Vendors of VPN, VoIP, and game software are likely to include neutrality-testing functionality, so that when a customer calls support to complain that an app is slow, the vendor can say, "that's not us, it's the cable company messing with you -- can't help you."

Software companies will never miss someone else to send a mad customer to.

Re: Trade War

dmarti — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 10:27:23 -0000

A typical IT analyst firm trick is to issue a "non-commissioned" report advocating a client for which the company also does billable work. So it's important to disclose the whole business relationship with the client--is example.com keeping the lights on even though a particular project isn't billed to them?

If a European politician comes out for fuel-efficient cars, does that mean we get to hear from GM-backed policy groups?