Slashdot Mirror

here here here here and here

Today, the attorney general of NY, Eliot Spitzer announced that he would cave in and sign the Microsoft antitrust settlement. I think that was a bad decision. Tell him what you think of that decision. http://www.oag.state.ny.us/emailag/

If you are a Californian, the contact info is here for California attorney general Bill Lockyer- you can call toll-free (800) 952-5225 inside California.

Given that MS has a history of astroturfing again and again pretending to have a grass-roots movement in its support, it would be a good idea to express bona fide concern about how fair the settlement is at a time when it might make some difference.

If you are a Californian, the contact info is here for California attorney general Bill Lockyer- you can phone (800) 952-5225 from inside California.

Of course, residents of New York State can use a more effective approach, adding their names and numbers to the State's well-enforced "Do Not Call" registry.

In the US DMV's will issue cards even if you can't or won't drive. See this or that

Bockman, I'd be curious to find out on what you base the assertion that "CD Now cannot _legally_ sell credit card info . . . nor user preferences. "

CD Now has a privacy policy, the relevant portion of which states:

"We will not rent or sell your name, address, email address, credit card information or personal information to any third party without your permission. However, we must cooperate fully should a situation arise where we are required by law or legal process to provide information about a customer." (CD Now's Privacy Policy)

Lets assume for a moment that this constitutes a legally binding agreement between you and CDNow. (A question somewhat up in the air, particularly here in New York, given recent caselaw on click-through licenses). Let's further assume that CDNow violates this agreement if it sells your information. Your option is to sue CDNow for breach of contract and if a court finds the agreement to be legally binding and if the court finds they have breached, you will be allowed to prove your damages arising out of that breach and be compensated. If you live in the US that's probably about $50, the maximum liability you might sustain for fraudulent use of your credit card information. There has never been a successful lawsuit for missuse of "personal demographic information" or "musical taste" or anything like that. Remember here what many lawyers forget: in civil actions, "no harm no foul" is a good defense. Unless you can show with certainty that you have been harmed by CDNow's sale of this information, you have no legal recourse.

Then again, if CDNow goes into bankruptcy, the customer database would likely be considered an asset and sold. This would be ordered by the bankruptcy court, required by law, and therefore exempt from the privacy policy according to the second sentence of the language quoted above.

This is what happened to Toysmart, which sought to sell its customer lists in bankruptcy. It was sued by the FTC and various state attorneys general for the attempt (press release) but the case eventually settled when the Bankruptcy court found that there were no real buyers and Disney (the majority shareholer) agreed to pay $50,000 to Toysmart's creditors in exchange for having the info destroyed (NY AG press release).

The Toysmart case has led to an effort to get a law passed making it illegal to sell private information, but no such general law exists yet as far as I know. Thus it is not illegal (at least in most US states) to sell user preferences. Certain kinds of sensitive information (such as medical records) are protected by state law, and personally identifiable information that has been collected on a user under 13 years old cannot legally be sold (see: COPPA: The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act), but there is no general federal law barring sale of this kind of information.

Just an aside. IAAL, but this should not be construed as legal advice or relied upon for any purpose.

This means that, loosely speaking, in economic terms you can do $25-$75 dollars worth of damage or benefit to Microsoft for each letter you write either in support of or against the trial! Here're some of the people that you can contact:

Eliot Spitzer
New York State Attorney General
The Capitol
Albany, NY 12224-0341
Contact him online here.

Tom Miller
Iowa Attorney General
1305 E. Walnut Street
Des Moines IA 50319
(Couldn't find an email address for him)

US Department of Justice: Antitrust Division
601 D Street, NW
Suite 10107
Washington, DC 20530
The USDOJ also has an address for the Microsoft antitrust trial: Microsoft.atr(at)usdoj.gov (replace "(at)" with "@".)

US President George W. Bush:
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
email: president(at)whitehouse.gov
(also vice.present(at)whitehouse.gov)

Don't just sit there and think you'll do it later. Contact them now!!

(If you have strong feelings about the Microsoft antitrust case, please mod this up!)

Here in New York state, you request to be put on a "do not call" list, you fill out the requested info (name, house # & street, phone #) and the Attorney General's office puts the name/number on the list, and it's for life, you just update the info when you move, etc. Really great, and the fine for the telemarketers calling you on the list (which is updated/published every 3 months) is $1000 per incident. Charity and that kind of jazz (police charities, local community stuff) is exempt from the fines. All in all, it's a great program. My phone has stopped ringing off the hook since I requested to be put on it. Hehe.

Finally, after 5 or so years, these helpful sites:

The MTA (MAPS and Sched's for Trains and Subways, etc..
DMV Vanity Plates Real nice, even shows you the plate and how it'll look before you order it..3 years ago, you could look it up to see if it was taken, but couldn't order it over the net...

EZ-Pass once was on ny.us, but they changed over to www.e-zpassny.com. They actually have online stuff instead of a link over to a form you have to snail mail...


.kb

A basic concept of standardized test design is that each question should have some degree of predictive power for the final result. A bad question or a wrong answer key should make that question show up as a terrible predictor. Test scoring software should be checking this.

Informally, one way to look at this is to look at the exams for students who score high and see what questions many of them seemed to get wrong. Questions consistently missed by high scorers are in some way defective. This is basic test quality control.

New York State regulates tests by law. There's a Ttruth in testing" law. Test-takers have the right to see their questions, answers, and the correct answers after the test. So something like this should have been noticed.

Neither ABCNews nor the Slashdot write-up seem to link to the actual Privacy International site or their 2001 US Big Brother Awards page.

Also, the ABCNews article and Slashdot write-up dwell entirely on the privacy violators, while the original site also mentions that

2 awards were also given to champions of privacy. The Brandeis Award is named after US Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, who described privacy as "the right to be left alone." The awards are given to those have done exemplary work to protect and champion privacy.

...and awards the Brandeis Award to...

• Evan Hendricks - 20 years of publishing the Privacy Times. Hendricks goes after companies that traffic in children's private data and tells Congress how important privacy is, since they don't seem to get it most of the time.
• Julie Brill - Vermont Attorney General's Office. Brill spearheaded Vermont's litigation against the tobacco companies, and she goes after banks you sell your private data, record companies that fix prices, and drug companies that try to stamp out generics.

These are the good guys (and girls). They deserve some recognition, too.

-M

You're smart; why haven't you learned Python yet? http://diveintopython.org

Monorail.org has a nice page on how monorails switch.

The short summary. Yes, it is possible using various techniques (flexible/segmented sections of monorail beam, beam replacement, etc.).

The page also explains that the "monorails can't switch" myth was due to a particularly bad and bulky implementation at Wuppertal, and that the myth has since been perpetuated by various shady sources such as Microsoft Encarta.

Monorail switches are *STILL* more complex than "normal" bi-rail switches. Their moving parts are such an important proportion of the total infrastructure that their mechanism will always be more onerous, complex, slow-moving and cumbersome than bi-rail switches.

This has profound impacts on many aspects, who all eventually touch safety:

• It takes longer to turn a switch.
  A mainline bi-rail switch can be turned and secured in less than 30 seconds.
• Monorail switches are quite bulky and complex, has they often have to move the whole track about (isn't that funny that those two pictures are taken from the "switch myth" page of the monorail.org website???)
  Birail switches mechanisms are wholly contained within the track cross section, and their actuating mechanism be very unobtrusive.
• Since monorail switches have to move the whole track about, the length of the switches is necessarly restricted to practicability, and this has a direct bearing on the speed they can be negociated in reverse position (the shorter they are, the slower you have to go through).
  The French Train à Grande Vitesse switches can be taken as fast as 150 miles per hour in reverse position.
• Derailments on monorail will very often send the whole train flying through the air, crashing below.
  Birail derailments can be as benign as a wheel on the ground that can be re-railed within minutes by the train crew using a re-railer frog (the yellow Y-shaped tool near the rear of the engine - sorry, that's the best I could find in 10 minutes on Google). And birail viaduct tracks are required to have guard rails inside the track anyway to prevent derailed cars to leave the track.
• Signalling systems must take account of this by having a longer safety margin where a train can be brought to a safe stop in case a switch doesn't turn properly.
• This means a greater distance between trains and thus a lower capacity for each track.
• By being more complex, switches are more expensive. In turn, there will be less switches on the network, making it less efficient and more difficult to go around a problem (like a disabled train).
• The single-beam track may seem sleek and more efficient than a heavy viaduct, but you *NEED* to have a way of quickly evacuating a train in case of emergency. So you will need a catwalk that is parallel to the tracks, the structure of which will destroy much of the sleekness of the beam track.

Plants have been doing this for millenia. Algae in the sea have been doing this for eons. Personally I dont think we need any "new" species doing what can be done already. If we focus on using what we already have wisely, we should have no reason to "create" new/better ones.

I think it is very haughty of us to presume that we know what is better for the world. Why don't we develop ways to better take advantage of those species already present? Estuaries and coral reefs are some of the most productive biological systems on the planet, and also two of the most fragile. The amount of carbon fixed by those sytems rivals the other sytems combined (including rainforests). But we as humans don't care much for them. We instead try to come up with systems suited to our needs when we should be figuring out how to protect the systems we already have.

Whenever I get unsolicited phone calls, I always ask them to put me on the do-not-call list, which they are required to do by law. I figure that over time my name will be on fewer and fewer lists, or at the very least the number of lists I'm on will remain relatively constant over time and not increase. (After all, I am constantly filling out my info on the web, so I partly bring it on myself.)

NY state has initiated a statewide do-not-call list that any resident can sign up for. Beginning next April, telemarketers will be required by law to use this list before they start calling our homes. Why not have a similar list for spam? No guarantee they'll all follow it, but at least there would be legal recourse should you find yourself inundated with junk mail. Of course, if this list were global it could grow to be absolutely huge, but then again it's just text, right? How bad could it be? :-)

NY State has mandated (see its Technology Policy 9903) that all state agency web sites must conform to the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. Of course, I don't know of any specific sites that have been brought into conformity yet, and NY State hasn't to my knowledge made any extra resources available to do this, but it remains an important goal despite the bureaucrats who hot-potatoed it.

Lots of specifics have been posted by others here. The W3C guidelines are at http://www.w3.org/TR/WAI-WEBCONTENT/ and the state policy is listed at http://www.irm.state.ny.us/policy/99-3.htm.

Please post back after you've come up with a plan, lots of us would be interested.

Dave

In a nutshell stick it to them. Hmm. I wonder if you could file suit in a small claims court for the half hour you wasted dealing with this. I figure my free time is worth about $250 an hour...

William Clinton President The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW Washington, District of Columbia 20500 United States of America phone 1-202-456-1414 fax 1-202-456-2886 or 1-202-456-2461 (busy, keep trying) e-mail president@whitehouse.gov webpage http://www.whitehouse.gov/

House Majority Leader House of Representatives Washington, District of Columbia 20515 United States of America webpage http://www.house.gov/

House Minority Leader House of Representatives Washington, District of Columbia 20515 United States of America webpage http://www.house.gov/

Speaker, House of Representatives House of Representatives Washington, District of Columbia 20515 United States of America webpage http://www.house.gov/

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Governor Don Seigelman State Capitol, 600 Dexter Ave. Montgomery, Alabama 36130 United States of America phone 1-334-242-7100, fax 1-334-242-4541 webpage http://www.state.al.us/

Governor Tony Knowles P.O. Box A Juneau, Alaska 99811 United States of America phone 1-907-465-3500, fax 1-907-465-3532 e-mail office_of_the_governor@gov.state.ak.u s webpage http://www.gov.state.ak.us/

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Governor Frank O'Bannon Statehouse, Rm. 206 Indianapolis, Indiana 46204 United States of America phone 1-317-232-4567, fax 1-317-232-3443 e-mail page http://www.ai.org/gov/gov_mail.html webpage http://www.ai.org/gov/index.html

Governor Thomas Vilsack State Capitol Des Moines, Iowa 50319 United States of America phone 1-515-281-5211, fax 1-515-281-6611 e-mail general.office@igov.state.ia.us webpage http://www.iowaccess.org/

Governor Bill Graves State House Topeka, Kansas 66612 United States of America phone 1-913-296-6240, fax 1-913-296-7973 e-mail page http://www.state.ks.us/public/g overnor/comment.html webpage http://www.state.ks.us/public/governor/

Governor Paul Patton State Capitol, 700 Capitol Ave. Frankfort, Kentucky 40601 United States of America phone 1-502-564-2611, fax 1-502-564-2517 e-mail governor@mail.state.ky.us webpage http://www.state.ky.us/agencies/go v/govmenu6.htm

Governor Murphy Foster, Jr. State Capitol, P.O. Box 94004 Baton Rouge, Louisiana 70804 United States of America phone 1-504-342-7015, fax 1-504-342-7099 e-mail page http://www.gov.state.la.us/governo r/contact2.htm webpage http://www.gov.state.la.us/

Governor Angus King, Jr. State House Station 1 Augusta, Maine 04333 United States of America phone 1-207-287-3531, fax 1-207-287-1034 e-mail page http://janus.state.me.us/govoffice/ gov_form.htm webpage http://janus.state.me.us/govoffice/ homepage.htm

Governor Parris Glendening State House Annapolis, Maryland 21401 United States of America phone 1-410-974-3901, fax 1-410-974-3275 e-mail governor@gov.state.md.us webpage http://www.gov.state.md.us/

Governor Paul Cellucci State House, Room 360 Boston, Massachusetts 02133 United States of America phone 1-617-727-6250, fax 1-617-727-9725 e-mail goffice@state.ma.us webpage http://www.magnet.state.ma.us/gov/gov.htm

Governor John Engler State Capitol, PO Box 30013 Lansing, Michigan 48909 United States of America phone 1-517-335-7858, fax 1-517-335-6863 email page http://www.state.mi.us/MIGOV/ gov/ContactGovernor.shtm webpage http://www.state.mi.us/migov/

Governor Jesse Ventura 130 State Capitol, 75 Constitution Avenue St. Paul, Minnesota 55155 United States of America phone 1-651-296-3391, fax 1-651-296-2089 e-mail Governor.JesseVentura@state.mn.us webpage http://www.mainserver.state.mn.us/gover nor/

Governor Kirk Fordice P.O. Box 139 Jackson, Mississippi 39205 United States of America phone 1-601-737-9540, fax 1-601-737-9507 e-mail governor@govoff.state.ms.us webpage http://www.state.ms.us/

Governor Mel Carnahan Missouri Capitol Building, P.O. Box 720 Jefferson City, Missouri 65102-0720 United States of America phone 1-573-751-3222, fax 1-573-751-1495 e-mail page http://www.gov.state.mo.us/guest.htm webpage http://www.gov.state.mo.us/

Governor Marc Racicot State Capitol Helena, Montana 59620 United States of America webpage http://www.mt.gov/governor/governor.htm

Governor Mike Johanns State Capitol, Executive Suite, PO Box 94848 Lincoln, Nebraska 68509-4848 United States of America phone 1-402-471-2244, fax 1-402-471-6031 e-mail jodee@mail.state.ne.us webpage http://www.state.ne.us/

Governor Kenny Guinn State Capitol Carson City, Nevada 89710 United States of America phone 1-702-687-5670, fax 1-702-687-4486 webpage http://www.state.nv.us/

Governor Jeanne Shaheen State House Concord, New Hampshire 03301-4990 United States of America phone 1-603-271-2121, fax 1-603-271-2130 e-mail nhgov@nh.com webpage http://www.state.nh.us/

Governor Christine Todd Whitman Office of the Governor State House, 125 West State St., CN-001 Trenton, New Jersey 08625-0001 United States of America phone 1-609-292-6000, fax 1-609-292-5212 e-mail page http://www.state.nj.us/governor/govmail .htm webpage http://www.state.nj.us/governor/officeo .htm

Governor Gary Johnson State Capitol Santa Fe, New Mexico 87503 United States of America phone 1-505-827-3000, fax 1-505-827-3026 e-mail gov@gov.state.nm.us webpage http://www.state.nm.us/

Governor George Pataki State Capitol Albany, New York 12224 United States of America phone 1-518-474-8390, fax 1-518-474-1513 e-mail gov.pataki@chamber.state.ny.us webpage http://www.state.ny.us/governor

Governor James Hunt, Jr. State Capitol Raleigh, North Carolina 27603 United States of America phone 1-919-733-4240, fax 1-919-733-2120 webpage http://www.sips.state.nc.us/

Governor Edward Schafer 600 E. Blvd, State Capitol, Fl. 1 Bismark, North Dakota 58505 United States of America phone 1-701-328-2200, fax 1-701-328-2205 webpage http://www.ehs.health.stat e.nd.us/gov/governor/index.htm

Governor Bob Taft State House Columbus, Ohio 43215 United States of America phone 1-614-466-3555, 1-614-466-9354 webpage http://www.state.oh.us/gov/

Governor Frank Keating State Capitol Bldg., Rm. 212 Oklahoma City, Oklahoma 73105 United States of America phone 1-405-521-2342, fax 1-405-521-3353 e-mail governor@oklaosf.state.ok.us webpage http://www.state.ok.us/

Governor John Kitzhaber State Capitol Salem, Oregon 97310 United States of America phone 1-503-378-4582, fax 1-503-378-4863 webpage http://www.governor.state.or.us/

Governor Tom Ridge 225 Main Capitol Harrisburg, Pennsylvania 17120 United States of America phone 1-717-787-2500, fax 1-717-772-8284 e-mail governor@state.pa.us webpage http://www.state.pa.us/PA_Exe c/Governor/overview.html

Governor of the Commonwealth Commonwealth of Puerto Rico San Juan, Puerto Rico 00936 United States of America webpage http://fortaleza.govpr.org

Governor Lincoln Almond State House Providence, Rhode Island 02903 United States of America phone 1-401-277-2080, fax 1-401-273-5729 webpage http://www.doa.state.ri.us/info/exec.htm

Governor James Hodges State House, PO Box 11369 Columbia, South Carolina 29211 United States of America phone 1-803-737-9540, fax 1-803-737-9507 webpage http://www.state.sc.us/

Governor William Janklow State Capitol, 500 East Capitol Ave Pierre, South Dakota 57501-5070 United States of America phone 1-605-773-3212, fax 1-605-773-5844 e-mail sdgov@gov.state.sd.us webpage http://www.state.sd.us /state/executive/governor/governor.htm

Governor Don Sundquist State Capitol Nashville, Tennessee 37243 United States of America phone 1-615-741-2001, fax 1-615-532-9711 e-mail dsundquist@mail.state.tn.us webpage http://www.state.tn.us/governor/

Governor George W. Bush State Capitol, P.O. Box 12428 Austin, Texas 78711 United States of America phone 1-512-463-2000, fax 1-512-463-1849 webpage http://www.governor.state.tx.us/

Governor Michael Leavitt 210 State Capitol Salt Lake City, Utah 84114 United States of America phone 1-801-538-1000, fax 1-801-538-1528 e-mail governor@state.ut.us webpage http://www.governor.state.ut.us/

Governor Howard Dean 109 State St. Montpelier, Vermont 05609 United States of America phone 1-802-828-3333, fax 1-802-828-3339 e-mail governor@state.vt.us webpage http://www.state.vt.us/

Governor Jim Gilmore State Capitol Richmond, Virginia 23219 United States of America phone 1-804-786-2211, fax 1-804-371-6351 e-mail page http://www.state.va.us/governor/govmail .htm webpage http://www.state.va.us/governor/

Governor Gary Locke State Capitol, P.O. Box 40002 Olympia, Washington 98504-0002 United States of America phone 1-360-902-4111, fax 1-360-753-4110 e-mail governor.locke@governor.wa.gov webpage http://www.wa.gov/governor

Governor Cecil Underwood State Capitol Charleston, West Virginia 25305 United States of America phone 1-304-558-2000, fax 1-304-342-7025 e-mail governor@state.wv.us webpage http://www.state.wi.us/governor/default .htm

Governor Tommy Thompson State Capitol, Room 115 East Madison, Wisconsin 53707 United States of America phone 1-608-266-1212, fax 1-608-267-8983 e-mail wisgov@mail.state.wi.us webpage http://www.wisgov.state.wi.us/

Governor Jim Geringer State Capitol Cheyenne, Wyoming 82002 United States of America phone 1-307-777-7434, fax 1-307-632-3909 e-mail governor@missc.state.wy.us webpage http://www.state.wy.us/gove rnor/text_governor_home.html

You can muck around on Netcraft all day compiling lists of .com, .net, and .org domains, but there's no guarantee that they're all American domains. The only truly American TLD is .us, which is used chiefly for government-entity web sites, such as The State of New York and my school district's pathetic attempt at a web page. Due to its modular nature, the difficulty in getting even a response from the .us domain people (took me several months last time I tried) and the overall ugliness of the resultant URL's, .us is a very unpopular domain.

On the other hand, just about every web site in .de is a German organization.

(Other contenders: Supreme Court of New York for the County of New York (the state trial court in Manhattan), Delaware Chancery Court (where many major corporate disputes are heard), U.S. District Court for the Central District of California (the federal court for Silly Valley).)

While the Southern District's decisions are technically precedent only for future cases within that District -- which includes Manhattan, the Bronx, Westchester County and a couple other counties -- its decisions are enormously influential. Judges in other federal and state courts take opinions from the Southern District very seriously.

There are established legal principles pertaining to different levels of expected privacy. For instance, if I talk to someone on the street, a police officer who happens to be within listening range can listen, because I have minimal expectation of privacy. However, if I deliberately move out of range or ask the officer to do so, the police can't continue listening without some grounds for suspicion, because my expectation of privacy is higher once I specifically do something to protect it. (Note: The case law in the U.S. is pretty clear that asserting privacy against the police is not in itself sufficient cause.)

Obviously, a confessional has just about the highest expectation of privacy -- certainly, a higher expectation than a pesonal request not backed by strong institutional tradition. The fact that the "strong institutional tradition" in this case happens to be religious is irrelevant; government in the U.S. is no more supposed to discriminate against a religion than to discriminate in its favor.
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New York State also offers on-line registration renewal and vanity plate service (Orders and lookup).

They may move slowly... but at least they're moving.

New York State also offers on-line registration renewal and vanity plate service (Orders and lookup).

They may move slowly... but at least they're moving.

A lot more information on this can be found at http://www.oag.state.ny.us/p ress/2000/mar/mar08a_00.html, the state Attorney General's page on the matter.

The correct link to the Attornet General's website is below. The one on altavista is broken.
http://www.oag.state.ny.us /press/ 2000/mar/mar08a_00.html

Many states have web sites for their state legislature. NY State's Senate and Assembly web sites include pending legislation. Presumably, similar systems are in place elsewhere. I can't search everywhere. But I think the aseembled hoards from Slashdot can. Watch what your state is doing. Rally the troops. Let's show them what a grassroots movement looks like backed by the Web.

Many states have web sites for their state legislature. NY State's Senate and Assembly web sites include pending legislation. Presumably, similar systems are in place elsewhere. I can't search everywhere. But I think the aseembled hoards from Slashdot can. Watch what your state is doing. Rally the troops. Let's show them what a grassroots movement looks like backed by the Web.

If you live in New York, Eliot Spitzer is doing something to protect your privacy.

Drop him a line (if you're in NY) and let him know what is going on. Mention that the Privacy Statement is wrong on DoubleClick's web page, reference the Usa Today article, Agitate.

The AG's in NY have been pretty good about at getting the 'bad guys'.

If you live in New York, Eliot Spitzer is doing something to protect your privacy.

Drop him a line (if you're in NY) and let him know what is going on. Mention that the Privacy Statement is wrong on DoubleClick's web page, reference the Usa Today article, Agitate.

The AG's in NY have been pretty good about at getting the 'bad guys'.