Talk:Business Software Alliance
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[edit] IP Addresses?
Has anyone audited or checked for the source of this IP address list? Doing an IANA lookup on a randomly selected address from the list, 195.243.162.0, yields AL.systems GmbH. A relationship to the BSA from here is non-obvious. Can anyone clarify? --ChrisRuvolo 00:50, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)
[edit] BSA REMOVES IP ADDRESS LIST!!!
Holy crap, if I didn't just see this, I wouldn't believe it. According to the history [1] the IP address list was just removed by the host 209.70.21.174. This IP has had no other contributions [2] . Doing a reverse lookup on this address fails, but doing a whois on the IP address gives a Verio netblock with this message:
Comment: Reassignment information for this block is Comment: available at rwhois.verio.net port 4321
When doing a lookup at this verio rwhois server, it gives:
> whois -h rwhois.verio.net 209.70.21.174
Business Software Alliance (NETBLK-BSA-----209-70-21--0E) BSA-----209-70-21--0E
209.70.21.0 - 209.70.21.255
Verio, Inc. - Mid-Atlantic (NETBLK-VRIO-209-070) VRIO-209-070
209.70.0.0 - 209.70.255.255
And a lookup of that block address gives:
> whois -h rwhois.verio.net NETBLK-BSA-----209-70-21--0E
Business Software Alliance (NETBLK-BSA-----209-70-21--0E)
1150 18th Street NW
Washington, DC 20036
Netname: BSA-----209-70-21--0E
Netblock: 209.70.21.0 - 209.70.21.255
Maintainer: A009
Coordinator:
Lorraine Cox (LC2857-VRIO) bsa@clark.net
(202) 872-5500
So the conclusion is that the BSA itself removed the IP address list!! At least some of those addresses must be correct! This is pretty blantant manipulation. --ChrisRuvolo 21:57, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)
- I don't think that proves that some of the addresses must be correct, after all, someone could have just deleted this because they thought they might be right, or even they didn't want wikipedia to encourage ipblocking. That's assuming your above analysis of IP addresses is correct.
- I'm not convinced the IP list should be part of the entry at all. The sentence 'Anyone wishing to use IP blocking to stop the Business Software Alliance accessing their website might find these addresses useful:', seems to me to be giving subtle support to IP blocking, and doesn't look very neutral to me. It looks like it's endorsing IP blocking, rather than merely stating that some people use IP blocking. There are many other forms of protest that we don't cater for (nor should we IMO), as well as probably thousands of organisations that people may wish to protest against. IMO the KKK would be a much more worthy target.
- Then there is the question you raise earlier of whether the IP address are verifable. At the moment we don't have a source for the IPs, as far as I am aware, and so I think the IPs should be removed unless, and until we have a reputable source for them, even supposing we agree in principle with including them.
Silverfish 22:56, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)
- I would not object to removing them for the above reasons, especially if we could provide a link to the equivalent content. However, having the BSA remove them without comment is unacceptable IMO. --ChrisRuvolo 23:40, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)
- I agree, having the BSA delete it seems like abuse, particular if they do it without discussing it here first. Anyway, I probably wouldn't object to a link to a website with the IP addresses in, as then we could say 'this is a group who oppose the BSA who encourage IP blocking and provide links to the BSA's IP addresses'. Then the POV would be that of the website, and they would be responsible for the accuracy (or otherwise) or the information. Silverfish 00:18, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)
[edit] BSA vs. FOSS
It seems that BSA tries to negate meaning of freedom in their leaflets, insisting that FOSS is about development model only, and that all software development models should have equal rights as far as governments are concerned. This could show that RMS constant teaching about freedom does have some importance. --matusz 21:04, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Members
What is the list of members based on? This list seems quite different. --Tgr 18:00, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
[edit] What are the legal grounds for conducting an audit?
From the Overview:
BSA then sends the companies a note ...
then
If the BSA finds cases of software piracy,
What happens between these two events? Can the BSA force a company to cooporate with an audit? I would think so, since companies would normally not want to give an outside party that kind of access to their inner workings. But what are the legal grounds for this? Does the BSA actually get a warrant?
