Slashdot Mirror
Music Industry Raids Taiwan Campuses For MP3s
martijnd writes: "The Taipei Times newspaper reports that in Taiwan at least the music industry and police agree that possesion of illegal music must be as dangerous as having other substances hidden in your dorm room. In an attempt to stamp out MP3 file trading on campus the music industry is going after individual university students and has the police bring them in." The article says that some students are teaching others "techniques of erasing files without a trace, keeping hidden backup files, and even smashing one's own hard drive in the event of a police search in school dorms." Those sound like pretty good things to encourage anyhow to me.
I get dibbs on smashing Taco's HDD.
"Those sound like pretty good things to encourage anyhow to me. " Yes, and All Your -- no...I can't do it. I WON'T do it! Mod me to the cellar.
Thats coz they PAY$ to the cops to make sure they arent busted.
FREE MP3s eat into the police bribes profits, they want those bootleg/pirate factories to keep running.
Free mp3s are for once prooving to be hurting the pirate industry as much as the real industry.
The Tiananmen square massacre was in communist China. These students are in Taiwan. Despite what the communists in China claim, these are two completely separate nations and have been for over half a century.
Unless of course something changed on that since this morning.
At least, that's what the Taiwanese want. China's view on the matter is that Taiwan is a renegade state and will be re-unified with China. Despite the fact that Taiwan has its own government, China exerts considerable influence over Taiwan. It's all still up in the air, but China could initiate a military takeover of Taiwan sometime soon. After that, Taiwan would presumably end up under a one nation, two systems arrangement like Hong Kong.
In any case, Taiwan had nothing to do with the Tiananmen incident, which occurred in mainland China under the PRC.
I apoligise for posting this more than once, but no-one seems to actually read other posts and someone really ought to set you straight.
Seriously- I'm picturing some type of minimalist industrial electronic music with this text as a spoken word passage (perhaps a vocoder like on that Cher song, only instead of a singing Nord Lead it'd be a talking bench grinder or arc welder)
Makes me wish I had time to do it- but _somebody_ should. dh003i, get some recording software and a mic and do more stuff like this! :)
Except for the fact that it takes up a lot more space than it should in this case, suggesting that there is something else hidden there.
Once the low-level format is gone, the drive is a paperweight.
That is assuming that the magnetic field penetrates the metal shell of the drive, of course.
yea.. sometimes makes me want my rip script graphics back :]
----
Just one man beneath the sky,
I wonder how many people in other countries associate US companies with the US government? (Not entirely unreasonable, of course.)
I may hate the music industry, but nothing can knock Microsoft from the top of my hate list.
I love computers. I love the damn things. I can stay awake for days just messing around with and tinkering with hardware/operating systems. Microsoft is the epitomy of bad taste. They've in many ways ruined the computer industry.
How often have I heard some ignorant relative ask me "What do you want to do with your life?" and I respond "Computers". Then I almost invariably get "Oooh....like Bill Gates!". That's the part where i shudder in horror and proceed to beating the relevant person with a very large brick.
This shows the obviously distorted priorities that the police are getting due to lobbyists. What's next...police raids on domestic homes to seize that 10 Gig collection? Doesn't Babylon have anything better to do than this???
Although Beijing would certainly like the situation to be otherwise, currently Taiwan is not a part of the People's Republic of China. Students living in Taiwan are not subject to their rules or decisions unless such rules and decisions involve the invasion of their country.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
Er. Actually, I'm given to understand that the second amendment was adopted because the states were worried about a ubergovernment rolling over their freedoms with an army, so they wanted to keep state militias. I guess that's a similar idea, but with the caveat that it was intended to keep the national government from infringing on the rights of the state government. The individual person oppressed by the government didn't enter into the equation.
Though it is worth noting that that particular intended use failed. The national government did in fact roll over states' rights, and is in fact oppressing everyone uniformly now.
"How absolute the knave is! We must speak by the card, or equivocation will undo us." -- Hamlet: a5,s1
*NICE TROLL*
you got me with the Hemos bit... very nice. I am definitely impressed.
How is it that copyright violations like this come under criminal law?
:p
Any reasonable human (ie, not a lawyer) would agree that IP "theft" is an issue between the copyright holder and the accused thief--so it should be under tort law.
Instead, it's prosecuted under criminal law and in addition to the surly copyright holders, the government comes running in too, demanding a $250,000 fine and, uh... some number of years in prison--don't know exactly 'cause I haven't bought any CDs in a few years.
Anyway, what the hell? At what point did the gubbermint stop working for We The People and get a part-time job for Big Business anyway?
This is the part i find most intreging, Why dod they start the raids now?
"The university authorities urged students to remain calm and focus on their studies.
Midterm exams will begin at Chengkung University next week.
i would like to see the exam results for this college and compare them to the older results, can you imagine the students not happy with the results then sueing the authoroties for causeing unnsacary mental anguish at an already stressfull time.
mountvol \\?\brain{dbe069b1-65ae-11d5-bab4-806d6172696f}\h
yeah yeah, a drunken dyslexic post, late at nigh, u get the picture..... :)
Funny how all the dyslexics I meet can actualy spell dyslexic but this is the word that we get the most agony about. 'Sooo you are dyslapstic, dicexptic, dissloposite etc...'
mountvol \\?\brain{dbe069b1-65ae-11d5-bab4-806d6172696f}\h
I got Higher French/German results than my english Lang/Lit. Passed all GCSE's. Art and IT got A* continued to do GNVQ level 3 Advanced art and design, then Degree in fine art, Got bored in art, it had all been done before and no money in it. So the following year after selling some paintings in a local gallery and woking in a joinery i decided to get back into IT, Did G&G level II microcomputer maintanence and enjeneering, then a Level III, and Diploma in novell 3.12 and NT wrks/srvr administration and network administration. Got a good job i.e. loadsa cash for little work. Who needs to spell anyways, there are such things as spellcheckers, but only for important documents.
Does that cover it?
:)
mountvol \\?\brain{dbe069b1-65ae-11d5-bab4-806d6172696f}\h
:)
mountvol \\?\brain{dbe069b1-65ae-11d5-bab4-806d6172696f}\h
They probably aren't doing this because they are very upset about MP3's, but because it is a demonstration that they are working to stamp out piracy.
-m
all they have to do is put a few hundred turns of enameled copper wire around the hard drive with the MP3's on it and rig it to a large battery and a big red button with a cover on it. Move the cover, hit the button, and the drive is clean. Much better than smashing the drive, you have a chance of being able to re-use the drive after.
"We are not tolerant people. We prefer drastically effective solutions"
- I have already had strange looks from people simply for mentioning MP3s in conversation. And people trying to tell me that copying from my own CDs to MP3s is illegal.
On this note, I have several CDs of which I own the original pressed CD, that I have encoded on a computer at work so that I don't have to worry about bringing the CD in and possibly forgetting it. Some people would say this is illegal, but it is just fair use. I have hidden the folder so that the average schmuck can't get to them, so that argument goes out the window._______
Scott Jones
Newscast Director / ABC19 WKPT
FC Closer
1. China is *not* a dictatorship, its of course not democratic or libertarian in american sense...
Why, has the Chinese communist party renounced the "Dictatorship of the Proletariat?"
Assuming you have data that'd get you in more trouble than the explosives or incendiary.
Quick, someone call steve jackson games!
If so, then how do you propose that creators of exceptionally expensive to develop and valuable IP (CocaCola TM, UNIPOL Process, drugs and Brittany Spears music?) be compensated for their efforts?
Or do you propose they not labor at all?
If not, it is easy to see your point: raids are just another enforcement tool.
What they need is a big ol' electromagnet wired next to their hard drives.. then when the police come busting down the door.. *zap* no more data. Quick and easy to. No sledgehammer required.
JOhn
Campaign for Liberty
One of the best anectdotes I've heard for this situation:
Mafioso guy has very strong encryption of his files, with a key on a 5.25 floppy disk (this would work with a cd-r, too). Has an industrial strength waffle iron hot and ready at all times. If the heat is uppon him, put the key in the waffle iron. It would probably help to have a backup somewhere safe, if there is such a thing as a safe place.
Troll Like a Champion Today
Wait a second...you're pulling our collective legs!
You *almost* got me, then I though, hey...back in the days of 300-2400 baud modems, we were DAMNED lucky to have CDROMS, much less anything that could RECORD CDs.
So, I checked good old Google, and lo and behold:
So, it seems to make sense that you and your leet buddies didn't spend hundreds of dollars on this fancy new 'CD-R' stuff. Likely, you kept it all on 3.5" floppies like the rest of us did.
Have a good day.
It occurs to me that I need to start getting more rest. Sigh.
And what do you mean 'html shit'? I've never seen a BBS using html...it's ALL text babbbyyyy... Unless, of course, you mean 'the web', or 'the information stuporhighway'.
:-)
I wonder if these raids are co-sponsored by Maxtor or Western Digital?
- Mike
First, as has been mentioned by another poster, the government of Taiwan is under unbelievable pressure from the United States to enforce intellectual property rights laws. Somewhere around 30% of Taiwan's economy is based on the export of goods to the United States. Threatening trade relations is a remarkably effective stick to beat the government with.
In 1993, Taiwan passed a law protecting intellectual property rights. Here is a link to the English translation of the law if you are curious. The general understanding is that the text of this law was delivered from the American Institute in Taipei (the official unofficial embassy since the United States does not maintain formal relations with Taiwan), with instructions to pass it, as written, without ammendments or modifications, or suffer punitive tarrifs under Section 301 of the United States Trade Act of 1974.
Eight years ago, the issue was bootleg microchips. Now it's bootlegged MP3s. Little else in the basic dynamic has changed.
To condense a very deep topic into a paragraph, Chinese law enforcement is based the principle of "Sha Yi Jing Bai" -- kill one to warn a hundred. Rather than trying to consistiently enforce laws, the police excercise a crackdown mentality where a number of people are run in on the crime of the week, extremely harsh sentences are metted out to the few unlucky folks who have been caught, and then the usual state of barely controlled anarchy which makes up Chinese society resumes.
This promotes a lot more flaunting of the law than respect for it in my mind, but how can a gawailo like me comment on a legal system which has been using this technique for the last thousand years?
A final aspect of the legal system in Taiwan (and China to a great degree) is that you can apologize your way out of a lot of things. I suspect that very few of the students arrested will actually see any jail time for their sins. Most of them will act very contrite, and will be set free to go forth and sin no more.
Cheers!
j.
That old saying about "If you download MP3's, you are downloading communisim." is completely backwards. "If you don't download MP3's, you are promoting communisim." is more like it! Actually, the saying is more correct than incorrect. Communism is not totalitarianism, and does not suggest an eternal ruling class. Rather, it is the idea that all people in a nation are equal and have equal rights to everything, regardless of who created it or where it is. "Ownership of property" is a meaningless concept in communism. All people will work equally and do what they're best at, to promote the well-being of everyone else. Of course, the so-called "communist countries" don't actually implement communism; they're totalitarian. It seems that it's far too tempting to:
a) slack off, not work, and just ride on everyone else, and
b) take advantage of the government position and increase its influence, rather than wait for it to naturally dissolve, as Marx believed.
Now, I don't promote communism as a national policy, and I don't support what are popularly called "communist countries". But I think that if it weren't for the massive failure of places like Russia, a *lot* of Slashdotters/GPLers would be promoting a communist viewpoint. It's got a lot in common.
Oh, don't get me wrong; I don't think communism will work. You've hit the point perfectly. Even without your comments on what you believe to be "right" or "wrong" (which a communist supporter would never accept), you're right in saying that one or more people that don't accept communism can and will screw the system up. I think Mark said that everyone would realize that communism benefitted everyone; I think that people would realize that if everyone BUT them was communist, they came out on top.
...you may find yourself using a proprietary program. If your friend asks to make a copy, it would be wrong to refuse.
...I am working to build a system...based on voluntary cooperation, and decentralization.
My point was (and is) that a lot of thinking which is common around Slashdotters and free-software advocates has a lot of fundamental ideas similar to communism. Consider these statements (from the FSF home page):
The system of copyright gives software programs "owners"...(this is then construed as a Bad Thing)
The Communist Manifesto mocks the modern concept of "Hard-won, self-acquired, self-earned property" as having no value, and Stallman similarly derides the statement "I put my sweat, my heart, my soul into this program. It comes from me, it's mine!" The FSF talks about "a system where people are free to decide their own actions", while The Marxist Society talks about "working to build a system where people are free to decide their own actions"...identical wording! Marx talks endlessly about the revolution of the social classes, and RMS discusses a revolution of today's software market.
This isn't saying that I support communism, or that I disdain the FSF. I think that, while communism may have some laudable goals, it will never work, and attempts to make it work do far more harm than good. I think that the FSF is an excellent organization, and I fully support it, but I find some of their views extremist. But that's not my point.
I remain convinced that if it were not for the massive American social stigma against communism, left especially from the Cold War, it would be an extremely prevalent viewpoint around Slashdot. It meshes perfectly with the views about patents and intellectual property that are so commonly expressed.
IE, if you find yourself in possession of something contraband, doing X would be the equivalent of burning it from a legal point of view.
Uh huh. And let's say you wipe those files off, zeroing them out, and it's impossible to tell if they were on there or not. Consider
1 - student has mp3s shared (bad idea) on network
2 - MPAA sees this and OF COURSE goes to a judge to get a search warrant (hah)
3 - the student feels guilty, and because he is security concious, secure-wipes the files
4 - MPAA/Police show up. Grab his computer (legal)
5 - they discover there are no mp3 files!
So, let's charge the user with what, obstruction of justice? Destruction of evidence? This would be silly, as it would set the precedent - if you download mp3s, you CANNOT delete them because they might, at some further point, be used against you.
In terms of "real life" items - if the user were to have say, an illegal substance, and he "got rid of" that substance before the police showed up - possession is 9/10ths of the law, isn't it. The police would have nothing. But lets say the student "hid" the stuff, say in the toilet. Then, the item is recoverable and the user is in possession, bamn, he can be charged.
Therefore, what judges would hold people to files that were deleted? I don't think any judge would, as long as those files could not easily be recovered.
Funny, I found them quite plentiful last summer.
yours,
yours,
kbs
Many acknowledge that downloading illegal music from the Web is wrong but feel that students play only a tiny role in the larger problem of pirated music. The entrance of organized crime groups into the business of pirating music is perceived as far more serious.
They completely miss the real source of the problem. Bootlegs in Taiwan are plentiful and public, and there is no enforcement on the retail level. You can easily purchase a bootleg "collection" CD in any large department store. In this way, the whole "cheaper is better, regardless of source" concept is promulgated throughout society. If the IFPI is serious about decreasing profit margins, then they should attack the criminal organizations creating these that clearly violate Taiwanese copyright, not students that are engaging in what may actually be considered fair use under Taiwanese law. My impression is that the law there has not yet been clarified in that manner.
At least in the U.S., the CDs we buy in stores are bona fide copies. Now, I'm no fan of RIAA; I believe that they don't really serve a purpose other than to promote a monopolistic view for music, to keep the recording industry's profit margins nice and fat while the common artist is screwed.
But I sincerely hope that the RIAA doesn't start using the Gestapo tactics that the IFPI is using.
yours,
yours,
kbs
I mean isn't the government suppose to represent the people?
Absolutly _not_! The purpose of government is to protect people, reguardless of their views. If the purpose was to just "do the will of the people" it's pretty much justified in doing _anything_, including things like the Holocaust, just because "it's the will of the people". Anyway, don't complain to me when the majority of people think that free speech is bad on the Internet and that's taken away, after all, as you said, "it's the will of the people".
So, merely the fact that a lot of people use Napster doesn't make it right or wrong.
Grades, Social Life, Sleep... pick two.
--Justin Mitchell
"2nd Place is a fancy word for losing" --Bender (Futurama)
MP3 files, are not necessarily that of pirated music, and therefore are not all necessarily illegal, and therefore such a case would not hold up in court anyways. Like having or making a bong in itself is not enough to incriminate you, regardless of its most common use. It's the substance you put into it that they'll have to bust you for, and not the medium of consumption itself.
No it doesn't take up any extra verifiable space, that would kind of give it all away wouldn't it? Read the info at the website.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Check out Rubberhose. It is a cryptographic filesystem for linux and almost the BSD*'s that provides plausible deniability. I.e. even if they grab your computer and figure out that you are running rubberhose to hide stuff, you can throw them a bone by just decrypting your financial records, or your diary, or some other similarly benign piece of information and then no one can prove that there are any other items still encrypted on the disk.
www.rubberhose.org
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
I know that this could be seen as simply
the guilty whinge of "why aren't they catching
real criminals" - but I wonder what this is
costing the Taiwan Police to carry out. Maybe
they don't have much other crime if the link
below is to be believed, but as the article
states "students play only a tiny role in the larger problem of pirated music". To spell
it out - the more serious crime is that of
pirating music for profit (i.e. forgeries) but
the police appear to be going for the easy and
obvious targets as a example.
http://travel.dk.com/wdr/TW/mTW_Crim.htm
Wasn't Taiwan one of the only countries not to ratify the Berne Convention? If so then why are they bothering to enforce foreign copyrights?
i have misplaced my signature.
I have already had strange looks from people simply for mentioning MP3s in conversation. And people trying to tell me that copying from my own CDs to MP3s is illegal.
Looks like it's not going to be long before parents are searching their kids' HDs fof MP3s (hey, great product opportunity!) and government ads are coming out with moronic slogans.
"Friends don't let friend's use MP3s!"
"Every download is doing you damage!"
I remember reading an article (I think it was posted here on Slashdot) by a judge who argued there should be a way to legally define file deletion as a way of escaping legal consequences.
IE, if you find yourself in possession of something contraband, doing X would be the equivalent of burning it from a legal point of view.
Exploiting that concept...I wonder about the legality of the following things (pardon the Windows bias but hey, that's me)
1) Keeping your MP3/BombPlans/TeenPorn in the \RECYCLER folder on an NTFS volume. Note that under Windows NT, each user gets his or her own "Recycler Bin" (whereas they all share one common \RECYCLED folder on non-NTFS volumes). So, anything you put in the root of this folder is not deleted when you "Empty Recycle Bin". From a legal perspective, it seems possible you could say, "Hey, I dragged that all to the trash to delete it, don't blame me!" At the same time, all the files would be perfectly usable. Just have to clear your file histories to hide the fact that you are accessing the files there.
2) Same as #1 but actually putting them in the Recycle Bin...and disabling/teaching yourself not to ever empty it. Stronger case than #1 although you can't navigate folders and some programs give error messages when you try to use those files.
3) Have a hard disk that you do not use. "Delete" files...which in Windows land means the first letter of the file name is erased from the File Allocation Table. When you want to access the files, unerase them with a utility. As long as you don't write anything else to the drive while files are in "delete" state you can repeat this infinitely.
4) Write a program that automatically does #3 on the fly (Unerase D:\MP3, Open WinAmp, Play, Close WinAmp, Erase D:\MP3).
Seriously...would judges hold people accountable for files that were deleted? It seems worth considering...
- JoeShmoe
-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
Y'know, at least they're going after those infringing, rather than those providing the service....
Yes, that's really my e-mail. Don't change a thing.
yeah... this is in some ways similar to the drug war I guess. Catch some little meaningless people that make up the demand and punish the fuck out of them... don't treat the demand and don't really address the supply.
I am not sure what to make of this situation...
Arresting students for trading MP3's is very bad of course and is a terror tactic aimed at scaring other students and the general public. On the one hand Americans like myself shouldn't expect this kind of thing in the US, but on the other hand it isn't inconceivible either that somehow the RIAA would find a way to single out and arrest some students.
The other part of this that does not make any sense at all is why the Recording Industry is doing this in Taiwan. There are bootleg CD's sold in stores all the place right? That has to be costing the recording industry many times as much as lost revenue from MP3's. Is the case law and legal system in Taiwan such that making and selling pirate CD's is impossible to prosecute, but owning MP3's is easy?
The first article.
The more recent article.
Like guns, for instance. Oh wait, bad example.
I'd like to see your exam results.
Yeah, that's pretty good.
I'm from NTU and friends of my were in NCKU,where this event started. Many of us are very doubted about this : ``Why the ploice doing this again STUDENTS only ?''.
In Taiwan there are many illegal venders that sales CDs with no copyright. If the gov denied the use of MP3s, we students have to buy CDs for music. And what will be the chioce ? The Copyrighted,NT$ 350 for one, or non-copyrighted, NT$ 100 for one??
Students are under arrest, but the *SOURCE* of guilt is not on them.
Something tells me columbine had nothing to do with police or government, and more to do with local social events. So you can't really compare that with terrorism.
- Steeltoe
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
Why do americans hold the Consitution so religiously, while doing their best to miss their own conclusions?
- Steeltoe
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
A barn wasn't the kinda small target I had in mind. I meant something like a terrorist blowing up a school in a suburban area, something that would say to most Americans that terrorism isn't just a problem for the big areas, you aren't safe no matter where you are.
Their actions are nothing more than a form of legal terrorism. The only difference in my opinion between these industries (intellectual property) and the terrorists that have in the past struck fear in countless nations' civilian populations is the weapon of choice. For Osama Bin Laden and the like it is a bomb/gun, for these guys it is a court brief. The end result is the same: extreme response against those that are the weakest, most defenseless targets to send a message to the strong/rest of society saying that "none of you are safe from us, all of you are at our mercy." That my friends is how terrorism works. You don't strike the strongest, most visible targets in this case organizations like Philips Electronics for making stuff like mp3 cd players, you attack the small targets that everyone assumes are more or less outside the conflict.... the students in this case. Why do terrorists of all stripes do this? Simple: the more visibile targets usually have more than sufficient resources to retaliate in full force. Who here honestly thinks that if IBM were to make a lot of really good mp3 players and the like that the RIAA would dare take them on in court? IBM's annual revenues are probably at least 2x the entire recording industry's combined! So you go after the middle and lower class guys that you know will be forced to play russian roulette in that they have two options: submit and be forgiven for now, or fight for their rights and run the risk of paying off legal bills for the rest of their life and/or destroying their family's economic future. Finally one thing to keep in mind is that other industries don't behave this way when they are "robbed" by the public. Most other industries don't deceive themselves and their member companies' stockholders into equating not achieving the maximum profits with being victimized by thieves. The fact of the matter remains that even when other industries are affected by theft, they don't respond by lashing out at a great many of their potential customers. They isolate the problem few and deal with them and leave the rest out of it. That is the difference between an intelligent, shrewd corporate approach and the insanely stupid and self-defeating approach most intellectual property giants have. To the IP companies I say keep it up bozos, the more people you all go after, the less sympathy you all will have and the more contempt the average joe blow will hold you in.
I might give a try at writing that :)
dan
Free Techno/Jazz/DNB/MI Music by guys obsessed with monkeys!
In America, as the FBI Warning is so fond of pointing out, the maximum sentence is $200,000 in fines and up to 5 years in prison.
The only "intuitive" interface is the nipple. After that, it's all learned.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
Well, I do a bit of DJ'ing - strictly vinyl.
When I hear about a new release, the obvious thing to do would be to go down to the record store and drop in on a listening post for a listen....Not So! The record stores in Britian seem to be having major problems with the theft of the needles and carts from their turntables - to such a point that they are removing listening posts!
So instead, I download a couple of versions of a tune on MP3 and more often than not, I'll go out and buy it (if I like it). I sure as hell wouldn't do this if I couldn't check it out on MP3 for fear of potentially wasting up to £6.50.
Do the RIAA actually enjoy repeatedly shooting itself in the foot?
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
I was born and raised on a farm in the midwest. I had a killer Apple IIgs back when they were released and a whopping 2400 baud modem. The closest town had a pop of 250(not 250k, just 250) and everything else was long distance. I didn't spend as much time online as I do today but I did what I could raise phone money for. Every minute costed back then and you didn't screw around as much although I did do some chatting this way because it seemed to cost the same as talking on the phone in my mind.
I don't know what percentage of the population use Napster, obviously it will be low due to the fact that not everyone has Internet access, but how about what percentage of the Internet using population uses Napster? If the percentage is considerably large, then shouldn't the laws about all this nonsense change? I mean isn't the government suppose to represent the people?
Might a referendum be the answer here? If the majority of the population believes that the law should be changed then so be it. It may screw up the economy, it may not, but it is the people's decision either way.
That old saying about "If you download MP3's, you are downloading communisim." is completely backwards. "If you don't download MP3's, you are promoting communisim." is more like it!
The second amendment is the only part of the Constitution that I know with a crystal-clear description of intention included in its language. Namely, "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state..."
Hence your argument does not stand; the right to bear arms is explicitly to be "well regulated" by the government, not used against it. Thus spake the amendment itself.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
Not likely. That's the first place police the world over want to look.
Johnny Quest has two Daddies.
Taiwan is not a third world country, but they still have a way to go before personal information and the right to privacy are as well-respected as they are in the West (and of course, the West has a long way to go before reaching any sort of ideal situation in that regard as well).
The short version is this--what these students would likely appreciate is someone over here (or over there) assembling a nice downloadable toolkit to allow for the encryption of, hiding of and, if need be, the complete and utter destruction of private data. This would be a very handy tool for promoting free political expression as well (by shielding the authors from the state), a much more worthy goal than hiding a few MP3 files.
In a world without walls, there is no need for Windows.
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
the DOD spec is 7 overwrite whit 1 and 0 at random, but recent test have proved that is not sufficient and that 35 overwrite of the data is needed to optain true security.
to sig or not to sig that is the question
People think the US is trying to be the world's police force? Not hardly, it's the darn corporations that are being silly with the enforcement.
DanH
Cav Pilot's Reference Page
Cav Pilot's Reference Page
UNIX - Not just for Vestal Virgins anymore
Eventually it will happen. With all these treaties and international agreements and strong arm tactics by MPAA, RIAA, BSA, etc, eventually, a US organization will cause someone to be executed for intellectual property violation. When it happens, those orgs will say "We just ask them to be punished, we had nothing to do with what the punishment was, as long as it was at least the minimum specified by our treaties. Anything beyond that is up to them. The fact the person was beheaded is an internal matter to that country that we have no business being involved with." Even more scary scenario: Person A violates IP "rights" of company B by distributing intellectual property C over the Internet. A and B are both based in the USA, IP "C" orginated in the USA. Person D downloads IP "C" over the Internet. Person D resides in an extremist country "E". Now company B goes to country E and tells them to stop this violation of their rights. Person D is beheaded by country E. Under the international cybercrime treaty, country E has US authorities arrest "A" for violation of E's laws, and extradited to E. Country E then beheads "A", which would be illegal under (current) US copyright law, but totally legal under E's. The US doesn't mind, since E gets to do the dirty work and get the blame, and the US is glad to see the "pirate"/"economic terrorist" punished, but can claim to have nothing to do with it. Any LEGAL reason the above cannot happen?
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
Taiwan != China. Dumbass
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"and dear god does this website suck now." -- CmdrTaco
I doubt these students could either, because they don't live in the same contry. You fucking idiot.
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"and dear god does this website suck now." -- CmdrTaco
haha
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"and dear god does this website suck now." -- CmdrTaco
There are people who smoke all their lives, and live to be 80 and never get cancer. Does this mean there is no problem? I'll save you the trouble, the answer is no.
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"and dear god does this website suck now." -- CmdrTaco
I am female
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"and dear god does this website suck now." -- CmdrTaco
- Build a server in a good fire proof safe or firebox, the type that is plastic or metal with gypsum between the layers.
- On the hard drive place a thermite device to "burn" the hard drive that can be triggered remotely.
- Never keep local copies of the sesitive data except on the server. Find a utility that will wipe all non-used areas of the HD of your local PC and use it regularly.
- Keep any copies of the sensitive data offsite, preferrable in another state or county at least.
- Make sure any offsite copies of the data is encrypted to make them difficult to recover.
- For the really paranoid make sure the person holding the offsite backups are not a close relative or somebody that you regularly associate with.
Is taking things to this level extreame overkill and paranoid? Probably in most cases, but if you really want to make sure somebody can't get to your data this is probably the lengths you need. Even this is pobably not far enough in some circumstances.- subsolar
I dunno about you, but yeah I know it was illegal for Kevin to do what he did, but I have absolutly no idea how it caused a supposed $80 million in damages that the judge came to, especially since he didn't destroy, shut down, etc. the server or anything or distribute what he found.
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Even writing zeros over every byte in a file doesn't completely remove it. The heads in a HDD aren't powerful enough to completely relaign all the magnetic domains on the ferreous surface
This is true. However, this is also the reason why programs such as 'shred' write over a file multiple times -- the HDD heads will have slightly different alignment each time, and by making more passes, more of the data track will be erased. There is even a Department of Defense standard on how many passes should be made, plus the write-over pattern that should be used for secure deletion of sensitive military information.
---
The AOL-Time Warner-Microsoft-Intel-CBS-ABC-NBC-Fox corporation:
I pledge allegiance to the flag...
of the Corporate States of America...
that's why I record every mp3 i have in MD..
.. mds are good.. cds are bad...
... heheeh
it's the best way...
nobody could ever say you had Mp3 !
and nobody could ever say that you copied illegal music !
you can say : i copy all my cds to md and then destroy them
or something like :
i buy a cd, copy to md, and then sell the cd again..
but then you would be doing illegal stuff
let's stick to the " mds are good, cds are bad. let's destroy the cds"
uh, dude...
violating copyright is actually against the law in most western countries. This means that if you have mp3's of songs that you have not purchased, you are a criminal. (A relatively minor one, but you still are). In some countries, you are still breaking the law even if you have purchased the song if the mp3 was not made from your specific CD.
Not that I see anything terribly wrong with pirating music, but let's be honest about what we're doing here.
. --- If you're looking for free e-mail you won't find it here! http://www.noemailhere.com
Also on widely available pirates, in Russia one can get any CD, and I mean any to the most obscure stuff, perfect copy with book and all on high quality paper, for around US$2 (less without the book). BUT those dastarly students, that's where the problems lie....
// It had been Fat's delusion for years that he could help people. --Philip K. Dick, Valis
Yeah, we used to get software and mix CDs (D-A-D) through unauthrorized use of the company's $2000 CD-Burner and $10 media. It was possible in the old days, even if difficult for an individual.
There was also the Panasonic 650MB MO/CDROM drive and later the Iomega Jazz - both reasonably affordable alternatives to CD burning.
When I hear the word 'innovation', I reach for my pistol.
That the mp3 server on our campus with 12087 mp3 files on it will have to be shut down ?
I'm not suggesting that they would repeat the act again. I should probably have made that more clear.
However, imagine YOU are a student in a country where 12 years ago the government killed it's own people for peaceful protest. Do you go out on the streets over some MP3s?
Yours Sincerely, Michael.
My point is contained in my 1st, 2nd and third posts. I'm not going to repeat myself.
Yours Sincerely, Michael.
I am not ranting about Tiananmen Square.
I am saying:
1. Belonging to a nation with a history of civil rights abuse, most markedly visible in the Tiananmen Square massacre, is going to make protesting a very much last resort act. Even if it was 12 years ago, it must still be embedded in the nations consciousness.
2. The Chinese government, and other governments like it, are not swayed by public protest. They dictate.
Just because Asia looks more and more westernised to us, does not mean that the governments have changed their attitudes to their people.
Side note: it is not communism that I dislike, or that I feel causes the problems we are seeing, but corrupt, despotic government.
Yours Sincerely, Michael.
yeah, let's call a truce.
Yours Sincerely, Michael.
You got me.
Yours Sincerely, Michael.
Flamebait? Moi?
Yours Sincerely, Michael.
1. You are about 11 hours late
2. You are redundant.
3. You are not very subtle.
On a less objective note, I think you fuck your mama's ass.
Yours Sincerely, Michael.
Did I say you were male?
You use a 12" black strap on.
Yours Sincerely, Michael.
What the students should do is protest,
Cast your mind back to June 4th 1989.
Caution: the above link may cause some people distress.
Yours Sincerely, Michael.
Nor is this necessarily a bad thing for Taiwan. In fact, it seems that mainland China has enthusiasticly embraced this model, which in fact is the ancient Chinese Imperial way of doing business. As some wags suggest, when we say "capitalism" we often really mean "current business customs among English speakers." It may be somewhat against our custom for government to be so close to criminal gangs (although remember J. Edgar Hoover was fond enough of the Mafia to insist publicly for years that there was no such thing in America!), but as Taiwan shows, when handled right, this can produce a vibrant capitalist economy.
On the other hand, when viewed from the culture of 50-years hence, if we make it that far, I suspect the RIAA will appear to have been a criminal gang.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
In the eyes of the generators of the music, they have broken the law. So they ought to be punished somehow. I suggest the fairest punishment is to make them pay for the albums that they have. However, as _no_ retailer, _no_ wholesaler, _no_ distributor, (and no marketing) was needed in order to get the album to the offender. That should keep the fine down to quite a reasonable level, don't you think...
FP.
--
Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863
Artist are said to be a dime a dozen and I've personally heard many
a good musician that never got their 15 minutes of fame or single hit
recorded and distributed.
You want free music downloadale from the net? Then realize the equipment
is there to make it happen. Leave the Commercial Artist for the stores and
radio Stations. We have the Net and can easily have Streaming Audio shows.
Think About it. Maybe many artist will still not earn a living, no different
then the now and the past, but at least their Music has a better chance of
getting heard. And who knows, maybe the Music industry will turn around and
see who's popular in GPL Music, cut a deal with them, maybe even a comprimise.
Then Again, maybe there needs to be a Music specific GPL written.
3 S.E.A.S - Virtual Interaction Configuration (VIC) - VISION OF VISIONS!
He said 14.4k modems. I knew someone who used a BBS on a 14.4k modem in about 1992/1993 (when 14.4k was blindingly fast - we were using text mode of course, none of this HTML shit). ;-> ) on CD-R from a friend who had a burner brought back from Thailand.
We used to get "warez" (we were honest enough to call them 'pirated', but not honest enough to pay full price
Nope, I've never seen a BBS using HTML. That was exactly my point. Ever seen how quickly you can snarf a .txt file and display it?
Maybe it's because we have no resposibilties freeing us up to devote ourselves heart and soul. Maybe it's because we still have our enthusiasm.
But the best way I can see for any music association to destroy its power is to attack the students. If this were to occur in the US, I feel that within 5 years the laws would be so radically changed that the RIAA would be nothing more than an archaic symbol stripped of all power.
So I say, keep it up, Taiwan. The sooner you go after individual students, the sooner those future leaders will come to resent copywright monopolies.
www.eissq.com/BandP.html Ball and Plate System. Amuse your friends. Crush your enemies.
OK, so Taiwan won't be publicly flogging civil disobedient copyright violators. But it is nevertheless interesting to see whether the recording industry will seek to have these laws enforced in countries where copyright violators may be facing corporal or even capital punishment. If they do, it could mean very bad press for them.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
What kind of penalties do they have for this sort of thing in Taiwan? I would really hate to think that some copyright megalopoly would seek to enforce its laws in a country where people who break stupid IP laws that shouldn't exist and are in dire need of reform get caned or have their hands chopped off or something. Actually if this did happen on a mass scale it might help to turn public sentiment completely against the robber barons, and maybe then something could finally be done to put these people in check.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
If the mp3's you downloaded are ripped from another copy of the same copyright that you own, then you are still under copyright voliation. Its a legal loophole for the RIAA to harass users for fair use. The riaa did this in court with mp3.com and won.
:-)
In lawyer speak, the album/media are one integrated copyrighted source. This means that if a song comes from another soure its a different copyright. So basically, unless you have the actual cd to show police you busted even if you claim and have the reciepts to prove that you purchased the song. Bizare concept of ownership isn't it?
This kind of reminds me of Microsoft's view of Windows, as an integrated piece of hardware thats part of the computer and this is why consumers can not have another OS besides windows.
Just look at at the standard OEM license if you don't believe me.
Oh boy, what will todays lawyers, lobbiests, and CEO's think of next?
The riaa has used this media/ownership trick several times in court and will probably do it again when they go to campus to campus in the US. This is why they say all your cd's belong to us. I also view this trick as a way to provide patent like wonership rules to copyrights. A patent owner can say this but a copyrightholder should only control the content distribution and not the media.
However if you can show the police that the actual cd's you bought are the same songs as your mp3's and that you encoded them yourself then you ok. I doubt you will need to do this but if the RIAA is spending shit loads of money agaisn't you, they will use this bizaare media ownership as a means to prosecute you for listening to your own music.
http://saveie6.com/
You pussy, you could at least have the balls to post your name. Now, responding to your post... > And then they came for the people with the > illicit music, and the slashdotters Look, the points people here were making was that it is WRONG for the RIAA and their evil corporate and law buddies to go after Napster or ISPs or Nap-users in general because the ISPs are just conduits, as is Napster, and many Nap-users trade non-copyrighted material(for a prominent type of non-copyrighted MP3s, go on Napster and do a search for anything XXX). So, our point is that it is unjustified and a violations of people's right to go after: (a) Napster, as Napster is just a conduit, and should not have to waste their time putting up complex and bandwidth wasting filtering mechs; (b) the ISPs, for the same reason, as they're just conduits, etc; (c) the Nap-users in general, as many don't use Napster to trade copyrighted material(though the only way they've really gone after Nap-users in general is by their statements that Nap-users "steal" their "property"). Now, as for why it's WRONG for the RIAA and the gov't in Taiwan -- which they have apparently corrupted to their means -- to raid student dorms and confiscate their stuff: simple, this is a violation of their right to privacy and of THEIR property rights(as their computer was taken from them without just cause). So, what does it amount to? This: even if you say that sharing/downloading copyrighted files is wrong/illegal, there is NO reasonable way to prevent this in the vast majority of cases without VIOLATING the rights of individual people, and of independant corporations/organizations(such as Napster and ISPs). The filters they propose to use on Napster would violate Napster's rights -- as it would force Napster to adopt an inferior business model, which would clog up bandwidth(filtering wastes space and slows down things). For the same reasons, such action against ISPs also violates THEIR rights. Now, as for the individual user, spying on him online and collecting information on him online violates his right to privacy; and raiding the rooms and confiscating the property of college students is a GESTAPO tactic that violates THEIR right to privacy and THEIR right to property. So, when you consider the whole thing, the RIAA and the music industry doesn't give a shit about anybody's rights but their own: 1. They don't care about the right of ISPs to provide the most efficient service. 2. They don't care about the right of Napster to provide the most efficient service. 3. They don't care about the rights of individuals their privacy. 4. They don't care about the rights of individuals to property. 5. They think that the transmission of MP3s taken from copyrighted music should be illegal even if the MP3s are converted their binary number equivalents -- so they think that the transmission of certain numbers should be illegal. (i.e., there is a certain binary number which represents the song "Hit Me Baby One More Time" perfectly; they think this number should not be allowed to be transmitted). In fact, the ONLY rights that the RIAA cares about are: 1. Their "right" to their Intellectual Property(btw, I think IP laws last to long and need to be viewed as a necessary evil, thus should be weakened). 2. Their "right" to determine WHAT YOU hear on the radio; part of the reason they hate Napster so much is that now people have a choice, and don't just eat the slop that's given to them by the music industry. Basically, the RIAA and other organizations like it which support the DMCA and other nazi-legislation want the United States Government(which is supposed to REPRESENT the PEOPLE, be accountable to the people, and all) to value THEIR rights to "their" intellectual property over the rights of other corporations, and over the rights of the individual to privacy, property, and freedom of expression. This is absurd. When it comes down to the "rights" or corporations versus the rights of people, there can be no compromises: the rights of people are infinitely more important thant he rights of corporations: indeed, the rights of corporations are merely subsets of the rights of people, as corporations existences depend on people. I would like to say that I personally view Intellectual Property laws as a necessary evil to prevent freeloading on the work of others. I think that they should be cut back in how long they last(10 years max) and their force should be greatly reduced. It bothers me that they ONLY work for rich corporations and organizations of corporations, and not for the individual. The idea that information can be "owned" by companies also bothers me. As a tangent line to prove my case, consider the current madness with patenting genes "isolated from nature". What do you think your "God" would think if (s)he knew that the shit that HE made was being claimed as the property of humans?(if you believe in god, which I don't but apparently 95% of the world does). If your a logical atheist like myself, consider this: what if Rutherford had patented the nucleus when he discovered it, because he "isolated it" from nature?
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
Titles summarizes my opinion of the gestapo S.S. trooper fuckers at the RIAA.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
Well, asshole, I had paragraphed it, but I'd forgotten to put the scroll-bar format to plain text, so it interpreted it via HTML markers(w/c meant that tabs and breaks were ignored).
Now, your still an anonymous pussy who has refused to post your normal slashdot name, and your original points all stand refuted.
That you have not responded intelligently to anything I wrote indicates the invalidity of your opinion.
HOPE THIS HELPS YOU TO RE-THINK YOUR MUSIC-NAZI IDEALS.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
2001
The RIAA is watching you.
MP3 police.
Who controls the internet controls the MP3s: who controls the law controls the internet.
Unfairuse
Doubleplusunfairuse
Riaasoc
You could create and share noise but not music.
We're getting the music into its final shape -- the shape it's going to have when nobody hears anything else. When we've finished with it, tpeople like you will have to learn music all over again. I dare say, that our chief job is inventing new music. But not a bit of it! We're destroying notes -- scores of them, hundreds of them, every day. We're cutting the music down to the bone. The eleventh album won't contain a single note that will become obsolete before the year 2050.
You don't grasp the beauty of the destruction of notes. Do you know that Newmusic is the only music in the world whose repratrauer gets smaller every year?
It's a beautiful thing, the destruction of notes.
Don't you see that the whole aim of Newmusic is to narrow the range of thought? In the end, we shall make musicrime literally impossible, because there will be no notes in which to express it. Every song that can ever be needed, will be expressed by exactly one note, with its tone rigidly defined and all its subsidiary tones rubbed out and forgotten.
Every year fewer and fewer notes, and the range of consciousness always a little smaller. Even now, of course, there's no reason or ecuxe for committing musicrime. It's merely a question of self-discipline, reality-control. But in the end there won't be any need for event hat. The Revolution will be complete when the music is perfect. Newmusic is Riaasoc and Riaasoc is Newmusic. Has it ever occured to you that by the year 2050, at the very latest, not a single human being will be able to understand 'music' wuch as we are listening to now?
The whole climate of music will be different. In fact there will be no music, as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not hearing notes -- not needing to hear notes. Orthododxy is unconsciousness. Soon, people will buy CD-albums which are blank.
Duckmusic, to quack music like a duck. It is one of those interesting words that have two contradictory meanings. Applied to an opponent(such as Napster), it is absue, applied to someone you agree with, it is praise.
Two minutes hate.
It was terribly dangerous to let your singing wonder when you were in any public place or within the range of the Riaascreen. The smallest thing could give you away. A nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxeity, a habit of muttering to yourself -- anything that could give you away...Even to wear an improper expression on your face when a victory against napster was announced, was a punishable offence. There was even a word for it under the Newmusic order: facecrime, it was called.
Everything faded into mist. The past music was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth.
Napster was a fragment of the abolished past
In the end the RIAA would announce that a sharp was a flat, and you would have to believe it. It was inevitable that they should make that claim sooner or later: the logic of their position demanded it.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
I think we should just change the format to *.hah or something. I think it would be a few years before the RIAA figured out that they were still mp3's. Cmon, it's such a buzzword (extention)! Also, how do they get access to this? Do they go on your win98 box and do a file find for *.mp3? Or on linux how do they login? I guess they could just take it apart and look at the bits or something, but all that work to find some college student that traded some mp3s, ew. The mp3 collection isn't worth what it takes to take apart a HD.
...or you can just open your hard drive and get a nice big electro-magnet over it a couple times. Fuck linear deletion.
Hmm, that would work better than shattering the CD. Heh.
The university authorities urged students to remain calm and focus on their studies.
Yeah. Just remain calm and focus on your studies while we drag away your fellow students to either be questioned or jailed for the horrific crime of trading mp3s.
And while we're turning the place upside down looking for mp3s we might also find other subversive contraband.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
The problem here is that even if you had, say, only MP3's of CDs they already actually owned (I know its unlikely but entirely possible), those police raiding the place are not going to give a shit, they're going to arrest you anyway. It is highly unlikely that you're going to be able to convince them by saying "but look, these MP3's here, they're from the CDs sitting on my shelf there". Their policy would probably be more along the lines of "arrest first, ask questions later". I doubt they'd even bother to try check if what you were saying was true. This might seem relatively benign in the context of mp3's, given that the majority of mp3's are probably illegal, but the underlying principle that you're "forgiving" here is an incredibly dangerous concept - the idea that you can be arrested and held simply for having an mp3 on your computer, whether it is a legal mp3 or not. Checking if an MP3 is legal is not necessarily easy, since there are a variety of cases where an MP3 might be legal. It could be a recording of a friend of yours who has a band. It could be material that is no longer copyrighted, or never was. It could be music that can be downloaded for free from a musician's website (http://www.holemusic.com/audio/index.html) or from sites like http://www.mp3.com/. It might not be music, it may be comedy MP3's. How thorough do you expect the authorities will be in checking? If we begin to give this sort of power to the authorities, we're all going to be in deep shit. Go see "in the name of the father" for a good true story on what happens when you start giving authorities too much power.
There is nothing wrong, as you say, with merely trying to prevent theft. Thats not the problem here though. Sure, the authorities should have some means of preventing this sort of theft - but indiscriminate raids backed by a witch-hunt mentality and combined with media propaganda is not it. How much faith do you have in the technical abilities and knowledge of your local police?
These guys need to use StegFS. It's all about plausible deniability, heh.
...another use for StegFS.
(Evil Music Industry Spy): OK you little pirate scum, what's the password?
(Innocent College Student): ********, sir.
(Evil Music Industry Spy): Hmm, only GPL'd software here, no MP3's in here. Let's move on. Sorry to bother you.
(Innocent College Pirate^H^H^H^H^H^H Student): Oh, No Problem (evil grin)
This is the place where you write something that will make you seem like a complete idiot.
I think the police should even start doing these raids in the US. Why? Because they'd have to arrest everybody. When people are affected by the MPAA's "enforcement" directly, they will demand that the law be changed. Most people can live with copy protection (the current enforcement method), but they can't live with being in jail. They'll see how the law is unjust if the raids begin.
This is not to say I want to get rid of copyright. What I'd like to see is some sort of antitrust suit against MPAA organizations. I'd like to see artists NOT sign away their soul in exclusive contracts. I'd like to see people who are willing to pay for what they use from others. I'd like the MPAA to sell me music for download, instead of refusing to do so and manufacturing all this "illegal" pirating.
Oh, the MPAA is waiting to perfect "secure music"? Ha! Nothing can ever be totally secure. They should just make it easier on themselves and the rest of us by not crippling technology and just release music on the Internet already!
Sheesh. I'll stop now.
Anyone that buys into the misconception of government enforced intellectual monopolies (ie, I own these thoughts and the police will back me up) have already weakened their ability to argue against these jack-booted contraband raids.
Wake up people: this is the natural evolution of recognizing sounds and ideas as something that can be stolen.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~ the real world is much simpler ~~
--- -- - -
Give me LIBERTY, or give me a check.
If you allow that ideas and sounds can be owned, then you acknowledge that there is a risk of it being stolen. It is only a matter of interpretation in the gray zone how far you push police involvement. Remember, the folks with the money will always have an enforcement voice that is louder than anyone else's.
Music is sound. Someone has a right to make money off those sounds? (Keyword here being right, not just opportunity.)
This world brought to you courtesy of the state recognized intellectual monopoly known as copyright.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~ the real world is much simpler ~~
--- -- - -
Give me LIBERTY, or give me a check.
Militia is and was a state institution or club. The virginia militia wasn't part of the army. It was a group of volunteers. The minutemen who were called upon during the war were a militia who regulated themselves. We would not have had militias or even our own country had we disarmed everyone. Being necessary to the security of a free state. Free from what? From federal intervention. We are a federation or banding together of individual states. A militia is the state's guarantee that the fed wouldn't run roughshod over them.
Rights are expressly for the people. Government has powers and privs granted by the consent of the governed. Because the key word is "RIGHT", it applies to the individual.
By common definition, the statement "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state; the right to keep and bear arms shall not be abridged." would qualify as a run-on sentence. In actuallity a sentence that should be two separate sentences. Thus when people who understand grammer and run-ons reads the second ammendment he/she should see "A well regulated militia is necessary for the security of a free state, therefore no militia shall be repressed by any federal agency. The individual has a right to keep and bear arms which shall not be abridged by any legislature."
I remember a scene from the movie Running Man , where Arnold was looking through the female lead's cassette collection, and saying "They're all on the censored list". I remember that in particular, because I told the guys I was watching the movie with that the crime of owning "illegal uncensored music" was preposterous. And that we would never see anything that stupid in a civilized democratic country...ya ya ya...needless to say, I'm sighing and eating my foot now.
Nader LIED
What? What did he lie about? Are you saying that his opinion that the two political parties are growing more and more similar is a lie? It is a simple opinion. Perhaps if he used incorrect data, misquoted a candidate, etc. it would be a lie. But his personal opinion is not a lie. It's the way he sees things. He was not saying they were exactly the same on all issues; that is absurd. On important issues, Gore did not take a strong stance, or he took the wrong stance (in the eyes of many voters). The 3% of the voters who voted for Nader weren't fooled. They weren't stupid. They knew exactly what happened.
In fact, 40% of Nader voters would have voted for Gore in polls close to the election. The polls showed Nader at around 5%, +- 1%. His actual showing was around 3%, about 40% less than expected. Gore had a scare campaign that did nothing to dispute Nader's opinions. All it did was scare voters of Bush. Vote for Gore! He's not Bush! Is that all he was? No; he did not want to remind voters that his positions on the issues were not that of the votes he wanted. He "lied" (using your definition) much, much more than did Nader.
Gore didn't support finance reform. Why? Because he's a corporate tool. He wanted funds from wherever he could get them so he could beat Bush, even if it meant selling out to corporations. If he sells out, he can't protect the environment so well. (Although I don't think he would destroy it so much as Bush, but the sitution is constantly deteriorating and somethintg must be done). With neither major party supporting finance reform, Ralph Nader steps in. He is a product with voters fed up with the way financing works. His target was the nonvoters: half the eligible population.
And, if you keep voting for the lesser of two evils;
1. You are still voting for evil
2. They will become more and more evil to compete with each other, if you keep voting for them.
A couple of countermeasures: encrypted filesystems (www.kerneli.org) or pgpdrive (www.pgpi.com).
;)
Open ftp servers with free upload directory's could provide legal protection (everyone can up, and you can't catch up).
I'm sure there are many others, but I have the best of them all, no illegal mp3's at all (hm, almost
I am drawing several similarities between this and the case against Kevin Mitnick.
"Let's single out somone and beat them into the ground with lawsuits, jail etc... and soon people will be afraid to cross us. We Rule!" The Music Industry.
We live in a strange world, and it keeps getting BETTER!
Arathres
I love my iBook. I use it to run Linux!
stainless steel
Yes in fact (well close anyways) 8 years ago I paid $3500 for my first burner and was paying just over $25 per gold disk.
And BTW disks I made then still work flawlessly. Wish I could say the same for the crap they are selling these days.
I just hope that the 14 students from NCU are from wealthy families, since having vast amounts of NT Dollars carries considerable clout in Taiwan. I cannot stress this enough...money will get you out of damn near any jam that you get into on that island. Bribery is done openly and is a widely accepted means to doing business, whether legal or illicit.
BUT, this strikes me as very odd, since they are going after students, a group of society that generally have few nickels of their very own, and whom are there to learn and better themselves and the economic condition of their country.
It would be FAR more effective to go after the innumerable legion of street thugs whom do nothing more than steal from any available coffer than actually be a viable part of society.
It would seem the thugs are cloaking themselves amidst the previously mentioned Vast Amounts of NT Dollars, thus being the invisible, yet most damaging portion of the populace.
Yet, I hope that this is another exercise in Saving Face, which the Chinese are so good about doing. Lots of pointing of extended fingers and noise and generally running around like a bunch of drunken monkeys, all the while Putting This Face and Show On While Not Really Doing Anything.
They won't pick on anyone with money, which is a great travesty in and of itself, and is an act of abject cowardice.
Leave the student alone. Go after the real problem.
Yea! Right.
Long live Soochow U!
...to stop US companies from influencing governments of other countries in in ways that are inconsistant with procedure in the U.S. We tell ourselves that this sort of thing could never happen in the U.S. but so what???? What about the rest of the world? Why should the companies that represent the U.S. in other countries be allowed to present an image inconsistant with accepted practice in the U.S.??? Maybe they don't have the concept of "due process" as we understand it in all other parts of the world, but should U.S. industry be allowed to exploit that?
More interestingly, but very off-topic, is the fact that so many people in the U.S. cite "human rights" violations issues across the world yet our businesses continue to exploit and even encourage human rights violations in order to build cheaper sneakers!?
Franly, I'm sick of it and I'm ready for a revolution.
"you could even edit the source of a mp3 player to allow that extension"
It's farasier to do it than that. Just add your fake extension to your MIME type for MP3 files. XMMS doesn't care about the filename, just that it's something it can read.
=== The price of freedom is eternal vigilance
"1. They aren't laws, they're rules. I can't explain the distinction well because IANAL"
I still do not see how that addresses the Constitutionality question...
Even IF it's covered in a statutory law, the Constitution does NOT specifically grant Congress the ability to make law in this area. Just because a LAW exists does not mean that it is a just, or LEGAL law, as the highest law is the Constitution, which is to statutory law what a city ordinance is to the state government's laws... Statutory law is outranked, so to speak, when it conflicts.
Amemnment's 9 and 10 grant the states and the people the powers that are NOT granted to the Feds in the rest of the Constitution, and DENY all such powers not SPECIFICALLY enumerated in the Constitution to the Federal government.
The only loophole, and it's been so exploited it's no longer funny, is the "Interstate and Foreign Commerce" clause.
I fail to see how the Federal Government can regulate a local business's office "safety" under the guise of "Interstate and Foreign commerce".
You want to know why our government is bad and getting worse? It's because it's been living above the rule of Constitutional Law since the 1930's, and been moving ever further from it yearly. If the Feds want a power that the Constitution does NOT give them, the LEGAL way to get it is to AMEND it. This was done in the 1920's when they wanted the income tax. But seemingly by 1940, and beyond, they no longer feel the need to do this to grab power...
Instead of doing the PROPER thing, which mandates exhaustive public debate, AND THE APPROVAL OF 2/3rds of the STATES, the Feds just grab whatever they want, whenever they want it. In the Clinton administration, this included land, natural resources, and the imposition of onerous regulations, without public debate. Not saying only Democrats do this, each President since FDR has done the same thing, each has left a Federal government more intrusive and powerful than he found it.
Which is why I believe some time in the future, the USA will evolve into an autocracy, to the point that enough get fed up and invoke another document that was passed into law, on July 4, 1776...
It begins, "When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation."
=== The price of freedom is eternal vigilance
"So you would open fire on a bunch of federal agents with a signed search warrant. This would get you killed and the corporate press would report you as just another maniac with a gun, who shot at some brave guys doing their job. Legal gun ownership is great in theory, but remember who has all the power and control of the press."
I'm not advocating such violence. However, the government has shown an increasing willingness to violate the law, especially in these armed stormtrooper raids. Sooner or later, something is going to happen.
=== The price of freedom is eternal vigilance
"Just because it wasn't done in the halls of Congress and they were considered too dull for even C-SPAN to carry doesn't mean they were done behind closed doors."
But it DOES mean that it was not done in a CONSTITUTIONAL (meaning illegal) manner. Laws are supposed to be made by CONGRESS, not by the President or an unelected bureaucracy.
But then, laws are often passed by Congress without a debate... The DMCA was one of them. IMO, whenever you have something that is slipped in the cover of darkness into law (such as the ergonomic rules and of course, the DMCA) it's almost always BAD LAW.
If there is to be widespread regulation of business, it needs to be done in the open. The ergonomics rules would have cost US business billions of dollars for what may be no public benefit. And that cost will be paid by EVERYONE. People will lose jobs, and products will become more expensive.
All the more reason why there needs to be PUBLIC debate by our representatives before such rules would be enacted.
BTW, I scoff at most of these so-called "carpal tunnel" and RSI "injuries" with relation to computer equipment. I've been using computer keyboards for many hours a day since I was 8 years old. I'm now 28 and have NEVER had any problem, nor would it seem likely to me that I ever will.
You do realize, that if executive order was used in the manner Clinton did with the ergonomics rules, the president could, by fiat, outlaw MP3's, or give the BATF authority to "regulate" them.
=== The price of freedom is eternal vigilance
I have NO doubt in my mind whatsoever that these terrorist raid tactics used in Taiwan is nothing but a dress rehearsal for what they want to start doing in the US.
And I have one question: Even IF the RIAA busts into your apartment and seizes your hard drive full of MP3's, HOW can they prove that they aren't tracks you made from music that you had bought? Even if they WERENT? I have yet to see a CD or casette come with a software like "shrink wrap EULA" that states that you have to keep the license and originals as proof of purchase.
After all, there is a well established, Constitutionally protected right of "fair use" (though being eroded constantly by moronc Federal "judges" (Kaplan) and illegal statutory law (DMCA).
Also, in the USA, you are legally innocent UNTIL they prove you guilty beyond a REASONABLE doubt. They have to PROVE that you didn't make those MP3's from stuff you'd bought over the years, but may not have kept the originals. Thus it seems likely that it would be hard to make any such case stick, unless they could seize logs or something that showed you using Napster.
However, as we well know, the corpers are writing the laws and are paying the lawyers who become judges (Kaplan). Just as the DeCSS case verdict was irrational, Constitutionally illegal, and indefensible (as was Kaplan's conflicted conduct), there is sure to be a RIAA vs. Joe Napster user that will be just as stupid.
What is happening, IMO, is the RIAA is trying to establish a precedent somewhere, that they can then con some local or Federal jackboots into following HERE, to treat people who have MP3's like drug dealers and software Warez sellers.
If this starts happening here, well, now you anti-gun ownership people understand the argument that I and others make for the reason BEHIND the fact that the Founders included the right to "keep and bear arms" right in the second amendment. The right to bear arms is intended to keep the government in line, and within the law.
To be honest, though, I wonder if the RIAA realizes what would happen if they started such raids in the USA? I think there would be a CONSIDERABLE public backlash against them.
Or maybe I'm putting too much faith in the sheep masses who keep voting for the same two (one) party system all the time. The same parties that are so similar in their desire to kowtow to the corpers that they unanimously, and secretly, voice voted in the DMCA.
=== The price of freedom is eternal vigilance
There's no way they are 100% licence compliant (That would be nearly impossible). Report them as pirating. Email them child porn and report them. Something...During the Regan years, they tried to make an anonymous phone call qualify as probable cause. High Times suggested reporting every lawyer in your phone book for growing pot. When enough lawyers get their doors kicked in, things will change
Just gotta turn this around on them
If you don't say anything, you won't be called on to repeat it. -- Calvin Coolidge
a very easy way to do this would be to simply make a script changing all the extensions of files in a directory from mp3 to .whatever and back again. you could even edit the source of a mp3 player to allow that extension. clear your bash history often, put the files somewhere difficult for a not-you person to find, and you've circumvented mp3 checks if you use a UNIX box
I must disagree with with this statement, "Those sound like pretty good things to encourage anyhow to me." Encouraging people to break laws is not a joking matter especially in a strict system in a 3rd world country.
Sure Asia has some strict laws, but telling people to break them is not the solution, and will only enforce their government's petty stance on regulations. What the students should do is protest, make the world aware of the harsh sentences being imposed in their countries. Lobby to get them removed
If some states in the US started trying to circumvent drug laws by hiding their "stashes" their breaking the laws just as well so you can't have it one way and not the other. Fsck yea I disagree with someone like the government's bs, but at the same time a rule is a rule no matter how you cut it.
Now on the flip side of things, I hope their doing a good enough job of ridding their songs. If not they could use BCWipe to rid them, or if their laws allow for encryption, they could write an hourly cron script to tar then pgp them without destroying evidence.
Personally some of those students who are protesting, should look into getting into politics to ease things for their future kin.
use the source!
360 degrees of Karma
Well then your point is well missed, since you have nothing to substantiate anything you said. You can't compare something that happened 12 years ago with this instance, without supporting the claims.
Don't be mislead, I sympathize with the families of those lost in that massacre, but at the same time, common sense would tell some, that another repeat of that incident would be rare, and their political officials know it would impact their economy in a harsh fashion.
So to just rant on about Tiananment Square is opening up a can of worms, only the worms are dead... Meaningless at this point.
360 degrees of Karma
Agreed which is why I stated that some of the students who opposed these things should air their concerns, they should know (or hopefully be aware) that the world would be watching to see that another massacre would not occur.
Again I also stated that those who are oppressed should look into getting into politics now to aviod having their kin subjected to this in the future. I don't disagree with your points, maybe I'm too tired to take them for what their worth, and I sincerely agree with most of the things you've said to an extent. About the westernization, you have to understand, they have to form their own laws, judgments, etc., its kind of like what the US had in the 60's in the form of racism, its a long road but slowly, people are moving towards better modes of life.
360 degrees of Karma
First of all thats a shitty case to reference as Kevin was blatantly committing crimes. Sure the government pounded law after law after law on Kevin but he is no martyr nor should he be treated as one.
I totally disagree with him getting shafted on a trial for so long, and one of the things I blame on society is their lack of knowledge regarding computer crimes, etc., etc., and the so called "jury of your peers" bs.
Referencing Kevin is like a pro doo hickey radical coming here, and saying something like "Well Timothy McVeigh was right to think that be committing his crime, he would make those aware of the bs gov is spewing on groups like those in Waco" or something like that.
Kevin was a criminal no one gave him permission to go into any of those networks, had it been a flip side situation where he was contemplating selling information he garnered, (which no one but him will ever know) people would've called for harsh sentencing.
360 degrees of Karma
http://www.ontrack-japan.com/3-1-4bi.htm
http://www.ohlssonvox.com
I'm glad some /.ers here share some of my views. I was fast becoming convinced that 99%+ of /.ers were communists unknowingly.
Communism looks very very good on paper and in theory. But the thing about theoretical concepts is that they often don't account for all the inconsistencies and other fallacies which make up for the REAL world. Human nature by default is one of selfishness. On the outside we smile and help others in need, but on the inside, we will always care about our own personal needs before we care about those of others. This is a FACT. To deny this fact or not acknowledge it you're only fooling yourself.
This is the biggest obstacle to Communism. It just can never work in real life. When everything belongs to everyone, which person will be willing to work extra hard to invent or create something? There will be some of course, but overall, there will be very little innovation. The best evidence of this can be seen from history. 99+% of this century's inventions/discoveries have been made by capitalist countries.
What I've been saying all along about mp3's is that it in fact does promote Communism. It tells us to disregard intellectual property. It tells us we NEED to all share everything freely and without cost. It tells us money is evil and that RIAA and the music artists don't deserve the millions of dollars they get for the measly few songs they sing/produce/market.
Such a message is very dangerous for future creativity and innovation. It threatens our future in ways many here just don't see. Close your eyes and imagine a world where everthing belongs to everybody without cost. It's like heaven right? Now inject human selfishness into it and see what your heaven really turns into. Do you see what I see? Laziness, lack of competition and encouragement, death of innovation, etc... Do you see it?
So... is the RIAA greedy? Yes they are, and perhaps they too greedy. But that's the price you have to pay for capitalism. It's about the survival of the fittest. Yes it means some will inevitably suffer because they can't compete. But it also means new technologies such as the internet, computers, software, music, medicine, space travel, etc... will continue to advance as rapidly as possible. What does the alternative hold for you? Do you have a better plan?
---------
Did you just fart? Or do you always smell like that?
eTrade SUCKS
I remember the days before I started my own 14k4 bulletin board. Some of the sysops I knew also traded warez. Usually not online, modems were too slow for that purpose (heck, a lot of us still used 2400 baud modems), but mostly on CD. There were stories about them having large magnets close by, so they could wipe their HDs when the cops arrived. The CDs contents were encrypted and inaccessible without the proper key.
I remember my XT. Me and my friends used to play 'Prince Of Persia' all the time. Man I love that game. I think I still have that game... You know what? I'm gonna play it right now !
They actually came to visit our campus too, closing lines of all students that they caught downloading mp3s, and trying to do the same for professors and assistent-profs - but here the university said they couldn't shut down their lines, since they needed them for their work. I'm from Belgium - btw.
I'm sure they will find a way to evade the athorities. I just hope it isn't a sony memory stick somewhere where the sun don't shine.
That is, if they had computers... or the internet to speak these ideas... both are free-market inventions
No one ever seems to understand why communism seems to become totalitarianism. The logical progression is quite clear. When people are told that the products of their toiling labor cannot be theirs, it must be everyones, they don't buy it. the only way to make them buy it is to use force. When the government initiates the use of force against its citizens, it becomes totalitarian.
Man is entitled to his own life's choices. life is given, survival is not. A man must work for his survival, whether it be planting the fields or being a network admin. When somehow, people believe that since their are a lot of people in an area, it becomes ok to take part/all of the salaray of one to give it to another. It is inherent in communism that force must be used.
There is always one soul who denies (rightfully) men's attempts to take what he has made. Under communism, to prevent this one from spreading the ideas of man's entitlement to his own life, they use force.
Ed
Reason, free market capitalism, and individualism
>even smashing one's own hard drive in the event
>of a police search in school dorms...
>Many students have begun using portable hard
>drives, which they carry to their classes for
>fear that a dorm search will take place during
>the day when they are away from their computers.
>Those who can burn CDs have been busy helping
>friends backup their MP3 files.
Kewl. Use a few scare tactics to get select consumers
to invest in new hardware. Just what we need when the IT
industry is in a slump.
teenage, teenage volleybawlers
Even scaryier is the idea if the start raiding offices... how many off us download mp3's on the companys connection to later burn on cds to take home? not me... hehe >
~www.devnull.co.uk
Ok, so you got 14 students caught with mp3s. Sure, they broke the law. But now there's a bunch of RIAA-type nazi assholes that are taking those 14 students and placing them on a pedestal. Those 14 students will probably have a hard time with their studies, having to talk to lawyers and go to court sessions and all, and if this case does start to escalate, I'm sure that they'll have to drop or postpone their studies. The music industry gets to deny these 14 students the opportunity to get a better education. The unlucky 14, at that. If I was a music artist represented by a group that goes off and persecutes small groups of people for the sake of generating fear amongst the rest of the populace who download mp3s, I think I'd leave. But appartently (aside from those bitch-ass pussies Metallica and sell-out Dr.Gay), many artist do support this kind of persecution implicitly by not speaking up and taking a stand against bullshit like this.
You finding Ling-Ling's head?
Someone come into yard, kill dog.
You finding Ling-Ling's head?
Someone come into yard, kill dog.
Ling Ling very good dog.
I am a student in Taiwan National CHeng kung University (NCKU), my classmates didn't trade the MP3s or Sold them illegally. What they did is download the files from WWW all over the world, and listened to them, just like other users in other countries on internet. They didn't attmpt to make any money from the MP3s. They still buy good leagal CDs from stores. But there is one more thing specaial in Taiwan: In Taiwan, not all of the songs in the same CD are equally good, in fact, lot parts of the CD contain old songs that have existed in previous CDs for many times. For this reason, students usually buy good CDs only after fully understand what exactlly inside the CD. This is another particular reason why MP3 is so popular in Taiwan. If you have the interest about the truth, I can tell you two more things: Why the companies in America accused Napster, and the ones in Taiwan accused students? Because in Taiwan, the undergroud-organizations (like the ones in the movie,"God Father" .......please excuse my poor English) are very powerful, no matter how many times these organization are claimed to be hunted, they still exist there and own the business about selling-illegal CDs years after years. So the companies changed their objects to the little poor students.
The other funny thing is the way the Tainan District Prosecutor used to hunted students down: He claimed that "one brother of the students" wrote an anonymous black latter something like "My brother is a student in this university and spents all his time on internet, so please help my little brother......"to the Prosecutor.(Will you impeach your brother just for his decadent life style and make him live with a serious crimal record in the rest of his own life?) So for this Prosecutor's own holy almighty duty, he ordered a policeman to intrude in one of our dormitory without legal warrant, and found that some students have unknown-source (the policeman didn't ask about this) Chinese MP3s in their computers, and report this to the Prosecutor. 1 hours later, the Prosecutor led a group of policemen and searched every room in the building. They brought (or I should use kepped here) all the computers only if there were unknown-source (again, they didn't ask about this) Chinese MP3s inside. This terrible horror spread out between students, and all students became so panic because we didn't know what exactly they hunted for (What if they found the Chinese MP3 which just created by my friend?) I don't want my computer be kepped because I have an important report in my computer waited to be send to my teacher which my final scores of this session depends on. All I can do is remove the hard disk and get out the dormitory as fast as I can just like my grandfather absconded from Main Land China After the Republic of China government lost the battle against Chinese Communist Party in 1947. All students were just like refugees, hopeless,so helpless.
Is this funny? No...... It is a nightmare, in every students' deep mind, just of because an unreasonable anonymous letter and a rough action......
A student in Taiwan National Cheng Kung University