General Discussions about LUGNET : 3729


Administrative / General / 3729

Re: Policy clarification regarding catalogs —Jasper Janssen

(...) It is the same as posting the images. It has NOTHING AT ALL to do with posting links. (...) Yes, it is. Anything on an unsecured webserver is being published. That's what a webserver is FOR. Jasper (25 years ago, 17-Dec-99, to lugnet.admin.general)

Re: Policy clarification regarding catalogs —James Brown

(...) Not to put to fine a point on it...hogwash. That's the same logic as "Anything in a store is for sale, that's what a store is FOR." James (URL) (25 years ago, 17-Dec-99, to lugnet.admin.general, lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Policy clarification regarding catalogs —Matthew Miller

(...) That's a false analogy. Obviously, not everything on the web server itself is public. For example, www.lego.com runs on Microsoft IIS on top of NT 4 -- obviously the system software is not publicly viewable. But everything in the "documents to (...) (25 years ago, 17-Dec-99, to lugnet.admin.general, lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Policy clarification regarding catalogs —Christopher Lannan

(...) I agree. If I can see by normal means (no serious hacking) using a normal URL and a normal web browser some information that Lego doesn't want me to see, then the fault lies with the webmaster of that site, not me. "We put all this info here (...) (25 years ago, 18-Dec-99, to lugnet.admin.general, lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Policy clarification regarding catalogs —Mike Stanley

(...) Yeah, this whole thought of calling it "snooping" seems ridiculous to me. How many times have you had to manually edit URLs you've come across because they just didn't plain work until you "hacked" away at them? If it's world-readable and (...) (25 years ago, 18-Dec-99, to lugnet.admin.general, lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Policy clarification regarding catalogs —Todd Lehman

(...) All right. You have this artist friend. She paints things. She invites you and fifty other people over for a housewarming party. Great party, lots of fun, lots of neat things going on. She's got a couple of her latest paintings up on display, (...) (25 years ago, 18-Dec-99, to lugnet.admin.general, lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Policy clarification regarding catalogs —Bruce Schlickbernd

(...) (25 years ago, 18-Dec-99, to lugnet.admin.general, lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Policy clarification regarding catalogs —Bruce Schlickbernd

(...) False analogy. Your conditions don't match Lego's, at least in my estimation. If you stated that the artist's display was on the street, in public, and has the other works uncovered in an inconspicuous but equally public location, then we have (...) (25 years ago, 18-Dec-99, to lugnet.admin.general, lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Policy clarification regarding catalogs —Matthew Miller

(...) I don't see how this corresponds. 1. She didn't invite people over specifically to see her paintings, she invited them to housewarming which happened to display a few paintings. On the other hand, the entire purpose of Lego's web site is to (...) (25 years ago, 18-Dec-99, to lugnet.admin.general, lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Policy clarification regarding catalogs —Todd Lehman

(...) Hmm, maybe that's the heart of the controversy right there! I dunno about the net population at large, but I'd certainly experience guilt feelings if I summoned up an image to which there was no readily- obvious hyperlink, because I'd assume (...) (25 years ago, 18-Dec-99, to lugnet.admin.general, lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Policy clarification regarding catalogs —Matthew Miller

(...) I'm coming to think so too. To me, this is fundamentally why we have a URLs -- Uniform Resource Locators. The ability to identify and access resources directly is a basic design decision underlying what makes the WWW what it is. If the intent (...) (25 years ago, 18-Dec-99, to lugnet.admin.general, lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Policy clarification regarding catalogs —Mike Stanley

(...) Wow, I've been quite reasonable AND made an excellent point today. I'm on a roll. ;) (25 years ago, 18-Dec-99, to lugnet.admin.general, lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Policy clarification regarding catalogs —Jasper Janssen

(...) Probably. (...) Maybe you haven't spent much time on personal homepages. Misspelled links in the source are more common than correct ones, it sometimes seems. Oh, and of course all webdevelopment gets done on case-insenstive FAT16/32. And then (...) (25 years ago, 18-Dec-99, to lugnet.admin.general, lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Policy clarification regarding catalogs —Todd Lehman

(...) I didn't mean it quite that literally. Correcting an obvious typo or fixing broken \'s to /'s is something I think anyone could do without feeling guilt! :) I meant things like trying to guess names of files from partial information, or if (...) (25 years ago, 18-Dec-99, to lugnet.admin.general, lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Policy clarification regarding catalogs —Matthew Miller

(...) You mean you go back and see what you should have felt guilty about, in retrospect? I think that's going a bit overboard! (25 years ago, 18-Dec-99, to lugnet.admin.general, lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Policy clarification regarding catalogs —Todd Lehman

(...) Heh heh. No no, I mean when you find some directory with 755 permissions (instead of 711 permissions) and it's got no index.html file, but it's got a home.html file linked to from elsewhere, and home.html contains links to 5 images in its (...) (25 years ago, 18-Dec-99, to lugnet.admin.general, lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Policy clarification regarding catalogs —Matthew Miller

Reply-To: mattdm@mattdm.org Message-Id: <slrn85lsvu.1dq.matt...ia.bu.edu> User-Agent: slrn/0.9.5.7 (UNIX) (...) *shrug* It's snooping in stuff that they've made publicly available. Walking down the public alley behind a store because you're curious (...) (25 years ago, 18-Dec-99, to lugnet.admin.general, lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Policy clarification regarding catalogs —Jasper Janssen

(...) Interesting side-issue: what about going through the garbage in the alley? I could see it either way - people don't generally leave sensitive information in the dumpster, unless they're idiots, but legally, is acquiring, say, hardware (...) (25 years ago, 18-Dec-99, to lugnet.admin.general, lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Policy clarification regarding catalogs —Larry Pieniazek

(...) No. Refuse, once released to an ordinary refuse collection service, is no longer the property of the originator. If you don't want people viewing your secret plans, shred them and contract with a secure document service which retains control (...) (25 years ago, 19-Dec-99, to lugnet.admin.general, lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Policy clarification regarding catalogs —Todd Lehman

(...) Uhm, excuse me, exactly what did I saw that was wrong about the law? --Todd (25 years ago, 19-Dec-99, to lugnet.admin.general, lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Policy clarification regarding catalogs —Larry Pieniazek

<385C70D7.568E345D@voyager.net> <FMzorw.GrH@lugnet.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit (...) Well I did some digging to find examples but not as much as I could have. While I'd love to devote the time (...) (25 years ago, 20-Dec-99, to lugnet.admin.general, lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Policy clarification regarding catalogs —Doyle G. Nelson

(...) HERE! HERE! I agree 100%, well put Lar. :-) (25 years ago, 20-Dec-99, to lugnet.admin.general, lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Policy clarification regarding catalogs —Todd Lehman

(...) I don't think it's normally illegal, no, although I would be surprised if there weren't at least a few gray or semi-gray areas lurking there vis-a-vis publishing links to unannounced products. Mostly I meant wrong in the sensibilities sense, (...) (25 years ago, 20-Dec-99, to lugnet.admin.general, lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Policy clarification regarding catalogs —Tom Stangl

On my site, I assume that ANYTHING on my site will be viewed by someone sooner or later. If I don't want it viewed, I remove it. The most I do for "security" is put index.html files in directories that I might consider sensitive. But then again, I (...) (25 years ago, 18-Dec-99, to lugnet.admin.general, lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Policy clarification regarding catalogs —Mike Stanley

(...) That's silly. Those two have absolutely nothing to do with each other. Brad even specifically mentioned something about "by accident or by intent". So you're telling me that if you accidentally mistype a character in a URL and end up seeing an (...) (25 years ago, 18-Dec-99, to lugnet.admin.general, lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Policy clarification regarding catalogs —Todd Lehman

(...) What two? (...) Heh heh...no, that's not what I meant by "summoned up"; I was referring to snooping or URL trolling. If I summoned up an image by accident, I'd be surprised more than anything else. --Todd (25 years ago, 18-Dec-99, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Policy clarification regarding catalogs —Mike Stanley

(...) Bringing up a world-readable image on a publicly accessible webserver (by any means - either mistyping or experimenting with urls) and invading someone's privacy by going through their medicine cabinets. I don't think you were try to imply (...) (25 years ago, 19-Dec-99, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Policy clarification regarding catalogs —Jasper Janssen

(...) Aha. Flawed analogy. There were NO SHEETS. It was not only out in the open, it was in the main room of the party. Jasper (25 years ago, 18-Dec-99, to lugnet.admin.general, lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Policy clarification regarding catalogs —Mike Stanley

(...) I may revisit this tomorrow after all the spirits are flushed out of my system, but on the surface this is a bogus analogy. Front window/back window. Signs pointing HERE - Look at this! No signs pointing to other areas, but stuff still there (...) (25 years ago, 18-Dec-99, to lugnet.admin.general, lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Policy clarification regarding catalogs —James Brown

(...) Nope, it's not. It's a very close analogy to what Jasper posted: "Yes, it is. Anything on an unsecured webserver is being published." Which you refute much more logically below. (...) Yes, but we're disagreeing on what consitutes "documents (...) (25 years ago, 18-Dec-99, to lugnet.admin.general, lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Policy clarification regarding catalogs —Jasper Janssen

(...) Anything in a store _is_ for sale. Anything that isn't for sale isn't _in_ the store, it's _a part of_ the store. That's the only way for the analogy of the web to a store even to remotely work. (...) No he doesn't. He agrees with me in every (...) (25 years ago, 18-Dec-99, to lugnet.admin.general, lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Policy clarification regarding catalogs —James Brown

(...) No, you're defining webserver differently. I'm not going to bother quibbling semantics with you. (...) No. "in a place public can get to" != publically available != published. The three of them often co-incide, but do not necessarily do so. (...) (25 years ago, 18-Dec-99, to lugnet.admin.general, lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Policy clarification regarding catalogs —Jasper Janssen

(...) Gee. That's rather a cop-out, isn't it? (...) Yes, it does. (...) This is not about courtesy. At all. This is about a claim Brad made that it was _legally_ so. I am not saying it isn't impolite (though I don't agree..), I am saying it isn't (...) (25 years ago, 18-Dec-99, to lugnet.admin.general, lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Policy clarification regarding catalogs —James Brown

(...) If you insist. But no amount of sniping is going to convince me that "webserver"=public. What about firewalls? They're on an unsecured webserver, too - does that make them "public?" (...) And I am saying I don't care about the legalities. I (...) (25 years ago, 18-Dec-99, to lugnet.admin.general, lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Policy clarification regarding catalogs —Jasper Janssen

(...) What do you mean "firewalls are on an unsecured webserver"? I think you need some more grounding in the terminology, cause I can't make head nor tail of what you're trying to say. If it should happen to be be "otherwise unsecured webserver (...) (25 years ago, 19-Dec-99, to lugnet.admin.general, lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Policy clarification regarding catalogs —James Brown

<snipped .admin.general - this is getting obviously into the realm of just (...) A firewall must exist (at least in part) on a machine that serves the internet at large. Like I said before, a couple posts ago: "you're defining webserver differently. (...) (25 years ago, 20-Dec-99, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Policy clarification regarding catalogs —Jasper Janssen

(...) A firewall is generally a machine on the internet at large, yes. The things protected by it aren't, in the sense that some things are filtered out by said firewall. A firewall is logically, and usually physically, not a webserver, or a (...) (25 years ago, 21-Dec-99, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Policy clarification regarding catalogs —James Brown

In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Jasper Janssen writes: <snipped Q&D explanation of firewalls & so forth> (...) I will bow to your expertise. Yes, I did (instinctively) take your reference to webserver to mean a physical box - that's probably because if (...) (25 years ago, 21-Dec-99, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Policy clarification regarding catalogs —Jasper Janssen

(...) I should have realised it sooner. However, it's best to remember, that when discussing theory, it's best to think in "theoretical" boxes rather than actual ones. (...) Heh. (...) They're quite possibly fairly irrelevant on Lugnet, what with it (...) (25 years ago, 22-Dec-99, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Policy clarification regarding catalogs —Todd Lehman

(...) I don't agree. (I see the point, but I don't think it's that simple.) What is security -- fundamentally? A file served from under the URL (URL) the /images/ directory is HTTP-password-protected with the username and password combo of (...) (25 years ago, 18-Dec-99, to lugnet.admin.general)

Re: Policy clarification regarding catalogs —Ben Gatrelle

(...) What about <www.LEGO.com/topsecret> which when I found it last year had pre- release pics of the original SW sets that were coming out. There was a refernce to this URL in a Mania Magazine (which published the URL) but there was no link to (...) (25 years ago, 18-Dec-99, to lugnet.admin.general)

Re: Policy clarification regarding catalogs —Jasper Janssen

(...) There were, however, images on the SW portion of lego.com which were being served from that webserver (IIRC, not www.lego.com, though). A simple view source revealed thew existece of that webserver. (...) Yeah. I wonder when I'm gonna get an (...) (25 years ago, 18-Dec-99, to lugnet.admin.general)

Re: Policy clarification regarding catalogs —Frank Filz

Ben Gatrelle wrote in message ... (...) page (...) pre- (...) there (...) That URL has been published and is clearly intended for public consumption. Frank Filz Posting from my Dad's (25 years ago, 18-Dec-99, to lugnet.admin.general)

Re: Policy clarification regarding catalogs —Matthew Miller

(...) How do you know that any given URL isn't published in some magazine somewhere? Furthermore, the Lego statement doesn't make an exception for this. (25 years ago, 18-Dec-99, to lugnet.admin.general)

Thanks, Lego! (was Re: Policy clarification regarding catalogs) —Matthew Miller

Brad Justus has posted a clarification of his earlier statement: <URL:(URL) I'm officially satisfied with this -- and pleasantly surprised by the quick response. (25 years ago, 18-Dec-99, to lugnet.admin.general)

Re: Thanks, Lego! (was Re: Policy clarification regarding catalogs) —Mike Stanley

(...) And excellent point. :) Me too. (25 years ago, 18-Dec-99, to lugnet.admin.general)

Re: Policy clarification regarding catalogs —Matthew Miller

(...) I don't think that's clear at all! It may be simply a matter of poor index design, or laziness. Luckily for my argument :) I have a great example of this already. <URL:(URL) is an intended-to-be-public website. Check out <URL:(URL): you won't (...) (25 years ago, 18-Dec-99, to lugnet.admin.general)

Re: Policy clarification regarding catalogs —Matthew Miller

(...) Another example of this: what about a link to <URL:(URL) or <URL:(URL) Is it a violation of copyright to give these links to someone? (25 years ago, 18-Dec-99, to lugnet.admin.general)

Intellectual exercise (was Re: Policy clarification regarding catalogs) —Matthew Miller

If I were to post the results of this script: #!/usr/bin/perl for ($i=0;$i<1000000;$i++) { printf "(URL) $i; } to LUGnet, and some of the links that result happen to not have links on any of Lego's linked-from-the-main-page pages, would I be in (...) (25 years ago, 18-Dec-99, to lugnet.admin.general)

Re: Intellectual exercise (was Re: Policy clarification regarding catalogs) —Jasper Janssen

(...) You'd certainly be in clear and present violation of the T&C due to spamming. A million lines ~= 80 megabyte. Youch. Jasper (25 years ago, 18-Dec-99, to lugnet.admin.general)

Re: Policy clarification regarding catalogs —Todd Lehman

(...) I would say definitely no, because the intention of the query mechanism is to accept arbitrary input. --Todd (25 years ago, 18-Dec-99, to lugnet.admin.general)

Re: Policy clarification regarding catalogs —Todd Lehman

(...) I thought we were talking about links to images. (...) I think the fact that the images are *gone* now expresses an even stronger intent not to publish. :) (...) But if a web developer at some company makes an idiotic mistake like that (and (...) (25 years ago, 18-Dec-99, to lugnet.admin.general)

Re: Policy clarification regarding catalogs —Matthew Miller

(...) There's a difference? (I'm serious.) Anyway, Brad Justus' statement is about "images or material". (...) *shrug* Perhaps. The web site that was at <URL:(URL) isn't there any more. Doesn't mean I didn't mean to publish it. :) (...) I think I (...) (25 years ago, 18-Dec-99, to lugnet.admin.general)

Re: Policy clarification regarding catalogs —Todd Lehman

(...) Brad's statement was, to wit, in response to a question by LarryP asking about links to images. (...) If you're willing to respect the wishes regardless of legality, then that makes the legality a moot issue. (I don't think anyone was (...) (25 years ago, 18-Dec-99, to lugnet.admin.general)

Re: Policy clarification regarding catalogs —Todd Lehman

(...) I should clarify that "I agree" part. I don't think you have the right to provide embedded links to their images on your own web pages via the <IMG> tag, but IMHO you probably do have the complete legal right to share the URLs of any of the (...) (25 years ago, 18-Dec-99, to lugnet.admin.general)

Re: Policy clarification regarding catalogs —Matthew Miller

(...) It's a complicated grey area, and extremely difficult to legislate properly. ("Embedded" images are really no such thing -- they're still external.) So I hope this is something that can be kept within the realm of courtesy. Luckily, there (...) (25 years ago, 18-Dec-99, to lugnet.admin.general)

Re: Policy clarification regarding catalogs —Todd Lehman

(...) I'm a huge fan of Ted Nelson's transpublishing and transcopyright philosophies. I home someday they become feasable. --Todd (25 years ago, 18-Dec-99, to lugnet.admin.general)

Re: Policy clarification regarding catalogs —Matthew Miller

(...) They seem feasible now from a technical standpoint. (Overlooking the bandwidth issue for the moment.) The problem is the banner-ad revenue model of the current commercial web -- if you can look at PS: why does HTML just have the IMG tag? Why (...) (25 years ago, 18-Dec-99, to lugnet.admin.general, lugnet.off-topic.geek, lugnet.publish)

Re: Policy clarification regarding catalogs —Bram Lambrecht

(...) Actually, I believe the IMG tag is obsolescent. IIRC, you are now supposed to use OBJECT for everything. I don't know that it'll let you embed another HTML document, though. You can use inline frames to embed HTML documents, but AFAIK, they're (...) (25 years ago, 18-Dec-99, to lugnet.off-topic.geek, lugnet.publish)

Re: Policy clarification regarding catalogs —Matthew Miller

(...) It's not. APPLET is depreciated, but IMG is still around. (...) I'll have to look at mozilla and see if it lets me include HTML. That'd make me happy. (25 years ago, 18-Dec-99, to lugnet.off-topic.geek, lugnet.publish)

Re: Policy clarification regarding catalogs —Jasper Janssen

(...) Too many things validate as approximately HTML/4.0 compliant for that to be true. Besides, IMG is way too firmly entrenched. I don't think we'll ever root it out, unless we can provide a superior alternative (human nature being what it is, a (...) (25 years ago, 18-Dec-99, to lugnet.off-topic.geek, lugnet.publish)

Re: Policy clarification regarding catalogs —Bram Lambrecht

(...) Maybe "obsolescent" was the wrong term. I think I meant depreciated...but I'm not sure if that's right either. (...) I agree. I still use IMG because it's easy and it works on almost all browsers. However, I believe that I read that you are (...) (25 years ago, 18-Dec-99, to lugnet.off-topic.geek, lugnet.publish)

Re: Policy clarification regarding catalogs —Matthew Miller

(...) Depreciated is what I think you meant, but I looked it up at the w3c, and it's actually not. (25 years ago, 19-Dec-99, to lugnet.off-topic.geek, lugnet.publish)

Re: Policy clarification regarding catalogs —Jasper Janssen

(...) Because Netscape designers and programmers of the first hour were utterly clueless. The IMG tag was implemented first, and _then_ codified into RFC status. There was at the same time another type of tag for embedding everything in the works at (...) (25 years ago, 18-Dec-99, to lugnet.off-topic.geek)

Re: Policy clarification regarding catalogs —Matthew Miller

(...) Of course. _Most_ Internet standards work this way. The initial standards documents are often descriptions of current in-use procedures. Or at least, a synthesis of such. But yeah, that doesn't mean they weren't shortsighted. :) (25 years ago, 18-Dec-99, to lugnet.off-topic.geek)

Re: Policy clarification regarding catalogs —Matthew Miller

(...) Indeed. But the answer received was much broader than that. (...) The statement talked about posting links being "copyright violation". That's pretty clearly a legal issue. But Brad's new post has corrected that -- I hope the legal people (...) (25 years ago, 18-Dec-99, to lugnet.admin.general)

Re: Policy clarification regarding catalogs —Jasper Janssen

(...) No. It doesn't. If claims like that are allowed to stand unchallenged, people will accept them for truth. Jasper (25 years ago, 18-Dec-99, to lugnet.admin.general)

Re: Policy clarification regarding catalogs —James Brown

(...) Claims like that are allowed to stand all the time, and they still get knocked over in court when they try to enforce them. It doesn't matter what a company claims it's legal rights are, it matters <cynicism> how good their laywers (...) (25 years ago, 18-Dec-99, to lugnet.admin.general, lugnet.off-topic.debate)

Re: Policy clarification regarding catalogs —Jasper Janssen

(...) Not necessarily. Does (URL) contain links to all the users /~user directories? In 90% of the cases, in my experience,. not. Same for ISPs. So 90% of the web is not intended to be seen by your logic. Security through obscurity is no security at (...) (25 years ago, 18-Dec-99, to lugnet.admin.general)