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Freecomputerbooks.com

freecomputerbooks.com

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Re: Freecomputerbooks.com

#41
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not about detection, it's about legality. Bittorrent is legally clear-cut, because the sharing part is a clear copyright infringement (you are distributing the work without authorization). Streaming (typically) isn't that clear, because consuming the work is technically not forbidden by copyright law in most countries. It's a bit like reading a book in a bookshop without buying it. Detection is fairly easy in bo…

> It's not about detection, it's about legality. I suppose I'm wondering about the realistic ability to detect and ability to prosecute. I'm not really concerned with legality for legality's sake.

The legality gives people power to knock on the doors of ISPs, who can (and often do) know everything. Even without that, authorities can (and occasionally do) run honeypots after they find and disband the main site operators.

There is no technical solution to the anti-piracy war, it's entirely a legal problem.

Re: Freecomputerbooks.com

#42
post #8

If this is just a link to a bunch of PDFs, then presumably PDF malware is an issue here. I would have thought computer books would be a fine vector to choose if you were trying to compromise websites and business systems.

Use a in-browser PDF renderer, such as mozilla/pdf.js which Firefox uses, and the true and tested browser sandbox will most likely be very helpful. Obviously, not helpful against three-letter agencies who like to sit on browser zero-days until they need to use them, but against most threats you'll be fine.

PDF readers are a far more diverse bunch than browsers. It's much less likely someone has a simultaneous break on Adobe Reader/Foxit/okular/evince/xpdf/mupdf/etc. than on merely two browser engines (Chrome and Firefox).

Re: Freecomputerbooks.com

#43
post #5

Seeing Data-Centric Introduction to Computing ( https://dcic-world.org ) It's written by Shriram Krishnamurthi, who is a really interesting researcher who cares quite a lot about CS education.

He also wrote a great intro to generating finite automata using Scheme macros.[0] It carries you through step by step and motivates the work well.

[0] http://cs.brown.edu/~sk/Publications/Papers/Published/sk-aut...

Re: Freecomputerbooks.com

#44
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there actually? In Germany I have heard of people getting served with fines for downloading torrents, as sharing a torrent identifies you through your IP. I've never heard of anyone getting into trouble for streaming or downloading a file, and I'm not sure how it could realistically be detected.

There is growing legal pressure to not consider an IP address used as evidence that the "owner" of said IP address is the one doing the activity. For example, my IP address is paid for by me, through a run-of-the-mill ISP subscription. Does that make me legally liable for all the activity of the other person that lives with me and uses "my" network for all their private internet traffic? I guess there are laws about…

The idea of respondeat superior (vicarious liability) has been around a really long time. That the legal system would try to apply the concepts to the internet is not really unexpected.

I don't think you should be held responsible for the actions of the other people on your network if they can be held responsible.

What do you propose should happen if your network is in fact used to facilitate criminal or tortious activity?

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