61–70 of 405 posts
Just a tangent for you all - does anyone envisage a 2nd parallel internet emerging? Not tor-like, an actual completely separate network?
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They mostly just want to survive... But in this case, they specifically want to allow you read maybe a dozen articles per month for free, but also (see above) to eat.
Their business model has been broken for years. It’s not incumbent on me to help them survive.
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That means it's signed with Mozilla's signature. Actually, I think extensions can maybe be signed by Mozilla even if they're not on addons.mozilla.org.
Yes, but Mozilla will refuse to sign extensions that are not hosted in their app store.
The real problem is Google indexing it. Wasn't there even a rule from Google that you can't serve different content from what the general public is seeing?
It's definitely against their policy in my opinion, but I guess you could make a weak case that this is what the public would see if this was their "first visit".
This breaks the social contract of the web. If you publish on the web (over HTTP) using HTML (with or without css+js) then you respect the concept of a User-Agent that renders the content on behalf of the user. If you wish to get around this then create another file format and protocol and application/plugin to do so — one that enforces the DRM for the owner. Don’t take agency away from User-Agent.
There’s also a social contract about respect for the law. It’s arguably much older. It involves aspects like “following the spirit of the law”. Also “technical ability is not the same as permission”. It’s why the old shopkeeper’s waning ability to see is no license for you from the produce displayed outside. (This is mostly to show that I, too, can argue with invented “contracts”).
In practice, American legislators have to raise large amounts of money just to say in office. So it's unsurprising that they listen mainly to the concerns of people with money: https://www.vox.com/2014/4/18/5624310/martin-gilens-testing-...
We are in an age where information distribution is approximately free. And where the costs of producing information-based products has declined drastically. Paywalls are not any sort of law; they're an attempt by information producers to have their cake and eat it too. They want the abundance of the new, computer-driven world. But they want artificial scarcity, so that they can charge like they did in 1970. My sympathy is with journalists here. But that doesn't mean I have to roll over and let them break the web.
The laws in question here, the DMCA and the CFAA, are both too new and too old to be reflexively bowed to with "OMG spirit of the law!" Too new because they are obviously part of society's attempts to deal with technology, and are equally obviously driven by the interests of people who have piles of money and are trying to protect those piles. And too old because both, but especially the CFAA which was written in 1984, reflect a very early understanding of what computers are, what they're for, and how society should treat them.
As far as I'm concerned, this is an ongoing negotiation. We need to find ways for journalists to get paid. We need to find ways to have a much more informed populace. We need to preserve as much as possible of the freedom computers and networks have given to every individual.
If we want paywalls to be a part of law, then we should have a national debate about whether publishers deserve a special protection so they make all of their content available, let it be downloaded to any computer in the world, and then have that computer enforce any restrictions they think are good ones. We are not obliged to just concede that debate right at the beginning just because you think reading an infinitely replicable article already on your computer is exactly the same thing as stealing a unique piece of fruit from a blind man's store.
Does Mozilla need to actually host the extension? I'm guessing that that is the problem here. Couldn't they just cryptographically sign it, and leave the distribution to a P2P technology like BitTorrent?
I am not sure it would make a difference to the courts.
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I mostly agree with you, but the problem with illegals websites is often that they are illegal in a country but hosted in another. So you can’t really send your own police taking down servers in other countries. So for the DNS blocking it works because it blocks casual users of those website (I’m thinking torrent or streaming sites essentially). Of course when you know a bit how it works you use international DNS. An…
One country cannot police Internet, otherwise China will shut it down tomorrow. If a site is legal in the country where it is hosted, then it is legal and that's it, connecting to Internet assumes you obey this simple rule.
This is why you need to follow the law in the countries wher the service is operational, otherwise the service risks being blocked at the very least.
Of course, countries have trade agreements and the circumstances under which services and products can be blocked is negotiable. And this can cut both ways, e.g. companies in the US selling services and products in the EU have to be lawful in the EU, otherwise they can be fined, even without a presence in the EU. This is why most US companies selling their services in the EU have started charging VAT, even if the US has no such thing.
As to your remark, a website can be at the same time legal in one country and illegal in another. What can happen next depends on the country you’re talking about and the trade agreements that are in place.
But generally, when we’re talking about avoiding payments and taxes, you’d better live in a country with no extradition agreements.
The real problem is Google indexing it. Wasn't there even a rule from Google that you can't serve different content from what the general public is seeing?
This is about "soft paywalls" that allow you to read maybe a dozen articles per months.
This breaks the social contract of the web. If you publish on the web (over HTTP) using HTML (with or without css+js) then you respect the concept of a User-Agent that renders the content on behalf of the user. If you wish to get around this then create another file format and protocol and application/plugin to do so — one that enforces the DRM for the owner. Don’t take agency away from User-Agent.
Alternatively, the add-ons break the social contract, whereby content creators request payment for their content. If you visit stuff on the web, you respect the concept of a social contract between you and the provide. Don’t try to circumvent their wishes.
That said anybody attempting to make parts of content non-pubic in HTTP without appropriate security restrictions are void the protections of law. The remedy for this is to ensure necessary security is in place so that non-pubic content is limited to account and session, which then puts part of the burden on the end user to ensure they restrict the credentials that provide access.
Content, not already covered, served over HTTP without the necessary security in place is not private.
There is a clause in the DCMA that makes it illegal to circumvent security controls. The stipulation there is that the security controls in question must be adequate and reasonable. Dropping a CSS model over some content is not a valid security control, and thus has no legal protection. Of course everything regarding DCMA is open to argument at legal expense.