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What might get VeriSign into very big trouble is the admission, in the press release that "ICANN is using anecdotal and isolated issues to attempt to regulate non-registry services, but in the interests of further working with the technical community we will temporarily suspend Site Finder."

I think this is a brand new tactic on the part of VeriSign, to categorize it as a "non-registry service".

That seems to escalate things to a new level, in that it seems to be an admission of abusing their monopoly in the Registry for the provision of a NON-REGISTRY SERVICE.

It had been my understanding that previously their position would have been that it would have been categorized as a Registry service, but one that didn't need approval due to it being "free" (i.e. needs no contract amendment). However, giving advantage for the provision of a non-registry service seems to be MUCH WORSE. Suppose that NON-REGISTRY SERVICE was a REGISTRAR SERVICE, for example, and VeriSign abused its monopoly to advantage one of their partners in that space? Just like WLS.

Clearly, VeriSign's abusive and monopolistic business practises need to be examined at the highest levels of government and by regulators.

P.S. Keep up the pressure, by supporting the Stop VeriSign DNS Abuse petition -- 17,000 signatures and counting.

I went out to the US Dept of Justice Statistics and Weaselmancer has a pretty good point.

From: USOJP

Mean sentence for murder = 248 months (20.6 years)

Hackers whose exploits result in injury or death -- if they disable emergency response networks or destroy electronic medical records, for example -- face 20 years to life in prison.

Now, I note it does say death, and if a person commits a computer crime that results in death, fine 20 years+ is ok with me; however, injury doesn't warrant the minimum 20 years IMHO.

What worse is that the average for rape is only about 11 years.

In technology, accessibility means designing (or modifying) a program or device so that people with disabilities can use it the same as everyone else. In architecture, it means designing (or modifying) buildings so that people with disabilities can easily get into and out. For more info, check out the Americans with Disabilities Act

This is what parent is referring to.

You're correct that your statement has been made a zillion times, but criminal copyright infringement is indeed possible under US law. Some recent examples:

• Connecticut Man Pleads Guilty to Criminal Copyright Infringement
• Hialeah Man Arrested for Criminal Copyright Infringement

Here's the section of US copyright law which defines criminal infringement.

A better (but greatly simplified) answer to his (rhetorical) question is because there's a lower standard of proof and a greater chance of success with these civil suits.

If you mock the President ... then the terrorists win.

Completely offtopic, but...

Well, that's a rather small & narrow-minded view, don't you think? As a voting American, I feel that I have the freedom to mock the President whenever I want to. If we limit mockery, why not limit criticism & all political debate? By your logic, Dennis Miller is guity of aiding the enemy several times over. Howard Dean must be one of the ring-leaders himself! Off with their heads!!!!

Seriously though, you do more to aid terrorism when you buy your fiancee a diamond ring, buy some drugs for the weekend, or attempt to limit my freedom of speech with your tunnel-vision view of GW Bush. Getting elected to the presidency does not give him immunity to questions, criticisms, or even mockery from his constituents.

--Mid

Uh, you might want to check again. Titles 17 and 18 (referred to in title 17), as well as ammendments in the No Electronic Theft Act provide for criminal fines and imprisonment. Granted, these seem to be aimed more at the commercial pirate, but could be easily applied (or mis-applied) to serious downloaders or even somebody who shared a single song with enough people. At present, our lawmakers are discussing new laws with sharper teeth.

Do you want to borrow my hat? :-)

And of course fear and thuggery has never been a deciding factor in an election in America and could never happen on a national scale.

I hope everyone recognizes sarcasm when they read it.

> How is Microsoft coercive? No-one's forcing you to buy and use their software.

Oh, really? Have you been living under a rock?

From the Microsoft strategy paper known as the Halloween Document:

> OSS projects have been able to gain a foothold in many server applications because of the wide utility of highly commoditized, simple protocols. By extending these protocols and developing new protocols, we can deny OSS projects entry into the market.

Microsoft memos from the DOJ case Findings of Fact:

> "We will bind the shell to the Internet Explorer, so that running any other browser is a jolting experience."

> Gates wrote, "Apple let us down on the browser by making Netscape the standard install." Gates then reported that he had already called Apple's CEO (who at the time was Gil Amelio) to ask "how we should announce the cancellation of Mac Office . . . ."

> In Waldman's [Microsoft executive in charge of Mac Office] words:
> "Sounds like we give them the HTML control for nothing except making IE the "standard browser for Apple?" I think they should be doing this anyway. Though the language of the agreement uses the word "encourage," I think that the spirit is that Apple should be using it everywhere and if they don't do it, then we can use Office as a club."

Microsoft memos from evidence in the Java case:

> "Strategic Objective [to] kill cross-platform Java by grow[ing] the polluted Java market"

> As reported to Bill Gates in April 1997 by the manager responsible for execution of Microsoft's strategy:
"When I met with you last, you had a lot of pretty pointed questions about Java, so I want to make sure I understand your issues/concerns...
> 1. What is our business model for Java?
> 2. How do we wrest control of Java away from Sun?
> 3. How do we turn Java into just the latest, best way to write Windows applications?"

> "At this point its [sic] not good to create MORE noise around our win32 java classes. Instead we should just quietly grow j++ share and assume that people will take advantage of our classes without ever realizing they are building win32-only java apps."

Microsoft has tried to sabotage every major competitor on the PC, from WordPerfect to Netscape, in order to make it impossible for anyone to use PC hardware without also using Microsoft software.

I think the word "coercive" doesn't go far enough.

I would use words like extortionary, fraudulent, and criminal.

Copyright violation is not illigial. It is a civil violation and up to the copyright holder to challenge that use in court.

Not correct. U.S. copyright law also has provisions for criminal prosecution for copyright infringement.

How Microsoft embraces standards in general:

> OSS projects have been able to gain a foothold in many server applications because of the wide utility of highly commoditized, simple protocols. By extending these protocols and developing new protocols, we can deny OSS projects entry into the market.

How Microsoft supports Office on the Mac:

> Gates wrote, "Apple let us down on the browser by making Netscape the standard install." Gates then reported that he had already called Apple's CEO (who at the time was Gil Amelio) to ask "how we should announce the cancellation of Mac Office . . . ."

> In Waldman's [Microsoft executive in charge of Mac Office] words:
> "Sounds like we give them the HTML control for nothing except making IE the "standard browser for Apple?" I think they should be doing this anyway. Though the language of the agreement uses the word "encourage," I think that the spirit is that Apple should be using it everywhere and if they don't do it, then we can use Office as a club."

How Microsoft supports multimedia standards:

> Eric Engstrom, a Microsoft executive with responsibility for multimedia development, wrote to his superiors that one of Microsoft's goals was getting "Intel to stop helping Sun create Java Multimedia APIs, especially ones that run well (ie native implementations) on Windows." Engstrom proposed achieving this goal by offering Intel the following deal: Microsoft would incorporate into the Windows API set any multimedia interfaces that Intel agreed to not help Sun incorporate into the Java class libraries.

How Microsoft embraced Java:

> Microsoft's Executive Vice President, Paul Maritz, outlined Microsoft's strategy to win the browser war with Netscape and simultaneously "neutralize Java" by "tying" the "user interface" and "APIs" "back to Windows," by "get[ting] control of JAVA with JAVA support/tools", and by "get[ting] control of then leverag[ing] the programming model."

> As reported to Bill Gates in April 1997 by the manager responsible for execution of Microsoft's strategy:
"When I met with you last, you had a lot of pretty pointed questions about Java, so I want to make sure I understand your issues/concerns...
> 1. What is our business model for Java?
> 2. How do we wrest control of Java away from Sun?
> 3. How do we turn Java into just the latest, best way to write Windows applications?"

> "at this point its [sic] not good to create MORE noise around our win32 java classes. Instead we should just quietly grow j++ share and assume that people will take advantage of our classes without ever realizing they are building win32-only java apps."

I could continue with quotes from the Caldera case, the Bristol Wind/U case, and so on.

Time and again, Microsoft has claimed to support a technology or standard, and it turned out that they were lying, and it was just another fraud intended to trap developers and users.

Microsoft has never been punished for their crimes of sabotage and fraud.

It's the same people running the company.

There is no reason to believe that this time will be different.

How Microsoft embraces standards in general:

> OSS projects have been able to gain a foothold in many server applications because of the wide utility of highly commoditized, simple protocols. By extending these protocols and developing new protocols, we can deny OSS projects entry into the market.

How Microsoft supports Office on the Mac:

> Gates wrote, "Apple let us down on the browser by making Netscape the standard install." Gates then reported that he had already called Apple's CEO (who at the time was Gil Amelio) to ask "how we should announce the cancellation of Mac Office . . . ."

> In Waldman's [Microsoft executive in charge of Mac Office] words:
> "Sounds like we give them the HTML control for nothing except making IE the "standard browser for Apple?" I think they should be doing this anyway. Though the language of the agreement uses the word "encourage," I think that the spirit is that Apple should be using it everywhere and if they don't do it, then we can use Office as a club."

How Microsoft supports multimedia standards:

> Eric Engstrom, a Microsoft executive with responsibility for multimedia development, wrote to his superiors that one of Microsoft's goals was getting "Intel to stop helping Sun create Java Multimedia APIs, especially ones that run well (ie native implementations) on Windows." Engstrom proposed achieving this goal by offering Intel the following deal: Microsoft would incorporate into the Windows API set any multimedia interfaces that Intel agreed to not help Sun incorporate into the Java class libraries.

How Microsoft embraced Java:

> Microsoft's Executive Vice President, Paul Maritz, outlined Microsoft's strategy to win the browser war with Netscape and simultaneously "neutralize Java" by "tying" the "user interface" and "APIs" "back to Windows," by "get[ting] control of JAVA with JAVA support/tools", and by "get[ting] control of then leverag[ing] the programming model."

> As reported to Bill Gates in April 1997 by the manager responsible for execution of Microsoft's strategy:
"When I met with you last, you had a lot of pretty pointed questions about Java, so I want to make sure I understand your issues/concerns...
> 1. What is our business model for Java?
> 2. How do we wrest control of Java away from Sun?
> 3. How do we turn Java into just the latest, best way to write Windows applications?"

> "at this point its [sic] not good to create MORE noise around our win32 java classes. Instead we should just quietly grow j++ share and assume that people will take advantage of our classes without ever realizing they are building win32-only java apps."

I could continue with quotes from the Caldera case, the Bristol Wind/U case, and so on.

Time and again, Microsoft has claimed to support a technology or standard, and it turned out that they were lying, and it was just another fraud intended to trap developers and users.

Microsoft has never been punished for their crimes of sabotage and fraud.

It's the same people running the company.

There is no reason to believe that this time will be different.

Overall violence now is indeed pretty low. What we have here is an increase in violent crimes among young people. People are trying to find out why there were no columbines back in the 50's

Well, actually, kids aren't that much more violent than they were in the past. The same statistics that show crime dropping overall in our society (for about the last decade) have showed almost no change at all for the younger age groups. Note, that means not much drop and not much rise in violence. (Actually, it looks like a slight decrese in the last few years, but it doesn't look particularly significant for the under 14 lot.)


Take a look and see for yourself.

Of course, "willfully" is a pretty vague term, and I imagine that proving it in court (like in the case of the 12-yr-old New Yorker) would be difficult. Which is why the RIAA is trying to settle all these cases, at costs which are non-trivial, but cheaper than hiring a lawyer to actually fight. They will probably choose to prosecute a select number of cases that fall into the "felony" area just to make a point.

People are repeatedly focusing on the wrong thing. The RIAA can't go after downloaders; they can only go after the publishers, the people sharing the music. They want the sources to dry up.

Horror, terror, what's the difference? I'm glad the Patriotic Act provisions are doing this.

/* DISCLAIMER

This is not legal advice. You are not a client. I'm not even an attorney. If you want legal advice, contact an attorney. What I am saying here is probably 100% wrong and if you do anything based on it, you are a flaming idiot who deserves whatever bad shit is very likely to befall you.

DISCLAIMER */

Arrite, now that that's outta the way . . .

File sharing IS a crime under the No Electronic Theft ("NET") Act if the material infringed has a retail value of greater than $1,000. Read it - if you're convicted, the court will order your computer destroyed AND order you trotted off to chokey.

The poster is correct that Canada and the US have an extradition treaty. However, as evidenced by the recent abortion killer case, extradition treaties are not absolute. France only agreed to give him up on the condition that the US would not seek the death penalty against him.

For me, a hometown example of this is a contemptible piece of human garbage named Martin Pang. This guy torched his family's frozen food warehouse so he could collect the insurance money, resulting in the deaths of four firefighters. Brazil refused to extradite him unless we agreed to not charge him with murder. (Under Washington's felony murder rule, if someone gets killed during the course of a felony, you go down for murder one.)

Bum deal, huh? Well, not always. Especially during the Cold War, the US and other civilized countries regularly refused to extradite people back to their communist shitpiles^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H countries who were wanted for political "crimes" on the grounds that those were not extraditable offenses. So, it works both ways.

The point is, I'm sure that if someone were charged with a file-trading related crime in America and fled to Canada, the latter would take the position that file trading-related "crimes" are not extraditable offenses. They did so with the Vietnam war draft dodgers - Canada took the position that crimes related to avoidance of military service were not extraditable. In fact, if it's not a crime in Canada, the odds are that they would not extradite.

Hope this clears up any confusion. But read the disclaimer above carefully before you do anything. Plus, I haven't read the extradition treaty, so I could be wrong and it could be an extraditable offense.

This doesn't make any sense, to take a small, profitable bit of software (not profitable enough to offset bandwidth charges perhaps but it was making money) and then start giving it away-- this is obviously a move to kill the marketshare of products like Movable Type which has a commercial and non-commercial license and Radio Userland which I think is purely commercial-- so that users will use Google's blogging system in preference to probably AOL Journals, another free system that seeks to wipe-out the marketshare of another popular blogging or "Journal" system, LiveJournal .

I'm not saying that competition is bad-- but history has shown us that anyone giving something away of a class that was previously valued for real money is typically doing it for anti-competitive reasons. It might not be long before something like:

1. Background. In 1998, the United States sued Microsoft, alleging violations of Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C. 1, 2.(1) After trial, the court found Microsoft had violated Section 2 by unlawfully maintaining its monopoly in the market for Intel-compatible PC operating systems ("OSs") and by unlawfully attempting to monopolize the market for internet browsers, and that it had violated Section 1 by illegally tying its Windows operating system and its Internet Explorer ("IE") browser. The court ordered Microsoft to submit a plan of divestiture that would split the company into an OS business and an applications business, and ordered interim conduct restrictions. Microsoft, 253 F.3d at 45.

1. Background. In 2006, the United States sued Google, alleging violations of Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C. 1, 2.(1) After trial, the court found Google had violated Section 2 by unlawfully maintaining its monopoly in the market for personal content management systems ("blogs") and by unlawfully attempting to monopolize the market for search engines, and that it had violated Section 1 by illegally tying its search engine and its journaling ("blog") software. The court ordered Google to submit a plan of divestiture that would split the company into an search engine business and an applications business, and ordered interim conduct restrictions. Google, 253 F.3d at 45.

The collective Internet should reevaluate models like Freenet and make a "weaker," more light-weight distributed peer-to-peer information distribution system-- its weaker because you simply don't need the overhead of hardcore anonymity and privacy because pretty much all of the users will want to be "found" by those reading on the Internet. Google's got enough brains to figure out how to make that searcable so we need not worry about that.

...saying the people are criminals, which they're not.

They are, actually, under the federal criminal code.

Not that I necessarily think the RIAA is in the right, but I thought you might like to know.

Before the copyright lobby achieved the passage of the NET act non-commercial copying of material could be considered fair use thus not copyright infringement -- since there was no commercial gain involved.

The NET act changes are here - http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/cybercrime/17-18red. htm

Note the changes are very specifically targeting exactly the type of trading of files that goes on in p2p, without those changes the RIAA's case would be much much weaker.

IIRC The changes to the law were made in response to a lawsuit against an operator of an FTP server who managed to avoid infringement charges because there was no commercial gain involved.

"Copyright Infringement is NOT A CRIMINAL ACTIVITY that is why they are bringing up lawsuits as that is the only way to defend a copyright."

And you got five mod points for this?

Kerry Gonzalez might disagree with you. He's the fellow who's up for sentencing on September 26th for pirating the pre-release copy of The Hulk a few months ago. He faces up to three years in prison.

Kerry Gonzalez' case is a criminal, not civil proceeding. He was nabbed by the FBI and the complaint was filed by an attorney for the United States. There were no lawsuits. This is a criminal case.

And here's another fella in Florida who faces up to five years for criminal copyright infringement. And another guy in San Jose who was indicted and arrested for criminal copyright infringement for pirating software.

What does this have to do with the article?

I may as well post this: Guns And Crime. You'll see by the stats posted there that our robbery and other forms of crime are lower than England's and other countries, even though we have *gasp* guns. While we have a higher percentage of murder, our murder rates are declining while theirs are rising, narrowing the gap.

May as well bother reading the rest of the site, if you can handle actual pro-gun agenda established with hard facts without cowering and closing off your mind because of fear.

More interesting facts about crime in general.

Quote from the public comments on the revised proposal to final judgement:
373. However, the major comments concerning file formats request disclosure of the file formats of Microsoft products such as Office. Office does not meet the definition of Microsoft Middleware, and so it does not fall under Section III.D. Nor is Office implemented natively in a Windows Operating System Product, so it does not fall under Section III.E. Thus, the file formats for Office will not be disclosed or licensed pursuant to the RPFJ.
Paragraphs 371-375 on the page contain more information about it but that's the main point.

That's true, in spirit. In actuality, if I remember correctly, the conditions under which MS is required to open the protocols for the office products contain at least two rather difficult obstacles:

1 - Licensing fees
2 - J. No provision of this Final Judgment shall:

1. 1. Require Microsoft to document, disclose or license to third parties:

2. 1. (a) portions of APIs or Documentation or portions or layers of Communications Protocols the disclosure of which would compromise the security of a particular installation or group of installations of anti-piracy, anti-virus, software licensing, digital rights management, encryption or authentication systems, including without limitation, keys, authorization tokens or enforcement criteria; or

MjM

Oops, they did it again...

Ironically, being able to see again has meant Mr May has had to re-learn some activities, such as skiing or crossing the road, where he had become proficient when blind."

Interestingly, most blind people don't really consider blindness a "disability" per se, but simply a challengee to get used to. I've met countless people with various types of disabilities that really don't count them as "disabilities". For instance, I've spoken with the Deaf/Hard of Hearing who don't consider themselves "disabled", merely more of a "linguistic minority".

The problems they run into are simply a lack of equal access that people without a disability (or a severe disability) take for granted. For instance, in that old building that has yet to be renovated, a person with full usage of their legs will have no issue getting up the stairs, but someone who requires the use of a wheelchair, or might be in crutches, or has to use a walker, etc., will find it impossible to get into that building.

What most people forget, when responding to ADA laws, Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act, W3C WAI, etc., is that these principles of equal and timely access do not just help those with disabilities, but those without as well.

For instance, trying to move a big cart full of computer equipment into that building? It sure would be easier with curbcuts, an elevator, and recessed door frames. Trying to access the web via that shiny new PDA you just bought? Too bad the site uses Flash navigation without a text equivalent... ad nauseum

The fact that this disability was part of his life, means that it wasn't a roadblock for him, merely an alternate route. He simply did things a different way.

It is suprising to me that so many meaningless events make their way into the daily news, yet the single most important event in the history of "computer law" is occuring right now (and has been for years) yet goes largely unnoticed. The outcome of the US Department Of Justice's case versus the Microsoft Corporation will have resounding effects upon how we use our computers, whether at work or for play, for years to come. Why does Britany Spear's relationship with the guy from 98 Degrees, or whatever, fill more internet whitespace then this case? Microsoft has been found guilty of acting in an inappropriate manner towards their competition. Microsoft was found to have maintained a monopoly over the PC and web browser market through the use of illegal and unethical business tactics. This decision was upheld in a court of appeals. Microsoft "eliminated" the threat of comeptition through some of the most infamous and vile tactics ever seen in the history of a free market. Microsoft has destroyed companies not with the quality of their software, but rather by applying the kinds of pressure that only an illegal monopoly could wield. Competition needs to be restored to the market of computer desktops, software, and operating systems. The people deserve a choice and a say in the products that they use, and companies other then Microsoft should be allowed to deliver these choices to the people. Regardless of the facts and consequences, the DOJ is prepared to let Microsoft off with a slap on the wrist.

The aspect of a Microsoft monopoly will insure that you will continue to be stuck with an operating system that is completely transparent and flawed. The software that routinely crashes on you while you at work writing up an important memo or at home while surfing the web will continue to be forced upon you - at a price. Due to the ever increasing need for more power out of your PC, due to code bloat and poor process handaling, it is assured that you will have to continue to upgrade your expensive hardware annually. Microsoft's new license laws upon their software and their policy of dropping support on older version of Windows will guarantee that you must purchase their new operating systems. Because of it's (Microsoft) hold over the workstation market, much of your tax dollars goes towards these expensive licenses as they strangle government offices. Many a tax payer dollar goes to the paychecks of the IT staffers needed to support the buggy and insecure NT and Windows 2000 servers, servers that serve as home to yet more buggy and insecure software, which in needs support personel as well. It is a needless cycle that can only be broken if the people stand up against Microsoft.

Visit the Department Of Justice website concerning this case and famailarize yourself with it. Read the comments made by prominent leaders in the information technology field and read about what they have to say concerning the proposed punishment for Microsoft. Write to your law makers and tewll them that you do not want to have to the Microsoft tax any longer.

It is suprising to me that so many meaningless events make their way into the daily news, yet the single most important event in the history of "computer law" is occuring right now (and has been for years) yet goes largely unnoticed. The outcome of the US Department Of Justice's case versus the Microsoft Corporation will have resounding effects upon how we use our computers, whether at work or for play, for years to come. Why does Britany Spear's relationship with the guy from 98 Degrees, or whatever, fill more internet whitespace then this case? Microsoft has been found guilty of acting in an inappropriate manner towards their competition. Microsoft was found to have maintained a monopoly over the PC and web browser market through the use of illegal and unethical business tactics. This decision was upheld in a court of appeals. Microsoft "eliminated" the threat of comeptition through some of the most infamous and vile tactics ever seen in the history of a free market. Microsoft has destroyed companies not with the quality of their software, but rather by applying the kinds of pressure that only an illegal monopoly could wield. Competition needs to be restored to the market of computer desktops, software, and operating systems. The people deserve a choice and a say in the products that they use, and companies other then Microsoft should be allowed to deliver these choices to the people. Regardless of the facts and consequences, the DOJ is prepared to let Microsoft off with a slap on the wrist.

The aspect of a Microsoft monopoly will insure that you will continue to be stuck with an operating system that is completely transparent and flawed. The software that routinely crashes on you while you at work writing up an important memo or at home while surfing the web will continue to be forced upon you - at a price. Due to the ever increasing need for more power out of your PC, due to code bloat and poor process handaling, it is assured that you will have to continue to upgrade your expensive hardware annually. Microsoft's new license laws upon their software and their policy of dropping support on older version of Windows will guarantee that you must purchase their new operating systems. Because of it's (Microsoft) hold over the workstation market, much of your tax dollars goes towards these expensive licenses as they strangle government offices. Many a tax payer dollar goes to the paychecks of the IT staffers needed to support the buggy and insecure NT and Windows 2000 servers, servers that serve as home to yet more buggy and insecure software, which in needs support personel as well. It is a needless cycle that can only be broken if the people stand up against Microsoft.

Visit the Department Of Justice website concerning this case and famailarize yourself with it. Read the comments made by prominent leaders in the information technology field and read about what they have to say concerning the proposed punishment for Microsoft. Write to your law makers and tewll them that you do not want to have to the Microsoft tax any longer.

It's only an issue for pot smokers.

It's an issue for taxpayer as well. The DEA recieved $1,897,300,000.00 for FY2003. The FBI spent $474,119,000.00 fighting "domestic sources of drugs" (see Goal Five). How much do you think your State Police are spending on helicopters to find the growers? How much are your local police spending to bust the pot smokers? How effective have these measures been? Are there fewer pot smokers than there were in 1973 (the year the DEA was established)? Even if we agree that many addicting drugs should be illegal, is it worth it to spend huge amounts of money on combatting the marijuana trade when that money could be spent keeping cocaine and heroine from crossing the borders?

You like spending money on (ineffective) prohibition? Go ahead, just quit spending mine.

Perhaps I should have been more precise in my earlier comments. I have absolutely nothing against guns for hunting. Much of my family uses guns for hunting, and there is no reason to prohibit competent trained hunters from using guns in hunting.

Handguns, on the other hand, have absolutely no place whatsoever in the hands of civilians. I have yet to hear a single compelling argument justifying why civilians need to carry handguns. Or, for that matter, to carry guns at all except when hunting. Concerns about preserving liberty can justify civilian possession of firearms, but not their use or carriage in public generally.

But sadly, the gun use in this country comes largely from citizens assaulting fellow citizens.
Perhaps a better statement would be this:

• People in the U.S commit crimes and acts of violence involving firearms at an alarmingly high rate.
• Statistics from the U.S. DoJ place the numbers for violent crimes committed with a gun well above 500,000 in the year 2000. The same reports place the number of murders committed with a gun above 10,000.

And that doesn't even begin to address accidental deaths that could have been prevented by better safety measures (storing ammo and guns separately, locking weapons properly, etc).

Simply put, guns can be extremely dangerous, and as such do require some degree of regulation. I think biometric safety devices might be a good place to start. Perhaps all new guns could have fingerprint sensors so that only the owner can active the weapon. Legitimate use is allowed, but it becomes much more difficult for the gun to be fired inadvertently, and it becomes more difficult for stolen guns to be used in crimes.

They're not really rare. As the article states, Debeers has a stockpile and controls the supply ruthlessly with tactics that makes Microsoft look like reasonable.

They pretty much ignored an antitrust judgement, have been held responsible for untold exploitation of black African minors, and have been accused of much worse. In the article, one of the interviewees recalls and indirect death threat and treats the journalist with suspicion, fearful that he is an agent of Debeers.

Yes, ladies, we know they look pretty. They may also be more responsible for more terrorism than drugs, certainly more than Bush/Ascroft would like you to beleive.

Enron trader pleads guilty to rig california energy prices

Another trader pleads guilty.

Fastow indicted in defrauding California PERS

The Texas PUC recommends that Enron pay $7 million for manipulating power prices in Texas
Texas has an obscene overcapacity of power, and obscenely low prices.

As I said, there is truth in that California does not have enough capacity, but that does not mean they were not hoodwinked. I think it is kind of like ordering a penis pump that never is received. The mark is just too embarrassed to admit the crime took place

While some have characterized SCO's action towards Linux users as extortion, none have documented that possibility.

IANAL, but I google. I found the Hobb's Act: Extortion By Force, Violence, or Fear.

There are four criteria for the Hobb's Act:

1. Did the defendant induce or attempt to induce the victim to give up property or property rights?
2. Did the defendant use or attempt to use the victim's reasonable fear of physical injury or economic harm in order to induce the victim's consent to give up property?
3. Did the defendant's conduct actually or potentially obstruct, delay, or affect interstate or foreign commerce in any (realistic) way or degree?
4. Was the defendant's actual or threatened use of force, violence or fear wrongful?

Criteria 1 and 2 are clearly met, as SCO is attempting to use Linux users' fear of lawsuits to collect license fees. But that in itself is not criminal.

It appears to me that condition 3 is also met, because SCO's threats to Linux user's can potentially have a great threat on interstate commerce. Linux servers comprise a large portion of all commercial webservers. The need to license all of these could have a broad impact on e-commerce.

Is SCO's threat of lawsuits against Linux users wrongful? It is if they have no right to the property they are claiming. Given that SCO has released the disputed property under the GPL, they have no legal right to it and therefore no right to collect license fees for it.

The interesting thing is that extortion is a criminal offense. People could go to jail for this.

Copyright law is [only] a civil matter

Where did you get the impression that copyright law is merely a civil matter? Yes, this seems to be the general consensus here on Slashdot; still, the uninformed opinions of a thousand babbling idiots do not reality make. It's true that copyright is often enforced through the civil court system here in the U.S., but you should be aware that copyright infringement is also a federal criminal offense, and has been practically since the beginning of time.

But that's not the real issue you raised. You mentioned something about the consequences of violating the GPL, which, as you said, is a contract between private parties and therefore enforceable under civil law:

it's a contract dispute and a civil case. The worst that can happen is a financial judgement

If Microsoft (or any other party) is found to have violated the terms of the GPL, the court can order financial restitution--you're right about that. But it doesn't have to stop there. Besides awarding damages, the judge can choose from a veritable cheese platter of remedies to impose on the party in violation, including, in contract disputes, something called specific performance . This forces the party found to be in violation of the contract to comply with its terms.

Now, specific performance is rarely ordered as a part of judgments outside property-sale disputes, mainly because (a) plaintiffs usually care less about adherence to the contract than about receiving compensation for their financial loss, and (b) monitoring compliance is often impractical. However, if someone brought suit against Microsoft for violating the GPL, I imagine neither of these would be the case. Moreover, the clause mandating distribution of the source along with compiled binaries is arguably the GPL's primary raison d'etre, so the remedy of specific performance would seem especially appropriate here.

For these reasons, I happen to think it rather likely that if judgment went against Microsoft in a case over a violation of the GPL, the judge would in fact order the company to release the source of the affected software. In any event, the court would certainly at least have the option of ordering Microsoft to comply with the GPL's terms.

Anyhow, IANAL either, but I do have an ego the size of a corporate lawyer's paycheck. Does that count?

yours

Census data from 1995
FBI Crime data from 1995

That's the US census data for 1995 and the FBI crime statistics. During that year, Blacks committed 54% of American murders. Note that Hispanics are counted as Whites in the FBI statistics when they commit crimes, but as minorities when they are victims.

You will notice from the census data that Whites (including Hispanics) comprise 68.5% of the nation's poor. They committed at most 46% of the nation's murders (neglecting non-Black and non-White murders).

You'll find some equally interesting statistics from the Department of Justice at:
Homicide by Race

Frankly, culture matters. Crime causes poverty as well as poverty causing crime -- throwing money at things won't help. A more profitable approach would attack the horrendous level of Black illegitamacy (68%), the glamour of crime in popular Black entertainment, and the widespread welfare dependance.

Are people with artificial limbs currently hated and shunned?

You answer your own question in the negative, but the whole reason of (for example) Americans with Disabilities Act is to ensure that people who are handicapped to the point of needing prosthetics (e. g. wheelchairs) are not discrimated against, intentionally or not. People with prostheses are shunned, sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously. While the transhumanist movement is concerned the rights of beings who include but are not limited to humans with prosthetic enhancements, their point is to codify the rights of such beings before a crisis (e. g. civil war) occurs.

You're right that stem cell research has many potential benefits, but what has that go to do with drafting a bill of transhuman rights? It's not like rights to self-determination and laws regulating stem-cell research are mutually exclusive or in an obvious zero-sum competition for resources.

If my job is stacking lumber and I loose my arms, there aren't many reasonable accomatations that can be made for me, although they can provide another job that I would be capable of.

disclaimer (I spent too much time splitting wood and stacking lumber as a kid although chainsaws are fun)

...and shitting on its own people!

This has got to be a No-Cool thing. Here in LA I've seen like a handful of people bring their dog to the office. Then again the places I've worked have had very few of the Dan Gilmore/Comic Book Guy type of people.

Then there are the people whose dogs are classified as "service dogs". These include not just "conventional" categories like the blind and the deaf, but also people with non-obvious disabilities.

Here's the law in the US.

In summary, I don't see how increased productivity and accomodation of peoples' needs is "a No-Cool thing". If you want to continue this discussion, please post using a real user id, and not an ac :-)

It's about time someone called a spade a spade. Now to do the same thing in the US...

Do you want to? Personally, I'll leave it to IBM to fight the good fight for now, but I'm sure someone will sue SCO, and hopefully they'll have deep pockets and good lawyers.

I don't see this as a failure of the US legal system as of yet; we do have laws in place that give us recourse against extortion and whatnot. But it does take two parties to have a lawsuit, so someone would have to sue SCO first.

"While offering corporate Linux users a way to sidestep a legal headache, SCO is also using a threat as its marketing tactic."

Maybe that should be their prerogative, but a public accommodation, it isn't.

A latent ambiguity [in a contract] will be construed against the drafter if the nondrafter's interpretation is reasonable. (A contract is latently ambiguous if it is reasonably, but not obviously, susceptible of more than one interpretation.)

Since the FSF is the author of the license, an ambiguity would be interpreted against the interests of the FSF and in favor of the alleged violator.

http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/eousa/foia_reading_room/ usam/title9/71mcrm.htm

9-71.001 Introduction

This chapter contains an overview of the criminal copyright laws. The law of copyright is codified at Title 17 of the United States Code. The principal prohibitions relating to criminal copyright infringement are set forth at 17 U.S.C. 506(a) and 18 U.S.C. 2319. Titles 17 and 18 also contain a number of other provisions that make illegal certain practices which are inconsistent with Congress' copyright protection scheme. The Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section of the Criminal Division has supervisory authority over offenses discussed in this chapter.
See the following sections of the Criminal Resource Manual for a discussion of various areas of copyright law ... you were saying?

Interstingly those clauses of the code were modified to include non-comercial distribution only very recently with the NET act, one of the earlier pieces of legislation that the copyright lobby succeeded in getting passed.

Some large copyright holders have also tried to go beyond even this somewhat egregious code by trying to strech the meaning of commercial advantage and private financial gain, or by the inflating the retail value of their goods.

Ye-ah...ok I'm a criminal? Well... The U.S. constitution, MY Constitution (Non-U.S. citizen), and current Laws state that copyright infringement is, well, not a crime.. you need to learn that...

Yes, it is.

A guide to criminal penalties associated with the crime of wilfully infringing copyright

So umm, yeah I am a copyright infringer, and guess what, so are you...

No, I'm not.

Read the newspaper and ignore the ads, copyright violation

No, it's not. Copy the newspaper and give it to someone else - copyright violation. Ignoring the ads is simply ignoring the ads.

Sing a song around the campfire, and not properly pay for the rights... yuppers, you guessed it, copyright infringement

No, it's not. Unless you're making a movie of it, or are holding a concert around the campfire.

a song around the campfire, and not properly pay for the rights... yuppers, you guessed it, copyright infringement... hell singing a song in the shower is a violation of copyright if your neighbour hears it

No, it's not.

So tell you what, I'll keep doing this until the LAW is changed... copyright law is totally screwed, and is supporting a morribund industry... its like prohibition, I know it is wrong, and I am doing it until the law catches up...

You'd make a much bigger impact by boycotting music entirely. But given that that would be way too harsh for you to stomach as a way of promoting your ideals because - oh, lawks a lordy - you'd be deprived of your God Given Right To Other People's Hard Work, I guess you can keep on justifying and rationalizing your actions regardless of whether it's right or wrong.

And there's a big difference between prohibition and copyright law. One was wrought out of religious intervention into public affairs, and the other is in order to protect the people who create intellectual property in order that they may continue creating that property.

Oh, and something else you're not doing - you could just talk to your local politicians if you don't like the lay of the land. You live in a democracy. And if you're not doing that, then you don't have the courage of your convictions on that point either.

All the evidence points to you just wanting a free ride... not that you're making a 'statement'.

Yeah check this page:

http://www.ins.usdoj.gov/
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On March 1, 2003, the Immigration and Naturalization Service became part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and its functions were divided into various bureaus of that department. The website you have requested has been moved to http://www.bcis.gov. If you were referred to this URL by another website, please contact the owner of that site to inform him or her of the change in address.

If you attempted to reach the INS website through a bookmark, please change the bookmark. All web pages at the www.ins.gov and www.ins.usdoj.gov addresses will be permanently removed as of June 1, 2003.

An attempt was made to find the specific page you requested:

Click on the link below to find the page:

http://www.immigration.gov
Thank you for your cooperation.

Yeah check this page:

http://www.ins.usdoj.gov/
404 - Requested Page Has Moved

On March 1, 2003, the Immigration and Naturalization Service became part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and its functions were divided into various bureaus of that department. The website you have requested has been moved to http://www.bcis.gov. If you were referred to this URL by another website, please contact the owner of that site to inform him or her of the change in address.

If you attempted to reach the INS website through a bookmark, please change the bookmark. All web pages at the www.ins.gov and www.ins.usdoj.gov addresses will be permanently removed as of June 1, 2003.

An attempt was made to find the specific page you requested:

Click on the link below to find the page:

http://www.immigration.gov
Thank you for your cooperation.

Also, are you concerned by the fact that enforcement of laws regarding "intellectual property" will erode respect for the law rather than increase compliance, since these laws make a large proportion of the U.S. population felons?

This question is answered here.

You can try to whitewash Microsoft's behaviour all you like. You can pretend that Microsoft is just a normal company, winning through honest competition. But history shows otherwise...

> > Imbedded Tiny Basic into MS DOS - removing all language competitors

> Which explains why we're all still programming in Basic.

Microsoft has always messed with the APIs to block competition, and make everyone dependent on Microsoft for their programming tools.

But when Java proved to be too tough, Microsoft switched to stronger methods:

Sun Versus Microsoft

Microsoft tried to sabotage Java, as shown in this quote from a Microsoft document:

"Strategic Objective . . . kill cross-platform Java by grow[ing] the polluted Java market"

Microsoft also committed fraud against J++ users, as shown in this quote:

"At this point its not good to create MORE noise around our win32 java classes. Instead we should just quietly grow j++ share and assume that people will take advantage of our classes without ever realizing they are building win32-only java apps."

And while we're at it, note how this Microsoft e-mail demonstrates the earlier poster's point about Microsoft giving things away for free to drive out competition:

"What I think Bill says: . . . We give away the Java VM to ISVs (to ship without royalty), but only on Windows. (I think he confirmed that we could charge OEMs a royalty for our VM, once it became ubiquitous)"

Note the bit about charging for their JVM later, once people were hooked.

> > Included Disk Compression, virtually putting Stacker out of business.

> Live Disk compression should be a function of the operating system, if Stac can do it better, all power to the them.

But Stac _was_ doing it better. Microsoft's own data compression code was buggy, and had a reputation for losing data, which is why Stac was winning the competition.

So what did Microsoft do? They stole Stac's code, and put it in Windows.

As a result, Stac took Microsoft to court, and won.

> > Gave away the browser, causing serious financial strain to Netscape

> Netscape's fault if they couldn't compete.

Oh, please. The evidence in the DOJ case showed that it was _Microsoft_ who couldn't compete:

DOJ Findings of Fact

As Microsoft's James Allchin wrote in a memo:

"I don't understand how IE is going to win. The current path is simply to copy everything that Netscape does packaging and product wise. Let's [suppose] IE is as good as Navigator/Communicator. Who wins? The one with 80% market share."

And later, Allchin wrote:

" You see browser share as job 1. . . . I do not feel we are going to win on our current path. . . . I am convinced we have to use Windows -- this is the one thing they don't have. . . . If you agree that Windows is a huge asset, then it follows quickly that we are not investing sufficiently in finding ways to tie IE and Windows together."

A memo by Microsoft's Brad Chase put it simply:

"We will bind the shell to the Internet Explorer, so that running any other browser is a jolting experience."

Other steps that Microsoft took, as described in the Findings of Facts, included interfering with Netscape's development by keeping API information secret, and paying off ISPs to stop using Netscape.

But the strategy of sabotaging Netscape would only work on Windows. Microsoft also needed a way to push Netscape off of the Macintosh. Here they resorted to a form of extortion.

As Microsoft's Greg Maffei explained:

"The pace of our discussions with Apple as well as their recent unsatisfactory response have certainly frustrated a lot of people at Microsoft. The threat to cancel Mac Office 97 is certainly t