Re: No Link Between Dell and Handgun Control, Inc.

2002-02-27 Thread Seth Finkelstein

On Thu, Feb 28, 2002 at 01:57:20AM -0500, Matthew Gaylor wrote:
 I'm just now starting to get feedback from the Dell cancelation of
 the Weigand Combat Handguns, Inc. order and noticed that Dell
 computers is listed as a beneficiary at the below link.

There's no specific connection between Dell and Handgun Control, Inc.
It's all aggregated as a referral program where Dell is one merchant
participating in the referral pool, and Handgun Control, Inc is one
organization which can be the source of such a directed referral. Go up
one level, and look at the page http://www.progressivefunds.com/ . It
lists several other referring organizations. This particular referral
pool is being run by progressivefunds.com, so of course the *referring*
organizations reflect those views. That says nothing about the
participating *merchants*.

Basically, the merchants are paying the organization a
commission for business from that organization's members. I can hardly
speak for Dell, but on general principles I'd assume they'd be happy
to give the NRA the same deal if a conservative group wanted to offer
referrals in a similar online mall. See http://www.linkshare.com/

--
Seth Finkelstein  Consulting Programmer  [EMAIL PROTECTED]  http://sethf.com
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/19/technology/circuits/19HACK.html
BESS's Secret LOOPHOLE: http://sethf.com/anticensorware/bess/loophole.php
BESS vs Google: http://sethf.com/anticensorware/bess/google.php



BESS's Secret LOOPHOLE (censorware vs. privacy anonymity)

2001-08-15 Thread Seth Finkelstein

[cypherpunky cryptobabble libertopians should take note!]

Available at: http://sethf.com/anticensorware/bess/loophole.php
BESS's Secret LOOPHOLE (censorware vs. privacy  anonymity)

Abstract: This report examines a secret category in N2H2's censorware,
a product often sold under the name BESS, The Internet Retriever.
This category turns out to be for sites which must be uniformly
prohibited, because they constitute a LOOPHOLE in the necessary
control of censorware. The category contains sites which provide
services of anonymity, privacy, language translation, humorous text
transformations, even web page feature testing, and more.

--
Seth Finkelstein  Consulting Programmer  [EMAIL PROTECTED]  http://sethf.com
http://archive.nytimes.com/2001/07/19/technology/circuits/19HACK.html
BESS's Secret LOOPHOLE: http://sethf.com/anticensorware/bess/loophole.php




Re: BESS's Secret LOOPHOLE (censorware vs. privacy anonymity)

2001-08-15 Thread Seth Finkelstein

On Wed, Aug 15, 2001 at 08:17:02PM -0400, Declan McCullagh wrote:
 At one point Seth was capable of sane arguments and discussions
 without insults. This was, of course, many years ago, and now he's
 just nutty and should not be taken particularly seriously.

I'm sorry Declan, I just can't take the cypherpunks list
seriously anymore. After you testified for Federal government
prosecutors, helping to put members in jail - not once, but twice -
and anyone still respected you, I just lost all ability to regard that
zeitgeist as other than a joke.

There was indeed a time I could deal with Liberbabble. That
was before a certain journalist, who I helped a lot, did many things
to raise my legal risks, and justified some of it in the name of
Libertarianism (other parts were just his character).

I said this to you at CFP 2001, and I'll say it again:
This is not a game we're playing. People are going to jail.

I'd be overjoyed if you didn't take me seriously. It's the
backstabbing I worry about. I don't ever want to find you playing
Federal Witness #1 against me too.

--
Seth Finkelstein  Consulting Programmer  [EMAIL PROTECTED]  http://sethf.com
http://archive.nytimes.com/2001/07/19/technology/circuits/19HACK.html
BESS's Secret LOOPHOLE: http://sethf.com/anticensorware/bess/loophole.php




Re: BESS's Secret LOOPHOLE (censorware vs. privacy anonymity)

2001-08-15 Thread Seth Finkelstein

On Wed, Aug 15, 2001 at 07:01:32PM -0700, Tim May wrote:
 ... Declan took the obvious and legal 
 steps to limit his testimony to statements of the form:
 
 Yes, I am a reporter for Wired News.
 
 Yes, I wrote the story you are referring to.

Yes, I affirm under oath that the article is true

Once he says that, it's basically equivalent to testifying to
the contents of the article in court. Making such an affirmation is
not inevitable. People can disown articles. This not to recommend such
disowning. However, the prosecution is well aware of the risks that it
can happen.

But if the US was a police state, Declan would not be griping
about his plane ticket as his biggest concern in such a situation. He
certainly would not be welcomed back to gather information on people
he might help put in jail in a future trial.

I can't convey how ludicrous it seems to me. Declan is the
Fed's best friend. That's not an insult, that's a fact. He's provided
important evidence that helped obtain two convictions. He shows every
sign of repeating the performance. And nobody even seems to notice.
Everybody goes by what he posts, the politically correct (for here)
liberpunk anarcrypt cyberbilge. Not what he *does*. It's utterly unreal.

But hey, he's a Libertarian(-type), and I'm not. So don't take
me seriously. I have my own legal risks to worry about.

--
Seth Finkelstein  Consulting Programmer  [EMAIL PROTECTED]  http://sethf.com
http://archive.nytimes.com/2001/07/19/technology/circuits/19HACK.html
BESS's Secret LOOPHOLE: http://sethf.com/anticensorware/bess/loophole.php

P.S. Regarding Jim Choate's speculations, as far as I know, you *do*
have lots of guns and money. Why aren't you also giving him a pass for
restating what are presumably your own true statements? As far as being
a dangerous person, well, that depends who one thinks is your target.




Re: [free-sklyarov] Re: Rallies on Monday

2001-07-21 Thread Seth Finkelstein

Declan McCullagh wrote:
 This state of affairs creates a mild problem (to go back to the recent
 topic of discussion on cypherpunks) for those who strongly believe in
 the First Amendment when applied to nonprofit or not-for-profit speech
 but less so when it comes to speech that's part of a commercial
 transaction.

Heck, Declan, as far as I recall, you don't believe
that the First Amendment applies to people who merely REPEAT
(for profit) too many words you originally wrote as
speech that's part of a certain commercial transaction
(i.e. copyrighted articles, which you are paid for). 
In fact, I can't look this up now, but I believe you've
posted to the cypherpunks list on this very topic
in the past. You want the government to punish people
who simply say too many words that you originally said.
Isn't that very inconsistent philosophically for you?

By the way, as you know, this distinction is
enshrined in copyright law:
   
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html

Sec. 107. Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use

(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether 
  such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit 
  educational purposes; 

 Let's hope Dmitry, a budding capitalist, doesn't fall
 into that same commercial-speech-can-be-regulated catchall.

But Declan, as a Libertarian proselytizer. how can you
justify making your living from a government-granted monopoly
which infringes on free speech?

Note the above is not necessarily my view. But if you
are going to try to use this tragedy to recruit people for silly
Libertarian ideology, I think consistency demands you apply the
same argument to your articles too. Have you changed your views
on this topic since I last saw them discussed?

--
Seth Finkelstein  Consulting Programmer  [EMAIL PROTECTED]  http://sethf.com
http://www10.nytimes.com/2001/07/19/technology/circuits/19HACK.html




Re: [free-sklyarov] Re: Rallies on Monday

2001-07-21 Thread Seth Finkelstein

Seth David Schoen wrote:
 Unfortunately, courts already seem to have a hard enough time
 believing that electronic publication of free/open source software is
 protected by the first amendment.

While this is true, there's a very deep issue in the
definition of protected. The problem is better rendered that
the courts have taken the view that the protection of
(intellectual) *property rights* trumps the free-speech concerns
here. There's a very revealing paragraph in the DeCSS decision
concerning this:

Thus, even if one accepted defendants' argument that the
anti-trafficking prohibition of the DMCA is content based because it
regulates only code that expresses the programmer's ideas for
circumventing access control measures, the question would remain
whether such code--code designed to circumvent measures controlling
access to private or legally protected data--nevertheless could be
regulated on the basis of that content.  For the reasons set forth in
the text, the Court concludes that it may.  Alternatively, even if
such a categorical or definitional approach were eschewed, the Court
would uphold the application of the DMCA now before it on the ground
that this record establishes an imminent threat of danger flowing from
^^
dissemination of DeCSS that far outweighs the need for unfettered
^
communication of that program.  See Landmark Communications,
^
Inc. v. Virginia, 435 U.S. 829, 842-43 (1978).

-- 
Seth Finkelstein  Consulting Programmer  [EMAIL PROTECTED]  http://sethf.com
http://www10.nytimes.com/2001/07/19/technology/circuits/19HACK.html