If the State Super-DMCA laws mentioned at Freedom to Tinker actually have the consequences that he has suggested then my belief that a good government is a government that never passes any law will simply be reinforced.
I take away from reading this bill that the following could very well apply to NAT, or Network Address Translation:
“To conceal or assist another to conceal from any communication service provider or from any lawful authority, the existence or place of origin or of destination of any communication”
When using NAT, it is difficult (or possibly impossible) to determine which system from within a network sent the packets in question. This coulld be considered concealment of the point of origin. I don’t subscribe to this as I consider my home network as a whole to be the “point of origin” regardless of whether NAT’ed or not, wireless or wired, etc. There is no intent to defraud or harm anyone in this situation. However, it is very likely someone in the government or in the communications industry might like to see this simple activity ruled illegal.
Oh my God, between the DMCA, Patriot Act, potential Patriot Act 2, and this potential bill, our government has decided that safety can only occur once our civil liberties have been completely gutted. If only our leaders would heed the words of one of our founding fathers.
“They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” – Benjamin Franklin
Published on
March 30, 2003 in
Software.
I am now heavily using NetNewsWire. If you haven’t used this wonderful application yet, please check it out. The regular version costs, but they have a lite version if all you want to do is read RSS feeds. I fell in love with the weblog editor as it works GREAT with Movable Type.
Published on
March 23, 2003 in
TV.
Tags: rant.
Ok… It has now been more than 24 hours and I have had time to find time to consider my wording, but it hasn’t really helped. Sci-Fi channel surely seems to have people deciding programming that have absolutely NO idea who their viewers actually are. I watched the last episode of Farscape last night. I was enjoying the episode (as much as I can for a series finale that is ending before its time) until the last two minutes. ARGGHH… I am fairly sure this episode was written and filmed prior to the news that the show was not being renewed for a fifth season. I can’t believe that David Kemper would have written the end of this show in such a manner. Many of the plot-lines got some closure and everything was rather enjoyable until… I don’t want to ruin it for anyone who hasn’t seen it, but it just sucks that the show ends with a cliff hanger.
I know Farscape wasn’t perfect. It had some bad plot twists along the way. Some questionable episodes, but it was imaginative, interesting, and had very forceful plot development. You were expected to watch most episodes to stay up to date. Pretty much every show built on the previous episode. That is one of the things I liked so much about it. That and the fact that the show was believable. The characters were earnest and realistic. No one was perfect, every character had real flaws and their own agenda. Well, I don’t need to dwell on that except to say if you haven’t been watching it, go buy or rent the DVDs as it was one of the best shows on TV.
Finally, this is for Sci-Fi. You have had some amazing shows and you seem to feel the need to cancel them. This in addition to my annoyance over the cancellation of the Invisible Man has pretty much pushed me to ignore Sci-Fi completely. Instead of quality thoughtful entertainment, you have chosen to produce shows like, Scare Tactics, Crossing Over, and Tremors. I will withhold judgment on Tremors as I haven’t seen it and it can at least be considered to be somewhat within the Sci-Fi genre. I don’t want junk, I want good well written, acted, and produced original content. If I wanted to watch crud, I would tune it to 90% of what the broadcast networks produce. Stargate: SG1 are the only redeeming shows I can currently find on Sci-Fi (However, Children of Dune was quite good, but is now over). At this point, I am going to continue to Tivo Stargate: SG1, but I am removing Sci-Fi from my list of favorite channels that I watch and I will fast forward through all the commercials 
I know there is nothing that I nor the Farscape fan-base can do to make you see the error of your ways, but hopefully in time you will realize, the people who watch Sci-Fi, actually want to see original “Sci-Fi” and not shows that don’t fit the genre nor exclusively warmed over reruns of older Sci-Fi shows.
Published on
March 19, 2003 in
Personal.
It seems the war has begun. It is unfortunate that we have come to this occasion but it seems to have become a forgone conclusion. I personally believe the President has made the best choice possible and I dearly hope our military can keep civilian deaths as near zero as possible. I know they will do their best and they are to be honored for the service they provide this country.
We can all hope for the best…
Published on
March 19, 2003 in
Software.
I am doing quite a bit of behind the scenes work to try and come up with some new additions to For the Blog of It… and VinsonWEB as a whole. Hopefully I will have some new content and better stylesheets up soon.
I’m still loving NetNewsWire and may very likely end up buying it, but the $29.95 does still seem a little high, but I was getting used to it. Now I hear that soon the price will be going up to $39.95. That just seems bizarre, but the software is so well designed, I may have to come up with the cash.
I just picked up the new O’Reilly book, Google Hacks, written by Tara Calishain and Rael Dornfest. Just from the little I have read, it looks like a quality book that I will be relying on heavily in the near future. I don’t know much about Tara as I haven’t knowingly seen any of her work prior to this book, but I have been following Rael’s Blosxom perl blogging software with great interest.
Published on
March 17, 2003 in
Software.
I thought I would give NetNewsWire a try so that I don’t have to use the graphics-laden Web UI every time I want to post to my blog. This also is nice in that if I want to eventually move to Blosxom, I have the freedom to try new things and keep my interface the same during any changes. Assuming this works, 
I will be quite impressed. The software is elegant and well thought out, even if it seems a tad overpriced…
Published on
March 17, 2003 in
Hardware.
I would have spent some time talking about this last weekend, but I hadn’t been really sticking to blogging as I wasn’t particularly thrilled with my setup. Now, that has changed (as per my last post), so here we go …
We went to the Apple Store and bought a new 1 Gigahertz iMac for Heather last Saturday. Now, I say for Heather and it is her computer, but as she has limited need for the system, it is in my office This thing is amazing. The screen is the perfect size balancing space-conscious design and need for screen real-estate. I have burned a couple of DVD Video discs from home movies and it is just a joy to use. The only issues that I have had so far is that I need to bump the memory from the built-in 256MB to 512 or 768MB and the 1440×900 resolution is a tough size to match up with existing wallpaper. 1600×1200 does fine with some cropping, but it would be nice to find some more diversity in size over the typical 1024×768…
Published on
March 16, 2003 in
news.
Welcome to the new and improved “For the Blog of It…”. I now have a more substantial setup thanks to the folks at Verve Hosting. Please let me know if you see anything strange as I get my new digs all setup…